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Bonnie had a hunch about the black plastic case. A part of her brain that she didn't always understand, but had learned to listen to, was screaming of the case's Significance. The fifty-inch-long case was wedged under the front end of a Very Nice Car, and she was surprised to see Casper exit the driver's side door. Casper's style didn't match the car's luxury, and she wondered if he'd stolen it.

Bonnie crouched, not wanting to kneel in the globs of blood, gore, and wet purple chunks that glistened on the smooth tarmac. She examined the case. There was blood all over it, and it was already oxidizing to a brownish-red hue.

A tall, thin redhead with posture like royalty appeared next to Bonnie and made eye-contact with more intensity and longer duration than strangers did without a reason. Bonnie glanced down at the black feather poking out of the unzipped left-breast pocket of her white leather jacket. As it fluttered in the breeze, Bonnie saw the redhead's eyes were on it, too. The perfect posture redhead didn't have a feather, but there were two adhesive bandages on the back of her left hand that overlapped, forming an plus sign, an X, or a cross, depending on interpretation.

Bonnie realized she'd just made Contact.

Catherine Whitman, former Old Money debutant turned White Sunday killer, decided that she'd just made Contact too.

Catherine's Protestant, New England family had opposed the nascent Global Secular Alliance with all the Old Money and political power they had. The G.S.A. let Catherine Whitman out of prison after ten years. Now she killed for White Sunday.

While Casper stood, content to let two strangers remove the Object from under the stolen Lenz sedan, Bonnie and Catherine reached for the twin side-handles of the fifty-inch-long, black, blood-spattered case. With alternating tugs to loosen it, followed by a unified pull, the case came free from where it had been wedged under the luxury sedan. A handful of holes had been drilled in the lid of the case, near the top. Breathing holes. Without any hesitation, Bonnie unhooked the two latches that held the hinged lid in place, and opened the case.

“What the fuckity hell, man?” Casper exclaimed when he looked inside the open case and saw Alvin D. Ellis, a.k.a. the Buddha, unconscious and bleeding from a cut to his bulbous forehead. Bonnie checked Alvin for a pulse and found a strong one.

“My goodness,” Catherine asked Casper, “Did you do this?”

She works fast, Bonnie thought, now joining in the good citizen act. “He's still breathing... we've got to get him to a hospital right away,”

Casper asked, “Is he dead?”

Casper's question made Bonnie wonder if he was stoned. She hoped he was. Stoners usually liked to be helpful, and they'd have to con him for a ride, and very quickly, too. Some good citizen had almost certainly called local law enforcement with a description of the whole scene, and G.S.A. Security monitored those channels. The Blue Helmets would be here soon with APCs. Two minutes, maybe three. I've got the goddamn Buddha, she thought, if it wasn't for the change in my orders, I could just kill the redhead and complete my mission right now. Bonnie remembered all too well the conditions of 'RED BARON'. 'Friendly forces will engage as Hostile.'

“He's not dead,” she said, “but he will be soon if we don't get him to a hospital.” Bonnie could see the Buddha had a cut and a bump on his big head. Maybe a concussion. The case was pretty damn tough, and the impact wasn't all that severe, so she thought it was even possible that the four-foot-tall insurgent recruiter was feigning unconsciousness for the sake of their con.

Casper just stood there with his mouth open.

Bonnie decided to take the initiative. She picked Alvin up, kicked the empty, black case aside, and carried him to the driver's side rear passenger door. Casper opened it for her without thinking, and she propped Alvin up in the back seat. While she drew a seatbelt across him, she noticed that Catherine had already seated herself in the back seat, next to the unconscious Buddha. She took the seat that Bonnie wanted – the seat where you could keep an eye on everyone.

Bonnie ran around the car, and sat in the luxury leather of the passenger seat. The car began to spray itself with additional sanitizing cleaning fluid from hidden nozzles all over the body that extended outwards, rotating to spray everywhere. Most of the gore was running off into the street. She'd expected Casper to be behind the wheel by the time she got seated, but he was standing just outside the driver's door, looking left, looking right, and looking confused while getting spattered with cleaning fluid. Bonnie yelled, “What the hell are you waiting for?”

Across Sherman Square, Alpo's room on the top floor of the Winguard Hotel exploded outwards with the distinctive blue-green fireball of a chemical micro-explosive, first raining glass and building materials on the crowd below, then showering them with the dead contractor's fluttering cash.

That got Casper moving. He slid into the seat, slammed the door, and depressed the accelerator as far down as it would go. This time the Z-class Lenz's auto-braking safety feature didn't move to oppose his very appropriate, panic-based reaction.