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Angela by the arm and said, “Let’s get back inside.”
    “Wait, Doctor Iverson,” she said. “What about the book?”
    “We can’t touch that. Who knows what’s in it?”
    She scanned the book. “It’s bound in leather . . . gold leaf embossed on the cover . . . twenty-four pound paper. I do detect an electronic device inside the book.”
    “A detonator?” Iverson asked.
    “A transmitter of some sort, but unlike any remote detonator I can reference.”
    Cautiously, the doctor approached the picnic table. With his hands together behind his back, he bent at the waist to get a better look at the book. In gold writing on a dark leather background, the cover read: The Traveler’s Companion .
    “Shit,” he said with one stroke of the beard. He turned to her. “Let’s get a team out here.”
    “Already on their way.”
    Iverson took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “If he comes back, I want you to initiate Level Four.”
    She put her hands on her hips, grinned, and said, “Level Four hasn’t been tested in the field yet.”
    “No time like the present.”
    * * * * *
     
    Bomb disposal usually wasn’t part of Iverson’s workday, but Gibbons had insisted he conduct the analysis of the book personally. Considering no one knew what the electronic device inside the book was for, precautions had to be taken. Not only did the bulky bombsuit he was required to wear make examining the book nearly impossible, but he had also been told that it had failed to save the lives of a number of experts. The analysis took place in an interrogation room, which had three stainless steel walls and a thick acrylic observation window. Should the people outside care to watch his internal organs paint the walls, they could do so in comfort and safety.
    Iverson used a pair of surgical clamps to open the cover. The binding creaked and made a fan of the first few pages. There was a hand written inscription on the flyleaf:
     
     
    YOU ARE INVITED!
    C.C. Go
     
     
    A black leather pouch was glued to the inside cover, sealed with a gold-colored metal button. Iverson carefully popped it open. A thin plastic device was inside, an electronic gadget of some sort, but it looked like a gimmicky child’s toy, the type one might find in a cereal box. The phrase “Get in the Zone” was written on its face with the word “in” on a red button affixed to the center. He dared not activate it. Carefully, he extracted it with a pair of tweezers and put it on a tray held by a gloved assistant who then carried it away as if it were a bomb.
    There was no indication of copyright information or a publisher’s seal on the first few pages. It was obviously the work of a private printer. The ivory-colored paper was made with a cotton fiber that gave it a crisp, antique feel, and would have been easily deemed too expensive for most publishing houses.
    The dedication read: For Sophia.
    Later he would have his researchers run the name through the database of aliases. He flipped through the rest of the pages and found nothing but words.
    He removed the helmet and said, “The book’s clean.”
    * * * * *
     
    After the book had been x-rayed several more times to make sure it contained nothing more than serif font, Iverson’s assistants scanned the text into the database. He was able to read it on his computer in the comfort of his office.
    The Traveler’s Companion began with an author’s note:
     
     
At twenty-eight years of age, I awoke one morning and was suddenly alarmed to discover I had no reason to get out of bed. I was so wracked with despair that the idea of going through another day was nearly too much to stomach. I had gone to a decadent party in the Swiss Alps the night before. The rooms had all been laden with hashish, opium, and tobacco smoke. Although I never touched the stuff, I thought maybe my malaise the morning after was some sort of contact hangover. As a rule I usually didn’t attend these types of