Binary - Michael Crichton [31]
'We'll wait,' he said. The mattresses were taken into the hangar, and the limousine was driven inside. The doors were closed. 'Time?'
'Twelve forty-one,' Lewis said.
A minute passed, and then something remarkable happened. The men came out of the hangar and walked over to the aeroplane. They stood alongside it, ostensibly checking it over but actually doing nothing at all; just waiting.
Wright was not among them.
'I don't get it,' Graves said. 'Where's Wright?'
'He must still be inside.'
Their sedan was parked more than 200 yards from the hangar. But the wind was blowing in their direction, and they heard a faint mechanical sound. A kind of thumping or chugging.
Lewis. opened the trunk and took out a directional microphone. It looked like a miniature radar antenna - a dish two feet in diameter, with a central barrel protruding. He put on earphones and tuned in the microphone.
'What are you getting?'
Lewis shifted the direction of the mike slightly. It was quite sensitive, but had to be aimed precisely.
'Wind.'
'Can you get that noi-'
'Here.'
He gave Graves the earphones. Graves listened. With the microphone aimed directly, the mechanical sound was clear. It consisted of a low hum with an intermittent pulsing thump.
'Sounds like a pump to me,' he said. He listened to the sound for several seconds more. 'What do you make of it?'
'A pump,' Lewis said, glancing at his watch. 'It's been going five minutes now.'
Graves turned from the hangar to the aeroplane and the men who were clustered around it. They had broken up into small groups of two and three, talking quietly, occasionally glancing at the hangar. George, the chauffeur, was among them. Several of the workmen asked George questions. George kept shaking his head.
Graves set down his binoculars. Why would you clear everybody out of the hangar? He could think of only one reason: Wright didn't want them to see what was going on. But as he thought about it, he saw a second reason: that Wright was engaged in something very dangerous and wanted the others a safe distance away.
Dangerous how? Radiation? Explosives? What?
'Ten minutes now,' Lewis said.
Graves scratched his head. He lit a cigarette and stared at the others by the aeroplane. It didn't make sense, he thought. Whatever Wright intended, it didn't make sense. If he didn't want the workmen around, he could easily have timed it so that they would be out to lunch. Instead he'd aroused their curiosity. They'd talk about this episode for days, maybe weeks afterwards.
Apparently Wright didn't care about that. Why not? And then as he watched, the workmen began walking back to the hangar. He had seen no signal, but they all moved at once.
Lewis took off the earphones. 'Fifteen minutes,' he said. 'The pump's stopped.'
Graves checked his watch. It was a few minutes before 1 PM. He was beginning to feel tired. It had been a long day already, starting with the call from Phelps at 4 Am and the trip to Los Angeles.
He tit another cigarette and watched the hangar. And then things began to happen very fast. The limousine drove out and off towards the entrance to the airfield. And a second vehicle emerged from the hangar.
A moving van. It followed the limousine. Graves got onto the intercom. '702, this is 701. You got them?'
'Got them, 701.'
'Stay with them. If they split up, follow the limousine; forget the van.'
'Right, 701. Are you with us?'
'No,' Graves said. 'We're staying here.' He clicked off the microphone and said to Lewis, 'I want to look inside that hangar.'
HOUR 4
EL CAJON
1 PM PDT
It took them three minutes to get to the hangar, and by that time it was deserted except for an elderly man who was cleaning up with a long broom. There were one or two workmen out by the jet, but they paid no attention as Graves