Binary: A Novel

by Michael Crichton

  “If we go in shooting—”

  “You risk puncturing the tanks.”

  “Well we can’t just sit here and watch,” Phelps said.

  Graves lit a cigarette. “At the moment there isn’t much else we can do.”

  Phelps set down his binoculars. His face was twisted; the earlier look of triumph was completely gone. “Do you have another cigarette?” he said.

  Graves gave him one and then went to the phone.

  “Morrison here.”

  “This is Graves. We’ve found your tanks.”

  “Listen, you better tell us—”

  “They’re on Alameda Street in San Diego.”

  “San Diego!”

  “I want you to get me some people from the Navy chemical corps. I don’t care where you find them or what you do to get them, just have them here in an hour. Make sure some of them have gas-protective clothing. And make sure at least one of them knows a hell of a lot about this binary gas.”

  Graves gave him the address and hung up. He glanced over at Phelps, who was sitting in a corner.

  “Has somebody notified the President?”

  “Who?”

  “The President of the United States,” Graves said.

  “I assume so.”

  “Let’s not assume,” Graves said. “Use the other phone.” And he pointed to a phone near Phelps.

  Graves started to dial another call.

  “I don’t know how to get him,” Phelps said, in a plaintive voice.

  “Use the prestige of your office,” Graves said, and turned away.

  “Dr. Nordmann’s office.”

  “This is Mr. Graves from the State Department. I want to speak to Dr. Nordmann.”

  “Dr. Nordmann had a luncheon conference and is not back yet.”

  “When do you expect him?”

  “Well, not for several hours. He has a faculty meeting at two thirty to discuss Ph.D. candidates, and—”

  “Find him,” Graves said, “and tell him to call me. Tell him it’s about Binary 75 slash 76. Here’s my number.” He gave it to the secretary.

  When he hung up, one of the men at the window said, “Look what he’s doing now.” Graves peered through the binoculars. He saw that Wright had removed his rubber suit and was now attaching wires to the floor of the room, to the ceiling, to the walls. He plugged the wires into a central metal box the size of a shoe box.

  “What the hell is that box?” Graves said.

  In a corner of the room, Phelps was saying, “Yes, that’s right … That’s what I’m telling you, yes … a half-ton of nerve gas … Of course it’s not a joke …”

  Graves saw Wright attach two small mechanical devices to the valves of the two tanks. Then he ran more wires back to the box. Finally he stacked a second metal unit on top of the original box and connected still more wires.

  Then Wright looked at his watch.

  “Well, somebody better get through to him,” Phelps was saying. “Yes, I’m sure it’s hard …”

  “What time is it?” Graves said.

  “Two forty.”

  “The gas is called ZV,” Phelps was saying. “An Army shipment was stolen in Utah during the early hours this morning. He’s probably already been informed … Well, god damn it, I don’t care if you don’t know anything about it. He does… Yes, it’s here …”

  One of the men at the window said, “He must be insane.”

  “Of course,” Graves said. “You’d have to be insane to wipe out a million people and one whole political party. But the fact is that we’ve really been lucky.”

  “Lucky?”

  “Just see that he gets the message,” Phelps said.

  “Sure,” Graves said. “Those Army shipments have been going on for years. They’re sitting ducks. Anybody with a little money, a little intelligence, and a screw loose somewhere could arrange for a steal. Look: Richard Speck knocked off eight nurses, but he was an incompetent. Charles Whitman was an expert rifleman, and on that basis could knock off seventeen people. John Wright is highly intelligent and very wealthy. He’s going to go for a million people and one American President. And thanks to the U.S. Army, he has a chance of succeeding.”

  “I don’t see how you can blame the Army.”

  “You don’t?” Graves asked. He watched the other apartment through the binoculars. His eyes felt the strain; his vision blurred intermittently, and he swore. Wright appeared to be fooling with the two metal boxes in the center of the floor. He had been adjusting them for a long time.

  Graves wasn’t sure what it all meant. It was a control or alarm system of some kind, though—that much was clear. And if it was a control system, it required power. Power. As Graves watched, he had an idea—one possible way to beat the system that Wright was so carefully setting up. A chance, a slim chance …

  “Do it,” he whispered, watching Wright. “Do it, do it …”

  “Do what?” Phelps asked. He was off the telephone now.

  Graves did not answer. Wright had finished with the boxes. He turned some dials, made some final adjustments. Then he took the main plug in his hand.

  “He’s going to do it,” Graves said.

  And he plugged it into the wall socket. Very plainly, very clearly, he plugged it into the wall.

  “He’s done it.”

  “Done what?” Phelps said, angry now.

  “He’s connected his device to the apartment electricity.”

  “So?”

  “That’s a mistake,” Graves said. “He should have used a battery unit.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we can turn off the electricity in that apartment,” Graves said. “Remotely.”

  “Oh,” Phelps said. And then he smiled. “That’s good thinking.”

  Graves said nothing. His mind raced forward in exhilarating high gear. For the first time all day, he felt that he was not only keeping abreast of Wright but actually moving a few steps ahead. It was a marvelous feeling.

  “Time?”

  “Two fifty-one.”

  And then, as he watched, Wright did something very peculiar. He placed a small white box alongside the two other metal boxes. And he closed the windows to the apartment. Then he taped the joints and seams of the windows shut.

  Then he left.

  “What the hell does all that mean?” somebody asked.

  “I don’t know,” Graves said. “But I know how we can find out.”

  San Diego: 3 p.m. PDT

  Hour 2

  WRIGHT EMERGED FROM THE apartment house lobby wearing a gray suit. He carried a raincoat over his shoulder. Graves was waiting for him, along with two federal marshals carrying drawn guns.

  Wright did not look surprised. He smiled and said, “Did your son like his gift, Mr. Graves?”

  Before Graves could reply, one of the marshals had spun Wright around, saying gruffly, “Up against the wall hands wide stand still and you won’t get hurt.”

  “Gentlemen,” Wright said in an offended voice. He looked at Graves over his shoulder. “I don’t think any of this is necessary. Mr. Graves knows what he is looking for.”

  “Yes, I do,” Graves said. He had already noticed the raincoat. Nobody carried a raincoat in San Diego in August. It was as out of place as a Bible in a whorehouse. “But I want to know what time it leaves.”

  “There’s only one possible flight today,” Wright said. “Connections in Miami. Leaves San Diego at four thirty.”

  The marshal took Wright’s shoulder wallet and handed it to Graves. The ticket was inside: San Diego to Los Angeles to Miami to Montego Bay, Jamaica. The ticket was made out to Mr. A. Johnson.

  “May I turn around now?” Wright asked.

  “Shut up,” the marshal said.

  “Let him turn around,” Graves said.

  Wright turned, rubbing the grit of the wall from his hands. He smiled at Graves. “Your move.” In the smile and the slight nod of the head, Graves got a chilling sense of the profound insanity of the ma
n. The eyes gave it away.

  Wright’s eyes were genuinely amused: a clever chess player teasing an inferior opponent. But this wasn’t chess, not really. Not with stakes like these.

  Death in 1.7 minutes, Graves thought, and he had a mental image of the prisoner twisting and writhing on the floor, liquid running from his nose in a continuous stream, vomit spewing out.

  Graves realized then that he had mistaken his opponent for too long. Wright was insane. He was capable of anything. It produced a churning sensation in Graves’s stomach.

  “Take him inside,” Graves said to the marshal. “I want to talk to him.”

  The three of them sat in the lobby of the apartment building. It was the kind of lobby that aspired to look like the grossest Miami Beach hotels; there were plastic palms in plastic pots and fake Louis XIV furniture which, apparently out of fear that someone would want to steal it, was bolted to the imitation marble floor. Under other circumstances the artificiality of the surroundings would have annoyed Graves, but now it somehow seemed appropriate. By implication the room suggested that falsehoods were acceptable, even preferable, to the truth.

  Graves sat in a chair facing Wright. The marshal sat diagonally facing both of them and the only exit. The marshal held his gun loosely in his lap.

  Wright looked at the marshal and the position of the gun. “That’s what it’s all about,” he said, and smiled again. That insane smile.

  “How do you mean?” Graves said.

  Wright sighed patiently. “Do I confuse you?”

  “Of course. That was your intention.”

  “I doubt that I’ve confused you much,” Wright said. “You’ve really done very well, Mr. Graves. May I call you John?”

  The condescending tone was unmistakable, but Graves merely shrugged. He glanced at his watch: 3:05.

  “Very well, indeed,” Wright continued. “For the last month or so, John, I’ve had the feeling that you were a worthy adversary. I can’t tell you how reassuring that was.”

  “Reassuring?”

  “I prefer to do things well,” he said. He took a slim cigar from a gunmetal case and lit it. “I mean elegantly, with a certain finesse. In a situation like this, one needs a proper opponent. I was immensely reassured that my opponent was you, John.” Wright sighed. “Of course, I have another opponent as well,” he said. “One totally lacking in finesse, elegance, and grace. The sad thing is, he thinks he’s a statesman.”

  “You mean the President?”

  “I prefer to think of him,” Wright said, “as that man who rode the bench for so many years. Why did he ride the bench? Did you ever think of that? The answer is simple enough—because he wasn’t a good player. He was inept. He was incompetent. He was a bumbling fool.”

  “You feel strongly about him.”

  “I feel strongly about his policies.”

  “China?”

  “Ten years ago,” Wright said, “if I asked you the name of the American President most likely to institute wage and price controls, welfare reform, and diplomatic relations with Communist China, would you have ever thought of this man? It’s insane, what he’s doing.”

  “What about what you’re doing?”

  “Somebody has to stop him,” Wright said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “I wouldn’t call nerve gas a democratic method.” Graves stared at him. “What are those metal boxes in the center of the floor upstairs?”

  Wright smiled. “Enough politics, eh?” He puffed on his cigar, billowing light smoke. “Very well. Down to business.” A thought seemed to occur to him. “But if I tell you, how will you know it’s the truth?”

  “That’s my job.”

  “True, true. There are actually three boxes, as I’m sure you observed from your surveillance station across the street I had to get an extension cord in order to place the boxes in clear view of the window.”

  “Very thoughtful.”

  “I felt you’d appreciate it,” Wright said. “The first box is a timer. It controls a rather intricate set of staging sequences for the equipment in the room.”

  Graves took out a cigarette. His hands shook slightly as he lit it. He hoped Wright wouldn’t notice—but that, of course, was wishful thinking. Wright would notice.

  But Wright didn’t comment on it. “The second box,” he said, “is an impedance and vibration sensor. There are contact points located around the room. On the door, on the floor, on the walls. Any excessive vibration—for example, a man walking on the floor of the room—will set off the gas. It’s a commercial unit. I bought it last week.” He smiled then. “A friend made the purchase, so that you wouldn’t be aware of it.”

  “The third box?”

  “The third box is the little white unit alongside the other boxes. It’s a battery. We wouldn’t want to be dependent on electricity in the apartment, after all. You could turn that off remotely.”

  Graves had a sinking feeling, and it must have showed, because Wright laughed. “Oh, you were planning to do that, were you?” He shook his head. “Too simple. Much too simple. I wouldn’t make a mistake like that.”

  “What’s the voltage of the batteries?” Graves snapped, trying to regain control of the situation.

  “A very intelligent question,” Wright said. “I am tempted to lie, but I won’t. It is a twelve-volt unit.”

  “Amperage?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “That doesn’t concern you?”

  “The amperage is adequate.”

  “Adequate for what?”

  Wright smiled. “Really,” he said, “you don’t expect me to hand you everything on a silver platter.”

  “Actually, I do.”

  “Then you’re being naive. How do you expect to extract information from me?” He glanced at his watch. “There is not a lot of time, and although I am sure you could torture me inventively, you couldn’t get me to talk. Not fast enough.”

  “Why did you close the apartment windows?”

  Wright smiled. “Fascinating. I was wondering if you’d catch that. I taped them, too.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I closed the windows,” Wright said, “because the mechanism in that room anticipates some action you will take.”

  “Some action I will take?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re being cryptic.”

  “I can afford to be cryptic.”

  “What’s the point of the scintillation counter?”

  “An interesting problem, but not so interesting as the explosives.”

  Graves tried to keep his face blank, but it didn’t work.

  “Ah,” Wright said. “You don’t know about the explosives? There was a robbery of twenty pounds of plastic explosive—Compound C, I believe it’s called—earlier today, on the freeway. A hijacked truck. I’m surprised you haven’t already been informed.”

  Graves was beginning to sweat. He resisted the impulse to wipe his forehead. He sat back in his chair and tried to be calm.

  “You seem nervous,” Wright said.

  “Concerned.”

  “There is no need to be nervous,” Wright said. “I can assure you right now, it is impossible for you to get into that room alive. I don’t advise you to try.”

  “You seem quite nonchalant.”

  “Oh, I am.” He turned the cigar in his mouth, removed it, stared at the burning tip.

  “We can hold you, of course.”

  “You mean, prevent me from leaving San Diego?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d expect that.”

  “You don’t care?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “But you’ll die,” Graves said.

  “A great many people will die, in fact,” Wright said, and his eyes glowed with a sudden mad intensity. “You may have noticed that weather conditions are perfect. There is an inversion layer over the city. Any released gases will be blown west—across the city—and will be trapped there. Do you know much
about meteorology?”

  “A little.”

  “You know,” Wright said, “it’s a funny thing about chemical agents. The military makes them, but they don’t have much military use. By their very nature, they work best in high population density situations. And that means civilian populations. That’s where you get the most bangs for your buck, so to speak.”

  His eyes literally sparkled as he talked. “But the irony goes even further,” he said. “Modern city life improves the effectiveness of these weapons. You can imagine a city like San Diego as existing with a giant plastic dome over it. That’s the inversion layer. It blankets the area, holds in all the automobile fumes and exhaust gases that make city air so obnoxious. That inversion layer will hold any released gas—or, in the case of ZV, oil droplet suspension.”

  Graves snapped his fingers. “The detergent!”

  “Yes,” Wright said. “Good for you. The detergent was ordered in case I had an accident in the hangar. Have to cut that oil somehow. Detergent was the best way. But,” he said, “I didn’t have an accident. Nothing went wrong.”

  At that moment Phelps stuck his head in the door. “Nordmann’s here.”

  “All right,” Graves said.

  Wright looked appreciative. “Good move,” he said. “Nordmann’s an excellent man. In fact, it was one of his articles—detailed, scholarly, and complete—that suggested to me the possibility of stealing some gas in the first place.”

  Again there was that glow in Wright’s eyes. Graves found himself getting angry. He stood up abruptly. “Don’t let him go anywhere,” he said to the marshal.

  “I wouldn’t think of it, until I’ve finished my cigar,” Wright said.

  Graves left the lobby.

  Nordmann was outside, standing on the sidewalk with Phelps. They were both looking up, talking.

  Graves said, “The gas is up there. Is there any antidote?”

  “To ZV? Nothing very good.”

  “But there is an antidote?”

  “There’s a sort of theoretical antidote. If a person has a mild exposure, it may be possible to inject chemicals to block the effects of the gas.”