Binary

`You seem so certain.'

`I'm not certain. I'm just worried.'

Nordma

`Maybe.'

`I think you're giving him too much credit.'

`Maybe.'

Graves continued to prowl around the room.

`Well,' Nordma

`Okay,' Graves said. He was hardly paying attention, looking at the equipment in the room. `You know,' he said, `I can't get over the feeling that it's been too simple.'

`Too simple? It's been complicated as hell.' Nordma

Across the room Lewis said, `It's five o'clock, gentlemen.' Everyone, including the cops, laughed. One or two of the men in the room clapped.

On the floor the timer wheel clicked once. There was a loud metallic snap.

The battery light blinked on.

The twin solenoids clicked to the `open' position.

And nothing happened, because the solenoids had been disengaged from the tanks.

`Well,' Nordma

`I guess not,' Graves said.

He and Nordma

HOUR 0

At 5:02 Graves pressed the button for the elevator. The light didn't go on. He looked up at the floor numbers, one of which should have been lighted; they were all dark.

`That's fu

Nordma

`Maybe when we cut the power to the apartment -' `But they worked before.'

`Yes, that's true. They did.'

`Why should they break down now?'

At that moment a cop came up the stairs, panting heavily. `Damned elevators are broken down,' he said. `We checked the circuit breakers in the basement., There was a timer wired in to knock out the elevators exactly at five.'

`At five?' Graves asked. He looked at Nordma

Nordma

`An irritant? But that doesn't make sense.'

`It's plenty irritating to me,' Nordma

`Of course,' Graves said. `But why do it now?'

`I don't get you.'

`Well, if Wright wanted to make things difficult, he would have knocked out the elevators at four PM. And that would have made things very difficult for us. It might even have delayed us until the gas went off.'

`True.'

`But why wait until five? By then we've either beaten his system or we haven't.'

`Listen,' Nordma

`I am not tired,' Graves said, shaking off Nordma

`There are no more moves,' Nordma

`Yes,' Graves said. `That's exactly what we're supposed to think.'

And he turned and walked back to the apartment.

`John,' Nordma

`You listen,' Graves said. `What's the point of knocking out the elevators after five?'

`It has no point. It's a foolish irritation.'

`Wrong,' Graves said. `It has one important point. It traps everybody on the nineteenth floor. And it traps the tanks as well.'

`That's true,' Nordma

`Have we?'

`Oh, for Christ's sake, of course we have. You did it yourself. You know it's disarmed.'

`But what if it's not?'

`How can it not be?'

At that, Graves sighed. `I don't know,' he admitted. He reentered the apartment.

HE OFTEN FEELS THAT A PROBLEM IS SOLVED WHEN

IT IS ONLY HALF FINISHED, OR TWO-THIRDS FINISHED.

Graves remembered the psychological report as he paced the apartment, talking out loud. Nordma

`All right,' Graves said. `Let's think it through. Wright designed a mechanism.'

`Yes.'

`And the mechanism had a purpose.'

`Yes, to dump nerve gas over the city at five rht.'

Graves nodded. `And we have thwarted that.'

`Yes,' Nordma

`Did he have any other purpose?'

`Well, I don't know. You could answer that better than anyone. Somebody mentioned something about disagreeing with the President over China -'

`No, no,' Graves said. `Let's forget about motivation. Let's consider only the intent of his system. Did he intend to do anything besides dump the nerve gas?'

`Raise hell, create panic…' Nordma

Graves was silent, frowning at the room. `I mean,' he said, `did Wright intend his elaborate mechanism to do anything besides dump the gas?'

`No,' Nordma

`I agree,' Graves said.

There was a long pause. Graves considered everything. he knew, from every angle. He could make no sense of it, but he somehow felt certain that pieces were missing. Vital pieces…

`He knew about you,' Graves said suddenly.

`What?'

`He knew about you. He knew that I had called you in.'

`So what?'

`Why should he care?'

`He didn't care.'

Graves began to see. It was coming into focus. `Because,' he said, 'Wright knew about you. He knew your position, and he knew your expertise. He must have known that you could provide an antidote to the binary gas.

`If he knew you could provide an antidote, then he also knew his protection - filling this room with gas -would not work. We'd break in. He knew that.'

`Are you sure?'

`Yes, I'm sure. And he didn't care.'

`Perhaps he was bluffing,' Nordma

`It's too important for a blur. He must have had another part of his system to cover that eventuality. He must have pla

Nordma

`No!' Graves snapped his fingers. `No, I'm not. Because there was a second purpose to his system.'

`What second purpose?'

'Wright was going. to Jamaica, or somewhere, correct?'

`Correct.'

`And he was not suicidal, correct?'

`Correct. He expected to get there.'

`All right. Then that establishes the need for a second purpose. His mechanism had to do two things.'

`What two things?'

`Look,' Graves said. He spoke as rapidly as he could, but he was hardly able to keep pace with his racing mind. 'Wright pla

`He was insane, yes…'

`But not suicidal. He pla

'Afterwards?'

`Sure. Wright is on some beach su

`Damn,' Nordma

Phelps was also listening. `I don't follow you,' he said.

`You never do,' Graves snapped. `But the point is this. Sooner or later, Navy men in protective suits would enter San Diego. They would determine that people died of nerve gas. They would search for the source. They would find this apartment. They would enter it. They would find the tanks. They would put the pieces together.'

`And they would come after Wright,' Nordma