Michael Crichton - Binary

`Has somebody notified the President?'

`The President of the United States,' Graves said.

`I assume so.'

`Let's not assume,' Graves said. `Use the other phone.' And he pointed to a phone near Phelps.

Graves started to dial another call.

`I don't know how to get him,' Phelps said, in a plaintive voice.

`Use the prestige of your office,' Graves said, and turned away.

`Dr Nordmann's office.'

`This is Mr Graves from the State Department. I want to speak to Dr Nordmann.'

`Dr Nordmann had a luncheon conference and is not back yet.'

`When do you expect him?'

`Well, not for several hours. He has a faculty meeting at two thirty to discuss PhD candidates, and -'

`Find him,' Graves said, `and tell him to call me. Tell him it's about Binary 75 slash 76. Here's my number.' He gave it to the secretary.

When he hung up, one of the men at the window said, `Look what he's doing now.' Graves peered through the binoculars. He saw that Wright had removed his rubber suit and was now attaching wires to the floor of the room, to the ceiling, to the walls. He plugged the wires into a central metal box the size of a shoe box.

`What the hell is that box?' Graves said.

In a corner of the room, Phelps was saying, `Yes, that's right… That's what I'm telling you, yes… a half-ton of nerve gas… Of course it's not a joke…'

Graves saw Wright attach two small mechanical devices to the valves of the two tanks. Then he ran more wires back to the box. Finally he stacked a second metal unit on top of the original box and connected still more wires.

Then Wright looked at his watch.

`Well, somebody better get through to him,' Phelps was saying. `Yes, I'm sure it's hard…'

`What time is it?' Graves said.

`Two forty.'

`The gas is called ZV,' Phelps was saying. `An Army shipment was stolen in Utah during the early hours this morning. He's probably already been informed… Well, god damn it, I don't care if you don't know anything about it. He does… Yes, it's here…'

One of the men at the window said, `He must be insane.'

`Of course,' Graves said. `You'd have to be insane to wipe out a million people and one whole political party. But the fact is that we've really been lucky.'

`Lucky?'

`Just see that he gets the message,' Phelps said.

`Sure,' Graves said. `Those Army shipments have been going on for years. They're sitting ducks. Anybody with a little money, a little intelligence, and a screw loose somewhere could arrange for a steal. Look: Richard Speck knocked off eight nurses, but he was an incompetent. Charles Whitman was an expert rifleman, and cu that basis could knock off seventeen people. John Wright is highly intelligent and very wealthy. He's going to go for a million people and one American President. And thanks to the US Army, he has a chance of succeeding.'

`I don't see how you can blame the Army.'

`You don't?' Graves asked. He watched the other apartment through the binoculars. His eyes felt the strain; his vision blurred intermittently, and he swore. Wright appeared to be fooling with the two metal boxes in the centre of the floor. He had been adjusting them for a long time.

Graves wasn't sure what it all meant. It was a control or alarm system of some kind, though - that much was clear. And if it was a control system, it required power. Power. As Graves watched, he had an idea -one possible way to beat the system that Wright was so carefully setting up. A chance, a slim chance…

`Do it,' he whispered, watching Wright. `Do it, do

`Do what?' Phelps asked. He was off the telephone now.

Graves did not answer. Wright had finished with the boxes. He turned some dials, made some final adjustments. Then he took the main plug in his hand.

`He's going to do it,' Graves said.

And he plugged it into the wall socket. Very plainly, very clearly, he plugged it into the wall.

`He's done it.'

`Done what?' Phelps said, angry now.

`He's connected his device to the apartment electricity.'

`So?'

`That's a mistake,' Graves said. `He should have used a battery unit.'

`Because we can turn off the electricity in that apartment,' Graves said. `Remotely.'

`Oh,' Phelps said. And then he smiled. `That's good thinking.'

Graves said nothing. His mind raced forward in exhilarating high gear. For the first time all day, he felt that he was not only keeping abreast of Wright but actually moving a few steps ahead. It was a marvellous feeling.

`Time?'

`Two fifty-one.'

And then, as he watched, Wright did something very peculiar. He placed a small white box alongside the two other metal boxes. And he closed the windows to the apartment. Then he taped the joints and seams of the windows shut.

Then he left.

`What the hell does all that mean?' somebody asked.

`I don't know,' Graves said. `But I know how we can find out.'

Wright emerged from the apartment house lobby wearing a grey suit. He carried a raincoat over his shoulder. Graves was waiting for him, along with two federal marshals carrying drawn guns.

Wright did not look surprised. He smiled and said, `Did your son like his gift, Mr Graves?'

Before Graves could reply, one of the marshals had spun Wright around, saying gruffly, `Up against the wall hands wide stand still and you won't get hurt.'

`Gentlemen,' Wright said in an offended voice. He looked at Graves over his shoulder. `I don't think any of this is necessary. Mr Graves knows what he is looking for.'

`Yes, I do,' Graves said. He had already noticed the raincoat. Nobody carried a raincoat in San Diego in August. It was as out of place as a Bible in a whorehouse. `But I want to know what time it leaves.'

`There's only one possible flight today,' Wright said. `Connexions in Miami. Leaves San Diego at four thirty.'

The marshal took Wright's shoulder wallet and handed it to Graves. The ticket was inside: San Diego to Los Angeles to Miami to Montego Bay, Jamaica. The ticket was made out to Mr A. Johnson.

`May I turn around now?' Wright asked.

`Shut up,' the marshal said.

`Let him turn around,' Graves said.

Wright turned, rubbing the grit of the wall from his hands. He smiled at Graves. `Your move.' In the smile and the slight nod of the head, Graves got a chilling sense of the profound insanity of the man. The eyes gave it away.

Wright's eyes were genuinely amused: a clever chess player teasing an inferior opponent. But this wasn't chess, not really. Not with stakes like these.

Death in 1.7 minutes, Graves thought, and he had a mental image of the prisoner twisting and writhing on the floor, liquid running from his nose in a continuous stream, vomit spewing out.

Graves realized then that he had mistaken his opponent for too long. Wright was insane. He was capable of anything. It produced a churning sensation in Graves' stomach.

`Tape him inside,' Graves said to the marshal. `I want to talk to him.'

The three of them sat in the lobby of the apartment building. It was the kind of lobby that aspired to look like the grossest Miami Beach hotels; there were plastic palms in plastic pots and fake Louis XIV furniture which, apparently out of fear that someone would want to steal it, was bolted to the imitation marble floor. Under other circumstances the artificiality of the surroundings would have annoyed Graves, but now it somehow seemed appropriate. By implication the room suggested that falsehoods were acceptable, even preferable, to the truth.

Graves sat in a chair facing Wright. The marshal sat diagonally facing both of them and the only exit. The marshal held his gun loosely in his lap.

Wright looked at the marshal and the position of the gun. `That's what it's all about,' he said, and smiled again. That insane smile.