The Eighth Day (31 page)

“It is very much like that, Ray. With this level of deep-seated instructions, whole realities and worlds can be created with great detail within someone’s mind, each one being indistinguishable from an actual event that a person has lived through. In short, no matter
how
it gets there, deep in the center of our minds, there is no difference between a lived memory and an implanted one.”

“So anything can be planted in someone’s mind?” Tate asked.

“It appears to be so. For instance, at one point Martha thought she was saving an infant that had been cruelly locked in the equipment cabinet on the side of the track. That belief was now so entrenched in Martha’s conscious that it motivated her to pry the cabinet open. It is furthermore apparent that this whole scenario was based on an actual event in Martha’s life. Her older daughter remembers locking her baby sister in the closet by accident when they were playing house. Martha had to pry the door open with a crowbar to free the frightened, crying child.”

“So all the details of the situation were already in Martha’s long-term memory. The masterminds of this process just adapted it, possibly by interrogating the subject once she was under their control,” Hiccock said.

“But didn’t she realize it was a lie, or whatever, when she opened the cabinet and she could plainly see there was no baby in there?” the president asked.

Janice pointed to the subroutine on easel two that included a picture of the inside of the control cabinet. “Here’s where the layers come in again. As soon as Martha saw the relays and circuits inside the metal case, it triggered a new subroutine, the one that had her short-circuit the switch wiring. At that instant her brain was cleansed of all thoughts of a trapped baby and replaced with a new reality and a new task.”

Hiccock pointed to the last easel, which displayed the freeze frame of the actress from the HBO movie holding a gun to her head. “The final trigger is the chilling part. Her last subroutine called for her to commit suicide. That program was left open-ended, judging by the way Martha still tries to kill herself to this day.”

Janice stood there for almost a full minute as they silently digested what she had laid out before them.

“My God!” the Commander in Chief said. “Doctor Tyler, how sure are you that this is actually what we are dealing with here?”

“We deduced this methodology from all the available evidence we will ever accumulate. I suppose there might be another explanation or way to connect these elements, but the core of the premise is solid. Although we don’t have a clue as to who is behind it yet, Mr. President, this is how it is being done.”

“One question,” Reynolds said. “You’re saying that Martha was programmed. That implies someone programmed her. How would that someone have known about her dead husband?”

Hiccock fielded that one. “This is a web-based means of recruitment and programming. Today, all records of birth, death, marriages, and even a person’s purchases are out there in the digital domain beyond the public space of the Internet, but potentially available to any clever hacker.”

“So if I understand this right,” Tate said, “assuming we could have stopped Martha in her car on the way to the derailment, she would believe—and pass a lie detector test—that she was simply meeting her husband in his parking lot at work?”

“Exactly. She would have had no inkling of what she was about to do next …”

A
USA TODAY
newspaper headlined “Wall Street’s Deep Freeze Continues” landed on Admiral Parks’s kitchen table, along with Hiccock and Janice’s carry-on bags. Hiccock was about to hit the bathroom when he became distracted by an argument between Kronos and Parks.

“Get off my ass, will ya,” Kronos said with typical Bensonhurst eloquence. “For the hundredth time, it’s no use. I tried everything I know to get through that firewall.”

“Well, that couldn’t have been all that much effort then.”

Kronos slammed down his fist and kicked his chair over as he rose. “You want a piece of me, old woman?”

Before Hiccock or the Army MPs in the room could react, Parks swung around in her swivel chair and swept Kronos’s legs out from under him. He fell on her lap as she put her elbow in his neck. He coughed and gagged as he was pinned by the septuagenarian.

“Who’s old?”

“Admiral, please don’t hurt the stupid hired help,” Hiccock said, trying to hide his amusement. “He’s federal property that I’m signed out for.”

She released her seemingly effortless hold on the nerd with a warning. “You be a good little Guido or this ‘old’ woman will make you bark like a friggin’ dog for your dinner,” the lady said, pulling off a pretty decent Brooklynese in her own right.

Kronos rubbed his throat as he got up and walked over to Hiccock. “I thought you said she was a secretary! For who, Gorilla Monsoon?”

Hiccock ignored him and addressed the Admiral. “Nice move. Where did you pick that up?”

“My dearly departed was UDT.”

“What’s UDT?” Kronos said.

Hiccock answered. “Underwater Demolition Team. It’s what the first Navy Seals were called. I’d show her a little more respect or you’ll be back in Club Fed in time for breakfast.”

Kronos picked up his chair and crossed the room. With a flourish of newfound gallantry, he said, “Might I assist you, Admiral Parks?”

Without looking up from the screen she announced, “I’m through the firewall.”

“Holy shit!”

Hiccock was beaming. “That’s great, Admiral!”

“How did you do that?” Kronos said, amazed.

“It seems that you and everybody else out there today have forgotten the basics. Boolean algebra.”

Kronos snapped his fingers. “Of course.” He turned to Hiccock. “This old …” Kronos caught himself “…
genius
here went back to the machine code. She essentially passed through the wall as zeros and ones.”

“Yes, and I used what you would call a self-replicating polynomial hierarchy to mask the dimensional string length to zero.”

“Holy fazzool, you’ve cracked my virus. You cracked my greatest hack code.”

“You helped me when I saw you hide the last two Oreo cookies from the MP.” The MP glared at him, marking him for death.

Hiccock chuckled. “She’s got your number, Kronie! Your behavioral traits are infused in your dirty little code writing.”

“Yes, sneaky is sneaky in life or in computer programming. Although, Bill, you aren’t going to like what’s on the other side of that wall.”

As she pointed to the screen to show her discovery, Hiccock actually turned white.

“Mr. President!” a winded Reynolds barked, interrupting a meeting.

The Oval Office was quickly cleared and Reynolds explained what he had learned.

“Are you sure?” the president said from his desk.

“This is Ultra traffic, direct from Hiccock’s team. They have been batting a thousand throughout this whole affair.”

In the silence of the next five seconds, it was obvious to Reynolds that the president had fully digested the impact of the news.

“I want the head of every agency in here in thirty minutes. Start sharpening the axe. I am not going down this way. I will cut off all their fucking heads before I take a fall like this. Thirty minutes— and that’s a direct order from the Commander in Chief. If they don’t comply, I’ll consider that desertion under fire and, God Almighty, I’ll have them shot!”

For the first time since they struggled through those early primaries, Reynolds felt a genuine fear when the president roared. But not because of anything the man said.

Hiccock, Parks, and Kronos were sitting on the porch, celebrating their discovery by dunking Oreos into glasses of milk. Kronos used a fork, wedged into the cream between the two cookie halves. “This way you don’t get the dry finger part, just total immersion. I count to ten for nice and soft, seven for al dente.” He popped one into his mouth from the fork tines.

“You really need to get a life, you know that?” Admiral Parks said.

“I will, now that I … er, we have cracked the biggest terrorism case in American history. Maybe Uncle Sam will give me time off for ‘genius behavior.’”

“Unfortunately this is all top secret, code-word clearance. No one will ever know what we did here,” Hiccock explained soberly.

“Someone will know,” Parks said.

“How’s that?” Hiccock asked as he twisted open a cookie.

“Asynchronous transfer protocol.”

Kronos choked on his milk. “Crap! Of course. You can’t go through a firewall without leaving a tracer back to you.”

“You mean
we
left a cookie?”

“Something like that …”

Three short whistle bursts rippled across the intersection in downtown Carlsbad, New Mexico, opposite a construction site. A few seconds later, the office shanty of supervising engineer Henry Wilson, along with his iPhone in his hand, was rocked by the deep rumble of an explosion. A moment later, a single, long all-clear whistle sounded.

Outside, a crane pulled away a smoking steel mesh, revealing the blasted, crumpled rock beneath.

Henry was online. The iPhone screen before him displayed a contractor’s materials-and-supply web site. No one in the shanty noticed that his demeanor was much more intense than it should be. The lines in his brow, etched in place by decades of worry, and the white beard he sported combined to make him look older than his fifty years. Without a word to anyone else in the shed, he got up and walked outside, leaving his phone on the desk.

Another three-whistle warning bellowed but Henry just kept walking. A flagman called out to him, “Henry, get down! Are you crazy?”

He continued walking.
Boom
. Henry didn’t so much as flinch as a whole steel-mesh-blanketed section of earth rose and fell just beyond him in a shuddering explosion. Eyes focused straight ahead, he walked over to a red armored-car-styled explosives truck. Opening the back door, the ex-demolition man turned construction site manager pulled out a cordite module and a blasting cap. With none of the attendant care one might expect when handling high explosives, Henry roughly injected the detonator into one stick of dynamite lying in an open box and spooled the detonator cord out. He closed the door, reeling out the yellow wire around the truck as he got into the driver’s seat and drove off. The actual driver of the truck, a few construction men, and one rent-a-cop screamed after him, but the armored truck, having been jammed into gear, proceeded to barrel down the street.

Deputy Sheriff Jack Rainey was writing up a motorist for speeding when the external speaker on his patrol car squawked. “Car 21, be advised a stolen truck, red, carrying explosives, last seen heading west on Alameda.”

Not trusting what he had heard, he stopped writing the citation and walked back to his car. He grabbed the radio mic through the window. “Dispatch, did you say explosives?”

“That’s a 10-4. Be advised other units are now in pursuit. Subject vehicle has run two roadblocks.”

Rainey jogged back to the motorist and ripped up the incomplete ticket. “This is your lucky day, sir. But slow down. Your luck could run out big-time.”

The officer trotted back to the car, jumped in, and pulled out, leaving a repentant Mexican-American gardener crossing himself and thanking St. Jude.

“Roger that, dispatch. Please advise all other units in pursuit that Car 21 is west of the truck and will try to interdict and slow.” As he released the mic button, a plan of action started forming in his mind. With siren wailing and lights flashing, he zoomed past the light traffic. The police vehicle came to a sliding, fishtailing halt with its rear end pointing at the red truck bearing down on his position.

Calmly he watched the truck approach through his rearview mirror with four cop cars in close pursuit. Slipping his Ford Galaxy in gear, he started rolling, picking up speed as the truck approached his rear bumper. Upon first contact, he let his foot off the gas and applied the brake. The squad car started to dig in, fighting the massive truck’s momentum. The deputy slammed his car into first. The trunk of his car began to collapse under the pressure of the on-charging truck. Henry Wilson, wide-eyed and emotionless behind the wheel, floored the accelerator. The front of Jack’s squad car was cantilevered off the ground as the truck ate more and more into its trunk. Seeing the front wheels of the cop car up off the road, Henry started weaving the truck. Both vehicles swayed across the road, slamming into unsuspecting passing cars creating a domino effect into other cars. As it swerved, the truck resembled an animal shaking its prey in its jaws. Jack was helpless to do anything with the cruiser’s steering up off the pavement. Finally, the squad car pivoted and spun on its blown-out rear wheels as the big red truck pushed it aside. The spinning car came to a stop as the pursuit vehicles whizzed by.

The large, boxy truck took the entrance to the highway, pushing a slow-moving car off the ramp and into the gully. A police helicopter joined the chase from above. Looking down, the pilot saw six cop cars in close pursuit of the red truck as it wove in and out of traffic, running cars off the road.

Hiccock was talking outside to Major Rolland Hanks, the commanding officer of the Military Police escort that accompanied the communications trucks. Kronos had stepped out onto the porch when something off in the distance caught his eye. It was a dust swirl, which caused the kid from Bensonhurst who never saw a cow up close before yesterday to say, “Look, like in the freakin’
Wizard of Oz
. It’s a twister!”

At that same instant, the Major’s RTO handed him the handset. “Sir, we just got a report from OP 1. An armored car, with police cars in pursuit, just passed their position heading for us.”

“Notify Checkpoint 1,” he ordered back to the radio-telephone operator.

The major pointed to the location of Observation Post 1. Hiccock could see the truck, but barely made out the flashing police lights through the plume of dust it kicked up.

The major reached into the van and retrieved binoculars. After a few seconds Hiccock borrowed the major’s glasses and saw Checkpoint 1– three Humvees sitting alongside the only road leading to the Parks home.

“What’s the plan, Major?” Hiccock said.

“My sentries at the perimeter will stop him.”

Hiccock didn’t know if it was mental telepathy or just great training, but as if they heard him, two of the Jeeps moved to the center of the road forming a blockade. A .50 caliber machine gun was revealed in back of a Hummer that was off to the side of the dirt road.

In the lead cop car, Trooper Mills of the New Mexican State Police was in close order pursuit, bumping over the uneven road, constantly peppered with gravel and rocks being kicked up by the heavy armored truck traveling at almost sixty miles per hour. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Army vehicles forming a roadblock.

“Where did they come from?”

The MPs took their positions. One stood in front with his MP-5 submachine gun and his hand up in a “stop” gesture. The approaching truck, with the police cars in tow, at first seemed to slow. At the last minute, however, Henry Wilson floored it. The lead MP fired into the window. The small-caliber bullets bounced off the two-inch-thick composite windshield of the armored car. A heavy clack, clack, clack was heard as the “fifty” opened up from an angle, spraying the driver’s side windows and side of the truck with the larger .50 caliber slugs.

Trooper Mills, in the lead car, slammed on the brakes and simultaneously screamed into the radio mic: “All cars back off. The Army is shooting at the truck! Dispatch, try to call them, tell them the truck is filled with explosives. All units drop back!”

Due to the sharp angle from which the bullets were fired, the thick laminated side window cracked but didn’t break. With bullets bouncing off the side and ricocheting into the Hummer’s skin, the gunner momentarily ceased firing. The truck crashed through the blockade, sending the Jeeps twirling in opposite directions. One exploded. The MPs opened fire at the back of the truck as it raced toward the house. The pursuing cop cars had already screeched to a halt to avoid the fusillade of bullets.

Witnessing the breach, Hiccock turned to the major. “I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m going to assume that’s not the Ladies’ Auxiliary Welcome Wagon.”

“Bracken, front and center,” the major barked. Hiccock noticed a moose of a guy run up with a bazooka. “I don’t like people who wreck my Jeeps, Bracken. Remove him from the planet, please!”

Bracken immediately got down on one knee and hoisted the Javelin antitank weapon on his shoulder. The infrared sight locked in on the truck, sounding a slight beeping tone. “Target acquired, Sir.”

The major radioed his men at the roadblock. “Jess, you and your men take cover.” He checked to make sure they were far enough from the truck. “Ruin his day, son.”

As the truck neared, the white letters above the cab of the truck came into sharper focus. They spelled out EXPLOSIVES. The major opened his mouth and yelled, “Hold your fire!” just as yellow flame and gray smoke exited the back of the bazooka. A split second later, the truck exploded violently. Its wheels continued rolling as the rear cargo box, laden with TNT, shot up thirty feet straight into the air and combusted in a raging inferno followed by a rising mushroom. The supersonic shock wave was visible over the sand, slamming into mesquite bushes and rocking prickly pear cacti as it fanned outward in all directions from the spot directly below the truck. The flaming Jeep at the roadblock behind it had its fire literally blown out, extinguished by the concussive wall of air. The squad cars further back were jostled violently.