Michael Crichton - Binary

The camera remained on the man. His chest was still moving slightly. Then it stopped.

A moment later.

The screen faded to dark. And the last letters appeared. TIME FROM INTRODUCTION OF BINARY GAS TO DEATH: 1.7 MINUTES.

The film ran out. The screen was white. Phelps turned the room lights back on.

`Jesus Christ,' Graves said. He lit a cigarette and noticed that his hands were shaking.

`As I said, that man received five times the minimum lethal dose,' Nordmann said quietly. `Had he got less, he would still have died - more slowly.'

`How much more slowly?'

`From tests on animals, it may take as long as an hour or two.'

`That same progression?'

`The very same.'

`Jesus Christ,' Graves said again.

He walked back into the living-room, which seemed glaringly bright. Through the windows he could look out over the downtown area of the city. He stood with his back to the television and listened to the familiar voice saying, `My fellow Americans, and my fellow Republicans, we have come to a momentous time for our nation. We face great problems, and we face great challenges. We must act now to -'

The set abruptly clicked off. Graves turned and saw that Phelps had done it. `I hope you understand now,' Phelps said. 'Wright has half a ton of that gas. In the San Diego area there are a million people. Plus some very distinguished visitors. We can't afford cat-andmouse games any longer.'

`I agree,' Graves said, staring out at the street below. There were no trees. He wondered why they hadn't put any trees in downtown San Diego. Trees made a difference.

Behind him Phelps picked up the telephone and dialled a number. He said, `Phelps here. I want 702.' There was a pause.

Nordmann came over to stand by Graves and look down at the street. `You know,' he said, `I told the Army four years ago if they kept transporting this crap all around, it was only a matter of time before somebody -'

`You have?' Phelps said into the phone. His voice was excited. `Where?'

Graves turned. Phelps was nodding, his head bobbing up and down like a mechanical bird.

`Yes, yes… yes… good work. We'll be there in five minutes.' He hung up and turned to Graves. `702 followed the limousine back to Wright's old apartment house. The van split off and went somewhere else, but the limo went back to Avenue B.'

`And?'

`They arrested John Wright as he stepped from his car.'

Graves nodded and tried to feel the same excitement that Phelps so clearly showed. But he still had a nagging sense of defeat, as if he had cheated at the game - or had quit too early.

`Come on,' Phelps said. `You can introduce him to me.'

At the apartment house two men were standing up facing the wall, guarded by the men from car 702. Phelps and Graves hurried over.

One of the men was George, the chauffeur. He was muttering something under his breath. Wright was beside him, neatly dressed in his English-cut suit.

Graves said, `You can let them turn around now.' He glanced at Phelps, who had a look of total triumph on his face.

George turned and looked at Graves uncomprehendingly. Then Wright turned, and it was Graves who stared.

`This isn't John Wright,' he said.

`What do you mean?' Phelps demanded.

`I've never seen this man before,' Graves said. `He isn't Wright. I

'We checked the wallet,' one of the 702 men said. `He has his identification -'

`I don't give a damn about identification,' Graves said. `This man isn't John Wright.'

The man in the English suit smirked slightly.

`Who the hell is he?' Phelps said.

`That,' Graves said, `is the least important question we have to answer.'

And he ran for his car.

`Take it easy,' Phelps said, grabbing the door handle. Graves took the turn from B onto Third very fast, tyres squealing. `For Christ's sake.'

`You said it yourself,' Graves said. `A million people.'

`But we have him, we know the plot, we know how it's going together -'

`We may not be able to stop it,' Graves said.

`Not stop it? What are you talking about?'

Graves raced down Third, weaving among the traffic. He ran the light at Laurel. Phelps made a gurgling noise.

'Wright has been ahead of us all along,' Graves said. `He must have switched clothes in the airfield hangar and sent somebody else back to San Diego in the limousine. He himself went with the furniture van.'

`Well, if you know where he is now -'

`I know where he is,' Graves said. `But it may be too late to stop him.'

`How can it be too late?' Phelps said.

Graves didn't answer. With a squeal of tyres he continued uptown, then turned down the wrong way on Alameda Street. Cars honked at him; he pulled over to the kerb on the wrong side, facing the wrong way, in front of afire hydrant.

Phelps didn't complain. He didn't have time. Graves was already out of the car and running for the building opposite Wright's new apartment house. In front of Wright's building was the furniture van.

All the men in the room were clustered around the cameras and binoculars at the window. Graves burst in and said, `Is Wright there?F

'I don't know,' one of the men said. `We heard he was arrested, but somebody in there sure looks like -'

`Let me see.'

Graves bent over a pair of binoculars. It took only a moment to confirm his worst fears. Wright was there, donning another rubber wet suit. He was pulling rubber loops onto his ankles, his wrists, his waist, and his neck. Of course! Those strips - six strips - protected the seams of his suit from gas. As he watched, Wright put on a full face mask and twisted the valve on the small yellow air tank. The other men in the room cleared out.

`What's he doing?' Phelps said, watching through another pair of binoculars.

Graves looked around Wright's room. The four sawhorses were still in position. Across them lay two cylinders, each about eight feet long. One was painted black, the other yellow. There were stencilled letters on their sides. As he watched, Wright began connecting hoses from each of the tanks to a central T valve, which joined the hoses into a common outlet. Then he turned his attention to other equipment in the room.

`Well, that's it.'

Phelps said, `Let's go get him.'

`You're joking,' Graves said.

`Not at all,' Phelps said. `We know he's there, we've seen him connect up the hoses so that he can -'

Phelps broke off and stared at Graves.

`Exactly,' Graves said.

`But this is terrible!V

'It's not terrible, it's just a fact,' Graves said. `There's no way we can break into that room fast enough to get control before he turns on the valves and releases the gas.'

`If we go in shooting -'

`You risk puncturing the tanks.'

`Well we can't just sit here and watch.' Phelps said.

Graves lit a cigarette. `At the moment there isn't much else we can do.'

Phelps set down his binoculars. His face was twisted; the earlier look of triumph was completely gone. `Do you have another cigarette?' he said.

Graves gave him one and then went to the phone.

'Morrison here.'

`This is Graves. We've found your tanks.'

`Listen, you better tell us -'

`They're on Alameda Street in San Diego.'

`San Diego!'

`I want you to get me some people from the Navy chemical corps. I don't care where you find them or what you do to get them, just have them here in an hour. Make sure some of them have gas-protective clothing. And make sure at least one of them knows a hell of a lot about this binary gas.'

Graves gave him the address and hung up. He glanced over at Phelps, who was sitting in a corner.