Binary: A Novel

by Michael Crichton

  “Did they surprise you?”

  “In a way.” He didn’t bother to explain.

  Graves felt the same way about his tests that he did whenever somebody sent him a photograph of himself. The question in his mind was, Is that the way you see me? Really? It was surprising. There was nothing new, no great discovery—but the quality, the emphasis, could be unsettling.

  It was no news to him that he was competitive. He’d spent enough late nights playing poker with killers—and Washington had plenty of lethal poker players, blood players who got into nothing but twenty-dollar-ante games—to know that he was fiercely competitive. He liked to win and he hated to lose. That was nothing new.

  The idea of his impulsiveness was not new, either. He had recognized it in himself. But the notion that this impulsiveness could be destructive—could get in his way—that was new. He had never considered it before.

  There was a second problem relating to the psychological tests: How had he managed to get them in the first place? Burnett had been reluctant until Graves mentioned something about Wright. Then Burnett couldn’t move fast enough.

  Why?

  The car radio buzzed. Lewis answered it. “701 here.”

  “701, this is Central. Do you have Mr. Graves there?”

  “He’s with me,” Lewis said, and handed the mike to Graves.

  “Graves speaking.”

  “We have a Washington call for you. Hold on please.”

  There was a clicking, an electronic tone, and more clicking.

  “Listen, you son of a bitch, I want your information.” Graves recognized the voice as Morrison at Defense.

  “What information?” He glanced at Lewis and lit a cigarette.

  “Look, god damn it, we had a shipment stolen last night.”

  “Did you.” Graves kept his voice calm, but his heart was thumping wildly.

  “Yes we did, and now somebody’s got themselves a half-ton of ZV gas in binary aerosol cylinders, and we want to know who.”

  “You certainly ought to be concerned,” Graves said, “but this is an open line.”

  “Screw the open—”

  “You say it was ZV gas?” Graves said.

  “You’re fucking right.”

  “Isn’t that nerve gas?”

  “You get your—”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Graves said. “You fill out requisition form KL-915 and send it over to us, and maybe we can get you the information by the end of the week.”

  When he hung up, he began to feel better. The pieces were beginning to fall together. Wright was no longer so far ahead.

  “Was he serious?” Lewis asked.

  “Completely,” Graves said.

  “Half a ton of nerve gas was stolen?”

  “Right,” Graves said.

  The radio buzzed again. Graves answered it.

  “Where are you? This is Phelps.”

  “I know who it is. I’m going west on Route Five from El Cajon.”

  “Do you have Wright with you?”

  “No.”

  “You’ve made a terrible mistake,” Phelps said. “Binary 75 slash 76 is—”

  “I know what it is,” Graves said.

  “I doubt that,” Phelps said. “I’m at the Westgate Plaza Hotel, Room 1012. How fast can you get here?”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Be here in ten,” Phelps said. “I have somebody you better meet.”

  “Is it Wright?” Graves asked.

  But Phelps had already hung up.

  The Westgate Plaza was one of the three greatest hotels in the world, if you believed Esquire magazine. If you didn’t, it was a pretentious modern dump decorated with a lot of phony statuary in the lobby and downstairs lounge. Walking past statues of winged Mercury and Diana hunting, Graves took the elevator to Room 1012.

  Phelps answered the door and said, “The poker game is over. I just ordered them to arrest Wright.”

  Graves said, “May I come in?” He was not really concerned. He knew the limousine and the furniture van were still en route back to the city. There was time to countermand the order.

  “Come in,” Phelps said. As Graves entered, he said, “This is Dr. Nordmann from UCSD.”

  Graves had never seen Nordmann before, though he knew who he was. He was a biologist on the faculty of the University of California at San Diego, and he was on the President’s Advisory Council on something or other. And he was a strongly vocal opponent of chemical and biological weapons. He had been influential in getting Nixon to disavow biologicals in November 1970. He was reportedly still pushing for a similar disavowal on chemicals.

  Nordmann was a tall and ungainly man with a sour expression. Graves wondered if it was permanent, or special for the occasion. Nordmann shook hands and said with some distaste, “Are you in State Intelligence too?”

  “Yes,” Graves said. “But we’re not all the same.”

  Phelps gave him a sharp look.

  “Well, I’m not very clear on the reason for this briefing,” Nordmann said. “But I brought the film.”

  “Good,” Phelps said. “There’s a projector in the bedroom.”

  As they went into the bedroom, they passed the TV. Graves paused to watch: it was a demonstration in the Convention hall—a “spontaneous” demonstration for the President, who stood on the podium smiling, waving his arms, giving the V sign with both hands.

  “There’s very little time,” Phelps said. Graves went into the bedroom.

  Drapes and shades had been drawn and it was quite dark. Graves sat on the bed. Phelps took a chair. Nordmann stood in front of the small projection screen, which was mounted above the bedroom dresser. He said to Phelps, “Where should I begin?”

  “Just give us necessary background for the film.”

  Nordmann nodded, looking sourer than ever. Distantly in the background they could hear the chanting of the delegates on the living room TV: “We want the President; we want the President …”

  “You will be seeing,” Nordmann said, “the final product of more than half a century of research in chemical warfare. The official date for the start of chemical war is April 22, 1915, when the Germans launched an attack with chlorine gas. It was a primitive business—you sat in your trench, opened a canister of gas, and hoped the wind would blow it toward the enemy. If it didn’t, you were in trouble.

  “A lot of improvements—if that’s the word—came in the course of the First World War. Gas bombs, and better agents. Mustard gas, nitrogen mustard, and lewisite. All oily liquids that burn and blister your skin. They could kill you, too, but not very efficiently.”

  Nordmann paused. “Second World War: a new advance, again from the Germans. Remember, the Germans were the best chemists in the world for most of the twentieth century. In 1936 they synthesized a complex organophosphorous ester called tabun. It was a nerve gas. It would kill anybody who breathed enough of it. All later developments—sarin, soman, GB, VX, and ZV—are just refinements within this basic class of chemical compounds.

  “It’s called nerve gas,” Nordmann said, “because it kills by interfering with transmission of nerve impulses. Nerves work electrically, but the impulses jump from nerve cell to nerve cell—across gaps called synapses—by chemical means. Nerve gases such as tabun, sarin, and ZV interfere with that jumping process. The result is difficulty in breathing, respiratory paralysis, and death. Now let’s talk about potency.”

  Graves lit a cigarette and glanced at Phelps. Phelps was smiling, nodding his head as Nordmann talked. Faintly from the TV they heard: “He’s our man, he’s our man, he’s our man …” And loud cheers.

  “Tabun and sarin,” Nordmann said, “or the American gas GB, must be inhaled to kill. Therefore gas masks provide an adequate defense. These gases are also relatively weak. They’re not produced any more. But there is another family of gases, like VX, which can kill by absorption through the skin as well as by inhalation. The smallest fraction of an ounce is lethal. Am I clear?”
/>   “You’re clear,” Graves said.

  “VX is terribly powerful,” Nordmann said. “The lethal dose is estimated to be between two and ten milligrams, or a few thousandths of an ounce. But powerful as that is, it’s nothing compared to ZV. ZV, like VX, is an oil. It’s sticky, it clings to things, it hangs around the environment. But a tenth of a milligram is a lethal dose. In other words, it’s about a hundred times as powerful as VX. We’re now talking about extraordinary potency.”

  Phelps was still smiling, still nodding. Graves felt very cold.

  “It is so potent that it has never been manufactured as a single gas. Instead it’s a binary—that is, it’s produced as two separate gases, each harmless by itself. But when they mix, they’re deadly. The gases are designated Binary 75 and Binary 76 respectively. They’re generally stored in yellow and black tanks. The film you are going to see is a French army training film showing the effects of ZV on a condemned prisoner.”

  Phelps got up and turned on the projector.

  On the screen they saw a man in denim clothing standing in an enclosed room. The man was looking around nervously.

  “This subject,” Nordmann said, “is going to be exposed to the LD500 dose of the gas, that is, five tenths of a milligram. It is a fully lethal dose.”

  Faintly from the other room they heard, “My fellow Americans, it is with great pleasure that I—”

  At the bottom of the screen appeared the words GAS 75 INTRODUCED. The prisoner did not react. Moments later: GAS 76 INTRODUCED. The prisoner responded instantly. He placed his hand on his chest, coughed, and wiped his nose.

  “—join you in this great tradition, this reaffirmation of the democratic process—”

  On the screen: EARLY STAGES—RUNNING NOSE, CHEST TIGHTNESS, DIMNESS OF VISION

  “—and I must urge you to follow the vision of our great land, to seek the promise, to fulfill the expectations. Let me make one thing perfectly clear—”

  “Will somebody shut that door?” Graves said.

  On the screen the prisoner appeared in close-up. His nose was running profusely; the liquid dripped down to his shirt. His eyes were hard black dots.

  PINPOINT PUPILS

  A full-body shot showed the man bent over in evident pain.

  MIDDLE STAGES—CRAMPS AND NAUSEA

  The prisoner vomited explosively, and the caption stated unnecessarily, VOMITING.

  Very faint now from the living room they heard the sound of prolonged applause.

  On the screen the prisoner was clearly confused and in great pain. A dark stain appeared on his trousers.

  INVOLUNTARY URINATION

  The man staggered and leaned against the wall. His legs and arms twitched and jerked spastically.

  STAGGERING

  The prisoner looked around briefly, but his face was contorted in agony. He lost his balance and fell, twitching and jerking, to the floor. The camera panned down to follow him. From the other room the applause continued.

  DROWSINESS

  The man was not really awake. He lifted his head from the floor in short jerks and finally flopped down, not moving.

  COMA

  The camera remained on the man. His chest was still moving slightly. Then it stopped.

  CESSATION OF BREATHING

  A moment later.

  DEATH

  The screen faded to dark. And the last letters appeared. TIME FROM INTRODUCTION OF BINARY GAS TO DEATH: 1.7 MINUTES.

  The film ran out. The screen was white. Phelps turned the room lights back on.

  “Jesus Christ,” Graves said. He lit a cigarette and noticed that his hands were shaking.

  “As I said, that man received five times the minimum lethal dose,” Nordmann said quietly. “Had he gotten less, he would still have died—more slowly.”

  “How much more slowly?”

  “From tests on animals, it may take as long as an hour or two.”

  “That same progression?”

  “The very same.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Graves said again.

  He walked back into the living room, which seemed glaringly bright. Through the windows he could look out over the downtown area of the city. He stood with his back to the television and listened to the familiar voice saying, “My fellow Americans, and my fellow Republicans, we have come to a momentous time for our nation. We face great problems, and we face great challenges. We must act now to—”

  The set abruptly clicked off. Graves turned and saw that Phelps had done it. “I hope you understand now,” Phelps said. “Wright has half a ton of that gas. In the San Diego area there are a million people. Plus some very distinguished visitors. We can’t afford cat-and-mouse games any longer.”

  “I agree,” Graves said, staring out at the street below. There were no trees. He wondered why they hadn’t put any trees in downtown San Diego. Trees made a difference.

  Behind him Phelps picked up the telephone and dialed a number. He said, “Phelps here. I want 702.” There was a pause.

  Nordmann came over to stand by Graves and look down at the street. “You know,” he said, “I told the Army four years ago if they kept transporting this crap all around, it was only a matter of time before somebody—”

  “You have?” Phelps said into the phone. His voice was excited. “Where?”

  Graves turned. Phelps was nodding, his head bobbing up and down like a mechanical bird.

  “Yes, yes … yes … good work. We’ll be there in five minutes.” He hung up and turned to Graves. “702 followed the limousine back to Wright’s old apartment house. The van split off and went somewhere else, but the limo went back to Avenue B.”

  “And?”

  “They arrested John Wright as he stepped from his car.”

  Graves nodded and tried to feel the same excitement that Phelps so clearly showed. But he still had a nagging sense of defeat, as if he had cheated at the game—or had quit too early.

  “Come on,” Phelps said. “You can introduce him to me.”

  At the apartment house two men were standing up facing the wall, guarded by the men from car 702. Phelps and Graves hurried over.

  One of the men was George, the chauffeur. He was muttering something under his breath. Wright was beside him, neatly dressed in his English-cut suit.

  Graves said, “You can let them turn around now.” He glanced at Phelps, who had a look of total triumph on his face.

  George turned and looked at Graves uncomprehendingly. Then Wright turned, and it was Graves who stared.

  “This isn’t John Wright,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Phelps demanded.

  “I’ve never seen this man before,” Graves said. “He isn’t Wright.”

  “We checked the wallet,” one of the 702 men said. “He has his identification—”

  “I don’t give a damn about identification,” Graves said. “This man isn’t John Wright.”

  The man in the English suit smirked slightly.

  “Who the hell is he?” Phelps said.

  “That,” Graves said, “is the least important question we have to answer.”

  And he ran for his car.

  San Diego: 2 p.m. PDT

  Hour 3

  “TAKE IT EASY,” Phelps said, grabbing the door handle. Graves took the turn from B onto Third very fast, tires squealing. “For Christ’s sake.”

  “You said it yourself,” Graves said. “A million people.”

  “But we have him, we know the plot, we know how it’s going together—”

  “We may not be able to stop it,” Graves said.

  “Not stop it? What are you talking about?”

  Graves raced down Third, weaving among the traffic. He ran the light at Laurel. Phelps made a gurgling noise.

  “Wright has been ahead of us all along,” Graves said. “He must have switched clothes in the airfield hangar and sent somebody else back to San Diego in the limousine. He himself went with the furniture van.”

  “Well, if you kno
w where he is now—”

  “I know where he is,” Graves said. “But it may be too late to stop him.”

  “How can it be too late?” Phelps said.

  Graves didn’t answer. With a squeal of tires he continued uptown, then turned down the wrong way on Alameda Street. Cars honked at him; he pulled over to the curb on the wrong side, facing the wrong way, in front of a fire hydrant.

  Phelps didn’t complain. He didn’t have time. Graves was already out of the car and running for the building opposite Wright’s new apartment house. In front of Wright’s building was the furniture van.

  All the men in the room were clustered around the cameras and binoculars at the window. Graves burst in and said, “Is Wright there?”

  “I don’t know,” one of the men said. “We heard he was arrested, but somebody in there sure looks like—”

  “Let me see.”

  Graves bent over a pair of binoculars. It took only a moment to confirm his worst fears. Wright was there, donning another rubber wet suit. He was pulling rubber loops onto his ankles, his wrists, his waist, and his neck. Of course! Those strips—six strips—protected the seams of his suit from gas. As he watched, Wright put on a full face mask and twisted the valve on the small yellow air tank. The other men in the room cleared out.

  “What’s he doing?” Phelps said, watching through another pair of binoculars.

  Graves looked around Wright’s room. The four sawhorses were still in position. Across them lay two cylinders, each about eight feet long. One was painted black, the other yellow. There were stenciled letters on their sides. As he watched, Wright began connecting hoses from each of the tanks to a central T valve, which joined the hoses into a common outlet. Then he turned his attention to other equipment in the room.

  “Well, that’s it.”

  Phelps said, “Let’s go get him.”

  “You’re joking,” Graves said.

  “Not at all,” Phelps said. “We know he’s there, we’ve seen him connect up the hoses so that he can—”

  Phelps broke off and stared at Graves.

  “Exactly,” Graves said.

  “But this is terrible!”

  “It’s not terrible, it’s just a fact,” Graves said. “There’s no way we can break into that room fast enough to get control before he turns on the valves and releases the gas.”