Michael Crichton - Binary

`How convenient,' Phelps said. `When are you going to arrest him?'

`He's already arrested. The federal marshals are up there with him.'

`I mean Wright.'

`Later in the day,' Graves said.

`You and your goddamned poker games,' Phelps said. `I want you to call me in an hour.'

`All right.'

`Stop agreeing with me. Just do it.' And he hung up.

Graves left the phone booth. Lewis came over with his notebook open. They headed for the elevator.

`What've you got?' Graves said.

`It's pretty strange,' Lewis said. `At Sanderson's today, Wright bought a Model 477 scintillation counter. Retail price, two hundred forty-seven dollars.'

`A scintillation counter?'

`Yeah. It's apparently a kind of high-grade Geiger counter. Reads radiation.'

`Does it have any other uses?'

`Nobody knows of any.'

`What else?'

`The machine shop ground three fittings for him to custom specifications. All high-grade stainless steel. Two of them are on-off pressure valves with special handles. The third is a T coupling which brings together two hoses into a common outlet.'

`What's special about the valve handles?'

`The handles have a series of perforations, presumably so the valves can be turned on and off by some sort of machine.'

`Any information about what kind of machine would be used to turn the valves on and off?'

Lewis shook his head. `But they said the handles are spring-loaded. A moderate pressure will snap them from full shut to the full open position.'

`Now that's really interesting,' Graves said. `You mean there are no intermediate positions for the valves?'

`Yes. It's either full shut or full open.'

The elevator came. Graves pressed the button for the sixth floor.

`When did Wright order these custom fittings?'

`Last week. Rush order.'

`Really interesting,' Graves said. `What about the plastics store?'

Lewis scratched his head. `Three weeks ago Wright ordered two pressure-moulded plastic tanks from them. Long tanks roughly a foot in diameter and eight feet long. Specified as triple-laminate things able to withstand pressures up to five hundred pounds per square inch. The shop was surprised to get the order.'

`Well, the guy said nobody orders tanks like that in plastic. It's too dangerous. All high-pressure tanks are metal and seamless. There's no advantage to plastic, even in weight. Plastic tanks, if they're triple-thickness, are heavier than metal.'

'Wright wouldn't order something that had no advantage.'

`Well,' Lewis said, `the guy thought Wright was a pretty strange customer. Not only did he want these plastic tanks, but he wanted them made out of allacron.'

`Which is?'

`A very tough resilient plastic, but highly combustible. It burns like a bastard, so it isn't used much.'

`Have the tanks been finished?'

`They were delivered a week ago to a private airfield hangar in El Cajon, about twelve miles from here.'

`You have the address?'

`Yeah. I tried to call; no telephone there.'

Graves frowned. He was more convinced than ever that Wright was playing with him, leading him on a chase, daring him to put the puzzle together.

Two high-pressure tanks of combustible plastic.

Special steel fittings, including a T nozzle.

Two steel hoses, flexible.

All that made a kind of sense. You had two tanks, and two hoses that joined in a T nozzle, so that the contents of the two tanks - liquid or gas, presumably - would come together at the T nozzle and then be expelled as a mixture.

That was easy to visualize.

But what was the point? And what was the point of the skin-diving tanks, and the rubber strips, and the Geiger counter?

The elevator stopped at the sixth floor. They both got out and walked to Drew's room.

`Where is Wright now?'

`I just checked with 702. He's in that apartment on Alameda.'

`The one he rented last week?'

`Right.'

The newly rented apartment was also a puzzle. Wright had apparently leased it on the spur of the moment. It seemed to coincide with nothing, except with the fact that one girl had been seen leaving his old apartment near the Cortez hotel three mornings in a row. This was unusual enough to suggest that Wright was going to set her up as his mistress.

`702 talked to the doorman. Wright told the doorman they'd be moving furniture into the apartment later in the day.'

`Hmmm.' That seemed totally unreasonable to Graves. Wright wouldn't spend time supervising domestic arrangements for a girl. It was beneath him.

Stopping in the hallway, Lewis said, `Does all this make sense to you?'

`No,' Graves said. `Not yet. But I expect to get some help.'

Without knocking he opened the door and entered Drew's room.

Timothy Drew sat in an overstuffed chair and said, `I want to see my lawyer.' His voice was calm. The fact of his arrest, and the presence of two federal marshals standing by the doors with their hands resting on the butts of their revolvers, did not seem to disturb him at all.

Graves' eyes swept the living-room. It was an expensive hotel suite, furnished in a heavily elegant style. Altogether, not bad for a man one year out of the Army. He sat down in a chair opposite Drew.

`I want to see my lawyer,' Drew repeated. His eyes flicked once to Graves, then went back to the cops, as if he had decided Graves was unimportant.

`You'll have that opportunity,' Graves said.

Drew's eyes snapped back, fixed on him.

`In due time,' Graves added.

`I want to do it now.'

`We're in a hurry,' Graves said. His voice was not hurried at all. `We'd prefer to have a statement from you now.'

`I have nothing to say.'

Graves shrugged, and lit a cigarette. He never took his eyes off Drew. This was going to be a kind of chess game, he knew, and it was a game he could win if he kept his temper.

`I want to see my lawyer,' Drew repeated.

Graves did not reply. He just stared. That was the simplest form of pressure, and he wanted to see if it would work.

`Listen,' Drew said, `who are you guys, anyway? You haven't got the right to push me around. You haven't got a warrant -'

`Did you show him the warrant?' Graves said.

`Yeah, we showed him the warrant,' one of the marshals said.

`Show him again.'

The marshal snapped open the warrant in front of Drew, then took it away.

`Signed by a federal district court judge at nine thirty this morning,' Graves said. `All in order, all perfectly legal. You're arrested on a charge of conspiracy to steal classified information. It carries a mandatory twenty-year prison sentence if you're convicted. Parole is not granted for such charges. Do you know what that means?'

`I want to see my lawyer.'

`I'm trying to help you,' Graves said quietly. `Keep your mouth shut and listen: You were observed tampering with the computer terminals at Southern California Underwriters. You tapped into classified data banks at known times which coincide with your access to the terminals in question. We have traced back the lines. Furthermore, you utilized certain codes known to you but outdated. This gives you away. It's quite straightforward. You'll get out of prison when you're about fifty.'

Graves stood up. `Now think carefully, Mr Drew. Is it worth it?'

Drew's face went blank, neutral, composed. `I want to see my lawyer.'

Graves sighed and walked around the living-room, looking idly at details. He glanced into the bedroom and saw a packed suitcase next to the bed.-He looked back at Drew. `Planning a trip?'

`I want to see my lawyer.'

Graves walked into the bedroom and opened the suitcase. The bottom half was filled with lightweight clothing, bathing trunks, sports clothes.

The top was packed with money, neat stacks of twenty-dollar bills held tight in paper sleeves. Fresh from the bank. He counted the stacks: it came to roughly twenty thousand dollars.