The Challenge

by Ridley Pearson

  Steel’s dad had explained that because of his position with the bureau he couldn’t allow his face to be seen by the press, or on TV, and that because of this, neither Steel nor he would receive any credit for what they’d done. There was, in fact, no mention of the rescue in the news. Grym, who was refusing to speak to the authorities or even his own attorneys, was being held somewhere, though Steel’s dad wouldn’t say where. It was all secrets within secrets, as far as Steel was concerned. He’d been disqualified from the science challenge. His mother was packing up at the hotel. It promised to be a long train ride home.

  “So, I don’t get it,” Steel said. “How do you two know each other?” There’d been something between Larson and his father from the moment they’d connected—which had been only minutes behind Steel’s rescue of the preacher’s wife. But only now did Steel realize it meant something.

  Larson looked over at Kyle Trapp, leaving the explanation to him.

  To the surprise of both Kaileigh and Steel, Marshal Larson wanted to explore Kaileigh’s theory about how the lottery might be rigged. And that was what had brought them all to this office building on a Sunday evening, only hours after the rescue, and less than three hours before the end-of-the-week drawing for the forty-five-million-dollar grand prize.

  As they rode the elevator, Kyle Trapp explained.

  “I was on your train, Steel. From Chicago to here.”

  Stunned, Steel couldn’t get out a word.

  “Marshal Larson discovered me,” his father continued. “I couldn’t reveal my assignment because technically I didn’t exist. A small plane I was flying to Chicago…But that’s another story for another time. I was on the train to keep an eye on you and your mother because we—the FBI—had learned that Aaron Grym was believed to be taking that train. Marshal Larson was working with the same intelligence.”

  “But Mom—” Steel said, as if he hadn’t heard any of this. He wanted to protect his mother, and his father played along.

  “I couldn’t tell her. Or you. Wanted to, but couldn’t. I didn’t know about you and the briefcase, or I’d have made you get off the train. Marshal Larson and I…if we’d both been able to tell each other our half of the story…But it didn’t work out that way. And that led me to the challenge. We got word that Grym had lost the briefcase. The rest you know.”

  Steel wasn’t sure what to say. Part of him felt angry, the other part relief. It had worked out okay. Grym had been caught and was in jail. So was Natalie Shufman, though his father had told him she was likely to be set free for trying to help Steel.

  “You and Kaileigh—” his father said, his eyes filled with appreciation and thanks. He was cut off by the elevator doors opening.

  They were met on the eleventh floor by an officious-looking bald man with pale skin and bad breath. He led them into a bland office that had something to do with the District of Columbia’s local government, and found chairs for everyone but Larson, who remained standing.

  Mr. Cunningham was his name. He listened intently to Larson’s explanation for the meeting, and then somewhat distractedly to Kaileigh’s nervously energetic description of her science project.

  “And your theory would be all well and good, young lady,” Mr. Cunningham said, “except that the Ping-Pong balls we use are all carefully weighed and tested every Friday before closing. We then lock them in a vault until the drawing.”

  “But they would test okay,” she said. “That’s the thing…That’s what they would have had to work out. They aren’t going to substitute four or five balls, they’re going to swap out every single one of them. And when you weigh them, they’re all going to weigh the same, so they’re going to pass your test.”

  “I can’t unlock that vault,” Mr. Cunningham said, “even for the Marshals Service, or the FBI. It would take a court order to open that vault, and I should inform you that the vault itself is on a time lock. From four p.m. Friday, when we last test the balls, to six forty-five p.m. Sunday—fifteen minutes before the weekly drawing—that safe can’t be opened even if we wanted to. And that’s for exactly this reason.” He ran a hand across his bald head and looked around his desktop as if expecting a cup of coffee to appear. Or maybe something stronger. “The time lock eliminates any opportunity for sabotage over the weekend. Believe me, we know how important a fair and just lottery is to the credibility of the system. We do everything in our power to see it is kept that way.”

  Steel felt a need to speak up. “But what if someone, on Friday, switched out the entire group of balls before they were tested? How would you ever know?”

  This seemed to perplex Mr. Cunningham. He hummed and coughed and said, “I find that highly unlikely.”

  “But not impossible,” Steel’s dad said.

  Larson said, “We believe this jackpot may end up in the hands of terrorists, Mr. Cunningham. We need that safe opened now. This is a matter of national security.”

  “First, I couldn’t open the safe now, even if I wanted to. As I just told you, it’s on a time lock. Second, you will need a court order, perhaps several court orders to get any closer than fifty feet from those Ping-Pong balls. They are never handled, touched, or dealt with in any way prior to the drawing. Even the oil from your finger could give weight to one more than another. We’re quite aware of all the pitfalls and opportunities for sabotage. This is a scientific process, sir, and we approach it scientifically. I’m sorry. But in one hour—at six forty-five,” he said, checking the wall clock, “those Ping-Pong balls are going directly from the safe to the hopper—and that’s all there is to it.”

  They waited as a group in the hallway while Larson tried desperately to raise the necessary judges to advance a court order and seize the lottery balls for examination. His description of a thirteen-year-old girl’s science project made one judge laugh and hang up, believing it to be a prank. The hands of the clock continued their march around the numbers, and it became clear to all that they were doomed to failure.

  At 6:43, Steel’s photographic memory came to their aid. “Security!” he said, breaking nearly five minutes of silence when Larson’s last attempt at a warrant had failed. He won everyone’s attention.

  “There are two ways to go with this,” he said. “First, if Mr. Cunningham won’t let us touch the Ping-Pong balls, what if we were to X-ray the case? We could see through the balls—to see if they’re chipped out the way Kaileigh says they’d have to be—without ever touching them. Without ever opening the box.”

  “I like that!” Larson said.

  “Good thinking,” his father said.

  “He’ll never let us do it,” Kaileigh said. “There’s a procedure they follow to keep things honest. This won’t fit in that procedure. Besides, there are inks that can be made to carry atomic weight by exposing them to radiation. Did you know that? That would give weight to the Ping-Pong balls, if something like that was being used. He’s never going to allow it.”

  “I agree,” said Steel, surprising them all. “Which is what brings me to my second option.” He waited until he had the three of them looking at him and listening. He lowered his voice. “Kaileigh’s project is very simple in execution. A phone chip receives a call. The chip warms, the interior gas expands, and the balloon rises. But a phone signal is required to wake up the chip—to warm the chip.”

  “Cell phones!” Kaileigh said.

  “Exactly,” Steel said. “Someone has to instigate five calls—one for each ball they want to rise—or the winning number won’t match.”

  “And isn’t there a delay in some of the TV broadcasts?” Kaileigh said. “It can’t be someone watching from home.”

  “Someone in the room,” Larson said.

  “The drawing is done before a live audience,” Steel’s dad said. “Thirty or forty people. That’s supposed to make it look more honest.”

  Steel said, “Everyone with a cell phone will have to pass it through security. They’ll be X-rayed downstairs.”

  “Doors open at six
forty-five,” Steel’s dad said.

  “It’s televised live. That means cameras. We can watch the people in the audience…” But Larson was already out of his chair.

  It was as if he and Steel’s dad could communicate without speaking.

  Mr. Trapp said, “I’ll take the security X-ray. I’ll need Steel—for his memory. We will identify every person in the audience who has a cell phone. You take Kaileigh. Get a camera on the audience. Ten minutes!” he said. “We’ve got ten minutes!”

  76 .

  Steel and his dad stood on the far side of the security checkpoint’s X-ray monitor as the lottery audience was admitted into the building. Steel took in every face of every person who arrived with a cell phone. To his discouragement, that was twenty-six of the thirty people who showed up. He committed each face to memory, but knew he would be of little help when the time came.

  He whispered to his father, “Why don’t we just convince Mr. Cunningham to take everyone’s cell phones before the drawing?”

  “If we could convince Mr. Cunningham of anything, we would convince him of that. The problem is, Steel, some people just aren’t believers.”

  “The thing of it is,” Steel said, “the drawing happens fast, doesn’t it? They don’t wait around. Is it even possible for someone to dial a phone that quickly? Punch in all those numbers in time? I doubt it.”

  “The numbers would have to be preprogrammed into the phone. That’s not complicated. You can program most phones to speed dial from the keypad. One touch.”

  “And if that’s the case,” Steel said, “the person wouldn’t even need to take his phone out of his pocket. Which means we aren’t going to see that person even with our camera pointed at the audience.”

  “You’re saying we can’t do this?” his father asked.

  “We’re going about it the wrong way,” Steel said. He watched as the last of the audience members moved toward the elevators. He checked his father’s watch: 6:52. At 7:00 the drawing would start. Eight minutes.

  “We know several things,” Steel said to his father. “The chips in those Ping-Pong balls—if there are chips in there—were either purchased or stolen, probably in Chicago when they were figuring out how to adapt Kaileigh’s science project to rigging the lottery. But long-distance calls, even on cell phones, take a few seconds to get through. It’s unpredictable. What if the connection is weak or the system is busy? Besides that, the chips are inside the Ping-Pong balls, and have basically no antennas. How can these people be absolutely sure the calls will arrive quickly, and on time?”

  “I don’t have an answer to that,” his father said.

  “I’m just thinking aloud, Dad,” Steel said. “The point is, it’s too variable. The balls are picked quickly, one right after another. You can’t depend on cell phones to dial fast enough, or even to get through.”

  “So?”

  “So the way I’d do it is I’d have a radio transmitter—something in the room that would allow me to send out specific frequencies, one right after another. A high-frequency generator…” Steel felt a jolt of electricity pass through him. “They’ve modified her technology!” he said excitedly. “It’s not cell phone frequencies. They can’t control that in the room. It’s Bluetooth.”

  “What?” His father sounded confused.

  “Bluetooth, Dad. Wireless communication. Basically every cell phone has it these days. But it’s only the PDAs that are going to let you mess with what frequencies you want.”

  “How many PDAs came through security, Steel?”

  Steel squinted his eyes shut. “Two. A BlackBerry and a Motorola Q. The Q is Windows Mobile. It could be modified to do this—I know it could. The BlackBerry’s more limited.”

  “Do you have a face to go with the Q? Did you get a face?” his father asked anxiously.

  Steel squinted again. He saw the face: a normal-looking man with dark hair and glasses. “I’ve got it,” he said.

  77.

  Mr. Trapp called up to Larson while he and Steel rode the elevator.

  His watch read 6:56 p.m.

  “Is that accurate?” Steel asked.

  “A minute slow, a minute fast. I have no idea.”

  They were met in the hall by Larson and Kaileigh, and together the four entered the studio, where across the way they could see Mr. Cunningham flanked by two uniformed police officers. He held a box in his hand.

  “Two minutes!” a stage manager shouted out. “Audience: quiet, please!”

  The stage manager waved Cunningham onto the stage. He opened the box and poured the Ping-Pong balls into the plastic container. He shut the container’s lid, someone threw a switch, and the balls started jumping around in the forced air inside the box.

  “Steel?” his father asked.

  “I don’t see him,” Steel answered. Face by face he’d gone through the small crowd. They sat in folding chairs on risers that looked down on the small stage where a man and a woman, both dressed in formal wear, awaited their cues to start the drawing. “He’s not here.”

  “He has to be here,” Larson mumbled. “What’s the number again?” he asked Kaileigh. “The winning number?”

  She recited it for him. He scribbled it down and crossed the stage to Cunningham. “This is the number that’s going to win,” Larson told him. “And when it does, I would hope you’d have a question or two about how we knew that in advance.”

  Cunningham looked dazed.

  “ONE MINUTE!” a voice shouted.

  “Come on, Steel,” his father said, clearly frustrated.

  “He’s not in the audience,” Steel said, still scanning the faces.

  “Maybe you just don’t remember right,” said his father.

  It was the first—and only—time his father had challenged his memory skills.

  “He’s not in the crowd, Dad,” Steel said bluntly.

  “Closed circuit,” Kaileigh said. She pointed at the monitor they were watching. “Closed-circuit TV. It’s not broadcast; it’s real time. There’s no delay. He doesn’t have to be in the audience. He just has to have a view of one of these monitors.”

  “But they’re everywhere,” Mr. Trapp said.

  It was true—there were a half dozen TV monitors spread around the studio, and twice that number of places someone could hide—behind a curtain, a prop—and not be seen.

  “Spread out,” his father said.

  “TEN SECONDS!” The same loud voice.

  The four of them fanned out, walking behind the cameras, but turning to try to take in all the locations of the TV monitors. Cunningham waved at them to stay quiet for the sake of the broadcast.

  “FIVE, FOUR, THREE…”

  A booming voice. “Good evening! And welcome to the Sunday night lottery!”

  Steel worked past the cameras, to the right of the audience. He caught a glow of light coming from behind a stage curtain directly across from him. The set was basically dark except for that blue glow at waist height in the middle of a curtain. A PDA? he wondered.

  “And the first number is…”

  Steel mouthed the number as the announcer said it:

  “Seven!”

  The audience applauded. Now Steel had no doubt. It was rigged: Kaileigh had been right.

  “Tonight’s second number is…two.”

  Steel ducked under the camera’s sight line, crossing the set. To his right, Cunningham stared dumbfoundedly down at the piece of paper Larson had handed him. The man looked up, confused, and nearing a state of panic.

  There! He caught another glimpse of dull blue light. The curtain rippled: there was a man back there. Steel tackled the hanging curtain the way he’d been taught in football: low and hard, driving his shoulder forward, head down.

  “TONIGHT’S THIRD NUMBER…”

  He hit something hard and muscular. And strong. He went down, as did the man. The curtain tore and fell down onto them. He heard the clackety-clack of something scooting across the floor.

  His dad and Larson
were alongside him in seconds, untangling the curtain and pinning the man under it. Kaileigh scurried across and picked up the PDA—a Motorola Q cell phone. She fumbled with it and pulled out its battery. The device went dark.

  “Tonight’s fifth number…” Steel had missed the calling out of the fourth. “…is eight.”

  Steel, being helped to his feet by his dad, met eyes with Kaileigh. This fifth number was incorrect. Four was the number in the code. They’d done it—the winning number had not been picked.

  The two cops raced over and helped out. The man was handcuffed and brought to his feet. Behind a roar of audience applause, the quick drawing went off the air.

  Cunningham marched over to Larson and said, “You nearly wrecked the drawing, Marshal. Your superiors will be hearing from the proper authorities. And as for this so-called winning number: you weren’t even right!” He tore up the piece of paper, and confetti fell to the ground.

  Kaileigh and Steel could no longer contain themselves. They broke out laughing.

  78.

  MONDAY, JUNE 2

  They met the next day in the waiting area of Union Station, which seemed only fitting to Steel since he’d met Kaileigh on the train in the first place. She was in the care of Miss Kay, who looked more pleasant up close, though not without a certain old-school posture and pursing of the lips. They were booked on the same train back to Chicago. Once again Steel’s dad was not going to make the trip. He had to stay behind to write reports and give statements about all that had happened.

  The man caught at the lottery drawing was found with the winning ticket in his wallet—the ticket that Larson and Hampton had traced to its sale at a convenience store. A ticket that had nearly been worth forty-five million dollars. Every Ping-Pong ball in the lottery was found to have a phone chip inside, and investigations were underway to uncover who had switched out the rigged Ping-Pong balls for the originals. No connection could be made between the man arrested and Aaron Grym, also under arrest. The man at the lottery was charged with attempted robbery and conspiracy to defraud the federal government, but he was unlikely to spend more than a few years in prison.