Fastball, low inside. Ball one.
“They said this thing would keep working,” Whitcomb said, “even if the rest of the secure site burned down and took everyone there with it. Even the system’s Internet connection, which it obviously needs, would survive. It’s a pirated access, separate from the service for the rest of the buildings, and basically untraceable. They thought of everything.”
Another swing and a miss. One ball, two strikes.
“Pretty clever,” Dryden said.
Whitcomb nodded. Then: “It’s also very, very stupid. It creates their biggest weakness of all. It’s how we’re going to beat them.”
“What are you talking about?” Marnie asked.
Breaking ball, high over the plate. Ball two.
“This is it,” Brennan said.
Dryden looked at his watch. 2:51.
For a moment he returned his gaze to Whitcomb and thought of continuing the conversation.
Then Whitcomb waved it off. “Tell you in a minute,” he said, and turned his attention to the game broadcast.
“Two and two on Almodovar, who has a four-game hitting streak coming into this one,” the announcer said. “Curve ball outside, that’ll make it three balls, two strikes. We’ve got one out and one runner on, top of the second, score is one-nothing San Diego.”
Every word, every stressed syllable, matched what Dryden had heard in the Mojave ten hours and twenty-four minutes earlier. It was as though he’d been looking down a tunnel then, and was seeing down it from the other end now. The feeling was surreal in a way he had not expected.
Marnie turned to him. “You okay?”
Dryden nodded. He blinked and took a hard breath to clear his head.
“Fastball, Almodovar gets a piece of it, pop-up foul left, still three and two.”
Brennan was staring at the page of jotted notes in his hand. The paper shook, just visibly, picking up a tremor in his arm.
“What do you say, Cal?” Whitcomb asked.
Brennan didn’t answer. Didn’t seem to have even heard him. He stared at the page as the crackling audio washed over him.
“Low and inside, and that’ll do it. Ball four. Runners on first and second, Watkins comes to the plate.”
Brennan kept his eyes on the sheet of paper for another five seconds, though there was nothing more on it.
“Is that enough?” Whitcomb asked.
No reply.
A second later Brennan dropped the page on the Explorer’s driver’s seat, then turned and crossed to the fire pit twenty feet away. The binder full of e-mails was lying on the ground beside the closed plastic case with the machine inside it. Brennan stooped, picked up both the binder and the case, and tucked them under his left arm.
Then with his right hand he drew a pistol from his rear waistband and leveled it at the three of them.
“You’re not destroying this thing,” Brennan said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
For a long moment no one said a thing. The static-choked baseball game continued to wash from the Explorer’s speakers.
Then Whitcomb spoke. “What are you doing, Cal? What is this?”
“You’re not destroying it,” Brennan said again.
His voice had none of its previous reserve. He was breathing quickly, and his cheeks had reddened even behind the rough surface of his tan.
Whitcomb spoke as if talking to a jumper on a ledge. “Why don’t you put the gun away? We’re all rational here.”
“I’m rational,” Brennan said. “You three are out of your minds.” He nodded to the case under his arm. “It works. Christ, it works. Everything you said was true. Why would you want to throw this thing away?”
“Because it’s dangerous,” Whitcomb said, “and we’ll never get another chance to put the genie back in the bottle. We can do that right now, if we destroy all of these things. The world will never know it existed.”
Whitcomb took a step forward. Brennan took a step back. He pressed his left arm tightly toward himself, holding the machine and the binder of e-mails securely.
“There’s too much that can go wrong with this stuff,” Whitcomb said. “You know that.”
Brennan shook his head. “Too much goes wrong without it.” His eyes went from Whitcomb to Dryden and Marnie, back and forth. “Listen to your own stories, for God’s sake. Those four little girls out in the desert. The guys on the roof of that build site. All those people would be dead if it wasn’t for this thing. And that’s just one day’s worth of using it.”
“The downside is still bigger,” Whitcomb said. “What happens when governments get ahold of this technology? What about corporations? Political groups. We’ve already got people being murdered for things they haven’t even done yet. You want a hundred different special interests using this stuff?”
“It doesn’t have to come to that,” Brennan said. “I can keep this one working copy, and never tell anyone. Why shouldn’t I?”