Van had rented his Washington apartment point-and-click off a real-estate Web site. Van had been in a big hurry to find a place in Washington, and the street was close enough to a telecom central station to get himself an ADSL line. The rooms had looked okay in the GIF file. In real life, the apartment was tiny and reeked of insecticide. Van’s apartment had ugly walls of exposed yellow brick, a lot of peeling Formica, and a foul layer of oily grime on the kitchen walls and ceiling. The toilet wobbled in the bathroom.