THE LAB INSTRUCTOR stood transfixed at the front of the room, his blanched face going livid as shock turned to outrage. He was in his thirties, balding, wearing a green cardigan and what looked like bedroom slippers under the cuffs of his trousers. He shoved his hands out in front of himself as if to push us out of his classroom. He announced his name - Dr. Neal Weinstein - and demanded, “What the hell? What the hell is this?”

  If it weren’t so damned terrifying, it would’ve been almost funny to watch Weinstein, armed with only his flapping hands and his PhD, face down adrenaline-pumped federal law enforcement officers primed to blow the place apart.

  “I have a warrant for the arrest of Hans Vetter,” I said, holding both the warrant and my gun in front of me.

  Weinstein shouted, “Hans isn’t here.”

  A white female student with black dreads, a ring in her lower lip, peeked out from behind an overturned table. “I spoke to Hans this morning,” she said. “He told me he was going away.”

  “You saw him this morning?” I asked.

  “I ta............