WHAT DO YOU have?” Vanderwaal finished signing off on the report on his desk.

     “Several things, actually.” Newman waved a sheaf of notes.

     “Shoot.”

     “We think Denver, San Francisco, and Hawaii are related.”

     “How so?” Vanderwaal asked.

     “All of the victims in Hawaii have something to do with a court case at the end of last year that took three and a half weeks,” Newman began. “They include all of the members of the jury, the prosecutor, the treasury guy who basically designed the case, the judge, and a few government witnesses.”

     “They went after a sitting federal judge?” Vanderwaal raised his eyebrows questioningly.

     “That depends on what you mean by ‘went after,’” Newman qualified. “The judge backed her car into a mailbox after receiving the first letter.”

     “OK,” Vanderwaal said, “Go on.”

     “In all three situations, people blacked out for no apparent reason.” Newman put the top note on the bottom of his stack, then proceeded. “The defendant conned investors out of more than $16 million. The first armored car heist took in $37 million. If he’s gonna pay all those investors the interest and principal he promised, he’ll need a lot more than that.”

     Thus San Francisco,” Vanderwaal concluded.

     “And several more like it, most probably,” Newman forecast. “It fits with what he wrote to the president. 

     “One more thing,” he added: “The army says the blackouts -- at least in Denver and San Francisco -- are consistent with what they would expect to find if victims were exposed to sustained eight-cycle sound.”

     “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Vanderwaal didn’t like being left in the dark.

     “I think,” Newman suggested, “it means they know how our robbers pulled it off.”