But why the heck had Rocky agreed to talk to them? He generally avoided the media like the plague. I suspected his aversion to the spotlight might have something to do with the eyebrow-less scientist at DARPA headquarters.
But there he was, palming his sandy hair and looking as though he might let loose with one of his bloopers. For their sakes, I hoped Junior Reporter and his cameraman weren’t within striking distance.
“I don’t know where you people get your information,” he said testily. “Or in this case, misinformation. I can state categorically that no one has submitted a signal diffuser for our evaluation. And if they had, I wouldn’t discuss such sensitive technology on camera.”
“But that’s the issue in a nutshell, Dr. Balboa. Why is this information so sensitive? My sources tell me the diffuser is little more than a TV remote with its receptor boosted to such an extent that it scrambles satellite signals and bounces them back to the station that broadcast them.”
“Please.” Rocky looked as pained as a thin, nervous little twitch could. “What you’re talking about requires a Nyquist filter carrier recovery circuit, a mixer, a level shifter, and a preemphasis circuit for transmitting scrambled TV-IF signals on an FM or digital link.”
“Huh?”
That one came from DeWayne, not me. He recovered after a few seconds of dead air.
“So there’s no way for Joe Six-Pack, sitting in his recliner in front of his TV, to play with his remote and boost the TV’s signals?”
“None, unless he has access to the items I just mentioned. And a Big Red Shield.”
“A what?”
“That, sir,
is
classified.”
“Yes, but . . .”
Rocky swallowed and set his Adam’s apple to bobbing. I recognized the warning signs and froze. I had a good idea what might happen next.
Sure enough, Junior Reporter’s voice faltered and his eyes popped. “Wh . . . ? What . . . ?”
He choked, and I grimaced in sympathy as the camera tilted and displayed a wide swath of sky. Listeners were treated to the sound of scuffling in the background before Junior Reporter gasped into the mike.
“This is . . . DeWayne Wilson, reporting for . . . Channel Nine News.”
The scene switched back to the newsroom. The anchor looked surprised but launched into her next story. I didn’t hear a word she said.
I sat like a lump of lava rock and stared sightlessly at the screen. That bizarre exchange told me Rocky and Mitch and the rest of the gang didn’t have a clue where I was. They were grasping at straws, feeding the press—and anyone else who might be listening—misinformation. A sick feeling rolled aorund in my belly at the idea I might never see any of them again.
Even worse, Mendoza had used me as bait for his long-delayed revenge. I knew Mitch. He wouldn’t hesitate. He’d take any risks, face any odds, to get to me.
I slapped a hand to my chest where my name tape had been and fingered the loose threads, feeling even sicker. Took a while for a glimmer of reason to work its way through the despair that fogged my head and my heart.
That was Rocky on TV. Taciturn, oddball Rocky. He would never get in front of a camera unless driven by sheer desperation.
But he hadn’t looked desperate. Only annoyed at Boy Reporter for harping on about this . . . What had DeWayne called it? Super secret signal defuser?
Okay! All right! I shook my head to clear the fog. What the heck had Rock been trying to tell me? I replayed the interview again in my mind. Was he suggesting I could rig a device to boost satellite TV signals and bounce them back to the source? That he and the team could somehow intercept those signals?
Or. . .
Omigod! A Big Red Shield!
I had a sudden vision of Charlie’s crestfallen expression when he explained that all he’d done was insert a tiny slip of foil-backed paper from his Big Red in the Amorphic Cube’s control unit. He had no idea the unit would supercharge and blow our building’s entire electrical system.
I sat on the end of the bed, oblivious to the commercial now blaring from the screen as I gripped the TV remote. All I could hear was the faint hum of the generators outside the glass block windows.
We used generators at our test site for backup power for the lab. As far as I could tell, they provided the
only
source of power here on the rock. If I could jam their controls, shut them down . . .
I tried to remember how the heck the generators at the site worked. Sergeant Cassidy usually took care of fueling and servicing them. I was pretty sure, though, they operated on an automatic switch. One sensitive enough to power fluctuations that they would automatically kick on if we lost our main power source. If these suckers were half as sensitive . . .
I tried to control my rush of excitement by staring fixedly at the screen. All the while I formulated and rejected various schemes for obtaining a strip of tinfoil.
IT turned out to be surprisingly easy.
All I had to do was wait for Teresa to come fetch me again. She’d changed for dinner. The slim skirt and powder-puff shoes were gone. In their place she wore gold thong sandals with hourglass-shaped heels and a lavender, off-one-shoulder dress.
Her lip curled as she took in my military haute couture. “Why do you not wear something more comfortable?”
I jettisoned all attempts to get friendly with her, since they weren’t working anyway. “Why do you not take a running jump off the high end of the mesa?”
Her mouth tightened. “Go!”
I started up the stone steps. Halfway to the upper landing, I put a hand against the wall and leaned into it for a moment.
“What’s the matter?” she asked sharply.
“Nothing,” I said, every bit as sharp, and pushed away from the wall.
We turned left at the top of the stairs and passed the doors to the patio where Mendoza and I had had lunch. A bouquet of sizzling pork and spicy sauce emanated from the short hallway that led to the kitchen.
Teresa trailed me into a dining room with lustrous dark wood beams, a red-tiled floor, and a massive, refectory-style table that looked as though it might have come from an old Spanish mission. The table was set with gold-rimmed china and crystal that sparkled in the light from a four-tiered chandelier with Tiffany shades in glowing desert hues. I noted three place settings and couldn’t resist twisting the knife a bit.
“Are you being allowed to eat at the grown-ups’ table tonight?”
“Sit!”
I reached for the high-backed wooden chair she indicated with a terse wave of her hand and went into my act again. Hanging onto the chair, I bent at the waist and made a low, inarticulate sound.
“What is it?” she asked with a quick frown.
“I don’t know.” I straightened, breathing heavily. “I’ve been feeling woozy. Could be the aftereffects of that stuff your friends pumped into me.”
“Sit down, and it may pass.”
“I don’t think so. I need to lie down. I’d better go back downstairs.”
“Very well.”
“I was too nervous to eat at lunch,” I lied as we retraced our steps. “It may help if I could put something in my stomach.”
“I will have Anna Maria bring you a plate,” Teresa said impatiently.
“Isn’t that the kitchen?”
“You do not need to go . . .”
Too late. I’d already navigated the short corridor. Rounding a corner, I entered a kitchen decorated with bright tiles and ropes of dried chilies. My darting glance locked immediately on the cordless phone nestled in its cradle on the tiled counter. My heart pumped, but I knew it would be useless to make a grab for it. Teresa was just a half step behind.
Besides, there were two women in the kitchen. One was the stout Anna Maria. She stood behind a tiled cook-top, stirring the contents of saucepan. Another, younger woman was in the act of removing an oval pan containing a sizzling roast from the oven. A monster pork roast browned to perfection and protected by a tented piece of foil!
Both women looked up, startled by our entrance. While Teresa explained our presence in rapid Spanish, I mentally rehearsed my lines.
“Anna Maria asks what you wish to eat?” my escort translated impatiently.
“A few slices of that pork and some of the tortillas we had at lunch.” I wrapped an arm across my waist and feigned a gag. “Just ask her to fix a plate and cover it with foil to keep the food hot. I’m not sure how much I can keep down right now.”
“They will bring it to you,” Teresa said hastily, obviously afraid I would puke all over the kitchen.
ONCE back in my luxurious cell, I stretched out on the bed and counted the minutes until dinner arrived. By then my stomach was churning so much acid that I didn’t have to pretend wooziness.
Anna Maria deposited the tray on the bedside table, answered my attempts to engage her in conversation with a shake of her head, and returned to kitchen. The tray didn’t include a knife, I saw at a glance, or fork for that matter. Nothing I might use as a weapon.
Swallowing my disappointment, I played to any unseen cameras by rolling a piece of pork in a tortilla and taking a bite. My face puckered. My eyes scrunched. Groaning, I returned the wrap to the plate and covered it. In the process, I tore off a tiny strip of foil.
Then I stretched out again and waited. Thirty minutes. An hour. Two.
I kept expecting Mendoza to send Teresa to check on me. Or come himself to tell me the name tape he’d ripped from my uniform had been delivered.
Then again, I reasoned, his real focus was Mitch. He’d made it painfully clear I was merely a pawn in his brutal game, a means to an end. And if Mendoza could get a line on Snoopy SNFIR in the process, it would just be a nice bonus. He had no need to keep me apprised on his progress on either front.
If Mitch had received the tape, I was sure he wouldn’t release that information to the media, but I tuned in to the late night news anyway. Neither Mitch nor Paul Donati made an appearance. Junior Reporter’s eager face came on the screen, though. To my disappointment he merely rehashed the same information he’d broadcast earlier and showed a condensed version of his interview with Rocky.
I clutched the remote in a sweaty palm, praying I hadn’t fantasized Rocky’s hidden message, and pretended to drift into a restless sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I’D purposely left both the bedside lamp and the TV on. They provided more than sufficient light when I pushed groggily to my feet in the still of the night and stumbled for the bathroom. But not enough, I sincerely hoped, to provide any unseen watchers a view of me sitting on the john—or jacking off the rear panel of the TV remote.
I was so nervous I broke a nail prying out the four AAA batteries. I didn’t take time to mourn the loss. Hand shaking, I wedged the tiny strip of foil under the metal contacts and reinserted the batteries. That done, I made a show of stumbling back to the bed.
I stretched out with my hands clasped loosely on my belly, holding the remote with seeming nonchalance. My heart zinged around inside my chest as I pressed the power switch. I kept the pressure on, squeezing hard, while aiming the signal at the row of glass blocks above the TV.
Honestly? I didn’t really believe this jerry-rigged signal booster would work. The remote was getting warm, though. I could feel the heat through the plastic casing. My heart thumped harder and faster as I feigned a semi-doze and squeezed the power button for all I was worth.
The heat intensified. My thumb joint started to ache from the unceasing pressure. Every muscle in my body strained with the effort of maintaining my slumberous pose while waiting for something—anything!—to happen.
The TV went first. The picture flickered. The characters in the late night Western blurred. Then, with a small pop, the volume cut off and the flat screen went black.
Yes!
I kept the pressure on, hard and tight. Pain radiated from my thumb to my wrist. The remote’s casing got so hot that I expected to smell melting plastic and/or sizzling flesh at any moment.
With the sound from the TV cut off, the faint hum outside the window seemed louder. Steadier. Mocking me. Mocking my ridiculous attempts to . . .
Oh, God! Was that a burp?
A hiccup in the low, steady pulse?
Before I could answer my own, desperate question, the hum cut off completely. In the same heartbeat, the bedside lamp died. My subterranean chamber plunged into darkness so profound that my suddenly diminished senses almost missed the faint click across the room.
The electronic door lock! I hadn’t expected it to pop when the generators went. I’d thought I would have to wait until Teresa or one of Mendoza’s security guys came to check on me and fight my way out.
Change of plans. I was off the bed and running for the door before my eyes had fully adjusted to the darkness. I slammed into the wall, swore viciously under my breath, and fumbled for the door handle. It gave, and I hit the flagstone steps.
Enough moonlight filtered through the upstairs windows for me to see where I was going, thank God! I didn’t bounce off any more walls and in the few moments it took me to reach the kitchen I conducted a fierce debate. I could grab the phone I’d spotted there, make a frantic call, hope Mitch or Paul Donati could pinpoint the location of the call, hotfoot it back to my cell before anyone knew I was on the loose, and wait for rescue.
Or I get the hell out of Dodge.
As I’m sure you’ve surmised by now, I’m not the waiting-for-rescue type. Nor was I all that sure I could make the call and get back to my room undetected. That was my rationale, anyway, for hitting the kitchen on a dead run and swooping the phone from its cradle.
I swooped up several other items as well. One was a dishtowel hanging on a rack beside the sink. Cramming it and the phone in a leg pocket, I yanked open the stainless steel fridge and fumbled in its inky darkness. I almost sobbed with relief when my searching hand closed around cold, crinkly plastic. Three icy water bottles went into my other pockets. Swearing that I would never complain about my baggy ABUs again, I bolted for the kitchen’s back door.