by Greg Rucka
"How heavy?"
"Well, we're using a car battery for power, so, you know, that plus some."
"Doesn't sound like anything I can't handle."
"We emailed the Gerbers this morning, like, at three A.M.," Solomon said. "We're having the PCBs sent FedEx, like, warp speed, they should be here tomorrow."
"In English," I said.
"Gerbers," Sharala explained. "Think circuit diagrams, okay? PCB is printed circuit board."
"Gotcha."
Auggie slid a piece of notepaper over to me, a sketch of the design. The drawing was of a standard-sized toolbox, cutaway, notations all over it.
"With the car battery, this thing should go two, three hours before burning out," Auggie interjected. "And it's going to burn out, this much power, it's going to get hot, start melting components."
"That's more than enough time," I said.
"Cool. The other thing with the design, here, is that you'll need to attach the antennae yourself-we're using two of them, you can see here. You just pop the toolbox open, screw 'em on, then hit the Big Red Button and away you go."
"Big Red Button?" I asked.
The seriousness with which they regarded me made it seem as if we'd been discussing a nuclear bomb, and not a cellular jammer.
"There must always," Solomon told me, "be a Big Red Button." After our meeting, I made my way to an Office Depot and dumped a couple hundred dollars on a printer, plain and photo paper, extra ink cartridges, and a spindle-stack of CD-ROMs. Next stop was a Walgreens, where I bought myself two packs of white cotton gloves, the kind used for dermatological care.
I'd checked out of the hotel before leaving for breakfast, and so headed to the apartment, where I set up a workspace on the floor. I got the printer unpacked and communicating with my laptop, and then, wearing a set of the gloves, loaded the tray with photo paper. Then, one after the other, I began printing off multiple copies of all the photographs that Vladek Karataev had taken with his BlackBerry. While the printer ran, I opened up the word processor and began writing.
It was a long process. While the writing went quickly, the printing did not, and each time a sheet was finished, I had to don my gloves to remove it from the tray. It slowed an already time-consuming process immeasurably. I'd gone through most of the ink cartridges, and the world had shifted back into night, before I was finished.
Then, again using the gloves, I loaded the plain paper, and printed out sixteen separate copies of what I had written. I put each aside, with a set of the photographs.
Last, I began burning the CDs. On each one, I included digital copies of the photographs, and most of the video that Vladek had taken. As with the photographs, I left out all images of Tiasa Lagidze. "Wow, you look wasted," Sharala said to me the next morning. "Have some coffee."
"Don't do coffee."
"You get any sleep?"
"I was up all night," I admitted. "Where are we?"
"You want the good news or the bad news?" Solomon asked.
"Bad news first."
"We're having difficulty tracking down the power amplifier," Auggie said. "All the normal supply houses we go to for parts like this, they're out of stock. Sharala and I must've gone to every RadioShack in the greater Vegas area looking for one, no luck there, either. We think we found a guy in Canada, but the earliest it'll get here will be tomorrow."
"Okay," I said. "And the good news?"
"The good news is that the yellow boards arrived just before we came out to meet you," Solomon said. "All four of them."
"Yellow boards are…?"
"The PCBs, we told you this."
"You called them PCBs last time."
"They're the same thing."
"I see."
"We'll start assembling and testing today," Sharala said. "We get the amplifier tomorrow, we could have the box ready maybe tomorrow night, the day after at the latest."
I did a quick mental calculation, which wasn't all that quick given my lack of sleep. "That'll work."
"Then we'll see you tomorrow." On the way back to the apartment, I stopped at the same Walgreens I had the day before, and then at a high-end photography store. At the Walgreens I bought first aid supplies, a couple of cheap towels, and a cheap cowboy hat; at the photo place I paid far too much for a Nikon digital camera, two lenses, an adaptor, and a sixteen-gig memory card.
Back at the apartment, I took a shower, shaved, and changed the dressings on my wounds. Where I'd torn stitches in my side, the flesh looked angry and red, but when I gave the laceration a gentle squeeze, nothing issued from the wound in exchange for the pain I inflicted on myself. If I was carrying an infection, I couldn't tell.
I finished tending my wounds, then I lay down on the floor of my unfurnished apartment and tried to get some sleep. I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but surprised myself when I awoke seven hours later, sore and stiff, but feeling marginally refreshed. I dressed and headed out, taking the car back to the rental service. I dropped it off there, caught a cab, and hit the first used-car lot I could find.
After forty-five minutes and some haggling, I purchased, in cash, a ten-year-old VW Jetta with seventy-eight thousand miles on it. It wasn't the nicest car I'd ever owned, but close examination of the engine and tires had given me faith that I could rely upon it to do what I required.
I drove my new used car back to the apartment, picked up my messenger bag and filled it with the Glock, the camera, and the lenses. Then I hit the interstate, heading east. The drive to New Paradise took two hours, and it was still light enough when I arrived in the town that I only needed one of the two lenses. I parked on the main street, put on my cowboy hat, and, keeping an eye out for cops, took a handful of photographs. I made certain to get at least one of the big wooden "Welcome to New Paradise" sign. Then I got back in the Jetta and drove to a local movie theater, where I paid to see something loud, with superheroes in it. I didn't pay much attention.
By the time the film had finished, it had gone dark. I found the Albertson's I'd been directed to before, then followed the route Mike had driven for another mile, before pulling over at the strip mall with the Starbucks and parking. I took the messenger bag and went on foot from there, staying off the streets and out of the lights where I could. After twenty-three minutes I reached the stone wall bordering the Oasis housing development.
Following the wall, I worked my way around it to the north. Streetlamps burned along the empty streets full of empty houses, and the best I could manage from my side was a spot that wasn't in direct light. The fence was close to three meters high, but the stone made finding handholds and footholds relatively easy, and I scrambled up and over, dropping down and into cover as quickly as possible, ignoring the stabbing pain that shot from my side. I checked the BlackBerry, saw it was eleven minutes to midnight.
It was almost twelve-thirty before I found the cul-de-sac. Sneaking through the deserted streets had made me feel like I was traveling through a ghost town, and my paranoia certainly didn't help that. Every noise made me stop, ducking for cover. Twice I heard cars, and once I saw headlights, went prone beneath a line of untended and dying bushes. A New Paradise police car rolled past but didn't stop.
There was an abandoned-or never occupied-house opposite the mouth of the cul-de-sac, and I went around the back, began trying the doors and windows. Nothing on the ground floor was open, and while I could get up to the second floor, working my way around the building searching for an open entry was going to be risky. The houses, however, looked like they all had finished basements, and when I noticed that, I went around again, searching for an egress. Building code would've required a way out in an emergency, if the house, say, was on fire. I found one on the west side, a dugout with a short metal ladder, dropped myself the five feet down into it, then ran my hands along the edges of the window, trying to get a feel for how it opened, if it slid up or would swing out. Closer examination revealed, barely, the hinges on the inside of the window, on the right-hand side. I put
my back to the wall of the dugout, and my boot to the side opposite the hinges, and started pushing. Hard.
It broke open with a pop, and I slid through on my belly into darkness, landing on a cold concrete floor. I righted myself, closed the window as best I could, then waited for my night vision to catch up with the rest of me. It wasn't doing very well, because there was almost no ambient light penetrating the house. I started forward carefully, feeling my way, and then stopped when I realized I was being a fucking idiot.
From the messenger bag, I removed the camera and one of my two lenses, hooked them together. Then I switched the camera on, heard it whine with power, and put it to my eye, seeing the world through night-vision green. With the camera to help me, I made my way through the finished basement, to a flight of stairs, and onto the ground floor, and then, from there, to the second story, moving with care the whole time, staying away from the windows.
There was a room on the second floor that was perfect for what I wanted, facing directly onto the cul-de-sac. I hunkered down, switching my lenses, then using the adaptor to thread the night-vision lens onto the telephoto. It made the whole thing ungainly and heavy, but when I looked down the viewfinder, everything was crystal clear, and zoom brought out the detail.
The same three cars were parked outside tonight, the Lexus, the Porsche, and the 4?4. I took multiple pictures of each of them, zooming in to catch their license plates. Then I took a good dozen more shots of the house itself, some in context, some zooming in close to pick out details, so that the pictures would aid in its identification. I checked my clock, saw it was now twenty-six minutes past one.
For the next hour, I sat with my camera, watching the house. Light leaked out from around drawn curtains, and sometimes I saw shadows, movement within, but nothing that would make a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. At two-fifteen, a New Paradise police car rolled lazily down the street, stopping directly in front of my house. After a handful of seconds, it started forward again, and I realized that the driver had been checking the cul-de-sac, had most likely never even looked in my direction.
At three minutes to three, the garage door opened, and the black Town Car began backing down the driveway. I brought the camera up and took another half dozen pictures, again catching the license plate. The car windows were tinted enough that I couldn't see the passenger, but just as the Town Car came onto the street, I saw Bella Downs race out of the house, carrying what looked like a small piece of hand luggage. I took pictures of her, too, as well as Mike, who was once again behind the wheel of the car, visible for a moment as he rolled down his window to take the offered bag. He was handing it to someone in the backseat as the window came up again, and I couldn't see who his passenger was, or even how many people might've been inside.
The Town Car pulled away, and, for a moment, Bella Downs stood in the driveway, surveying her domain. Then she put a hand to her hair, patting it back into place, and I got another three pictures of her before she turned to head back inside the house. I lowered the camera.
Then movement in one of the McMansion's windows caught my attention, and I brought the lens up once more, trying to zoom in on it. Someone had pulled back the curtains in a room on the second floor, and I adjusted the focus. Light inside the room threw off the night vision, created a bloom that obscured what I was seeing in a cloud of orange. I hastily removed the adaptor, tried to get a view inside again.
It was a girl, standing there, holding the curtain back. She was blonde, her hair past her shoulders, wearing a red camisole. She was crying.
I had to remind myself to take a picture, then a couple more.
The girl turned, alarmed at something inside the room, a sound, and Bradley entered the shot. With one hand, he took hold of the girl by the shoulder. With his other, he punched her in the stomach, and the difference in their sizes, their strengths, made me think of a child beating on a rag doll. The girl would've gone down, doubled over, but Bradley didn't let her, ready to hit her again.
Then I saw Tiasa.
She came in from the side, shouting, pushing at Bradley, and without letting go of the other girl, he hit her across the face with the back of his hand. She disappeared from view, and then Bella appeared, yelling, gesturing. She pulled Tiasa up from where she'd been knocked to the floor, slapped her, screaming at her. Then she shoved Tiasa out of sight and, still shouting, reached out and yanked the curtains closed.
Somehow, I'd remembered to keep taking pictures.
I lowered my camera, thinking that I had a gun. Thinking that I could march across the street right now and put a bullet into Bradley, Bella, and anyone else I didn't like the looks of. Somebody in that house had the keys to the Porsche SUV. I could break in, free Tiasa, and be in Salt Lake City by morning.
There were other girls in that house.
I had a plan. I had to stick to it, no matter how hard it was to remember that at the moment.
So I didn't move, waiting, watching. When the Town Car returned, parked itself in the garage once more, I lowered the camera, stowed it again inside my messenger bag. I left the house as I'd entered.
It was dawn when I reached the Jetta and started back to Las Vegas, and despite myself, I felt like I had abandoned Tiasa.
I felt like a coward.
CHAPTER
Thirty-three I started printing out the new pictures I'd taken, all but the ones of Tiasa, as soon as I got back to the rented apartment. They were still printing when I fell asleep, but they'd stopped when I woke midafternoon, because I'd run out of ink for the printer again. I got myself sorted, then took my laptop and the unused set of cotton gloves with me when I went out.
With a little searching, I found a postal service store in a strip mall. I put on the gloves before leaving the Jetta. The store had ink cartridges, so I bought replacements, and then pretty much took their stock of FedEx packs and labels. I got some looks, and explained away the gloves to the cashier by saying that I had dermatitis.
Back in the Jetta the gloves came off, and I drove around until I found a coffee shop that also offered wireless access. I got myself a cup of mint tea, then got myself online, began searching up the addresses I wanted. I compiled a list, finished the tea, and headed back to the apartment. Before touching the envelopes or the labels, I made sure I was wearing my gloves.
The gloves stayed on my hands for the next two hours, as I resumed printing. When I finally took them off, I had sixteen FedEx packs loaded and labeled, each one containing a set of all the pictures I'd printed, the CDs I'd burned, and the narrative I'd written.
Then I settled in once more to try to sleep, and to wait for morning. Sharala called at 10:17 the next morning.
"Congratulations," she said. "It's a monster fucking Wave Bubble."
"I'll be right over," I said. I lied, but only a little bit. I had to get my things cleared out of the apartment and loaded into the car first. Having done that, I donned my white cotton gloves for what would be the last time, and took my stack of FedEx envelopes to a drop box I'd located earlier. I'd marked each of the domestic packs to be at its destination by ten-thirty the next morning. The internationals, of which there were four, would likely take longer.
With the envelopes on their way, I stripped off the gloves, threw them in the first trash can I could find.
That completed, I headed back to UNLV.
They were waiting for me in the RF lab, the same place I'd first met them three days prior. The toolbox was a large one, traditional bright red, resting on the worktable in front of them, and each of them beamed at me like proud parents. Auggie opened it up as I approached to allow me a look, removing pieces and explaining what each component was. I listened as if I understood, but for all his care in explaining it, to me it was simply a sandwich of yellow circuit boards with hand-soldered wires joining them together, all of them secured to a flat piece of wood. They showed me where the antennae would attach.
There was also, as promised, a big red button.
"T
hank you," I told them.
"You kidding?" Solomon said. "We should be thanking you. This was a blast."
I shook my head, bemused.
"Nah, you don't get it," Auggie said. "This is why we got into this stuff in the first place. We all wanted to make the shit Batman carries around on his belt."
I laughed, then took out the envelope I was carrying in my jacket, handed it to Sharala.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Six thousand dollars," I said. "Figure that's two grand for each of you."
"That's too much. Maybe this was a thousand dollars parts and everything, shipping. This is too much to pay."
I just shook my head.
Six grand was nothing next to what I was hoping my new toolbox would buy me.
CHAPTER
Thirty-four I left Vegas for the final time at four that afternoon, and was back in New Paradise before seven, just as the sun was starting to disappear over the desert. Then I had to make a choice, because what I needed to do next was kill time. My other option, one that I'd discarded, had been to leave Vegas later, much later, around one in the morning, to try to time my arrival closer to when I planned to hit the house.
The problem with that plan was that New Paradise wasn't very large, and a car driving down main street at three in the morning was more likely to attract police attention than one that did so at seven at night. It's why I had parked so far from the house on the cul-de-sac the night I'd made my surveillance; the last thing I had wanted to earn was police attention. The Jetta had been purchased in Matthew Twigg's name, and the plates that had come with it led back to him. If the police knew I was coming, all my careful planning would be for naught.