As Jon listened he had a flicker of a disturbing memory. He suddenly recalled absolute darkness and freezing cold. With a shiver, he realized it must be a trace memory of death. It was an icy hand clutching him, a relentless cold swallowing him up. More than anything he wanted warmth and life. He needed to get away from this place.
Harry was distracted by a bank of lights turning on in the upper right corner of the console. He stopped talking and, gliding his chair away from Jon, examined the bank of lights more closely.
“What’s going on?” Jon said, peering over Harry’s shoulder to observe the new wrinkles in his friend’s forehead.
“Higher level directories in the quantum computer are being accessed. I have no idea what’s going on with them. I know this much—it is way beyond me. I just wish I knew what the hell was happening.”
Jon was alarmed, wondering once again if Harry was really just an extension of the machine. Was he nothing more than an organic peripheral device?
Harry again glided his chair across the tracks until it was positioned next to Jon. “As I was telling you—”
“What day is it, Harry?” Jon broke in.
“Saturday.”
“What’s the time?”
“A little past six p.m.”
“Oh my God, I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got a dinner date.”
Harry looked at him with open disbelief. “Here I am telling you about some of the most important events in human history and you say sorry, I’ve got a dinner date?”
“I’m sorry, Harry. Couldn’t we pick it up again tomorrow?”
Harry looked crestfallen. “Okay, if that’s what you want.”
“I’m sorry, Harry. I … need some time. I just died, for God’s sake.” Jon shook his head, a cold grip of panic still clutching his chest.
“All right, all right. I’ll show you the way out. We can talk tomorrow.”
As they walked toward the underground elevator, Jon looked down at his shirt and saw the massive blood stains and the bullet holes. “How am I going to get out of Building C looking like this?” he said. “Couldn’t the nanobots get rid of the blood stains?”
The quirky half-smile appeared on Harry’s face. “What do you think I’m running down here,” he replied, “a fucking laundry service?”
They both laughed. Harry moved closer to his friend. “Seriously, though,” he said, “I want to thank you for saving my life. If Ludwig had killed me, it would have been over for all of us.” Just as Jon stepped into the underground elevator, Harry spoke again. “There’s a sweater over the chair in my office. Use that to cover your shirt. And don’t forget the password is the first thirteen digits of pi.”
Before Jon could respond, the elevator door closed and whisked him away.
Chapter Thirty-Five
General Rockaway leaned back in his chair and looked down the long meeting table. He grimaced with distaste when he saw Judd Pelham, the Senator from West Virginia, seated at the opposite end of the table. The stupid son-of-a-bitch has no business here, he thought. Unfortunately, he was not the one who issued the invitations for the National Security Administration.
Three chairs away from Pelham, Dr. Brookings shuffled nervously through his briefcase. Rockaway could not help but sympathize with the man. Brookings had spent his short time in Washington trying to dumb-down his findings enough to reach these Washington bureaucrats. The results had been mixed.
Rockaway and his team of experts had received short shrift until yesterday, when the stock market had plunged 5,500 points. The rumor of major energy companies losing billions of dollars in cash reserves had precipitated a selloff. The official story was that some kind of pernicious virus had attacked their computer systems. But the cover story did not prevent the market value of the major U.S. energy corporations from plummeting. While the crash was only part of the larger pattern Rockaway was investigating, it was the top priority for the beltway types. They had finally woken up to the fact that forces were in motion that threatened the status quo.
A few moments after all participants were at the table, General Rockaway banged his gavel and said in a loud voice, “If you’ve read the preliminary brief we prepared for you, you will understand that the problems we face now are part of a pattern of problems, originating with the looting of the strategic reserve of precious metals in Tartan’s Crag, West Virginia.”
All eyes were on him. Those assembled were hungry for answers. It made him uneasy knowing that ultimately the few answers he had were canceled out by a thousand questions.
“This initial event was triggered by an artificial intelligence lying dormant in the earth for over sixty-million years,” he began. “Utilizing nanotechnology on a level centuries beyond our current understanding of the field, this entity looted America’s largest repository of precious metals. We theorize that the looted materials have been used to create an industrial base. I believe Dr. Brookings can explain in greater detail.”
Dr. Brookings cleared his throat and scowled at Rockaway before he began his presentation. If there was one thing he had learned in the past week, it was that these beltway types did not like the real world with its thousand shades of gray. Things had to be spelled out in black and white.
He began by giving them background, summarizing the earlier briefing they had attended. When he saw several of them yawn and lose interest, he decided it was time to drop the blockbuster.
“After barely two months, the alien entity has an industrial capacity exceeding that of all developed nations put together. It has already accomplished things that are inconceivable within our current industrial paradigm.”
Dr. Brookings paused to survey the men seated at the table and was soon satisfied that his words had hit home with at least a few of them.
“Whaling ships from the Atlantic to the Pacific have been attacked and disabled, and chemical plants throughout the developed and industrialized nations have been sabotaged. This includes all chemical factories producing PCBPs and Chlorofluorocarbons. And as you well know, all the major energy companies have been held hostage to the entity’s demands. The entity has now engineered the electronic transfer of more than fifty billion dollars to God knows where.”
“The entity’s capabilities are expanding exponentially. Unless we act very quickly, there will be no way to stop it. We believe the entity is using an unbelievably advanced computer system that is able to develop and implement all manner of devices, from the small submarine-like vessels used against whaling ships to the sophisticated nanobots monitoring the great wildlife preserves in Africa and the rainforests in South America.
“Using a stochastic analysis of the entity’s various incursions, we theorize that a human intelligence is playing some kind of role. The question is whether the human is the directing intelligence or merely a host in its thrall. We are convinced that the human interface is the alien’s most conspicuous point of vulnerability.”
The Chief Security Advisor from the White House raised his hand. “If the human interface could be destroyed, would that shut down everything else?” he asked.
“We believe that is a correct assumption,” said Dr. Brookings. “But here’s the problem: we can’t locate the interface. We know there are underground operations. We have set up sensors all along the eastern seaboard to monitor underground industrial activity. But beyond that, we simply don’t have the resources. Suppose his industrial base is beneath the Himalayas? We have no way of knowing.”
Over the next hour Dr. Bookings fielded a barrage of questions. He answered them curtly, disappointed by their inanity. The only fact that had gotten through was that the Dow Jones was in jeopardy.
At the close of the meeting, the Chief Security Advisor from the White House seized the opportunity to make an announcement. “The president has issued the order for a B-2A Bomber to be readied at Andrews Air Force base. It’s loaded with B61-11 nuclear bunker busters. Pilots are on call around-the-clock. General Rockaway is authorized to set them i
n motion if there is a reasonable chance that they can deliver their payloads to the appropriate target.”
Senator Judd Pelham spoke up, “A B61-11 bomb barely weighs a thousand pounds. Now a B-53 is the highest yield in our arsenal and can be delivered by a B-2A bomber. It’s nine megatons—”
There was a gleam in Rockaway’s eyes when he interrupted the Senator and shot down his argument, one point at a time. “The B-53 is too big and too dirty and it’s not even a true earth-penetrator. Most of its energy would be dispersed upward. While the B61-11 has a lower yield, there’s a ground coupling of its energy output into a shockwave that is perfect for destroying an underground complex.”
Pelham’s face had reddened to a peculiar shade. Clearly he did not like having his argument shot down so quickly. But he had nothing to add as the meeting moved into its final moments.
The Chief Security Advisor from the White House had the final words. “Gentleman, the president expects results soon. We will reconvene in twelve hours.”
When the meeting ended, General Rockaway sagged in his chair. The situation seemed hopeless. They had been working for weeks and they were no closer to a solution now than they had been in the beginning.
General Rockaway’s Chief of Staff entered the room, walked briskly to the General and handed him a note. Rockaway raised his eyebrows when he read the terse message. It was too good to be true.
“This information came from an IT group at the Pentagon?” Rockaway asked in amazement. “Give me the whole rundown, right from the beginning.”
“General Henne received a complaint from a member of an IT group working at HTPS Industries. He almost dismissed the complaint because it came from a Major Eric Meyers. Meyers has a history of making complaints. I looked at his service record. The man seems to have borderline personality issues. But since General Henne knew about your project, he investigated anyway. He found a more reliable source in the IT group, a civilian consultant named Tom Delaney. According to Delaney, something very suspicious is going on. He believes that someone at HTPS has access to a computer system far beyond any conventional system.”
“Who did Meyers point the finger at?”
“An employee of HTPS named Jon Graeme,” he replied.
“Have you been able to get more background on this Jon Graeme?”
“Yes, we have. And it’s interesting stuff. The guy was a member of several radical environmental groups when he was in college, including Greenpeace. He’s still a member of an organization called Save the Whales.”
For the first time in the past two weeks General Rockaway felt hopeful.
“Is there anything else?” General Rockaway asked.
“Only the best part. We have a credit card slip that puts him at Tartan’s Crag on the same day as the break-in at the Repository.”
“Has this Jon Graeme been interviewed yet?”
“No, sir,” he said. “We thought you’d want to be advised first.”
“Excellent!” said the general. For the first time in weeks he wore a broad smile on his face.
Chapter Thirty-Six
It was five a.m. Monday morning and Jon Graeme was wide awake. His passage from deep sleep to full awareness was almost instantaneous. The very first image that crossed his mind when he awoke was the look on Lettie’s face Sunday morning. She had been sound asleep and lying next to him. He had been staring at her, thinking how beautiful she was, when suddenly her eyes opened. A second or two passed as she came to full consciousness. When her eyes focused on him, her face lit up with an expression Jon had never seen before. It revealed what he wanted to know: she loved him.
As he lay in bed recalling the love radiating from her face, he felt incredibly impatient. They had agreed Sunday afternoon that it would be best if they kept their distance at work. They both wanted their new relationship to remain private. He would have to wait until the end of the day before he could see her again. He wished he could somehow travel forward in time to the quiet dinner they had planned for the evening.
“Can I bring anything?” he had asked.
“Just a toothbrush,” she said.
Jon went through his pre-work rituals like a sleepwalker, unable to concentrate or focus on anything. The events of Saturday evening kept flowing through his mind.
He realized he had not thought once about Harry and what he was doing, even though he had paid him a visit early Sunday evening after leaving Lettie’s apartment. He laughed out loud at this sudden realization. It was an incredible piece of irony. Here he was, front and center, right in the middle of one of the most important events in human history and he couldn’t bring himself to think about it. All that he could think of was Lettie.
Several cups of coffee and the long drive to work with his windows open succeeded in quelling some of his euphoria. His usual self-discipline reasserted itself. As soon as he got to work, he would check up on Harry.
“Harry,” he called out as he opened the door to Harry’s office. As expected, there was no answer.
Stepping into Harry’s office, he walked through the long foyer past the steel bookshelves. Near Harry’s desk he noticed the dried blood stains on the floor, marking the spot where he had fallen last Friday. Jon stared at the spot. A thick layer of dried blood covered several feet of floor space. He shuddered as he realized this was the very spot where he had died.
He debated whether or not to take the stairway to the subbasement and call out the password but decided against it. There would be time later in the day to touch base with Harry.
What he had learned from Harry on Sunday had been disconcerting. According to Harry, more and more uninitiated activity had been occurring on the quantum computer. Harry was determined to get to the bottom of it and find out the reason behind the huge surge in computational activity, but as of Sunday evening he still had no clue. “Something big is in the works,” he had said. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s using a huge amount of system resources. Something is being built by the nano-factories, but I have no idea what. Whatever it is, it must be really massive.”
Jon had not gotten much more out of Harry. As usual his friend had been so focused on the task at hand that Jon remained almost invisible to him. He had not even picked up on Jon’s euphoric mood.
Jon glanced at the stain on the floor one more time before leaving Harry’s office. Switching on the lights in his own office, he pulled the chair up to his desk and fired up the computer. As he waited for it to come to life, he looked about his office for any signs of physical change. Sure enough, he spotted a small object, about the size of the cap of a pen, over the door.
Harry was concerned that Ludwig might still be dangerous. He was also worried about some other threat that he refused to detail. All Jon could get out of him was talk about a stochastic analysis program that he had run to predict possible outcomes to his own activities on the quantum computer. Harry was uncomfortable with what he found out and decided to install a security system in Jon’s office. Jon did not like the idea of being spied on, but Harry assured him it would be programmed to only alert him in case of an actual threat.
As Jon stared at the device, he wondered what Harry had set in motion over the past few weeks. What Harry’s programming skills could accomplish amazed him. It was all done with such amazing rapidity that it hardly seemed possible. Jon could not help but recall the old saying, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably isn’t.” According to Harry, all they had planned together was not only in place but proceeding actively. Harry’s only concern now was their safety and the safety of the quantum computer.
Jon let out a huge yawn as he checked his Inbox. There were several emails from Eric Meyers. Their tone was so offensive that he did not bother to read them all the way through.
There was also a barrage of emails from Tina Johnston and Ed Merkle with questions about Harry’s new operating system. Lettie had been copied on all of these. He had half a mind to call later in the morning just to hear the sound of her vo
ice but realized he would be violating their agreement.
Jon’s phone rang shortly after eight o’clock. He picked it up on the first ring.
“Good morning, this is Jon Graeme,” he said formally.
“It’s me, Jon,” said Lettie.
Jon was surprised. He wondered if she had forgotten their agreement.
Before he could respond she spoke again. “Have you heard the news?” she said breathlessly.
“What news?” Jon answered.
“George Ludwig committed suicide last Friday night.”
“Where did you hear this?” Jon asked.
“It was in the paper this morning. A neighbor heard the sound of a gun being fired and called the police. I feel terrible!”
“He was a sick man.”
There was a moment of silence. “This is going to be the longest day, ever,” said Lettie. “I can’t wait to see you.”
“I feel the same way,” said Jon. “I love you, Lettie.”
“I love you too,” she said.
After the call, he was gripped by an intense ache of loneliness. Lettie was right. This was going to be the longest day, ever. And the only way to make the time pass more quickly was to plunge into his work.
At shortly after nine there was a knock on his door. Jon had been half expecting Ted Blume to stop by and he called out immediately, “Come in, please.”
A uniformed man with the rank of Colonel stepped into the room. He was followed by a civilian and two MPs. The two MPs immediately split up, walking around Jon’s desk to surround him.
“Stand up,” said the first MP authoritatively. Jon had no choice but to comply.
“Step back from the desk,” said the second MP as he took Jon’s arm and physically pulled him back from his desk.
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