Binary - Michael Crichton [21]
'The machine shop ground three fittings for him to custom specifications. All high-grade stainless steel. Two of them are on-off pressure valves with special handles. The third is a T-coupling which brings together two hoses into a common outlet.'
'What's special about the valve handles?'
'The handles have a series of perforations, presumably so the valves can be turned on and off by some sort of machine.'
'Any information about what kind of machine would be used to turn the valves on and off?'
Lewis shook his head. 'But they said the handles are spring-loaded. A moderate pressure will snap them from full shut to the full open position.'
'Now that's really interesting,' Graves said. 'You mean there are no intermediate positions for the valves?'
'Yes. It's either full shut or full open.'
The elevator came. Graves pressed the button for the sixth floor. 'When did Wright order these custom fittings?'
'Last week. Rush order.'
'Really interesting,' Graves said. 'What about the plastics store?'
Lewis scratched his head. 'Three weeks ago Wright ordered two pressure-moulded plastic tanks from them. Long tanks roughly a foot in diameter and eight feet long. Specified as triple-laminate things able to withstand pressures up to five hundred pounds per square inch. The shop was surprised to get the order.'
'Well, the guy said nobody orders tanks like that in plastic. It's too dangerous. All high-pressure tanks are metal and seamless. There's no advantage to plastic, even in weight. Plastic tanks, if they're triple-thickness, are heavier than metal.'
'Wright wouldn't order something that had no advantage.'
'Well,' Lewis said, 'the guy thought Wright was a pretty strange customer. Not only did he want these plastic tanks, but he wanted them made out of allacron.'
'Which is?'
'A very tough resilient plastic, but highly combustible. It burns like a bastard, so it isn't used much.'
'Have the tanks been finished?'
'They were delivered a week ago to a private airfield hangar in El Cajon, about twelve miles from here.'
'You have the address?'
'Yeah. I tried to call; no telephone there.'
Graves frowned. He was more convinced than ever that Wright was playing with him, leading him on a chase, daring him to put the puzzle together.
Two high-pressure tanks of combustible plastic. Special steel fittings, including a T nozzle. Two steel hoses, flexible.
All that made a kind of sense. You had two tanks, and two hoses that joined in a T nozzle, so that the contents of the two tanks - liquid or gas, presumably - would come together at the T nozzle and then be expelled as a mixture.
That was easy to visualize.
But what was the point? And what was the point of the skin-diving tanks, and the rubber strips, and the Geiger counter?
The elevator stopped at the sixth floor. They both got out and walked to Drew's room.
'Where is Wright now?'
'I just checked with 702. He's in that apartment on Alameda.'
'The one he rented last week?'
'Right.'
The newly rented apartment was also a puzzle. Wright had apparently leased it on the spur of the moment. It seemed to coincide with nothing, except with the fact that one girl had been seen leaving his old apartment near the Cortez hotel three mornings in a row. This was unusual enough to suggest that Wright was going to set her up as his mistress.
'702 talked to the doorman. Wright told the doorman they'd be moving furniture into the apartment later in the day.'
'Hmmm.' That seemed totally unreasonable to Graves. Wright wouldn't spend time supervising domestic arrangements for a girl. It was beneath him.
Stopping in the hallway, Lewis said, 'Does all this make sense to you?'
'No,' Graves said. 'Not yet. But I expect to get some help.' Without knocking he opened the door and entered Drew's room.
Timothy Drew sat in an overstuffed chair and said, 'I want to see my lawyer.' His voice was calm. The fact of his arrest, and the presence of two federal marshals standing by the doors with their hands resting on the butts of their revolvers, did not seem to disturb him at all.
Graves' eyes swept