John Case - Ghost Dancer aka Dance of Death

“Apple said Jack made an ‘end run’-”

“Around the government, yeah. He did. And got clobbered – they had to carry him off the field.”

“What happened?”

“Well, he filed for the patent. And here’s what happens when you do that. You file your specification, say what your invention does, submit drawings, sometimes models, and you send it off. Then the patent examiner evaluates it. Is it original, or does it significantly improve the state of the art? Well, Jack’s battery relied on certain insights…” Eli paused. “He always said he was standing on the shoulders of giants, and one giant in particular, a Serb-”

“Tesla.”

“Ri-igght! You have done your homework. Anyway, Jack’s battery took advantage of some of the insights Tesla had, and relied on one of Tesla’s lesser-known patents. So it wasn’t original in the technical sense. But did it improve on the state of the art? Oh yes! It did. It really really did.”

“So what did you do?”

“What do you think? We formed a corporation.”

“And you were successful?” Burke asked.

“Yeah. Kleiner Perkins put up half a million in seed money when we didn’t even have a business plan. Not a real plan, anyway. They just listened, looked at the prototype, and wrote a check.”

“Then what?”

“When we got a little further along, I set up a meeting with Morgan Stanley.”

“And what happened?”

“Well,” Eli replied, “what happened was, we got a letter, a certified letter, from the commissioner of patents. I think it was three lines long. Basically, it said there was a national security interest in the application. As a consequence, they were impounding it under the terms of the Invention Secrecy Act. Enclosed, please find a check for a hundred fifty-two thousand dollars. That’s what happened.”

“Christ,” Burke said. “What did you do?”

“What did I do ? I talked to a lawyer, and then I took her advice.”

“Which was…?”

“Forget about it. I actually flew to Zihuatanejo, Mexico, and stayed plastered for a week.”

“And Wilson?”

“Jack… reacted differently. That meeting I told you about – the one with Morgan Stanley? He flew to Boston and gave the presentation, as if nothing had happened. The only thing he changed was the manufacturing venue. He was going to set up offshore.”

“And the government found out,” Burke said.

“One of the people at the Morgan Stanley presentation is a director of In-Q-Tel, so-”

“What’s In-Q-Tel?”

“It’s actually a CIA proprietary,” Eli told him. “But it’s not what you’re thinking. It’s not covert or anything. It’s a straight-up venture-capital firm that happens to be owned by the CIA. They have headquarters in the Valley. A sign on the door. The whole nine yards. The idea is, they put up money for start-ups that deal with problems the Agency has an interest in. I don’t know – a data-mining program for Arabic text, a new kind of body armor, whatever.”

“Or a battery,” Burke declared.

“Right.”

“So you think In-Q-Tel went to the feds-”

“No. I think In-Q-Tel learned about the presentation at Morgan Stanley from one of its directors and got excited. I think they realized this product had some serious applications. And I think they let their principals know that they wanted to participate in our little venture.”

“And then-”

“The shit hit the fan,” Eli said. “The Pentagon got wind of it, and the next thing you know Jack is being charged by the U.S. attorney. I mean, he’s arrested, cuffed. And he’s facing two years and a two-hundred-thousand-dollar fine. Me? I’m mortgaging the condo to make the bail.”

“What about the check you got?”

“The hundred fifty-two grand? We didn’t want to cash it. Because once you cash the check…”

“So that’s when Jack met Maddox.”

“Right.”

Burke sighed. “Did you ever see Jack – inside?”

“In jail, yes. In prison, no. The last time I saw him, they were leading him away. I tried to visit him in Colorado, but… he wouldn’t see me.”

“You mentioned a foster mother…,” Burke said.

“Mandy. She was living in a trailer in Fallon. But, like I said, she was pretty old…”

Burke was out of questions. “Look,” he said, “I want to thank you-”

But Eli didn’t want to let it go. “The thing is,” he said, “Jack and I… we roomed together. And then, when he went away, it was like he was gone. I mean, totally gone. Long gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t answer my letters. He wouldn’t talk on the phone. I went to Florence, thinking if I’m there, if I’ve driven hundreds of miles, he’s got to see me. And let’s face it, it’s not like he had anything else to do. That place in Colorado – it’s like a mausoleum. Except they feed you. The whole idea is to grind people down through isolation. And Jack was actually turning people away.” Eli paused, and laughed. It occurred to Burke that he might be a little drunk. “I keep thinking back to the last time I saw him…”

“When was that?” Burke asked.

“In San Francisco, when they led him out of court. He was in shackles, y’know? Had his hands cuffed to his waist, his feet hobbled. I felt like crying. Because this guy was like… the Prince of Palo Alto! Or coulda been, or shoulda been. And I kept thinking, ‘It’s like that song.’”

Burke didn’t know what he meant. “What song?”

“That song !” Eli insisted. “The one about the music. You know – ‘The Day the Music Died.’ ”

Yesterday: Cheerah

Tomorrow: Zaftra

I love you: La ti tiya yi blue.

Wilson pulled off Route 29 and took the county road that led into Culpeper.

The outskirts were the usual mélange of hair salons, car washes, automobile showrooms, and plant nurseries. The town’s rural position was emphasized by two large businesses selling farming equipment – vast lots of tractors and mowers and balers. He passed a bunch of franchises: Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, Ruby Tuesday, Dairy Queen. Then he arrived at the heart of this sprawl, Historic Culpeper – a few leafy blocks of brick buildings with informational plaques.

Wilson surveyed the array of motels available, choosing the Comfort Inn for its elevation and location – half a mile outside his target area. He opted for a suite. Ever since Florence, space had become important to him, a luxury he could now afford.

SWIFT was just across Route 29. He’d obtained the location online from the town’s tax records.

Set between farms with red barns, the banking epicenter kept a low profile. There were no signs identifying it, just placards that read NO TRESPASSING and PRIVATE PROPERTY. Still, there was no mistaking the place. The grounds were double-fenced, the fences topped with razor wire. There were security cameras between the fences and a guardhouse with a motorized gate.

Wilson pulled up to the guardhouse and asked for directions to Wal-Mart. A parking lot was visible, but behind the double fence, a large earthen berm obscured the view of whatever structure was back there. While the guard gave him directions, Wilson took a GPS reading on his watch.

The Culpeper Switch was less than a mile away. Formerly housed in a bunker called Mount Pony, it resembled the campus of a small school. Once again, security was blatant. He stopped for a moment on the road that ran along the perimeter of the facility, adjusted his seat belt, and took a second GPS reading.

That evening, he ate dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s. When he got back to the motel, he sat at the dinette table in the little suite’s kitchen and plugged in his laptop. He fed in the GPS coordinates of the Escalade’s parking place, along with the coordinates of SWIFT and the Culpeper Switch. The software program interfaced with a topographic map of Culpeper and environs. In four minutes, he had the focusing parameters.