The man looked around one more time to make sure he was really alone, then stepped into the mahogany office and softly closed the door.

It was after three in the morning. Everyone was asleep. No one could possibly know what he was up to.

He fumbled in the briefcase he’d brought with him from home, and opened up his laptop.

In the middle of the night, something had suddenly gelled into a resolution.

Arguing with himself, he opened the black SSH screen, and then, with a deep breath, went to the online folder that contained the program he had secretly downloaded from the helpdesk website several weeks ago. He’d promised himself that he’d never go back there, never take advantage of the passwords he’d collected with the MouseCatcher. But…

His finger hovered over the enter key. Should I? Is it wise? He reminded himself that he had neglected to mention to the FBI that he’d copied the program and hidden it in his web e-mail.

He took a deep breath, and opened up the “Sesame” program.

Darkness.

The verification process. The security questions. And then the cave materialized around him. He wondered if he would be visible to other users or not, or if he’d have to attach the MouseCatcher to someone in order to become invisible.

But the questions were irrelevant, he realized at once. He wasn’t alone in the cave. Someone was waiting for him.

The ninja.

Unlike last time, the ninja was facing the camera, and his dark eyes seemed to bore through the screen. The man had no doubt that this time, the other user could see him, or at least, some online representation of him.

A transparent veil dropped over the screen, and words appeared.

You again. I thought you might come.

I kept that portal open and waited to change my login information just to see if you would try this door again.

And you did.

Very clever of you to get in. You must be a hacker of exceptional skill.

Would you like to tell me how you did it?

I’m sure we can come to some sort of an understanding …