“A figure of speech,” Walter said. “That’s the way they refer to the Fairfield studio-tower configuration.”
“Okay,” Jack said, “but look. TV broadcasting has been a thread in this mystery all along. Sometimes it’s pretty obscure, but sometimes it seems to be important.”
“So what’s the connection, Jack?” Sally asked.
“I don’t know. But Vanessa Carpentier might. She’s an expert in broadcast technology, she supervised the installation of the Fairfield studio, and she’s refused to talk about that job in part because of the technology involved. She’s the one we’ve got to talk to about this.”
“Then let’s do it, Jack,” Walter said. “Do you know how to get in touch with her?”
Jack went to the phone and dialed her number. She answered in person.
“Page here,” he said, but before he could speak further, she started talking.
“Dr. Page, I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all afternoon. All your secretary would say was that you were out.”
“I was. What did you want to talk to me about?” “I’ve been thinking over our conversation of the other day. And there have been some disturbing things on the news—about you among other things. If you hadn’t told me what you had, I would have just dismissed those stories without any further thought. But taking everything together, I decided I should try to get in touch with you.” “You’re in touch with me now,” Jack said.
“I don’t want to talk on the phone. Can you meet me? At Toby’s Club? It’s right across from the Delmark Building, on the diagonal comer.”
“I can do that,” Jack said. “I’ll be bringing some people with me.”
“That’s all right. I just don’t trust the security in this building anymore. If I don’t make it, come looking for me, will you?”
“Sure thing, but you’ll make it. What time?”
“As soon as you can get there.”
“Fifteen minutes,” Jack said. “Half an hour at the most.” And then she hung up.
“I can’t go with you,” Walter said. “I shouldn’t be in Freeport at all.”
“No problem,” Jack told him. “I’ll let you know whatever she tells me.”
“But I have to go,” Emily said. “Ms. Carpentier might say something that will bring more of my memory back.” “Then I’ll go with you,” Dahlgren said.
“No,” Sally told him. “Somebody has to be here to tell Abbot where we are when he gets back.”
“I don’t like it,” Dahlgren said.
“I’ll be all right, Marvin,” Emily said. “Sally and Dr. Page will take care of me.”
“I know they will,” Dahlgren said. “AH right, you’d better get going.”
They took Jack’s car to Toby’s Club. Located on the comer of Garfield and Howard, it was an expensive dinner club that was finding its trade better than ever, since people with money to spend had little where else to go.
It was a Friday night, and the place was crowded. They worked their way through the jam of tables toward the back of the club, where they found Vanessa Carpentier sitting at a table against the far wall.
“I apologize for bringing you out this way,” Carpentier said as their waiter came over. “Please feel free to order whatever you wish.”
During the course of their meal, Jack, Emily, and Sally explained all that they knew about TV studios, and extra low frequency radiation, as it applied to the problem at hand. By the time dinner was over and cocktails were on the table, there was nothing left to say, and it was Carpentier’s turn. But she sat for a long time, just sipping her brandy.
“You know,” she said at last, “1 figured out on the second day of that Northampton job that any competent engineer could have done what 1 had been hired to do. But they were paying me good money, why not take it? Besides, 1 pride myself in doing a good job.
“But you know, Dwight, and Hickory, and Patrushka were always around. And that was odd, since they each of them supposedly had more important things to do. Still, I was flattered, they talked intelligently, and asked me things which 1 could answer easily and brilliantly.
“They were very casual about it. 1 placed no importance on their interest until Dr. Page’s last visit to me. And then I began to think about it. Not all of their questions were trivial. Some of them were very significant indeed, though I didn’t realize that until just a little while ago. And now your talking about ELF confirms my suspicions.
“I don’t think they had any interest in what I could do for them in the way of setting up that silly studio of theirs. I think they were setting me up very carefully so that they could pick my mind.”
“What about?” Jack asked quietly when she stopped talking and started staring into her brandy glass.
“One of my specialties,” Carpentier said, “as an engineer, is the technique of superimposing one signal over another. There are plenty of legitimate and useful applications for this, it’s a typical communications problem, in one form or another. The telephone company has to superimpose hundreds or thousands of messages on a single signal, for example. We talked about that a lot, and about separating the signals or messages after they had been received. Especially TV signals. On a single channel. You know,” she said, “that when we broadcast a TV program, we actually broadcast several different signals at once, the picture, the sound, and the information that makes the picture appear on the right place on your screen.
“Well, that was only a part of it, but they were very subtle, and very clever, and I didn’t notice it at the time. But they also talked—so casually, so nonchalantly—about another specialty of mine.
“I have a master’s degree in communications theory,” she said, “and one of the things I studied was subliminal perception and its possible exploitation in advertising. It was a fascinating subject, and I learned a lot about how brief a message could be before it was imperceptible, how certain messages could be misinterpreted, various problems of ambiguity, misreading, and so on. It was only this morning, thinking about Dr. Page’s last conversation, that I realized that I’d talked a lot about that while I was supposedly supervising the installation of that studio up in Northampton.”
“They milked you dry,” Jack said.
“I’m afraid so. I didn’t see how what I had to say could relate to anything important. Looking back on it, it seems so clear to me now that the Visitors wanted to have a studio in Freeport so that they could send subliminal propaganda to all the TV viewers here.”
“How would they get anybody to watch their channel?” Sally asked.
“They wouldn’t. And this is one of the things I didn’t want to talk to Dr. Page about. They’d superimpose their signal on top of another, say WCTY, or WDBS, and the subliminal messages would be received at the same time people were watching a regular program.”
“Wouldn’t that cause a lot of interference?” Jack asked. “Not if they used some of the signal modulation techniques I’ve developed—and about which I talked far too much. I’ve run tests at WCTY and was able to superimpose a separately broadcast caption over a regularly broadcast picture without detectable distortion or interference. Close captioning is a similar thing, but my technique permits superimposition from a totally separate studio and eliminates other synchronization problems.”
“Could they be sending such a signal from the Fairfield Mall?” Sally asked.
“Not with the equipment they have there. If they’re doing what I think they’re doing, they’ll need another studio somewhere else, one that can transmit carefully modulated extra low frequency signals, or rather, signals that would cause a regular TV set to produce ELF radiation.” “Such signals,” Jack said, “would certainly be subliminal, if they could be detected at all. But how would they carry any pictorial or verbal information?”
“They couldn’t, of course. But ELF can affect mood, can’t it? Couldn’t they send a signal to make people feel trustful at the same time that the regular program was showing pictures of Visitors?�
��
“They could, but you can’t guarantee that every individual would feel trust—whatever that is. It’s too complex an emotion to simulate with any kind of electronics we know today. We can heighten emotion, but whether that heightened emotion is perceived as fear or lust is something we can’t predict.”
“How about this,” Sally said. “They send a regular verbal message, but reinforce it with ELF Is that possible?”
“I suppose so,” Jack said.
“They’d have no difficulty sending two messages from the same transmitter,” Carpentier said. “But to what purpose?”
“Haven’t you noticed,” Sally said, “that people are feeling an awful lot less anxious about Visitors these days?” “Yes, I have,” Jack said. “A lot of my clients have decided they don’t need my help anymore, which is fine except that they’re all deciding it at the same time.” “Exactly,” Sally said. “In spite of everything, there’s been a general lowering of tension between humans and Visitors for, oh, the last month or so. Now if Dwight started building a secret studio somewhere six months ago, could that have been in operation by one month ago?”
“Easily,” Carpentier said, “if he had most of the equipment he wanted in the beginning.”
“That makes me think,” Jack said. “Walter said something about Dwight ordering special equipment for the Fairfield studio.”
“Right,” Sally said. “But you didn’t see any of it there. And we’ve all noticed a change in human attitudes toward Visitors during the last month or so, and it’s possible for Dwight to have started sending his subliminal signals since about that time.”
“I still don’t see,” Jack said, “how ELF, or even more standard subliminal messages, could have the effect you’re describing.”
“I don’t know much about psychology,” Carpentier said, “but I do know that improperly shielded electronics devices that leak a significant amount of ELF are a health hazard. They cause mood changes, irritability, sometimes stupor, things like that. So what if Dwight and his people had figured out just what particular ELF frequency had what effect on the human mind? What if they could send a signal superimposed over Channel 7, say, so that when you watched the news, you also got a dose of ELF, carefully chosen so that you would feel only positive feelings whenever Visitors or Northampton were mentioned? You wouldn’t need a verbal or visual image, other than the one you could see on Channel 7.”
“It doesn’t work quite that way,” Jack said, “but then, I’d have to see their equipment, run a few tests. Which is what they were doing in that prison of theirs. Are you sure the studio in Northampton wouldn’t be able to do the job you describe?”
“Not unless they’d ripped everything out that I installed and replaced it with new equipment.”
“And Abbot said that it was all old equipment. Nothing seemed out of place to him.”
“If you’re talking about Douglas Abbot, then he would know. He supplies us with almost all our equipment. But there’s another thing. The Northampton transmitter has two problems. One, it’s too low power. It’s just not strong enough to cover Freeport with a good, clear signal. Second, where it’s located, most of Freeport would be in shadow, and couldn’t receive the signals at all.”
“That’s the thing,” Emily said. “The shadow I heard Dwight and the technician talking about.”
“Yes, it is,” Carpentier said. “All the high rises, the tall buildings would shield most of southern Freeport, and if Northampton is going to engage in some kind of expensive and subtle propaganda move, they wouldn’t tolerate that kind of reduced coverage. What they want is a good, high tower somewhere where they can blanket all of Freeport at the same time. Strong signals would have less of a problem with shadows, but then they’d be detected as interference, so they’d use very weak signals, and that means a higher tower to get full coverage.”
“There is a tower like that,” Sally said, “in Freeport. The WCTY tower above the Delmark Building.”
“I know for a fact,” Carpentier said, “that the Visitors have had no access to that tower, never have had. It’s inspected frequently, and any tampering would have been noted. If you like, you can come see for yourselves.” “Do they really need a tower?” Jack asked.
“The only purpose of the tower,” Carpentier said, “is to get the antenna high.”
“Then how about the Wagner Building? It’s not quite as tall as the WCTY tower, but it’s the tallest building in Freeport, and it’s only a couple blocks away, almost right in the middle of the city.”
“And they do have a mast on top,” Carpentier said. “It’s not designed to be a transmitting antenna, but it could be easily modified. And their studio—”
“Would be right up there on the top floor,” Jack said.
File Twenty-four: Friday Evening
When they left Toby’s Club a short while later, Sally Greenstreet asked to be dropped off at the apartment building on Pine. From there, Jack and Emily drove back to the safe house on Berry. Emily was silent for most of the drive, and the few words she spoke were grim, revealing her fear of the present situation.
“I guess there’s one thing to be cheerful about,” she said when they pulled into the driveway. “Crazy as it may seem, it’s that all this is real, and not just my imagination. We’d all be better off if it had turned out to be a delusion after all. I almost wish it were, when I think about what it means, but really I’m glad it’s not, I’m glad I’m not crazy.”
“I am too,” Jack said.
Dahlgren was alone when they went in. “I just got a phone call from Abbot,” he told Jack. “He’s talked with
Sally, and he wants to move as soon as possible. You’re to meet him at 207 North Wade Avenue at nine o’clock.” “All right, did he say where he’s been all day?”
“I asked him, but I don’t think he trusts me completely. All he said was that he would be ready to move as soon as you got there. How did your meeting with Carpentier go?” “Just fine, we figured out that the Visitor’s secret studio is in the Wagner Building.”
“That’s incredible,” Dahlgren said, then turned to Emily. “Did you and Carpentier talk any business?”
“Not a word.”
“Then I’ll have to tell you what we talked about this afternoon.” He put his hand on her shoulder and led her into the dining room, where there were sheets of paper spread out all over the table.
Jack stood there by the door, listening to them talk shop. He turned away and went over to the liquor cabinet.
Well, he thought as he poured himself a small scotch, there was no sense crying about it. Emily was stuck on Dahlgren, and he couldn’t really blame her. True, he’d gotten into this mess because of her. He’d fought and killed for her sake. And so what, she was interested in another guy-
Maybe it was time he changed his priorities. He had achieved his goal, Emily was safe now, or soon would be. If that was all he was interested in, he could just drop this whole business, go somewhere else, start a new practice up north where the Visitors weren’t such a present danger.
Abbot would be disappointed, but Abbot didn’t really need him. He just needed all the help he could get. And so did all of Freeport. Jack tossed back his drink and went into the dining room.
“There’s no sense my sticking around here,” he said. “I’m going on over there right now.”
“I’ll let him know you’re coming,” Dahlgren told him.
“Be careful,” Emily said.
“I’ll try,” Jack said, then left the house.
The address on North Wade was an office building, with a book bindery to one side and a valve plant across the street. He parked on the street and when he went in the front door, Sally Greenstreet was waiting for him.
“You got here awfully early,” she said as she took him upstairs on the elevator to the fourth floor.
“I was just wasting my time at the house,” he said. “Where’s Abbot been all afternoon?”
“Making arra
ngements for an attack on the secret studio. When I told him where it was, he decided to move at once. ”
The office, at the far end of a rather dingy corridor, was marked “Atlantic Shipping and Storage.” Sally led him into a back room, piled with boxes, cartons, and crates. Abbot, Jenifer MacAlister, Samuel, and Walter were already there, as were two other people. One, a short, very muscular man wearing a dark gray suit, was introduced as the Orson Strangways who had called Dr. Jobs earlier in the long day. The other was a fifth columnist named Pedro, a tall, handsome Latin type, wearing a lightweight tan suit and an open-necked polo shirt.
“I thought you might want some time with Emily,” Abbot explained, “otherwise I’d have asked you to come sooner.”
“Emily has another friend,” Jack said. “What’s the plan?”
“We’re going to attack that secret studio tonight,” Abbot said. “We’re not going to wait, because after our appearance at Fairfield Mall this afternoon, they may decide to move, and we want to destroy that transmitter as soon as possible.”
“What if there’s really nothing there?” Strangways asked. His angular face was darkened by a heavy five o’clock shadow.
“Then,” Abbot said, “the sooner we find that out the better. Has everybody brought what I asked you to?” Strangways got up off the box he’d been sitting on and opened it. “There’s enough explosives in here,” he said, “to take off the whole top of the Wagner Building.” He handed book-sized packets to each of them. “It’s quite safe to handle, lightweight, and the electronic detonators are easy to use. I’ve got a few other things as well, but I’ll be handling those.”
“These are late-model lasers,” Pedro said, taking a Visitor hand weapon from a suitcase by his feet. “More effective than projectile weapons, fifty shots before recharging, and they’re silent.” He passed them around. Jack was reluctant to leave his own gun behind, so he just put it into his left-hand jacket pocket, and the Visitor gun into the right.
“I already had copies of the plans of the Wagner Building,” Jenifer said, “just in case we might need them someday. All I’ve got here are the top two floors.” She spread the reduced black-on-white blueprints out on a large crate. “And get this,” she said. “The company that holds the lease on these two floors is the parent company of the one that was renting Emily’s prison. They’ve been in the Wagner Building for two years.”
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