The Zero Hour

“Cahill, ERCP. We don’t know,” Payne said. “We figure that as long as the terrorist is in the building, it’s not going to blow.”

“Good.”

“Uh, Agent Cahill, I wouldn’t be so relieved if I were you. The device has got a ground-plane antenna protecting a circular area, with a possible operating range of forty to sixty feet. If you’re beyond sixty feet from it, you’re safe. Now, I want you to move forward slowly.”

“How slowly?”

“I can’t answer that. If you’re far away from it, any movement will be perceived by the sensor as much slower than if you were right up next to it.”

“Give me a rate of speed!”

“As slowly as you possibly can. Recognizing that we’re all under the gun-there’s got to be a clock ticking, but we just don’t know when zero hour is. Let’s say slower than one step per second. We estimate the sensor can ‘see’ someone walking at the rate of one step per second, so keep it slower than that.”

“Jesus, that’s slow!”

“Keep your arms against your side. No, better-keep your arms folded against your chest. Whatever you do, you must not allow your arms to swing. The microwave’s going to see a rapid fore-and-aft like a champ. You want to avoid creating a Doppler shift.”

“Meaning what?” She knew bombs, but not to this degree.

“Just… just keep your body as still as possible. Keep flat against the wall. Inch along it. A few inches a second, no faster. Now, whenever possible, keep solid objects between you and the bomb-the furnace, machinery, whatever’s down there. Anything RF-opaque. According to our examination of the device, it’s a bit above ten thousand megahertz, so bricks and dense masonry like concrete and steel will be pretty effective at blocking it.”

Sarah inched toward the main basement area, then stopped. She raised the walkie-talkie to her mouth, realizing that this was probably the last time she’d be able to use the walkie-talkie as long as she was down here: from now on, she’d have to keep her arms folded.

“There are some large objects,” she said. “A water heater. A row of something. But there are gaps between them. Huge gaps. I’m not going to be able to always keep solid objects between the bomb and me.”

“Do your best,” Payne instructed. “In the gaps, be sure to move as slowly as possible. This is a volumetric device.”

“Meaning-?”

“Forget it. You must not change the reflected patterns of the microwave. It sees rate of change. You’ve got to minimize your effect on the rate of change of the energy pattern by minimizing your body motion.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

“Move very slowly and steadily, Agent Cahill. And go!”

Oh, dear God, she thought. Sweet Jesus God.

Jared was in the building, had to be in the building, upstairs. She could not think that he was dead. He was alive, he had to be alive, but silenced somehow.

An FBI agent could, under some circumstances, be called upon to sacrifice his or her own life. But not the lives of their loved ones. That was not in the employment contract.

Now as she inched along the cold damp basement wall she felt a waft of ice-cold air and smelled the old familiar dirt smell of mold, a smell she associated with her childhood, and therefore found oddly reassuring.

One… two… one… two. A slow-motion side-shuffle. Her hands gripping her chest, flattening her breasts. One… two… one… two. Her legs trembled with the enormous exertion it required to keep them from jerking away from her. Brushing against the cold damp wall, one, two…

… Up to the water heater, a behemoth, floor-to-ceiling, wall of steel, blasting heat, pilot light twinkling. Easily eight or ten feet long. She reached it, recoiling from the overpowering heat, exhaled.

It bought her ten feet, she thought. Ten free feet. She slid against the wall, quickly now. She felt a prickly flush of heat, and the sweat began to run down her arms, down the inside of her arms, down her breasts, tickling her. Rivulets of sweat ran down her inner thighs. Fluorescent light flickered sickly greenish-white.

She came to the end of the heater, and there was a gap, a space of another five or six feet, before the next shelter, which she now saw was long and rectangular, a tall row of filing cabinets.

Immediately she slowed her pace, inched along. As she edged, she stared at the black box, her eyes glistening with fear, feeling as if the invisible microwaves could feel her, were invading her body, arrogant and intrusive and everywhere. Now, from this angle, she could see a tiny pinpoint of light, a ruby-red dot, on top of the black box. What was it, an indicator? Would it wink at her if it caught her moving? Would it wink in the split second before the building was incinerated, turning her and her little boy into ash? Or would there be no warning at all? Would she move a few inches per second too quickly, enraging the red-eyed monster, and never know anything?