Porky watched Berns on the laundromat Publicam, while I continued talking with him on the phone. She had put the other cameras up in side-by vid channels on her monitor and was watching them all. "What color is the van?" she asked.

I relayed the question to Berns. "Black, with a gray dish on top," he replied.

Then I asked, "How did you manage to send your e-mail through the eldorado remailer network?"

"The remailer node was scribbled on the label of the disk SENU left with me."

Hmmm. I began to wonder what was on that other disk. "Berns, the file you sent us was a small computer program. Maybe a virus. can you e-mail me what's on that other disk?"

"Sure," he said. He passed the disk through the reader on the side of his PDA. "There's just one file," he reported. He composed a new e-mail, attached the file and sent it off. In a few seconds my PDA was beeping again - message received.

"Oh dear - he's still there," said Porky. It took me a sec to catch her meaning. Wrenny! Aporkalypse was zooming with the Mainstreet Publicam, to a corner a few streets up from the laundromat. A black van was just turning onto the main drag, and we got our first clear look at The Wren through the window of the passenger seat. Some thug was at the wheel.

A black van was just turning onto the main drag

"Yeh, we were sitting together at a table when he came through the door of the El Ranchito. I got up and left, and he sat down with her."

Suddenly I broke out in a sweat. The van was cruising slowly down main, towards the laundromat. "Bernsie, listen up! Wrenny is headed your way. You gotta hide - get away from the window. Get out of there stat!"

"Eddie, who is this Wrenny gen?" he asked.

"Bad news," I replied. "Get going, NOW!"