Lorelei wouldn't be able to function so well, however, without the talents--the genius, really--of a wild young hacker-turned-programmer, Rudy Persich. Lorelei has also gotten Rudy to teach a class in programming to an assortment of welfare recipients in order to prepare them to earn a living wage. Then an explosion in an uptown hotel takes place almost simultaneously with a strange exploding incident in one of the students' programs, and Lorelei sees a sure connection between Rudy's program and the explosion--as well as the threat of further explosions on the deadline date. It is the first sign that she is going to have something to worry about besides her clients' satisfaction.
The second sign is the murder of Rudy in his East Village apartment. These events instigate a desperate search to learn how the program triggered the hotel explosion, and who was behind it. As the search widens, it takes in a young computer operator, a taxi driver, the U.S. government, Lorelei's brilliant and stereotypically absentminded professor father, two New York police detectives, a seductively buxom Russian-American hotel administrator, some dedicated Middle Eastern terrorists, and Lorelei's on-again-off-again lover, the dashing and secretive Barney McFaul. At the center of all this is an orphaned, streetwise, and computer-smart twelve-year-old girl.
There is a double kidnapping--of the girl and of Lorelei herself--and a thrilling escape. There are murders, police chases, and serious as well as ephemeral love affairs. And there is excitement and enjoyment for the reader, as the disparate and desperate investigators race to hold off their own Year 2000 threat.
