“I’ll take a look at the algorithm.”
“You know,” she said, making her way down virtual stairs, “maybe we should just put it in C code and go from a delay of three-four to three hundred and four microseconds, et cetera, instead of whatever’s in the software we got.”
“Yeah. The transfer sequences are off,” said someone else. “We got to adjust the timing loops.”
“What we don’t have is the luxury of massaging this too much,” another opinion sounded. “And Lucy, your aunt’s here.”
She briefly paused, then went on as if she had not heard what the person just said. “Look, I’ll do the C code before morning. We gotta be sharp or Toto’s going to end up stuck or falling down stairs. And then we’re totally screwed.”
Toto, I could only conclude, was the odd bubble head with one video eye that was mounted on a boxy steel body no more than three feet high. Legs were cleated tracks, arms had grippers, and in general he reminded me of a small animated tank. Toto was parked to one side, not far from his master, who was taking off her helmet.
“We got to change the bio-controllers on this glove,” she said as she began carefully pulling it off. “I’m used to one finger meaning forward and two meaning back. Not the other way around. I can’t afford a mix-up like that when we’re in the field.”
“That’s an easy one,” said Jim, and he went to her and took the glove.
Lucy looked keyed up to the point of being crazed when she met me near the door.
“How’d you get in?” She wasn’t the least bit friendly.
“One of the guards.”
“Good thing they know you.”
“Benton told me they’d brought you back, that HRT needs you,” I said.
She watched her colleagues continue to work. “Most of the guys are already there.”
“At Old Point,” I said.
“We’ve got divers around the area, snipers set up nearby, choppers waiting. But nothing’s going to do any good unless we can get at least one person in.”
“And obviously, that’s not you,” I said, knowing that if she claimed otherwise I would kill the FBI, the entire Bureau, all of them at once.
“In a way it’s me going in,” my niece said. “I’ll be the one working Toto. Hey, Jim,” she called out. “While you’re at it, let’s add a fly command to the pad.”
“So Toto’s gonna have wings,” someone cracked. “Good thing. We’re gonna need a smart guardian angel.”
“Lucy, do you have any idea how dangerous these people are?” I could not help but say.
She looked at me and sighed. “I mean, what do you think, Aunt Kay? Do you think I’m just a kid playing with Tinkertoys?”
“I think that I can’t help but feel very worried.”
“We should all be worried right now,” she said, drained. “Look, I got to get back to work.” She glanced at her watch and blew out a big breath. “You want a quick overview of my plan so you at least know what’s going on?”
“Please.”
“It starts with this.” She sat on the floor and I got down beside her, our backs against the wall. “Normally, a robot like Toto would be controlled by radio, which would never work inside a facility with so much concrete and steel. So I’ve come up with what I think is a better way. Basically, he’ll carry a spool of fiber optic cable that he’ll leave behind like a snail’s trail as he moves around.”
“And where is he going to move around?” I asked. “Inside the power plant?”
“We’re trying to determine that now,” she said. “But a lot will depend on what happens. We could be covert, such as in information gathering. Or we could end up with an overt deployment on our hands, such as if the terrorists want a hostage phone, which we’re banking on. Toto has to be ready to go anywhere instantly.”
“Except stairs.”
“He can do stairs. Some better than others.”
“The fiber optics cable will be your eyes?” I said.
“It will hook right into my data gloves.” She held up both hands. “And I will move as if it’s me going in instead of Toto. Virtual reality will allow me to have a remote presence so I can react instantly to whatever his sensors pick up. And by the way, most of them are in that lovely shade of gray we made him.” She pointed to her friend across the room. “His smart paint helps him not to bump into things,” she added as if she might have feelings for him.
“Did Janet come back with you?” I then asked.
“She’s finishing up in Charlottesville.”
“Finishing up?”
“We know who’s been breaking into CP&L’s computer,” she said. “A woman graduate assistant in nuclear physics. Surprise, surprise.”
“What’s her name?”
“Loren something.” She rubbed her face with her hands. “God, I should never have sat down. You know cyberspace really can make you dizzy if you stay in it too long. Lately, it’s almost been making me sick. Uh.” She snapped her fingers several times. “McComb. Loren McComb.”
“And she’s how old?” I asked as I remembered Cleta saying that the name of Eddings’ girlfriend was Loren.
“Late twenties.”
“Where is she from?”
“England. But she’s actually South African. She’s black.”
“Thus explaining her poor character, according to Mrs. Eddings.”
“Huh?” Lucy looked bizarrely at me.
“What about a connection with the New Zionists?” I asked.
“Apparently she got associated with them over the net. She’s very militant and antigovernment. My theory is she got brainwashed by them the longer they communicated.”
“Lucy,” I said, “I think she was Eddings’ girlfriend and source, and in the end, she may have helped the New Zionists kill him, probably by way of Captain Green.”
“Why would she help him and then do that?”
“She may have believed she had no choice. If she had assisted him with information that could have hurt Hand’s cause, she may have been convinced to help them or they may have threatened her.”
I thought of the Cristal Champagne in Eddings’ refrigerator, and wondered if he had planned to spend New Year’s Eve with his girlfriend.
“How would they have wanted her to help them?” Lucy was asking.
“She probably knew his burglar alarm code, maybe even the combination to his safe.” My final thought was the worst. “She may have been with him in the boat the night he died. For that matter, we don’t know that she wasn’t the one who poisoned him. After all, she’s a scientist.”
“Damn.”
“I’m assuming you’ve interviewed her,” I said.
“Janet has. McComb claims she was on the Internet about eighteen months ago when she came across a note posted on a bulletin board. Allegedly, some producer was working on a movie that had to do with terrorists taking over a nuclear power plant so they could re-create a North Korea situation and get weapons-grade plutonium, et cetera, et cetera. This alleged producer needed technical help, for which he was willing to pay.”
“Did she have a name for whoever this was?” I asked.
“He just always called himself ‘Alias,’ as if to imply he might be famous. She bit big time and the relationship began. She started sending him information from graduate papers she had access to because of her graduate assistantship. She gave this Alias asshole every recipe you might think of for essentially taking over Old Point and shipping fuel assemblies to the Arabs.”
“What about making casks?”
“Right. Steal tons of the depleted uranium from Oak Ridge. Have it sent to Iraq, Algeria, wherever, to be made into the hundred-twenty-five-ton casks. Then ship them back here where they’re stored until the big day. And she went into the whole bit about when uranium turns into plutonium inside a reactor.” Lucy stopped and glanced over at me. “She claims it never occurred to her that what she was doing might be real.”
“And was it real to her when she beg
an breaking into CP&L’s computer?”
“That’s one she can’t explain, nor will she supply a motive.”
“I expect motive is easy,” I said. “Eddings was interested in any phone calls to Arab nations that certain people might have been making. And he got his list via the gateway in Pittsburgh.”
“You don’t think she would have realized that the New Zionists wouldn’t appreciate her helping her boyfriend, who happened to be a reporter?”
“I don’t think she cared,” I angrily said. “I suspect she enjoyed the drama of playing both sides. If nothing else, it had to make her feel very important when she probably had not felt that way before in her quiet academic world. I doubt reality hit until Eddings started poking around NAVSEA, Captain Green’s office or who knows where, and then the New Zionists were tipped that their source, Ms. McComb, was threatening the entire operation.”
“If Eddings had figured it out,” Lucy said, “they never could have pulled it off.”
“Exactly,” I said. “If any of us had figured it out in time, this wouldn’t be happening.” I watched a woman in a lab coat maneuver Toto’s arms to lift a box. “Tell me,” I said, “what was Loren McComb’s demeanor when Janet interviewed her?”
“Detached. Absolutely no emotion.”
“Hand’s people are very powerful.”
“I guess so if you can help your boyfriend one minute and they can get you to murder him the next.” Lucy was watching her robot, too, and didn’t seem pleased by what she was seeing.
“Well, wherever the Bureau is detaining Ms. McComb, I hope it’s where the New Zionists can’t find her.”
“She’s secluded,” Lucy said as Toto suddenly stopped in his tracks and the box thudded heavily to the floor. “What have you got the shoulder joint’s rpm set at?” she called out.
“Eight.”
“Let’s lower it to five. Damn.” She rubbed her face again. “That’s all we need.”
“Well, I’m going to leave you and go on back to Jefferson,” I said as I got up.
She got a strange look in her eyes. “You staying on the security floor, as usual?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter, but that’s where Loren McComb is,” she said.
In fact, my suite was next to hers, but unlike me, she was confined. As I sat up in bed for a while trying to read, I could hear her TV through the wall. I listened to her switch channels, and then recognized “Star Trek” sounds as she watched an old episode rerun.
For hours we were only several feet apart and she did not know it. I imagined her calmly mixing hydrochloric acid and cyanide in a bottle, and directing gas into the compressor’s intake valve. Instantly, the long black hose would have violently jerked in the water, and then only the river’s sluggish current would have moved it anymore.
“See that in your sleep,” I said to her, though she could not hear me. “In your sleep for the rest of your life. Every single goddamn night.” I angrily snapped off my lamp.
chapter
16
EARLY THE NEXT morning, fog was dense beyond my windows, and Quantico was quieter than usual. I did not hear a single gunshot on any range, and it seemed the Marines were sleeping in. As I walked out of double glass doors leading to the area where the elevators were, I heard security locks click free next door to my room.
I punched the down button and glanced around as two female agents in conservative suits walked on either side of a light-skinned black woman who was staring straight at my face as if we had met before. Loren McComb had defiant dark eyes, and pride ran deep within her, as if it were the spring that fed her survival and made all that she did flourish.
“Good morning,” I said with no feeling.
“Dr. Scarpetta,” one of the agents somberly greeted me as the four of us boarded the elevator together.
We were silent to the first floor, and I could smell the sour staleness of this woman who had taught Joel Hand how to build a bomb. She was wearing tight faded jeans, sneakers and a long, full white blouse that could not hide an impressive build that must have contributed to Eddings’ fatal error. I stood behind her and her wardens and watched the sliver of her face that I could see. She licked her lips often, staring straight ahead at doors which did not open soon enough for me.
Silence was thick like the fog outdoors, and then we were released on the first floor. I took my time getting off, and I watched the two agents lead McComb away without laying a finger on her. They did not have to, because they could, were it needed, just like that. They escorted Loren McComb down a corridor, then turned into one of the myriads of enclosed walkways called gerbil tubes, and I was surprised when she paused to look back at me again. She met my unfriendly stare and moved on, one step closer to what I hoped would be a long pilgrimage in the penitentiary.
Climbing stairs, I walked into the cafeteria where flags for every state in the union were hung on the walls. I met Wesley in a corner beneath Rhode Island.
“I just saw Loren McComb,” I said, setting down my tray.
He glanced at his watch. “She’ll be interviewed most of today.”
“Do you think she’ll be able to tell us anything that might help?”
He slid salt and pepper closer. “No. It’s too late,” he simply said.
I ate scrambled egg whites and dry toast, and drank my coffee black as I watched new agents and cops in the National Academy fix omelets and waffles. Some made sandwiches with bacon and sausage, and I thought how boring it was to get old.
“We should go.” I picked up my tray, because sometimes eating wasn’t worth it.
“I’m not finished eating, Chief.” He played with his spoon.
“You’re eating granola and it’s all gone.”
“I might get more.”
“No, you won’t,” I said.
“I’m thinking.”
“Okay.” I looked at him, interested to hear what he had to say.
“Just how important is this Book of Hand?”
“Very. Part of the problem started when Danny basically took one and probably gave it to Eddings.”
“Why do you think it’s so important?”
“You’re a profiler. You should know. It tells us how they will behave. The Book makes them predictable.”
“A terrifying thought,” he said.
At nine A.M. we walked past firing ranges to a half acre of grass near the tire house HRT used in the very maneuvers they would need now. This morning, they were nowhere to be seen, all of them at Old Point except our pilot, Whit. He was typically silent and fit in a black flight suit, standing by a blue and white Bell 222, a corporate twin-engine helicopter also owned by CP&L.
“Whit.” Wesley nodded at him.
“Good morning,” I said as we boarded.
Inside were four seats in what looked like the cabin of a small plane, and a co-pilot was busy studying a map. Senator Lord was completely engrossed in whatever he was reading, the attorney general across from him and preoccupied with paperwork, too. They had been picked up first in Washington and did not look like they had slept much, either, the last few nights.
“How are you, Kay?” The senator did not look up.
He was dressed in a dark suit and a white shirt with stiff collar. His tie was deep red, and he wore Senate cuff links. Marcia Gradecki, in contrast, wore a simple pale blue skirt and jacket, and pearls. She was a formidable woman with a face that was attractive in a strong, dynamic way. Although she had gotten her start in Virginia, before this moment we had never met.
Wesley made certain we knew each other as we lifted into a sky that was perfectly blue. We flew over bright yellow school buses that were empty this time of day, then buildings quickly gave way to swamps with duck blinds and vast acres of woods. Sunlight painted paths through the tops of trees, and as we began to follow the James, our reflection silently flew after us along the water.
“In a minute here, we’re going to fly over Governor’s La
nding,” said Wesley, and we did not need headphones to speak to one another, only to the pilots. “It’s the realestate arm of CP&L, and where Brett West lives. He’s the vice president in charge of operations and lives in a nine-hundred-thousand-dollar house down there.” He paused as everybody looked down. “You can just about see it. There. The big brick one with the pool and basketball court in back.”
The development had many huge homes with pools and painfully young vegetation. There was also a golf course and a yacht club where we were told West kept a boat that right now was not there.
“And where is this Mr. West?” the attorney general asked as our pilots turned north where the Chickahominy met the James.
“At the moment we don’t know.” Wesley continued looking out the window.
“I’m assuming you believe he’s involved,” the senator said.
“Without question. In fact, when CP&L decided to open a district office in Suffolk, they built it on land they bought from a farmer named Joshua Hayes.”
“His records were also accessed in their computer,” I interjected.
“By the hacker,” Gradecki said.
“Right.”
“And you have her in custody,” she said.
“We do. Apparently, she was dating Ted Eddings, and that’s how he got into this and ended up murdered.” Wesley’s face was hard. “What I am convinced of is that West has been an accomplice to Joel Hand from the start. You can see the district office now.” He pointed. “And what do you know,” he added ironically, “it’s right next to Hand’s compound.”
The district office was basically a large parking lot of utility trucks and gas pumps, and modular buildings with CP&L painted in red on the roofs. As we flew around it and over a stand of trees, the terrain beneath us suddenly turned into the fifty-acre point on the Nansemond River where Joel Hand lived within a high metal fence that according to legend was electrified.
His compound was a cluster of multiple smaller homes and barracks, his own mansion weathered and with tall, white pillars. But it was not those buildings that worried us. It was others we saw, large wood structures that looked like warehouses built in a row along railroad tracks leading to a massive private loading dock with huge cranes on the water.
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