“The last big job is California—Santa Anita. We’re going on Tuesday. Another five days could wrap it up. Then I have to get the End User’s Certificate. And then after that, I have to set up the smuggling operation into Syria.”
“How about 2XJT557?” Attashah turned a spoon nervously in his hand.
“I have it. One hundred chips.”
Attashah stared at him astonished. “Are you sure? Number 2XJT557?”
“Yep. Number 2XJT557. One hundred chips manufactured by Straek.”
“That is most remarkable. We were told that part was extremely rare.”
“It is. You hired the right guy.”
“Yes I did, Mr. Brewer.”
Brewer had always thought fanatics were cold-blooded. Yet here was Attashah looking at him with the eyes of a fever victim. He was squirming with elation. The Iranian smelled hope; it beckoned to him like woodsmoke drifting over a frozen terrain. Maybe, his Persian eyes said, just maybe—
“I am very impressed, Mr. Brewer.”
“We are very far from home, Attashah. Don’t dare dream yet. The worst is ahead of us.”
“The ANAC part?”
“Yes.”
“How will you get it?”
“Have to break in and steal it.”
“My people looked into that, Mr. Brewer. It’s impossible. The plant is impregnable. You’ll have to find another way.”
“No. I’ll have to do the impossible. There is no other way. We’ll steal it.”
“You will fail, I assure you.”
“There’s no other way.”
Attashah was dismayed. “Do you think your assistant will help you do that? Dice, I mean. I think not—unless the man is a complete fool.”
“I haven’t told him yet.”
“When you do, he will flee.”
“Maybe.”
Attashah’s elation was gone. He was cast down now, slowly, abstractly stirring his tea. He’d put his customary five packets of sugar in the cup.
“Mr. Brewer,” he said, “that ANAC part is so vital that without it all the other parts are useless.”
“I understand.”
“Do you understand that the United States government watches the movement of that part like an eagle?”
“Once I was one of the eagles, Attashah.”
“If you get caught, it will ruin the whole operation.”
“I don’t plan to get caught.”
“Perhaps. But it is an eventuality I have to consider. You had best turn everything over to me before you try to get the ANAC part.”
“I’ll do it my way.”
“But surely you can tell me where you’ve put all your acquisitions. If anything happens to you, at least some of the parts can be recovered. Where are you storing them?”
“No one knows that. Not even Dice.”
“Then you should tell me.”
“No.”
“But why?”
“Because if you know where those parts are, you’re in control of the situation. As long as you don’t, I’m in control.”
“I must insist.”
“I’ll do it my way or not at all.”
Attashah’s eyes said he was not accustomed to letting other men do things their way or not at all. A rage smoldered in those eyes. With a single stroke of his sword, Attashah would have beheaded Brewer. Then the eyes relented. No one beheads the goose that lays the golden eggs.
“As you wish.”
Attashah remained silent for a few moments, recovering his composure. He put a sixth packet of sugar into his cup. Then he changed his tack.
“Have you thought about your smuggling operation to Syria, Mr. Brewer?”
“It’s a bit early for that.”
“You must have a plan.”
“Some thoughts, yes.”
Attashah nodded. He was summoning vast reserves of patience; dealing with this stubborn Brewer was trying his very soul.
“Would you please describe your plans for me?”
“No.”
Attashah’s eyes slitted with rage. He sighed. “I see. You’ll do it your way. You do appreciate that if you fail, it will have great consequences for Iran. Your failure would be catastrophic for our plans.”
“If I fail, you fail, Attashah. And your buddies will hang your asshole over a doorknob. So we’re in this together. Like it or lump it.”
Attashah turned his face away and clutched his throat like a man being strangled. He gazed heavenward for assistance. Brewer ordered him another cup of tea.
Later, when Attashah had grown weary of trying to pump Brewer, he gathered himself to leave. He said to Brewer: “This Dice. Was he necessary?”
“If you want the parts, he is.”
“How much does he know?”
“As little as I can tell him. After California I’ll be through with him.”
“He could upset our program, Mr. Brewer.”
“A lot of things could upset our program.”
“After California, Mr. Brewer, I think you should eliminate him. I mean, Mr. Brewer, kill him. And be sure he’s dead.” He stood. “That is not a request. It is an order.”
He left Brewer to pay the bill: one cup of coffee, seven cups of tea. Nearly forty packets of sugar.
Brewer barely slept for the rest of that night. No traitor ever worked harder at his treason. He felt weary. Yet he was getting in deeper and deeper. Now Attashah wanted murder.
Brewer recalled with irony that he had written a paper in high school on treason; he could still quote the Constitution from memory.
ARTICLE III, SECTION 3
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.
Brewer was certainly adhering to an avowed enemy. Part #2XJT557 was certainly going to give aid and comfort to Iran. And part #ANAC/23419.PRN would surely bring Attashah and his pals out in the streets of Tehran, dancing in a daisy chain around the ruins of the U.S. Embassy. Tra la, tra la, tra la.
Brewer wondered if his motive for arranging the smuggling operation was apparent to Attashah. Perhaps not. One motive is as good as another if it gets the job done.
About Dice’s murder, the Iranian was right: He should zap Dice. The man could betray him and the smuggling operation. Brewer understood traitors. It takes one to know one.
But there was another facet to consider: If Attashah wanted Dice dead after California, would he also want Brewer dead after Syria?
All this enormous effort so that little Charlie Brewer can turn the Mideast into a boiling cauldron, all by himself. War, slaughter, famine, death, courtesy of Charlie Brewer.
All this enormous effort to get a bullet through the skull, courtesy of Rooley Attashah.
Borden reported to McCall just before five that evening.
“Okay,” he said. “We picked up a scrub team out of Frisco from three different agencies. They’ve conferred with the Prysbyl people, and the whole security system is on maximum alert around the clock. There’s no way in the world that you could break into that plant and steal those ANAC parts.”
“I’ve heard that before. So be a pain in the ass and tell them to reconfirm their plans to us.”
“They’re pretty ticked-off as it is. This is a dog job and nobody wants to help us. Come on, Bobby, you couldn’t float a fart through that plant.”
“Push them again.”
The Silicon Valley: an unbroken string of computer companies paving the Santa Clara valley south of San Francisco. The hope of the nation.
Brewer and Dice arrived at San Francisco’s International Airport in a light fog. The city itself was muffled and invisible, although Oakland across the bay was in full sunlight.
They drove south from the airport to the valley in a smog caused by auto exhaust. Brewer had Attashah’s words on his mind as they drove. Without ANAC/23419.PRN, all the rest was so much junk. He glanced at Dice and wondered if he was going to cut and run a
s Attashah had predicted.
“Jesus,” Dice said. “I can’t believe it. The last time I was here this was all farmland—peaches and stuff—with some computer plants here and there.”
He was looking out at one industrial plant after another, lining both sides of the highway and covering the hillsides that flowed away to the horizon.
Brewer looked out at the buildings as he drove by. “It’s all going to go back to farmland again if the Japanese pull another 1981 on these guys.”
“What happened in 1981?”
“Around here they call it the second Pearl Harbor. In ’81 these computer companies went to market with a revolutionary new product, only to find the Japanese had got there firstest with the mostest. Nearly ruined them.” Brewer stopped the car. “Here we are, Dice.”
“What’s this?”
They stopped on the soft shoulder of the road, across from a large plant surrounded by a high chain link fence. Along the front wall of one building, plastic letters announced PRYSBYL COMPUTER ENGINEERING.
Dice smiled at him. “You’re kidding. We’re going to crack Prysbyl?”
“Yes.”
“You got to be nuts to try that, Charlie. Take me back to the airport.”
McCall phoned Borden at his home in Annapolis at 1:00 A.M. and rousted him out of bed.
“Listen, Borden. I just had a hunch that woke me up. I think they’re going to hit Prysbyl’s in the next forty-eight hours. You call your contacts in San Francisco and stir them up. Get them to do a stakeout around the plant.”
“Bobby, that goddam plant is impregnable.”
“There’s no such thing. The Iranians have to have those parts and the guy they hired is going to be working full time finding a way into that plant to get them.”
“Bobby, God Himself couldn’t get through that alarm system.”
“God is not a class-A smuggler.”
“Oh, come on, Bobby. No one can get through that system.”
“I know someone who can. It woke me up. Where’s Dice?” “God knows.”
“Find him. Quickly.”
Borden sat down sleepily on the bottom steps of his staircase and thumbed through his pocket address book. He yawned mightily as he dialed a San Francisco number. He wondered how he was ever going to find Dice.
Dice sat in the car outside the Prysbyl plant and drew diagrams on a piece of paper in his lap. “It’s like five redundant systems in one,” he said. “First of all, there’s TV surveillance of the whole operation—along all the main corridors and hallways, in the offices, and in the plant and the warehouse. Then every door and window is wired for sound. On top of that there’s an airflow monitoring system that detects the temperature of human bodies—ninety-eight point six plus or minus one and a half degrees. Furthermore there’s electric eye circuitry at all key stations. And there’s a pack of guard dogs locked inside for the night. And each one has fangs that long.”
Brewer nodded. “And there’s two guys sitting in a car who need some parts from that plant.”
“Correction,” Dice said. “There’s one guy sitting in a car who needs some parts. There’s another guy sitting next to him who’s getting ready to fly back to the East Coast—allll by his little self. Sorry, Charlie.”
Now Brewer was drawing diagrams in his lap. “Not one of those systems is foolproof,” he said.
“Yeah, but when you put them all together—”
“But why do that? Consider them separately.”
“Oh, come on, Charlie. It’s just crazy to try. If you’d told me what you were up to, I wouldn’t have come out here. They make a lot of secret stuff in there for the military. You try to break in there and you’re up not just for B and E and the local stuff. They can get you for spying, stealing state secrets, and a whole list of federal goodies that will get you put away forever. Guaranteed.”
“One person can crack it, Dice. You.”
“No.”
“Okay, then show me how to. One system at a time.”
Dice sat and thought. “You really want to give it a whirl?” “Yes.”
Dice took the pencil. “Charlie, if you make one miscue in there, all the inner doors automatically shut, the alarms go off, and you’re locked in there with a bunch of dogs that eat you, starting at the toes and working up to the nose. Anyone still living when the guards come will wish he was dead.”
“Tell me about the temperature system.”
“They have a system that constantly circulates air through the whole installation. It also controls the heating system and the air-conditioning system. Then they have these monitors that are constantly measuring the air as it circulates. If any monitor detects a temperature of ninety-eight point six, plus or minus one and a half points, it signals the control panel in the security room. Maybe if you got a guy who had a fever of a hundred and four, he might get through. That’s why the dogs don’t set it off. Their body temperature is a hundred and two or something like that.”
“Has anyone ever cracked it?”
“Not to my certain knowledge. The manufacturer says no.”
“How can we lower our body temperatures?”
“Die.”
Brewer now asked him: “Have you ever defeated a TV monitoring system?”
“No.”
“How about a phaser? You know—it’s like a television zapper. It shuts down the sound.”
Dice sat up warily. “You mean the phaser on a jet fighter?”
“Doesn’t that cut off every second or third TV impulse?”
Dice said, “It breaks the signal into pulses so it becomes too weak to make a picture on the enemy’s monitoring screen.”
Brewer smiled at him. “That’s exactly what we need.”
“Great,” Dice answered. “We just walk up to the nearest jet fighter and unscrew a phaser and lug it into Prysbyl’s with us like a coffin.”
“Can you make one?”
“Believe me, Charlie, if you could make one, somebody would have already done it.”
“Why can’t you make one?”
Dice shrugged.
“A jet fighter,” Brewer said, “needs a unit that will operate over a tremendous distance. We’re talking a few thousand feet at the most.”
Dice was staring with disgust at the Prysbyl sign. “Face it, Charlie. Prysbyl’s has us beat. We’re not going to get in there.”
On the way back to their motel, Brewer asked, “What can we do about the dogs?”
“That may be the toughest part of all. The dogs wear a sensor in their collars. It measures heartbeat and blood pressure. If you kill the dog the sensor reports that the heartbeat stopped and the alarm goes off. If you don’t kill the dogs, they chew your leg off, which makes it very hard to steal the parts you want.”
Brewer considered that. “Tell you what. I’ll solve the dog problem if you solve the other four.”
“No. I tell you what, Charlie. I go home and you work on all five problems and I’ll come see you on visiting day in the sneezer.”
“You don’t have much faith, Dice.”
“You’re going to fail and go to jail,” he told Brewer. “And I’m not going with you.” Echoes of Attashah.
“Okay. Here’s a better offer: I’ll solve the dog problem and the temperature problem if you solve the others.”
“Go shit in a hat and pull it over your ears.”
Dice loved Chinese food. Brewer ordered a large quantity of it and brought in several cases of cold beer. Then when Dice was relaxed, softly burping and gargling his beer, Brewer had another go at him.
“Dice, I’ve solved this whole problem. Are you ready?”
“Entertain me.”
“First of all about the ambient temperature gauges. I can beat them.”
“How?”
“With dry ice. I can strap pieces of it in special containers on my arms and legs and waist and on my head. That will hide my true temperature.”
Dice grinned at him. “You’re pretty damned smart
, Charlie. I would never have thought of that in a million years.”
“You ain’t heard nothing yet. I can beat the television surveillance with a frequency impeder. What that will do is turn each TV screen to snow as I walk by the camera. Of course, I have to strap the damned thing on my back with an automobile battery for power, but it’ll do the job.”
“Beautiful,” Dice said with a smile. “What about the electric eyes?”
“Oh, they’re easy. You know they’re set high so those dogs won’t set them off. All you have to do is crawl under them.”
Dice’s smile broadened. “And how about the circuit breaker alarms on all the doors and windows?”
“Easy. We cut through the roof or through a wall.”
“Marvelous,” Dice said. “Fantastic. Now what do you do about the police dogs? And don’t tell me you’re going to feed them steak. They’re trained to ignore it.”
“I’ve solved that problem brilliantly,” Brewer answered. “Are you ready?”
“Oh, I just know it’s going to be wonderful.”
“We’ll bring our own dog.”
“What can one dog do against four or five trained attack dogs?”
“I’ll bring a girl dog.”
“So?”
“She’ll be in heat.”
Dice studied Brewer’s face for a long time, bemused and shocked.
“Well,” Brewer said, “how do you like my plan?”
At last Dice caught the glint in Brewer’s eye. And then as he chewed on his egg roll, he began to laugh. “What a picture. You drive right up to the building in a truck with a heavy-duty compressor and a jackhammer. You drill through the wall. That beats the window and door alarms. Then you climb through the hole, pouring off smoke from the dry ice to fool the temperature sensors. And, to beat the television monitors, you’re wearing the frequency impeder and the automobile battery on your back—Christ, what a hernia you’re going to get from that. You’re on your hands and knees to avoid the electric eyes. And behind you you’re dragging a hundred-and-fifty-pound police dog in heat plus another one who’s on her back making new police dogs. And underneath it all, you’re wearing a suit of armor so the other dogs can’t chew on your legs.” He burst into peals of laughter. “Oh, God. I’m going to die. There you go crawling down the hall, clanking and honking and sparking and smoking and kicking the dogs, trying to find the parts in a dark warehouse. Christ, I’d pay money to see pictures of you.”
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