One day in early October 1994, not long after RGB’s email, I went out to lunch carrying a small package containing a defective OKI 900 cell phone that I was planning to mail back to the store that day. As was almost always the case when I was out on foot, I was talking on my cell phone. I walked down Brooklyn Avenue toward the heart of the U District. When I crossed 52nd Street, about two blocks from my apartment, I heard the faint sound of a helicopter.