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with him in a typical government office—windowless, crammed with unfiled papers, furnished with a metal desk and old scarred wood chairs, and equipped with a computer whose screen dissolved into the American bald eagle.
    “Where is my client, Travis Heaton? I want to talk to him before I talk to you.”
    “He’s in a holding cell downstairs with one of our agents. I’ll have the guard take him to a lawyer’s window. His mother is in the waiting area down there, in case she’s needed.”
    “You mean in case she’s needed to sign a statement giving her son permission to confess to a crime he didn’t commit. Well, there will be no statement. Tell your homeboy not to question him any longer. My client is exercising his Fifth Amendment rights.”
    Lisnek seemed unperturbed, as if this was just another day in his life dealing with a run-of-the-mill defense attorney. Manny didn’t care for the look of smug self-confidence on the prosecutor’s round face. “What are the charges against him?”
    “Terrorist attack on U.S. government property. There will be a number of charges of violation of Title 18, then double that for violations of the U.S. postal code. And, of course, attempted murder. Assume twenty, thirty main charges, a few related subsidiary charges, a number of conspiracy charges, and maybe a racketeering charge, give or take a few.”
    “Oh, come on. Whoever did this, you know it was just a prank with a regrettable unintended injury.”
    “Ms. Manfreda, the attempted assassination of a federal judge is not a ‘regrettable unintended injury.’ And there are no pranks in the metropolitan area these days.”
    •   •   •
    “Thank God you’re here!”
    Manny would not have pegged the woman who greeted her in the visitors’ area as the mother of a Monet Academy student. Slightly overweight, with deeply etched worry lines in her forehead, she wore a plain gold band on her right ring finger, indicating she was a widow, and jeans and a sweatshirt that she must’ve thrown on when she got the call that her son was in jail. No diamonds, no Cartier, no tightly Botoxed skin. Mrs. Maureen Heaton looked too normal, and too hardworking, to be the kind of mother who could produce the money and the connections necessary to get her son into the city’s most exclusive prep school.
    Manny extended her hand. “Philomena Manfreda, Mrs. Heaton. I’d like to sit down with your son and find out exactly what’s going on. But it’s hard here. We have to talk through a wired-glass window by phone. And now, under the Patriot Act, even my conversations can be monitored if they think I am passing messages on to his accomplices.”
    “But that’s only if he’s guilty,” Mrs. Heaton protested. “My Travis is a good boy. You’ve got to get him out of this place. They can’t keep him here. And you can’t let them take him to a prison. He’s only a child. Please.”
    “How old is Travis, ma’am?”
    “He just turned eighteen, in his senior year at Monet. He’s always been small for his age, and a little immature, but very bright.”
    Inwardly, Manny winced. Eighteen was bad—the kid would be charged as an adult, and if she didn’t manage to get him off, he’d face a prison term and a criminal record that would follow him all his life. A really bad trade-off for the momentary thrill of watching a mailbox explode.
    Manny checked her watch. “They’ll be bringing Travis in any minute, Mrs. Heaton. You’d better step out into the hall.”
    “What? I want to see my son. I need to be with him when you talk to him.”
    “That’s not possible, Mrs. Heaton. It would violate attorney-client privilege.”
    “But I’m his mother,” Maureen Heaton wailed.
    “Even so, now that Travis has turned eighteen, he’s considered an adult. The government could call you as a witness against your son.”
    “I’ve been working my hospital job during the day and doing private-duty nursing at night to keep him in school.