“Or a battery,” Burke declared.
“Right.”
“So you think In-Q-Tel went to the feds-”
“No. I think In-Q-Tel learned about the presentation at Morgan Stanley from one of its directors and got excited. I think they realized this product had some serious applications. And I think they let their principals know that they wanted to participate in our little venture.”
“And then-”
“The shit hit the fan,” Eli said. “The Pentagon got wind of it, and the next thing you know Jack is being charged by the U.S. attorney. I mean, he’s arrested, cuffed. And he’s facing two years and a two-hundred-thousand-dollar fine. Me? I’m mortgaging the condo to make the bail.”
“What about the check you got?”
“The hundred fifty-two grand? We didn’t want to cash it. Because once you cash the check…”
“So that’s when Jack met Maddox.”
“Right.”
Burke sighed. “Did you ever see Jack – inside?”
“In jail, yes. In prison, no. The last time I saw him, they were leading him away. I tried to visit him in Colorado, but… he wouldn’t see me.”
“You mentioned a foster mother…,” Burke said.
“Mandy. She was living in a trailer in Fallon. But, like I said, she was pretty old…”
Burke was out of questions. “Look,” he said, “I want to thank you-”
But Eli didn’t want to let it go. “The thing is,” he said, “Jack and I… we roomed together. And then, when he went away, it was like he was gone. I mean, totally gone. Long gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“He didn’t answer my letters. He wouldn’t talk on the phone. I went to Florence, thinking if I’m there, if I’ve driven hundreds of miles, he’s got to see me. And let’s face it, it’s not like he had anything else to do. That place in Colorado – it’s like a mausoleum. Except they feed you. The whole idea is to grind people down through isolation. And Jack was actually turning people away.” Eli paused, and laughed. It occurred to Burke that he might be a little drunk. “I keep thinking back to the last time I saw him…”
“When was that?” Burke asked.
“In San Francisco, when they led him out of court. He was in shackles, y’know? Had his hands cuffed to his waist, his feet hobbled. I felt like crying. Because this guy was like… the Prince of Palo Alto! Or coulda been, or shoulda been. And I kept thinking, ‘It’s like that song.’”
Burke didn’t know what he meant. “What song?”
“That song!” Eli insisted. “The one about the music. You know – ‘The Day the Music Died.’ ”
CHAPTER 36
Yesterday: Cheerah
Tomorrow: Zaftra
I love you: La ti tiya yi blue.
Wilson pulled off Route 29 and took the county road that led into Culpeper.
The outskirts were the usual mélange of hair salons, car washes, automobile showrooms, and plant nurseries. The town’s rural position was emphasized by two large businesses selling farming equipment – vast lots of tractors and mowers and balers. He passed a bunch of franchises: Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, Ruby Tuesday, Dairy Queen. Then he arrived at the heart of this sprawl, Historic Culpeper – a few leafy blocks of brick buildings with informational plaques.
Wilson surveyed the array of motels available, choosing the Comfort Inn for its elevation and location – half a mile outside his target area. He opted for a suite. Ever since Florence, space had become important to him, a luxury he could now afford.
SWIFT was just across Route 29. He’d obtained the location online from the town’s tax records.
Set between farms with red barns, the banking epicenter kept a low profile. There were no signs identifying it, just placards that read NO TRESPASSING and PRIVATE PROPERTY. Still, there was no mistaking the place. The grounds were double-fenced, the fences topped with razor wire. There were security cameras between the fences and a guardhouse with a motorized gate.
Wilson pulled up to the guardhouse and asked for directions to Wal-Mart. A parking lot was visible, but behind the double fence, a large earthen berm obscured the view of whatever structure was back there. While the guard gave him directions, Wilson took a GPS reading on his watch.
The Culpeper Switch was less than a mile away. Formerly housed in a bunker called Mount Pony, it resembled the campus of a small school. Once again, security was blatant. He stopped for a moment on the road that ran along the perimeter of the facility, adjusted his seat belt, and took a second GPS reading.
That evening, he ate dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s. When he got back to the motel, he sat at the dinette table in the little suite’s kitchen and plugged in his laptop. He fed in the GPS coordinates of the Escalade’s parking place, along with the coordinates of SWIFT and the Culpeper Switch. The software program interfaced with a topographic map of Culpeper and environs. In four minutes, he had the focusing parameters.
Part of the fun was that Wilson wasn’t entirely sure what would happen. That is to say, he couldn’t be sure of everything that would happen. There would be a cascade of consequences whose end might be observed – but not predicted.
Culpeper itself would be paralyzed, yes. Its cars and tractors would be inoperable, its microwaves and television sets dead. There would be no light, no water, no working sewage system. ATMs, gas stations, bank vaults, security alarms – these would all go down. And they would not come back up.
He wondered how long it would take before anyone would realize the extent of the damage. People were used to power outages and computer crashes. But this would be different, the damage structural, pervasive, and permanent.
It occurred to him that the effect of the pulse would be the opposite of a neutron bomb. A neutron bomb would kill the living things and leave the infrastructure viable. His pulse would destroy the infrastructure without directly impacting anything that lived and breathed.
The local impact would be ironic in at least one way: A small town that just happened to process more than two trillion dollars in transactions per day, would be without access to any cash.
Not that there would be any way to spend it. Cash registers, credit card machines – none of these would work.
Doors would not open, except by hand and key. Those controlled by chips would have to be taken off their hinges. He wondered about the county jail. If the cell doors were locked by computer, would they stay locked when the systems crashed? Or would the inmates simply be able to stroll out.
Gasoline pumps would not work either, although, for a while at least, there would be little need for gasoline. Vehicles would simply come to a stop as their computer-driven systems stopped firing the fuel injectors. Power brakes and steering would shut down, much as if the drivers had turned off their ignitions. Strong drivers with good reactions ought to be able to bring their vehicles safely to a stop, but it was inevitable that many would lose control.
Trucks? He didn’t think they’d fare so well, despite the skill of their drivers and their hydraulic braking systems. Trucks would be in the grip of Newtonian forces aligned against them. The greater mass of the vehicles – and hence their velocity – coupled with the failure of the steering and braking systems, would probably send them out of control.
They’d become unguided missiles.
There would be fires from the exploding fuel tanks and possible HazMat spills. It all depended on which trucks, hauling which loads, were where when the EMP – the electromagnetic pulse – hit.