Kind of like the shadowy quadrants of cyberspace that Rossmiller frequents.

Rossmiller has had an affinity for languages since childhood. Her dad, a farmer with a college degree, and her mom, a teacher, always stressed education.

As a child, Rossmiller eschewed dolls and slumber parties. In fact, she barely slept. Maybe two to four hours a night. She'd pop out of bed at 3 a.m. to pore over history books or read about serial killers, an endless fascination. In seventh grade, she made a class presentation about Ed Gein of Wisconsin, who skinned women and pieced the remains over his dead mother. Rossmiller's classmates were spellbound; her teacher was aghast.

Able to relax only at night, Rossmiller avoids sunlight, which she says kicks off her frequent migraines. So when everyone fell asleep, she'd build forts in the moonlight, fort tunnels in haystacks, or enclosures made out of rocks.

When her parents found her asleep in the flower bed at 6 a.m., they began locking her in her room at night. She'd just drag her bed into her closet, making a fort out of it.

Rossmiller needs to feel safe, she says, in a spot she can control. Outside her fort, she feels exposed. Outside her fort, she hunts bad men.

Dangling her "Death to America" taunt online hour after hour, Rossmiller gets no response. What could I even say after that?

She feels her resolve waning. So she calls up a Web slide show of 9/11 victims set to the song "Can't Cry Hard Enough."

The presentation reinspires and recommits her. It's morning now, and Rossmiller has to get ready for work. But she'll be back online tonight.

Rossmiller studied criminal law at the University of Montana at Missoula, then became a municipal judge in Montana, where sitting on the bench doesn't require a law degree.

She had a reputation for being tough, even fining her father for speeding.

One day on the bench, she has an epiphany: The criminal mind-set is like jihadi thinking. It makes sense.

The toughest people in court are in for assault, fueled by drugs and alcohol. The jihadists are like those assailants, Rossmiller decides. Their intoxicant isn't crystal meth but fundamentalist Islam, a perversion of the Muslim religion.

Believing in the wisdom of the law, she locks up bad guys, then goes home and sleeps well. For a couple of hours.

'Death to America'

Go on, I dare you, she murmurs as she finds her way to a new Web site, The Arab Castle. OK, she says. Watch this.

"Death to America," she types in Arabic, a phrase now as familiar as "Good morning."

It has been eight months since 9/11, and Rossmiller is well on her way toward completing online Arabic courses from the Arab Academy in Cairo and from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She waits for a reply.

An answer comes quickly enough: "I wish someone would blow up the American base in Afghanistan," a person writes in Arabic.

"It would be great," another responds.