David Golemon - Event

As they waited, the comp center doors slid open with a hiss and the sergeant was allowed in. He saw Alice and walked up to the small group. He stood at attention when he came to a stop and noticed Everett and Collins.

"Normally I would have gone through you of course, Jack, but as I said, you don't even know your department's capabilities yet, and this was rather important and urgent. I believe the sergeant and Europa have given you a starting point in your search for Reese, but listen to how it was found in case you find a flaw in the pattern."

Collins just nodded, and then looked from Alice to the sergeant.

"This is what we have so far, ma'am," the sergeant said, holding a file out to Alice.

"Just give us a verbal report. If I look at one more scrap of paper this morning..."

The sergeant nodded and looked at Jack. "What we did was run the two numbers through NSA. They were both dead ends as no calls were actually made to those phones from Nevada. This was confirmed by AT&T, Sprint, and the actual residents of those homes. Thus we were left with a dead end. Our friend had managed somehow to scramble the hard lines leading out of the club and the transmission to the phone company's Comsat. We were stuck until we examined the security monitors from The Ark." The sergeant handed the major a cased computer disc. "We came up with this thanks to Dr. Cummings in Photo-Recon."

Jack took the disc and handed it to Alice, who inserted it into the hard drive at Reese's station. Alice used the touch feature the system was set up with, and her finger touched the header Sur. Ark. Reese. , meaning surveillance at The Ark on Robert Reese. Immediately a video started that showed Reese walking to one of the pay phones. They watched as he slid a card into the side of the black instrument, then dialed a series of numbers. He then hung up and walked out of the bar. It even framed the bartender inquiring something of him as he exited.

"What in the hell did we just see?" Carl asked.

The sergeant just nodded his head at the video. "The doc fixed this up for us."

On the screen the same video started, then suddenly stopped. The screen started flashing the frames forward one frame at a time, at the same instant the picture was computer-enhanced to zoom in on the keypad on the face of the pay telephone as Reese's fingers jerked over the metal numbers.

"We washed this through Europa and asked the computer what numbers Reese could have been dialing." The sergeant pointed to the screen as a full-framed picture of Robert Reese appeared as he just stepped up to the phone. The frame froze and a computer-generated tracking grid covered the man's entire body. "Now here, Europa started her measurements. We at first thought the new system had misunderstood the command, but we were in for a surprise, at least I was."

As they watched, green numbers started appearing in rapid succession along Reese's body and changed as he moved and leaned forward into the small kiosk that the phones were tucked away in. The grid stayed fluid and conformed to his body as he moved, changing the computer's calculated measurements. As he started dialing, another grid, this one red, appeared over the keypad his fingers had just started to touch. More numbers appeared, small arrows going this way and that across the numbered pad and Reese's fingers.

"Doc Cummings explained what was happening. He said that Europa started by taking the video measurements of Reese himself, height, estimated arm length, and so on. Then it measured the height of the phone kiosk from blueprints of the complex, and the height of the keypad in relevant terms to Reese's measurements. As he punched numbers, the computer really went to work, running the constant figures his movements caused in minute increments."

Again they watched as the numbers were now changing at a rapid pace, so fast they couldn't keep up with the calculations. When Reese stopped punching numbers, the calculations stopped. Then a window opened and on the display over a hundred phone numbers appeared. Some had the same area codes, but most looked as if they were random.

"Europa narrowed the phone numbers Reese could have called down to a hundred and fourteen just through the measurements taken of his movements in relative distance to the phone height and distance from his body and the minute distance his fingers moved over the numbered buttons on the phone's keypad."

"That's still a lot of numbers, Sergeant," Everett said. He looked at Jack and saw he was smiling. The major must have known what was coming.

"What did Europa use to cross-reference these numbers?" Jack asked.

"That's good, Major. Yes, she did cross-reference."

As they watched the screen, the monitor tinted green. They could see the tape as it played again and Reese once more stood before the phone. This time the computer enhanced the keypad in the green light that engulfed the scene and expanded the picture to where only the keypad and Reese's fingers were visible. When Reese was done, several of the metal numbers were glowing a light red. As the three watched, the computer-enhanced glow started to fade, but not before a series of six phone numbers popped into another window that had opened on the monitor's screen.

"The computer picked up the oil smudges from Reese's finger on the pads," the sergeant said. "The light in the club provided the difference in the sheen off the metal, some after they were just punched, leaving a different shine on the numeric pads from the oil. Thus the oil on the pads was not dried like the others, so they produced a different reflection in the club's lighting, and the computer deduced it had been these numbers just depressed."

"But there are too many numbers for an actual phone number," Everett stated.

"That was the easy part. Europa took the first set of one hundred and fourteen phone numbers from the measurements and cross-referenced them with the second set of six from the optical scan, and she boiled it down to two phone possibilities. Then she noted that some numbers may have been pushed twice, and maybe even three times. Thus you see too many numbers for actual private numbers. Then she boiled the numbers down to two by processing the remaining numbers as some were eliminated as not being actual, according to the national database of phone books, and now we have two, and they are both local. The first was Kindercare, a small preschool out on Flamingo Boulevard, in Vegas. The other is a strip club called the Ivory Coast Lounge. I think you know which one my bet would be on," the sergeant said.

"Amazing," Jack said, looking from the screen to the young sergeant. "That's good work. Thank you, Sergeant."

Everett just looked at the young enlisted man and smiled as the sergeant turned and left the computer center. He turned to look at Jack, but he was watching Alice as she started for the door herself.

Alice waited for the men to catch up in the long circular hallway.

"Okay, we need to know first his condition, then find out if Reese passed along anything about the Event," Jack said.

Alice looked Jack over closely. "We take it very seriously when our people come up missing. We take it extremely seriously when it's on the heels of what happened yesterday. I don't like the look of this, and neither does Niles."

"Yes, ma'am."

"I took the liberty of alerting Gate Two. If you would go see Gunny Campos, he'll have your identification and sidearms. Go get Reese and bring him back to us. And fast."

It was close to ten in the morning when Collins and Everett hurriedly stepped from the elevator into the pawnshop. Jack looked around and thought how the world had changed for him since he'd stepped into this very shop yesterday. It seemed it had been months and not just a single revolution of the clock since he had been in this dingy and dusty store.