That would really work, but it’s not exactly subtle.
There’s a subtle way to do the same thing, though. That’s the system the Group has created. It’s a combination of powerful hardware and software that basically does what those DJs would do, but it does it without anybody noticing.
First, it’s a pretty simple search program. It can use Google or any number of Web sites where you can look things up (stock exchange sites, news sites, anything). The way the program works, you tell it to run a search, and it simply waits 10 hours and 24 minutes before it executes it.
Then what does it do? It turns the search result into a simple string of text, then translates it into a kind of Morse code the Group invented. The system then hacks into the computers that oversee radio broadcasts, at multiple stations, and hides this coded information within the audio that they’re putting out on the airwaves. The code plays at a pitch range human ears can’t pick up. (In fact, most people’s speakers probably don’t even render the sound.) Even if some technician did hear it, it would sound like harmless interference, if anything at all.
The Group’s system can hear it, though, and decode it.
In this way, they have removed all the randomness and limitation from using these machines. They don’t just hear whatever happens to be on the radio ten and a half hours from now. They hear specific answers to nearly any question they can think of … even if all they’re picking up is a rock song or a used car commercial. The coded information is hidden in the broadcast no matter what.
Dryden raised his eyes from the letter and stared away over the parking lot, through the heat ripples coming up off the rows of cars.
Curtis’s description of the system seemed to break open in front of him, like an egg sac full of a thousand little spiders. Implications scurrying away to all corners, too many to follow.
He kept reading:
In the right hands, this system would be an amazing and good thing. Well-meaning authorities would set it up to tell them about a whole range of potential bad events. There could be a special database in which mass shootings, plane crashes, and a hundred other types of tragedies were always reported, and those in charge would then see those things coming far ahead of time. The authorities would become perfect goalies when it came to the really bad stuff.
It goes without saying that the Group doesn’t seem to be interested in that.
What they’re using the technology for at this moment (among other things) is to hunt down the loose ends that got away from them when they made their move against Bayliss Labs. That would be you and me, Claire. (And Dale Whitcomb, but I’ll come to that in a minute.)
I hope to hell you already know most of the above. I hope Dale was able to explain that much to you, when he called you and told you to run. I hope he made it clear how dangerous your situation is. This system the Group is using, it can do a lot more than run Google searches or look up stock quotes. For example, it’s fucking child’s play to access the servers on which police departments record their activity. Any routine traffic stop automatically logs the target vehicle’s plate number, the driver’s ID, the time of the stop, and even the GPS coordinates of the cruiser.
The Group will hunt us using that information. You need to appreciate how dangerous that is. If you were pulled over, even just for speeding, and even if you got off with a warning … there would be a police database record of that traffic stop, containing your name and the exact time and place where it happened.
This system the Group created … it could be programmed to constantly search police servers for a record like that. If it found one, it would embed that info in the airwaves, and the Group would learn about it 10 hours and 24 minutes earlier.
Do you understand? If you get pulled over, the Group will know about it hours and hours before it even happens.
Which gives them all the time in the world to position men to attack you at that exact location and time.
The dots Dryden had felt trying to connect earlier now fused together as if arc-welded.
Claire in the Mojave, terrified at the sight of the approaching cop.
Staring in all directions, searching inexplicably for some threat in the darkness around them.
“Jesus Christ,” Dryden whispered.
He tried to get his mind around it: what it meant to be up against an enemy who knew your mistakes before you even made them.
Then he kept reading the letter, and saw that the problem was a lot bigger than that.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I don’t believe you know the rest of this, Claire. I’m not sure Dale understood it well himself at the time he called you. It was more important to warn you quickly and tell you the immediate stuff.