The Sixth Idea

by P. J. Tracy

  ALSO BY P. J. TRACY

  Off the Grid

  Shoot to Thrill

  Snow Blind

  Dead Run

  Live Bait

  Monkeewrench

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

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  Copyright © 2016 by Patricia Lambrecht and Traci Lambrecht

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Tracy, P. J., author.

  Title: The sixth idea / P. J. Tracy.

  Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2016] | Series: A Monkeewrench novel ; 7

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016009823 | ISBN 9780399169359 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698155190 (ePub)

  Subjects: LCSH: Police—Minnesota—Minneapolis—Fiction. | Serial murder investigation—Fiction. | Computer scientists—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / General. | FICTION / Thrillers. | FICTION / Crime. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3620.R33 S57 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016009823

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  ALSO BY P. J. TRACY

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  PROLOGUE

  1957

  Confine a dozen scientists and engineers to a seemingly endless desert of hard-packed sand with no recreational diversions and, inevitably, they will design and build a golf course.

  “This is not just any golf course, Donald,” Arthur kept insisting. “This is Augusta, a near-perfect replica of the first nine holes, minus the grass and the water hazards, of course.”

  “Both of which are somewhat critical components to any dandy golf course, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Stylistic details, Donald, a matter of preference. Tennis is played with equal enthusiasm on lawn and on clay. Think of this as golf’s version of a clay court. I think it’s ingenious, really.”

  “We could really use some caddies and a clubhouse.”

  “I’ll give you that.”

  Arthur always dressed in the plaid knickers and cap of his hero, Bobby Jones, which looked especially ridiculous in the deserted New Mexico hinterlands. But that was the charming thing about Arthur—in his knickers and cap he was at Augusta, on the Masters course Bobby Jones had built, and he made you believe you were right there with him.

  Donald Buchanan and Arthur Friedman played the makeshift course almost every morning while the rest of the men slept. Most of the scientists preferred to work through the chill of the desert night and sleep through the most brutal heat of the day, but Donald and Arthur were paced to a different clock.

  “I have an idea,” Donald said as he lined up his drive.

  “Jesus Christ, the last time you said that, you and Teller damn near blew up half the world.”

  “That is a ridiculous exaggeration.”

  “It could still happen. Nice drive,” Arthur said as he watched a golf ball sail up into the dry air against a backdrop of blue sky and mountains. “So what’s this idea of yours?”

  “A bomb that doesn’t kill anybody.”

  “That defeats the purpose of a bomb, doesn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily. If you could invent something that would destroy infrastructure—power grids, delivery systems for weapons, communication, transportation—the enemy would be crippled with no cost of human life. The world would never again see the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

  “Without infrastructure, there are no resources, no order, no money, and nothing to buy with money even if you had cash in hand. Anarchy would fill the vacuum and people would die anyhow. Friends and neighbors would end up killing each other over a crust of bread or a vial of penicillin.”

  “Perhaps. But the death toll would be minimal in comparison to a multimegaton atomic bomb.”

  “So you’re seeking a more moral weapon.”

  “I’m seeking a less morally repugnant one. Infrastructure can be rebuilt but humans cannot.”

  “And how do you propose to invent such a device?”

  “I don’t know yet. But the electromagnetic pulses the bombs generate intrigue me.”

  “You need a nuclear detonation to create an EMP substantial enough to be an effective weapon, which is exactly what you’re trying to avoid.”

  “Yes. But there has to be a way to generate EMP without a nuclear detonation. And if we could harness something like that, perhaps miniaturize it and selectively direct it . . . It’s something to think about, anyhow.”

  “
Indeed. But for the time being I’d think about what you’re going to do with that nice drive you just made, because it landed in a sand trap.”

  They both laughed, because the whole damned golf course was a sand trap.

  • • •

  By the time she was nine, Alice had moved five times. She had been too little to remember the first two moves, but the last three were sharp in her memory.

  It was always the same. Father would come home one night and tell them all that in two weeks, they were going to live in a wonderful new place with a bigger house, a nicer town, and better schools. Alice and her brother and sister, older by five and six years, all would start crying because they knew they would never see their best friends again, and then Father would send them from the table before they finished their dinners because crying was not allowed.

  Father was very strict about a lot of things, like not crying, but he was never mean, like Melinda’s dad, who had slapped Melinda’s face once when Alice had been right there, watching. If Father sent you from the table he always brought snacks up to your room later, and by the time you woke up in the morning he was smiling and gentle again.

  “Come into the living room, Alice. We’ll have a little talk, just me and you.” He sat in the big brown recliner Mother hated because it didn’t go with the white floral sofa, and patted the footrest for Alice to sit on.

  She hitched up the legs of her pedal pushers just above the knees, because that’s what Father did when he sat down in pants, and for some reason it always made him smile to see her doing it. She sat obediently, almost reverently, before her father, big eyes eating him up, little mouth open in breathlessness. Father-daughter talks were rare in this house and almost exclusively disciplinarian, like when her older sister was caught smoking or using mascara. But Alice never did anything wrong, so she wasn’t afraid; just excited.

  He handed her a well-thumbed paperback novel, the kind her mother removed from the bookcase and hid in a closed cabinet of the buffet whenever guests were expected. “These are trash,” she’d told Alice’s father, “and totally inappropriate for a child.” Alice remembered that day because her mother had raised her voice, and she’d never done that before.

  Ever since, only big fat books with no pictures on the cover were permitted in the bookcase. Alice read every one her father gave her, even though she had to look up an awful lot of words in the battered Webster’s dictionary, but the best days were when Father went to the cupboard of the trash books and selected one for her to read. They all had pictures of bad women on the cover. You could tell they were bad because they wore bright red lipstick and blouses that bared their shoulders and showed the tops of really big bazoomies. There was just such a picture on the cover of this book, but instead of a man pulling on the woman’s arms, she was running from a really big fire.

  “Don’t show your mother this book.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Don’t show anyone this book ever. Not your mother, not your sister or brother, not your friends. Hide it in a very safe place. Even after you grow up, you must keep it hidden. It’s our little secret. And remember the part about the generator—I marked it for you. Read it again and again until you have it memorized. Is that clear?”

  “Yes sir. But what’s a generator?”

  “It’s a machine that makes electricity. You can use it to run things in case the power goes out.”

  “Oh. Okay. I’ll memorize that part.”

  “All right. Run along now.”

  Two days later, she and Mother drove Father to the airport. He had to travel a lot for his job, and he always had a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.

  Alice loved going to the airport. Everything echoed in the big spaces with their tiled floor. She always wore her patent leather shoes, even though the buckles pinched her feet, because they made hard clicking sounds, just like the high heels the stewardesses wore. Her brother and sister stayed home, but Mother always took Alice with her. She was the baby, and the last time Mother had left her home with her siblings, they’d locked Alice in the hall closet for the whole time she was gone.

  Father always squatted down in front of her and held her by the shoulders when he was about to leave. This time it felt like he might actually hug her, but it didn’t happen.

  “Are you reading the new book?”

  Alice nodded. “I’m halfway through . . . but it’s a little scary.” She peeked around her father to make sure Mother wasn’t listening. “It’s just a story, right? Nothing like that could ever really happen, could it?”

  “No, of course not.” He looked away for a moment and touched his stomach the way he did when he had a tummy ache. “But read it all anyway.”

  “I will. I already memorized the part about the generator.”

  Father beamed at her. “That’s my good, smart girl.” And then he kissed Mother and walked out the door to where the plane was rumbling, propellers turning. Alice watched him trot up the metal staircase and disappear.

  After Father got on the plane, Mother always took her to the counter where the stools twirled and the food was delicious—grilled cheese sandwiches that tasted way different from the ones they made at home. “That’s American cheese. We use Velveeta,” her mother explained. “I think Velveeta tastes better, don’t you?”

  Alice nodded dutifully, although she didn’t think that at all.

  There was a big window opposite the counter so you could watch the planes take off and land. When they heard the rumble of the engines on Father’s plane get louder and louder, they both looked up.

  “Can I go wave at the window?”

  “May I go wave at the window, and yes you may.”

  Alice leaped off her stool and trotted to the window, her head tipping back as she watched the plane rise higher in the sky.

  There was a terrible, loud noise that shook the window under Alice’s hands, and she saw a big yellow and orange and black flower of fire bloom against the sky where Father’s plane had been.

  • • •

  Five men were sitting around a large table in a darkened room. None of the men knew the names of the others. They referred to one another only by numbers. Some of them were fidgeting, all of them were pointedly avoiding eye contact with any of their compatriots, except for the man at the head of the table. He was watching everyone, noting their demeanor, reading their expressions, assessing their level of discomfort at being part of this group. This day, more than any other since they were selected, would test the limits of their courage and loyalty.

  The mission had already been approved by them all, but planning was a far cry from execution. You never knew who was going to break until they were tested.

  He placed one hand on the black rotary telephone in front of him, fingers loosely curled and perfectly relaxed. A few men started at the strident ring when it finally came. “Zero,” he said into the mouthpiece. It was the only name he would have as long as he managed this project, which would be until he was unable to perform his duties. At that point, he would be replaced by another.

  He listened for a moment, replaced the heavy receiver gently back into its cradle, then folded his hands in front of him. “The mission is complete. The plane is down. There were no survivors.”

  ONE

  PRESENT DAY

  Sixty years later, the large table and the darkened room still existed in a mansion in upstate New York, but the five men who had originally held court there had been replaced three times over. Some had died of natural causes over the years, others not so natural—if you outlived your usefulness on this panel, you outlived your usefulness on earth. They still referred to one another by numbers only, just as their predecessors had, but everything else had changed dramatically over the decades.

  For instance, the current five were now sitting in an observation deck in a much larger, adjacent ballroom that had been renovated into an
apotheosis of technology—banks of monstrous supercomputers whirred and hummed, lovingly tended by a small, carefully selected cadre of America’s brightest minds. At the moment, they were chattering quietly in nervous excitement, their eyes fixed on the digital countdown clock hanging above an enormous flat screen that showed aerial photos of various cities around the world.

  The third-generation Zero had only been a part of this elite group for fifteen years, and yet he had seen the astronomical rise of something miraculous, something that had been a mere pipe dream of a man named Donald Buchanan. According to the countdown clock on the wall, two minutes would tell them all if that pipe dream would cross over from the realm of science fiction to reality.

  “T minus ten seconds to Operation Silver Dune Alpha Test,” a voice from the computing floor called out, and the room went silent and still—no one moved, no one spoke, no one breathed.

  It took a few moments, and then every person in the room burst into applause as a section of the screen went dark.

  “Detroit is now off-line,” a voice dutifully reported, as if the men in the observation deck couldn’t see that for themselves. “Permission to restore?”

  “Granted,” Zero replied.

  TWO

  Chuck Spencer settled into his first-class window seat, pulled down his tray table, and started unloading his briefcase. These were the last of his father’s effects to be sorted through, and the three-and-a-half-hour flight from L.A. to Minneapolis would give him just enough time before he met Wally tonight.

  When the miscellaneous pile of papers and old photographs started to tower and slip, he put the rest of the contents on the empty seat next to him. It wouldn’t be empty for long with the plane fully booked, but the papers might discourage his unknown seatmate from bending his ear. Clearly he was a busy man who shouldn’t be disturbed. See all my papers?

  Grousing his way uncomfortably through his early sixties, Chuck was annoyed by a lot of things now that never annoyed him before. And this plane was one of them. A 757? An A320? Whatever. This one’s entrance was in the front of first class, so you got to watch every passenger file by as they boarded, never knowing which one would take the seat next to you. Would it be the tremendously fat man wearing far too much—what was that? English Leather? Did they still make that? Or maybe the elderly woman who had a tissue tucked into the sleeve of her cardigan, which meant she was probably carrying bird flu or some other potential pandemic. He breathed a silent sigh of relief when she passed by, rewarding her with a friendly smile for having the decency to fly coach.