Binary - Michael Crichton [49]
'Damn,' Nordmann said. 'Everybody out!'
Graves laughed and shook his head. Everybody left the room quickly. Phelps was outside in the corridor, talking with policemen who were removing the two dead bodies. 'What is it now?' Phelps asked.
'A second punch,' Nordmann said. 'Radiation in that room.'
Phelps smiled in total triumph. 'We're prepared for that,' he said. He picked up a walkie-talkie. 'We have a radiation hazard on the nineteenth floor,' he said. 'Get the shielding up here.'
Graves and Nordmann exchanged glances. 'Oh,' Phelps said, 'I'm not a complete fool.'
'Nobody ever suggested you were a complete fool,' Nordmann said.
It took two minutes for the policeman to arrive. He entered the room with the lead cases, which were carried on small, rolling dollies. He also had a pair of long tongs. He emerged a moment later. 'All clear,' he said. 'Two bars of some isotope. Shielded now.'
Phelps smiled. 'As soon as we heard about the explosive,' he said, 'I checked truck hijackings. There were two today: one for the explosive and another for the isotope.'
'Good work,' Graves said. He said it to Nordmann.
Phelps looked pained.
Graves and Nordmann went back into the room. Nordmann said, 'Satisfied now?'
'Almost.'
Nordmann laughed. 'You're a hard man to satisfy.'
'It's not me,' Graves said. 'It's him.'
Nordmann looked around the room. 'Well,' he said, 'I don't know what you expect to find here...'
'Neither do L'
'You seem so certain.'
'I'm not certain. I'm just worried.'
Nordmann raised an eyebrow. 'A triple whammy?'
'Maybe.'
'I think you're giving him too much credit.'
'Maybe.'
Graves continued to prowl around the room.
'Well,' Nordmann said, 'in the meantime I think we'd better move these tanks apart. Just in case. I'll be happier when they're separated by a distance of several miles.'
'Okay,' Graves said. He was hardly paying attention, looking at the equipment in the room. 'You know,' he said, 'I can't get over the feeling that it's been too simple.'
'Too simple? It's been complicated as hell.' Nordmann put his arm over Graves' shoulder. 'I think you're tired,' he said gently.
Across the room Lewis said, 'It's five o'clock, gentlemen.' Everyone, including the cops, laughed. One or two of the men in the room clapped.
On the floor the timer wheel clicked once. There was a loud metallic snap.
The battery light blinked on. The twin solenoids clicked to the 'open' position. And nothing happened, because the solenoids had been disengaged from the tanks. 'Well,' Nordmann said, 'I can't imagine that there's anything else.' 'I guess not,' Graves said. He and Nordmann left the apartment and walked down the corridor towards the elevators.
HOUR 0
SAN DIEGO
5 PM PDT
At 5:02 Graves pressed the button for the elevator. The light didn't go on. He looked up at the floor numbers, one of which should have been lighted; they were all dark.
'That's funny,' he said. Nordmann frowned. 'Maybe they went on the blink.' 'Why?' Graves asked. 'Maybe when we cut the power to the apartment -' 'But they worked before.' 'Yes, that's true. They did.' 'Why should they break down now?'
At that moment a cop came up the stairs, panting heavily. 'Damned elevators are broken down,' he said. 'We checked the circuit breakers in the basement., There was a timer wired in to knock out the elevators exactly at five.'
'At five?' Graves asked. He looked at Nordmann. Nordmann shrugged. 'Probably just a little irritant he threw in.' 'An irritant? But that doesn't make sense.' 'It's plenty irritating to me,' Nordmann said. 'I don't want to walk down nineteen flights of stairs.'
'Of course,' Graves said. 'But why do it now?'
'I don't get you.'
'Well, if Wright wanted to make things difficult, he would have knocked out the elevators at four PM. And that would have made things very difficult for us. It might even have delayed us until the gas went off.'
'True.'
'But why wait until five? By then we've either beaten his system or we haven't.'
'Listen,' Nordmann said, 'I think you're tired. You've been worrying