The Thought Cathedral

by Nathan Williams

  “For example?” Rose said.

  “For example, there was an IM chat in progress on one of them. That last message was sent at 2:27 a.m. this morning. An email was also sent shortly prior to that, at 2:19. I think the potential is there to find a lot more, but obviously we’re still very early in our examination.”

  “Can you tell me anything more about the equipment on the desk over there at the front of the room?” Rose asked.

  “To be honest, nobody here knows for sure what it’s used for. There are five sets of padded headphones lying around which suggests that the equipment was used for audio and video analysis. But we’re not sound engineers. We need to get it into the hands of the people with the right expertise who can give us a better idea. We haven’t had a chance to really dig in to the computers yet, either. It takes us a while to get them locked down to where we can start examining the content.”

  “Here’s my card,” Rose said. “Call me every few hours and check in with me.”

  “Sure, absolutely.”

  “Call me sooner if you find anything that seems more urgent.”

  Zeilinsky nodded. “Will do.”

  Reardon followed Rose out the door. “Interesting what has happened the past couple of days, don’t you think?” Reardon asked. Rose was walking quickly, and Reardon had to hustle to keep up.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, what happened with our surveillance on Wednesday in South Brooklyn and now with today’s developments. You’ve got the sudden aborting of two surveillance missions by the Chinese within two days of each other. It’s almost as if—”

  “—as if someone is tipping them off?” Rose said.

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  Rose frowned and scratched the stubble on his chin. “Not sure. Seems like more than just a coincidence. Anyway, I’ll catch up with you later. I have a meeting with the Lorren I’ve got to get to.”

  “See you Monday,” Reardon said.

  On his way to his sedan, Reardon pondered the likelihood that he, as well as everyone who’d been working the case, might be under suspicion for treason. It would be interesting to see how things played out.

  Chapter 27

  New York City

  Saturday, February 21, 6:15 p.m. EST

  Lyn Lee leaned into the mirror in her bedroom. The lighting was dim, and she needed a closer view in order to apply the mascara to her eyelashes. She checked that the silver earrings she’d placed were secure and began applying her eyebrow liner. She’d finished applying the liner on her right brow when she heard a pinging from her speakers. She finished her left eyebrow before dashing to her desk to view the screen on her desktop.

  Pan-Ik: Are you there, Lyn?

  Lee typed out a quick message.

  ElectricPanda: I’m here. Can’t chat long though.

  Pan-Ik: I swear I can’t remember the last time you said otherwise.

  ElectricPanda: Sorry! Going to the big bash for work tonight. Trying to get ready.

  Pan-Ik: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. The Innovation Ball?

  ElectricPanda: It’s the Ingenuity Ball. It’s actually really fun. You’d like it.

  Lee bounded off her desk chair, grabbed her mascara from her purse, and stood in front of her mirror again. She finished applying the mascara and then plucked a stick of lipstick from her purse. Before applying the lipstick, she stepped back and checked her new dress, a sheer black strapless dress extending to below her knees. Formal. Elegant. Appropriate.

  She heard another ping from her speakers before she’d finished applying the lipstick. When she’d finished, she dashed back to the computer.

  Pank-Ik: Doubt it. Never been much for those kinds of events. They’re too pretentious.

  Lee frowned.

  ElectricPanda: Pretentious?

  Pan-Ik: Yes, absolutely.

  ElectricPanda: Nah, I don’t think so. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a celebration of company culture, which is to say it’s a celebration of inventiveness. They have exhibits tracing the stories of how different technologies have been developed. They interweave with the company’s history.

  Pank-Ik: Yes, so they can remind themselves how superior they are.

  ElectricPanda: They’ve been very successful. There’s a reason for that. Besides, it serves other purposes as well.

  Pan-Ik: Such as?

  ElectricPanda: It’s a bonding event. It’s very formal, so you get to see all your co-workers in formal wear. It’s fun! Many people in the company look forward to it.

  Pan-Ik: I guess. To be honest, I kinda wish my company would do something like that. Maybe they could call it the Botnet Ball? Malware Masquerade? Exploit Extravaganza?

  ElectricPanda: Ha! You can come up with something better than that, I’m sure.

  Pan-Ik: I’m sure. How about Cypher Stream Salsa?

  ElectricPanda: I have to go. I have to finish getting ready and I’m already late as it is.

  Pan-Ik: Have fun tonight. You have to promise me you’ll invite me next year.

  ElectricPanda: Next year, Pan. I promise.

  Pan-Ik: Ciao.

  ElectricPanda: Later.

  Pan-Ik: Festival de Phishing. Is this fancy enough for you?

  Lee rolled her eyes. She typed in one more message.

  ElectricPanda: Lol. Too cheesy.

  Pan-Ik: It’s clearly French, not Swiss.

  She retrieved her blush and then it was back to the mirror. She applied the blush carefully, being sure to hide her scar as well as possible. Pan-Ik was still tossing out names for a fictional gala for his company, as evidenced by the steady string of pings from her speakers. She glanced at her alarm clock. 6:30 p.m. She slid on a pair of black high heels and sat back down at her computer desk to check her emails. Less than two minutes later, her smart phone buzzed. It was a text message from Xiang letting her know he was outside her apartment. She threw on her black wool coat and scarf, grabbed her purse, and exited her apartment.

  Xiang was waiting for her by a cab he’d rented, which he’d parked next to her apartment building. When she approached, Xiang smiled and extended his hand out to her. He’d opened the door of the cab for her. Lee stepped forward and took his hand.

  “Lyn, you look terrific tonight.”

  She smiled broadly, her killer smile. “Thank you. You look very handsome in your tuxedo.”

  Xiang gestured to the cab. “After you.”

  Lee slid into the driver side rear seat as Xiang shut the door behind her. A few moments later, Xiang slid into the passenger-side rear seat next to her.

  She glanced toward Xiang. “I’m really excited for this! It’s so much fun, Xiang. Have you ever been to this event?”

  “No, I haven’t. Seems like it might be fun, though.”

  “You’ll love it. I promise.”

  Xiang fell silent for a few moments after the cab started into its southerly route to the building where the ball was being held. Lee took the time to explain to Xiang that the building was an old multi-story building constructed of brick and stone, as were so many of the other buildings Brooklyn Capital owned.

  “The building,” Lee explained, “was originally a factory that produced engine parts for the tanks the American soldiers used during World Wars One and Two.”

  “It must be big.”

  “It is a big building.”

  “It’s in downtown Brooklyn?”

  Lee nodded in the affirmative. “It’s in the south part of the downtown area, yes.”

  They rode in silence for much of the remainder of the trip. Lee glanced periodically at Xiang as the darkness was lifted in brief instances when the cab passed under a streetlight. He was, as always, dressed impeccably. His eyes were drooping a bit, and he was staring off into the darkening alleys as the cab sped by.

  Who are you? Lee thought. She still found it difficult to reconcile the Xiang she knew, with the person the FBI was claiming he was. The man sitting next to her didn’t seem capable of anything even as nefarious
as pilfering a cigarette from an unsuspecting transient. Lee pondered what his motivating factors might be. She thought about whether Xiang might have a significant other in Beijing or Shanghai. Something that had been arranged by either his family or the C.C.P. She wouldn’t have been all that surprised if he did. Or, maybe he just enjoyed the game, the intrigue. Some people she’d known in her past just seemed to thrive on stress, and perhaps Xiang was like that.

  Agent Frank had mentioned a number of key traits possessed by some of the most notorious spies who’d damaged the U.S. in the past. These included traits such as having an outsized ego, having a chip on one’s shoulder, and unwarranted feelings of self-importance. Xiang didn’t seem to have any of these. Thinking back to how she’d felt the night at the underground restaurant in the alcove, however, she couldn’t be sure.

  She felt the cab begin to slow as it approached the location of the ball, and it became engulfed in a series of other cabs that, Lee assumed, were going to the same place. A few moments later, the top of the southwest corner of the Brooklyn Capital building where the ball was going to be held appeared. She could see the decorative stone ornaments tracing the perimeter of the windows.

  “Let’s get out and walk the rest of the way,” Lee said.

  Xiang joined Lee as they crossed the short distance to the sidewalk and began walking northbound along a mix of storefronts and apartments. Eventually, they cleared into the Brooklyn Capital property, where a throng of Brooklyn researchers, support personnel, and other employees had already gathered, dressed in their formal attire: tuxedos for the men and gowns for the women. The massive building itself rose above them like a courtly fortress. To their left, parked alongside the street, were three antique stretch limousines from the 1940s—black ones in front and back with a white one in the middle. They each had the spare tire mounted on the right side, slightly to the rear of the front tire. Their silver chrome shone in the light from a street lamp overhead.

  As they approached the front entrance, they filed in behind a line of people that had begun to form. Off to her right, standing in the grass on the plot of land on which the building was situated, Lee spotted a small group of reporters and cameras clustered around a tall man dressed in a tuxedo and top hat. They’d congregated under a large black and bluish-green tent. She recognized the man as one of the executive managers for Brooklyn Capital, though she couldn’t remember his name. She couldn’t hear what he was saying above the din of the crowd along the paved walkway, but he was gesturing animatedly about something to a female reporter.

  The two of them followed the crowd to the front entrance, which consisted of two tall, heavy oaken doors. Set into a semi-circular stone inset above the door was the phrase ‘Ad Lucem,’ translated as “into the light.” Once through the doors, they followed the traffic through a small corridor set apart from the main dance floor by a series of stone columns extending vertically into arches high above. The clip-clop of dress shoes echoed throughout the room as Lee and Xiang followed the crowd along the interior perimeter of the west face of the ballroom, before turning left and continuing along the south side. Spread intermittently along the wall, in between the windows with their stone insets, were black-and-white photos depicting various notable moments in the company’s history. Many of the photos contained well-known figures from the U.S. government, including U.S. presidents and leaders from the armed forces and from the CIA and the FBI. This was a reflection of the company’s history as a government contractor.

  Halfway along the south side of the building, they ascended a black iron spiral staircase to the second floor, where the traffic came to a halt and the men and women resigned themselves to standing in line. As Xiang and Lee summited the stairs, they found themselves in a spherical-shaped alcove with thin, bluish-green carpeting. A set of black iron benches had been placed around the perimeter of the alcove, a chandelier was hanging from above, and there was another set of oaken doors leading into the interior of the floor. The doors were currently closed, and a friendly-looking older man in a tuxedo stood solemnly in front, gesturing for them to move along into another hallway along the perimeter. Since the benches were already taken by some of the other attendees, Lee and Xiang followed the crowd into the corridor.

  Lee glanced at Xiang, who’d begun tapping his foot impatiently.

  “The line usually moves quickly,” Lee said.

  The tapping stopped temporarily, and the droopiness in Xiang’s eyes disappeared.

  As the line inched forward, they approached a marble platform—approximately two feet high and five feet wide—isolated like an island within the corridor. It was thirty feet or so in length, extending parallel to the corridor.

  Lee was studying it, pondering its purpose, when a hologram materialized over the marble base. It appeared so suddenly that it startled her. The hologram was that of an old man with a white beard dressed in a black frock suit coat, a black tie, and a vest that matched the bluish-green of the carpeting. He had a gold pocket-watch chain extending from the interior of his coat to a clip on the breast pocket, and he was using a cane. Lee noted that the hologram was 3-dimensional. The old man lifted the top hat off of his head, bowed deeply, and began speaking.

  “Hello! Welcome to the seventeenth annual Ingenuity Ball!” The voice was coming from a set of speakers hidden within the marble base. Lee moved closer to the image, examining it in detail. It had a peculiar green tint to it. The man’s mouth was moving in coordination with the words coming from the speaker.

  “My name is Nikola Tesla. I am a Serbian-American inventor from the late 19th century.”

  He was gesturing with his hands as though engaged in an animated conversation.

  “A year after coming to the United States, I invented a system of alternating current dynamos, transformers, and motors. I then sold the patents to a wealthy industrialist, and started my own laboratory, where I went on to invent the Tesla coil, an induction coil used commonly in the radio.”

  Suddenly there appeared a second hologram—that of another man, slightly younger in appearance, and also dressed in a suit. Lee then noticed the name of the man, Guglielmo Marconi, emblazoned in green letters underneath the hologram.

  Tesla continued, “The Tesla coil was my call to fame.”

  Tesla turned and seemed to suddenly notice Marconi next to him. Tesla took the cane and smacked the back of Marconi’s legs.

  Marconi: “Ouch! What was that for?”

  Tesla: “You stole my patents, you scoundrel!”

  Marconi shook his head as he gingerly rubbed the back of his leg.

  Marconi: “I did not steal your patents! The patent office overturned them fair and square!”

  Tesla: “It was hardly fair. Big business bought out the court, and you know it just as well as I!” Tesla was shaking his fist at Marconi. “My wireless telegraph was better than yours, and cheaper to boot!”

  Now, a third holograph appeared of a middle-aged man with a dark brown mustache. The green label said ERNST ALEXANDERSON. Alexanderson turned toward Marconi to his right.

  Alexanderson: “Can’t you guys just get along?”

  He turned back around, facing toward Lee, and smiled.

  Alexanderson: “I’m Ernst Alexanderson and I’m certain I’ve outdone both of those two.”

  Alexanderson was pointing with his thumb at Marconi and Tesla in the same way he would if he was hitchhiking.

  Alexanderson: “I was, after all, responsible for inventing the first alternator, which made the transmission of human speech possible.” Alexanderson then crossed his arms and leaned back, an expression of pride on his face.

  A fourth hologram appeared labeled JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. Maxwell had a bushy salt-and-pepper beard, thin eyebrows, and was wearing a black top hot. Maxwell promptly turned toward Alexanderson, swiped Alexanderson’s top hat from off his head, and clobbered him in the face with it. Alexanderson’s face turned beet red and he clenched his fists in anger.

  Alexanderson: “You
dirty, rotten—”

  Maxwell: “Oh, quit your whining! Somebody needs to put you in your place.”

  Alexanderson: “Put me in my place? You’ve got nothing on me, Maxwell!”

  A fifth hologram appeared with a label that said HENRIK HERTZ. Hertz, also wearing a suit, had a round face with a receding hairline and was wearing a pair of small spectacles.

  Maxwell said, “With all due respect, me and Mr. Hertz here were responsible for developing electromagnetic waves. Without those buggers, the radio wouldn’t have ever been possible!”

  Both Alexanderson and Maxwell looked toward Hertz.

  Hertz: “Hey, just how much credit do you think you deserve, Maxwell? I’m the one who proved electric waves can be transmitted and received wirelessly!”

  Maxwell: “You can’t deny my contribution, Henrik. I was responsible, after all, for noticing that electrical fields and magnetic fields can couple together to form electromagnetic waves.”

  Hertz shrugged and waved Maxwell off with his left hand. “It was of no consequence. Not only did I prove the transmission of electromagnetic waves, I showed that their velocity and length could be measured and that light and heat are electromagnetic waves. My contributions were so great that my work is considered a fundamental building block of radio and, furthermore, the measurement of frequency is named after me!”

  Maxwell let out a “Harrumph!” and shoved his hands in his coat pocket.

  Lee noticed a small crowd had gathered to watch the display as a sixth hologram appeared on the marble base. This one was that of a bald man with a round head, thin eyebrows, and a slight double chin. The label on this one said EDWIN ARMSTRONG. Armstrong reached over to Hertz, slipped his hand inside Hertz’s suit coat, pulled his suspenders back, and released them. There was a thwack sound as the suspenders smacked against Hertz’s chest.

  “Not so fast,” Armstrong said.

  Hertz shook an angry fist at Armstrong.

  “Ouch!” Hertz said. “What was that for?”