Kicking the Can (8 page)

“You reap what you sow” was what his dad had told him. He had been a pioneer in the industry, proving that hard work, ingenuity, and emotional intelligence, not pedigree, dictated how far a person could go in the world.

Lowsley looked in his rearview mirror. Will and Martha, their two children, ages six and ten, were in the back seat reading. Molly, a nine-year-old cocker spaniel was curled up on the floor beneath their feet, nose to tail, in her oversized stuffed pillow that became her bed on family trips. Kathy was holding his hand reading a magazine.

Human nature is such that you want what you don’t have,
Lowsley thought. Looking around him, Lowsley realized there was nothing he could ever want that would take the place of what he already had—an amazing family who loved him and the beauty and lifestyle only the Pacific Northwest could offer. He braked to a stop and flipped on the left turn signal.

“Look out, Otter Rock, here we come!”

31

R
akesh Gupta drained his second Rock Star energy drink and tossed it into a trash receptacle. The line to the Iron Maiden concert in Bangalore, India, was finally starting to move—heavy metal ear candy was less than an hour away. He gave final instructions to his best friend Nadir. Chaitan, his date, and their other friends would hang back until they were cleared. They were all subject to a routine search prior to concert admission. When he reached the front of the line, Nadir handed him the backpack, and he set it on the table, unclipping the flap and opening the ridged plastic container used to protect the sensitive electronics. He also removed a letter printed on Massachusetts Institute of Technology letterhead from his pocket.

The sound receptor was made from a highly conductible metal composite membrane, a tenth the thickness of aluminum foil, stretched taut inside a hexagonal-shaped metal hoop. The whole thing measured about the size of a dinner plate and resembled an electrified drum head. It had hand holds made out of insulating rubber. The outer edge of the membrane was hemmed with microwire, tightly wrapped in a circle to collect electrical signals generated by six electrodes, which transformed the
energy to electrical voltage to be harnessed to power a single halogen light mounted on a headband Gupta wore. From a distance, it looked like a camper light. Gupta explained to the concert security guard the experiment was designed to convert sound into energy. It had never been tried before outside of strict lab conditions, and certainly not at a rock concert. The lady seemed disinterested, and with no indication it could be used to harm concertgoers, he and Nadir were waved through.

He didn’t remember exactly how the yarn of deceit started, other than he was trying to impress a sexy sophomore who was majoring in electrical engineering. She had been introduced by one of the gang a couple of weeks back at a favorite South Indian restaurant. Gupta had stumbled on the MIT engineering student’s blog discussing how energy is contained in sound. It seemed like a harmless kernel he could use to fabricate his tale of testosterone. He went on to blather about how vibrations from a rock concert were an ideal venue for testing the technology, and he was looking forward to the Iron Maiden concert to test out his prototype that he had been working on in cooperation with some of the engineers at Cambridge. She bit, and five minutes later Gupta had her phone number and a firm date for the metal concert. There was no backing out. It had cost him 651,000 rupees to buy a scalped ticket at such a late date for entrance to the concert floor.

She was standing behind him in skin-tight jeans and a black tank top, promising to video the experiment and post it on YouTube. He had no idea how the night would end, other than it would end badly. Gupta estimated he
had fifteen hours invested in his ruse. The electronic apparatus in his backpack was a hoax. To make matters worse, while they were waiting in line Chaitan brought up the idea of Gupta as a guest lecturer in her double-E class. She had apparently approached her professor, and he offered to introduce Gupta to an angel investor. The editor of the university newspaper promptly returned Chaitan’s request for a story and would call after the concert to schedule an interview. Gupta interjected several times—the technology had not been tested…that he wasn’t sure at all that it would work, and to not get her hopes up—but she replied that he was being modest and that only an idiot would bring such an apparatus to a concert and risk being turned away by security unless the experiment had a reasonable chance of working. Gupta was no idiot.

When Chaitan and the girls slipped away for a bathroom break, Gupta pulled Nadir aside. The plan was simple: get close enough to the mosh pit that Nadir could feign being bumped. He would then drop the receptor onto the floor, and Gupta would assert that the blunt force impact damaged the electronics. He would be off the hook. They would wait until the second song to test the contraption.

Gupta’s friends formed a concentric circle around him and Nadir—a protective barrier to insulate them from the rowdy concertgoers. The concert was about to start. Lights dimmed, and instantly thousands of smart-phones and lighters switched on, emitting a soft glow that defined the contours of the arena. Gupta could smell propane. On cue, the attendees began to sing the chorus
to “Fear of the Dark”—oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh…oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh—their arms held high, swaying in time to the rhythm. Venting smoke, like a steam locomotive, shot into the air at forty-five-degree angles on the stage. A thick film of vapor wafted off the stage, working its way into the crowd, like a mist that hangs on a lake at dawn. The cool vapor, damp from the dry ice, sent chills through Gupta’s body and temporarily masked the smell of body odor. They were now part of a living, breathing animal—a dragon crouching, poised to pounce on its prey. The thunder of the bass drum was the creature’s heartbeat; its intensity and beats per second increasing rapidly. Gupta could feel a lump form in his throat. The moist breath of the dragon was sucked from the air in a flash as it erupted in fire-breathing pyrotechnics.

The docility of swaying hands morphed into the devil’s horns, a rock-and-roll symbol using the index finger and pinky. The crowd surged forward, and braless women and shirtless men were pressed hard against the barricade. Searching spotlights panned the area, illuminating pierced tongues and body art. Seven spotlights, each the size of a moon, blinded the concertgoers…too intense to keep eyes open. A guitar riff pierced the air, and then the band joined in—the beast suddenly transfixed by the metal music.

As the second song began to play, Nadir tapped Gupta and Chaitan on the back. He was holding the sound receptor with both hands in the air. Gupta pretended to turn on a toggle switch and adjust a rheostat. He almost spotted when to his surprise, the light on his headlamp illuminated. The intensity of the light seemed to cycle
with the sound waves produced in the arena, growing more and less intense as the loudness rose and ebbed. Suddenly, the receptor was knocked from Nadir’s hands. When it hit the ground, the thin membrane was crushed and trampled by the crowd. Gupta’s camper light went out.

Nadir looked distressed. Chaitan, who had videotaped the scene on her phone standing next to Nadir, was elated. She rushed to Gupta, pressing her lips against his and then shouting congratulations. The two joined hands, jumping to the beat of “Trooper.” Gupta didn’t hear a musical note after that. He was in love.

The gang met in the parking lot after the concert. Chaitan replayed the video for Nadir, and the two exchanged high fives. Nadir turned to Gupta to confess.

“Chaitan helped me.” Nadir pulled the battery pack and wire from his pocket. He had hard wired the lamp to the battery pack. An in-line switch, operated by Chaitan, had been used to adjust the light intensity. The joke had been on Gupta.

“I got you.” Nadir said over and over. “You should have seen the look on your face when the light went on.” They were laughing, giving each other fist bombs. Chaitan stepped forward.

“I decided anyone who would work that hard to try to impress me couldn’t be all bad.” She planted another kiss on his lips. Gupta warmed inside. He did not believe she could fake her passion.

32

J
ack Dain didn’t see the weapon until it was too late. The Iraqi double agent pressed the electrical device against his torso. Dain lost voluntary control of his muscles instantly. He was conscious and vaguely aware that his body fell forward when he lost his balance. He lay facedown in the dirt, immobilized. Inhaled dust particles coated the inside of his mouth and nose. The traitor pressed the weapon against his body a second time—excruciating pain. They were laughing now as they worked quickly to strip off his weaponry and bind his hands and feet. He was lifted from the ground by two soldiers. A third militant forced a cloth hood over Dain’s head. The putrid smell of urine, feces, and animal excrement traumatized his olfactory system. When he tried to pull away from his captors, they responded by smashing his face with a rubber truncheon. It appeared as a thin shadow for a split second before Dain heard the crunching sound of his nose structure—bones and cartilage compressing—and then he blacked out. He regained consciousness, his body’s response to oxygen deprivation caused by the blood and vomit that filled the hood coagulating on his mouth and face, making it nearly impossible to breathe. He struggled to roll off his stomach to his side, a position
that allowed him to spit and gulp for air. The automobile tires beneath him squealed, and his body was thrown to the side as the car skidded in a steep turn. He extended his legs to steady his body in the trunk of his captor’s car.

For the next nine days, Dain stood on the balls of his feet, his arms shackled above him. They referred to it as “stress positioning” in the interrogation manual: the subject forced into positions that caused physical pain to muscles and joints. A guarding officer continually slapped Dain’s face when he fell asleep. He experienced visual and auditory hallucinations from sleep deprivation. It was the month of February, and temperatures in Baghdad plummeted to the midthirties at night. In a cold cell, continually doused in water, his body shook violently from hypothermia.

After that, it was a series of different tortures and interrogations. On a daily basis they beat him with a rubber truncheon on his bare feet and shoulder blades. On one occasion they pulled the hair off his scrotum and inflected electric shocks by wrapping a ground wire to his big toe and the hot wire to his genitals. Strapped to a chair, his forearms duct-taped to armrests, his captors removed fingernails, one at a time, using super-heated pliers, by gripping his nails and rocking the pliers back and forth slowly until the nail pulled away from the bed.

Two hours each day he was confined to a four-by-six-foot cell. It was during this time he was able to communicate with two other American soldiers. In retrospect, it was the only thing that kept him alive through the ordeal. Nineteen days elapsed before his captors fled and Dain and his comrades were rescued by US soldiers liberating Iraq.

TEAM BUILDING

33

C
hris Drummond descended the steps to the tarmac. Thirteen hours had passed since he boarded the plane in Seattle. He had no idea of the local time—well past midnight—and the corporate jet terminal was deserted. The outside temperature was comfortable. They had told him not to pack a heavy jacket. He was led to a black Lincoln Town Car parked thirty feet from the jet. Twenty minutes later, the driver pulled into a marina. Drummond gathered his suitcase and briefcase and walked down a ramp to an enormous dock system where countless yachts were moored. They boarded a sixty-five-foot cruiser named
Worlds Apart
. Drummond opted for the stairs to the flying bridge. Lights reflected off the water, a cascade of colors emitted from the cluster of high-rise buildings hugging the shoreline. The contemporary architecture and silhouette of five crane towers on the horizon were evidence the city was young.

“Seventy-five-minute ride…something to drink?”

“Water, please.”

Drummond watched from the stern as they moved out beyond the breakwater. Fifty minutes later, the city skyline was a fleck of light. He moved toward the bow. Moonlight illuminated white sandy fingers of land, too
numerous to count, all undeveloped. Seventy minutes into the journey, Drummond saw their final destination. As they neared, the island mass was definable, perhaps three miles in length. The yacht passed through a breakwater and made a sixty-degree turn. Using thrusters, the pilot maneuvered the craft, securing it to a dock and two-story structure held in place by pilings. Two men standing on the dock stepped forward.

“My name is Mohammad. I’m the concierge. This is Ahlam.”

Mohammad spoke with an accent. Both men had fair skin.

“Please take Mr. Drummond’s bags to the presidential suite.”

Drummond handed Ahlam his suitcase.

“I’d prefer to keep my briefcase.”

“Very well, Mr. Drummond.”

“Where are we?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to call on me. If we don’t have it here, I’ll send for it on the mainland.”

“Who else is here?”

“You are the first guest to arrive. We have another party joining us tomorrow; the remaining guests will arrive in thirty-six hours. We’re self-contained. Cala is our cook. Her husband, Fahad, is caretaker. We have two young people, a male and female, staffing the spa. Ahlam, whom you’ve met, is my assistant. We also have two housemaids.”

The cobblestone pathway was lighted. It cut through lush greenery—orchids, palm trees, and other vegetation.
The multistory, multi-winged structure could pass as a boutique hotel.

“Welcome to our humble abode, Isle Airy,” Mohammad said. “There are six suites on the third floor—two to each wing. We have you staying on the fourth floor in the presidential suite. The second floor is kitchen, great room, and library. Conference rooms, a spa, and adjoining gymnasium, fitness room, and tennis courts are on the ground floor. We have both salt and freshwater pools.”