EVERYTHING SEEMED to be pointing to across the bay. The sources of the Internet messages. Where the Lightower baby was found. Lemouz. Wendy Raymore's pilfered ID. The clock was ticking. A new victim every three days...

I was tired of waiting for things to come to me. A swarm of FBI agents had descended on the Hall, tracing, dissecting, analyzing Cindy's message. It was time to take it to them, whoever was responsible for these outrageous murders.

Jacobi and I called on Joe Santos and Phil Martelli, two Berkeley cops who headed up the Street Intel Unit. Santos had been around since the sixties - Robbery, Homicide, one of those old-line veterans who had seen it all. Martelli was younger, out of Narcotics.

"Basically, you've got every shit bag outfit going operating in the Free Republic," Santos said with a shrug. He popped a Mento. "You got your BLA, IRA, Arabs, free speech, free trade. Everybody with an axe to grind - and an axe - is over here."

"Word is," Martelli added, "we got some nasty riffraff from Seattle drifting down here to make some mayhem for the G-8 meeting, all those big economic geniuses, those world-beaters."

I brought out the case file, grisly photos of the Lightower town house and Bengosian. "We're not looking for a bunch of sign wavers, Phil."

Martelli smiled at Santos. He got it. "Other day," he said, "we got this undercover outfit staking out some SOB who's been creating a nuisance about PG and E." P............