Therefore Madox would know if the cavalry arrived, and so would Kate and I. But so far, everything out there in Custer Hill land looked normal, peaceful, and quiet.
A recurring unhappy thought was that even if the state police and the FBI busted through the gate and kicked in the doors of the lodge, no one would find us down here.
And even if Schaeffer remembered that there was supposed to be a fallout shelter somewhere, he’d probably be looking in the basement of the lodge itself, and he might very well mistake some room down there for a fallout shelter.
For damned sure he wasn’t going to find the hydraulic floor under the card table, and even if by some miracle he did, it would take hours or longer to get an explosive ordnance team down here to blast open that vault door.
Wow. We were double fucked. There was only one way out of this mess, and that was the way I should have chosen this afternoon-this bastard and his buddies had to die, here and now, before they killed us, and before Madox detonated those four nukes in Sandland.
Madox swiveled around and asked me, “Do you understand what’s happening? John?”
“I think we established that you’re going to send an ELF wave to four receivers that are attached to nuclear detonators in four suitcase bombs.”
“Correct.” He added, “I’ve actually begun the transmission.”
Shit.
He said, “Come closer. On your knees. Come on.”
Kate and I moved on our knees closer to the console, then Carl, behind us, ordered, “Stop.”
We stopped.
Madox asked, “Can you see these three little windows?”
We looked to where he was pointing to a black box on top of the console. The first window in the box was spinning a dizzying array of red LED letters, and Madox said, “I’ve sent out the first letter of the three-letter code that will detonate the four devices.” He explained, “I could have put a time clock in each of the nuclear suitcases, but then the detonation time would be preset, and out of my control. So I chose a command-detonation mode, meaning my ELF radio, which is perfect for this task, and foolproof.” He added, “I finally got my money’s worth out of this ELF station.”
I told him, “You know, Bain, you can explore for oil with ELF waves.”
He smiled and said, “I see you’ve done some homework.” He informed me, “I don’t need to explore for oil. I already know where it is, and the present owners are about to be nuked.”
“Why are you doing this?”
He looked at me and replied, “Ah, the ‘why’ question.” He lit a cigarette. “Why? Because I’m fucking sick and tired of a succession of ball-less presidents kissing Arab ass. That’s why.”
I figured he’d kissed a little Arab ass himself, and this was payback. I figured, too, I’d go along with him, and said, “You know, Bain, Kate and I see this shit every day in our job. Illegal Muslim immigrants being treated like they were constitutional lawyers, suspected terrorists all lawyered up and threatening to sue for false arrest.” I went on with my litany of problems on the job, but oddly, Madox didn’t seem that interested. I concluded with, “I understand your frustrations, but exploding four nuclear weapons in Sandland is not going to solve the problem. It’ll make it worse.”
He laughed, which I thought was strange.
Then, he swiveled around again and punched a few keys on his keyboard. He explained, “Each letter needs to be encoded with a four-letter code group.”
“Right,” I agreed. “Can we talk about this?”
He didn’t seem to hear me, and he appeared intent on reading his dials and listening to something on a set of headphones that he held briefly to his ear.
I noticed that the first window in the black box had stopped spinning letters, and it was locked into a bright red “G.”
Kate spoke up. “When the state police and FBI get here, they’re going to knock out your generators, and the antenna poles.”
Madox was still playing with his electronics, and replied without turning around, “Kate, first, they haven’t even left police headquarters yet, which is over an hour from here. Second, they really don’t know what’s happening here. Third, even if they got here in the next thirty minutes, they’d be too late.” He explained, “This will all be over in less than twenty minutes.”
I noticed now that the second window in the black box was spinning red letters.
Madox swiveled in his chair and said to us, “The second letter is sent, and the four receivers in the suitcase nukes will pick it up in about fifteen minutes.”
I thought maybe he was juking and jiving us about how much time we had left, so to show him we’d done our homework, I said, “About thirty minutes.”
“No, fifteen. That’s how long each repetitive ELF wave will take to reach San Francisco and Los Angeles, and have its signal decoded in the receiver.”
“The Mideast,” I corrected. “Thirty minutes.”
“No,” said Mr. Madox impatiently. “You still don’t get it-which is good news for me.”
Kate asked, “Get what?”
“Get Project Green and Wild Fire.”
Madox swiveled around again and read his electronic dials, commenting, “The generators are maintaining six thousand kilowatts.” He put his hand on the keyboard. “Now, all I have to do is type the encryption for the last letter in the three-letter code.”
As he said that, the second letter on the black box froze at “O.” So now it read “G-O.”
He noticed it and said, “We have a G and O. So, what’s the code word? I can’t remember. G-O-B? G-O-T?” He laughed over his shoulder at us. “G-O-C-O? No, too many letters. Help me. John? Kate? Please, God, let me remember… ah! That’s it. G-O-D.”
The man was clearly having fun, while losing his marbles.
He typed on his keyboard, and the last window began spinning letters.
He swiveled back to us and said, “So, what’s happening is that my encryption software has successfully sent the letters G and O via ELF wave toward the four receivers, which is confirmed by the G and O on the black box. But, as you know, it takes a while for these repetitive waves to actually reach the receivers and for them to properly decode. Understand?”
I didn’t think he really gave a shit if we understood, unless he was trying to see what we knew, so I said, “We understand.”
“Really?” He informed us, “I’ve used a repeating, self-correcting code, which is continuously transmitted until the initiating sequence is received. In other words, D-O-G won’t work. Only G-O-D can make an explosion. Follow?”
I reminded him, “Don’t forget to activate your isotopes.”
“To… what?” He looked at me like I was crazy, then continued, “This is the same software system that the Navy uses for their nuclear submarine fleet. But maybe you knew that. Do you know about my little experiment back in the 1980s?”
Kate replied, “We do. And so does everyone in the FBI.”
“Really? Well… that’s too bad. But not relevant now. In any case, when that black box spells G-O-D, about fifteen minutes later, the four receivers will have the entire three-letter code in proper sequence. GOD. Then, after two minutes, if there’s no change in the continuous transmitted signal, the four receivers will send an electronic pulse to the four detonators, which are attached to the receivers, and we have four nice nuclear explosions, thanks to Dr. Putyov.”
Neither Kate nor I responded to that.
Madox lit another cigarette and watched the black box as the last window kept spinning letters. Then, the window read “D,” and the box read, “GOD.” Madox, who thought that meant him, said, “So, all three letters are now being sent across the country in a continuous pattern.”
I still wasn’t understanding why he was saying “across the country,” but maybe I did understand, and I didn’t want to know.