Maxine receives a videotape which directs her to a Montauk house that suspect Vip Epperdew is known to visit. Epperdew is involved with zapper fraud. Trying to find the exact house, a local informs her the house burned down a few weeks previously, and sneaks her into the mansion Gabriel Ice is building, where he has her help him steal vintage wines. She finds a mysterious code-locked door which she breaks into, leading to a baffling underground complex. The sudden appearance of a strange, short, human-like creature sends her into a panic and she flees in a hurry. Maxine, in following the hashslingrz money, finds some of it is being diverted into Lester Traipse's account. She confronts him, and he is terrified, and intends to return the money, and asks Maxine to arrange terms. She agrees, but next day he is found dead, an apparent suicide. With the help of Conkling Speedwell, a man with a superhuman forensic sense of smell, she learns there is a peculiar mystery scent at the scene of Lester's death. This scent is identified as "9:30 Cologne", and is soon connected with Windust. The smell also horrifies a friend of Conkling's with a supernatural sense of "foresmell" who has been smelling not-yet-existent great fires in New York for some time now. Maxine receives a videotape of men apparently rehearsing on the Deseret rooftop the shooting down of a jet plane using a Stinger missile. She attends a humongous dotcom-style-excess party, sponsored by Gabriel Ice on Saturday night, September 8. Everyone is partying like it's 1999. She finds Felix, a teenage programmer also involved with zapper fraud, but he won't say anything about Lester. The following Tuesday, the 9/11 attacks occur. Ex-husband Horst had told Maxine the day before he was going to be working all night, and she now fears the worst. But he and his business partner had watched Monday Night Football and fell asleep, and next morning joined the masses seeking refuge in New Jersey, and was unable to get through. March, a blogger, leans towards low-level conspiracy theories (but nothing close to truther ideas). Maxine takes Horst back. Eric and Driscoll, two programmers, move in with them as temporarily homeless. March finds herself hunted and homeless, but she keeps up her blog using WiFi.