The Zenith Angle - Bruce Sterling [117]
Odd digital muffling. A woman’s shrill voice emerged faintly, her words strained like spaghetti in a metal colander. “You cannot talk to a lady like that, Tony! You dare not say a thing like that to me—”
Van broke in. “Wimberley?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Never mind the subject’s personal life. Go use your thermal imaging on the electrical station. I want to see if he is routing any wind power through those big fiber optics tonight.”
Gonzales spoke up. He was calm and focused. “My limousine people are heading straight for that network center. I think we’re gonna have ourselves one big party.”
Van examined the big door to the observatory. It was stoutly padlocked. It was a simple brass padlock, but there wasn’t need for more security than that. This Facility was very isolated. And, after all, they were just astronomers.
Van set after the padlock with a digital pick from Hickok’s utility vest. This pick was new, and British. It was the size of a large fountain pen. It used fiber optics to probe the inside of the lock, then calculated the shape of the ridges on the key. When the computation was over, the butt of the pick slid out a nicely formed piece of stiff wire. It was awful what MI-5’s new e-gadgets could do to the security inside conventional mechanical locks. Van really hoped it would be a good long time before normal thieves caught on to this.
Van carefully scraped the lock open. When his hands stopped trembling, he enjoyed more oxygen and had a gulp of Gatorade from Hickok’s canteen. It was windy and freezing up here. He put on his gloves as well as his black hat.
Wimberley reported in. “Those generators sure give off a lot of heat! How much power is in those windmills?”
“Half a megawatt each,” said Van. Wind power was intermittent—sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. That made wind energy particularly easy to steal. Who would notice if you shaved off some electrical power in a big storm passing through the western U.S.?
“Four people left the chauffeur behind in the limo,” reported Gonzales. Gonzales was puffing a little after hefting his ninety-five pounds of rucksack cybergear uphill, at a dead run, after a moving car. The effort didn’t seem to bother him much. “Subjects were two men, two women. I’m at the Network Center now, and I’m making nine people in the ground-floor room behind this wall. If this millimeter radar works.”
“It was working okay when I left Washington,” Van told him.
“Then it needs improvement,” said Gonzales. “The limo has Colorado license plates. It’s registered to Pinecrest Ranch.”
That was quick, thought Van. And so far, it had been really quiet. Maybe they would actually get this operation done on time.
Van pulled hard at the observatory door. The weather-stripping popped open with a hermetic smack. Van stepped inside the observatory’s vault. The place was empty. It was delightfully warm.
“Real toasty in here,” said Hickok. He unbuckled his helmet.
The telescope—that diva of the skies—looked pretty much like she had last time Van had seen her. There had been some additions on the ground, though. A new set of a dozen stacking, folded chairs. Coffee mugs and a big coffee decanter. A new, large designer desk—a multishelfed thing with power strips, big enough to call a console. And, standing near the door, a handsome little Japanese telescope. The little scope was some top-end toy for a rich stargazer hobbyist, sitting on a sturdy tripod.
Van walked to the big desk. It held a scattering of CDs and technical documents. He looked under it and behind it. A set of travel bags had been stowed under there.
A black fabric rifle case. The hunting sure was great around here.
Hickok rounded the giant telescope in awe, his nozzled head tilted back. “Check this thing out!”
“I’ve seen it,” Van said.
Hickok pulled off his helmet. “I meant with these infrared scanners.”
Van slipped Hickok’s too-tight Kevlar helmet over his own ears. The bridge of his glasses crunched up against his nose.
Then the diva showed him her true colors.
The Lady wore a bloody crown.
A glassy ring of pulsing light.