As he labored on his computers in the back of the truck, Van thought darkly of the various times in his life when he should have felt terrorized. Basically, there weren’t any. He’d had some strange experiences, here and there. Van could rightly say that he had been blooded out in the field. He was a civilian computer expert from a large, aggressive corporation. He’d taken part in five hacker raids with joint federal-state investigation teams. American computer cops often took large crowds with them when they raided computer hackers. This made it clear to the other, more everyday cops that kids sitting alone in their bedrooms really were committing crimes. So Van had been there when muscled Secret Service guys in their tasseled shoes and Kevlar armor were stomping from attic to basement, menacing Mom and Dad with drawn guns.