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finally the upper corner came loose and the door popped open with a rattle.
    He held his breath, used his other hand to quiet the door. A cool breeze fanned his face through the crack. The sounds of angry voices filled his ears. Cops using that command voice they practice. “Down,” one of them was yelling. “Get down right now.”
    A yelp of pain. The scratch of boots on concrete. And then…other voices. Cautionary…outraged. The sound of running now, followed by the unmistakable sounds of a struggle. He eased the door inward and stuck his head out.
    The street was lit up like a ball game at night. He was staring at the red and white side of an SFD aid car, parked along the curb. A huge van was parked in the middle of the street, its nose pointing down the hill, its sliding doors thrown open, revealing a rack of orange jumpsuits quivering slightly in the breeze. The lettering on the side read: CRITICAL INCIDENT MOBILE SQUAD ROOM .
    To his right, an unruly crowd of about fifty citizens was being held behind a double line of police barriers. At the moment, they were clustered at the upper end of the enclosure, where one of their number was being subdued by a trio of burly SWAT storm troopers. One knelt on the back of the man’s neck while the other two jerked his hands behind his back and clicked on a pair of cuffs.
    “You got no damn right,” somebody shouted.
    “Leave him alone,” a woman’s voice pleaded.
    A foot came swinging out from the crowd, catching one of the kneeling cops in the side of the helmet with a crack. He turned his visored gaze toward the cluster of people and growled. The seething mob surged forward to meet the challenge, bringing another half dozen officers sprinting across the street. The mingle of voices grew more strident now, the sounds of struggle more violent.
    With all eyes trained on the scuffle, Corso took a chance. He stepped out into the street and closed the door behind himself. Up at the scuffle, the newly arrived squad of cops held their batons before them in both hands as they forced the mob away from the struggle on the sidewalk. The crowd resisted. Cursing, shouting, lashing out here and there as the phalanx of officers moved them inexorably across the sidewalk until the rearmost members of the pack had their backs pressed to the buildings on the south side of Yesler Street.
    Corso looked around. He was just outside the enclosure. To the left, a pair of firemen knelt in the street behind the aid car. They were fiddling with a wheeled metal cart, upon which a nineteen-inch TV monitor flickered. A braid of cables as thick as a man’s arm led from the cart, across Yesler Street, over the sidewalk, right up to the mouth of the bus tunnel, where what had to be a robot of some sort sat unmoving on the concrete, its rubber-tracked feet still, its articulated metal arms held forward as if in supplication. Only the blinking green light on top of the contraption suggested the possibility of movement.
    The decorative blue arches of the tunnel entrance had been completely enshrouded in thick plastic film, creating the illusion of a giant opaque cocoon. Half a block uphill, Government Park was deserted; its worn grass, usually a haven for the homeless, lay limp and empty, littered here and there by backpacks, sleeping bags and scattered piles of debris.
    He looked upward. Only the pale blue light at the top of the building announced the Smith Tower’s stab into the night sky. A shouted threat pulled his attention down to earth. Down the hill to that pair of cops who’d been whispering at the base of the street. They’d noticed his sudden appearance and were now running up the hill, pointing his way, coming as fast as their baggy motorcycle pants and high black boots would allow.
    Corso moved quickly uphill toward the enclosure. He stepped in front of the aid car, raised the strand of yellow plastic police tape above his head and then bent over, as if to duck under the collection of tape