"I'll take a look at-the algorithm."
"You know," she said, making her way down virtual stairs, "maybe we should just put it in C code and go from a delay of three-four to three hundred and four microseconds, et cetera, instead of whatever's in the software we got."
"Yeah. The transfer sequences are off," said someone else. "We got to adjust the timing loops."
"What we don't have is the luxury of massaging this too much," another opinion sounded. "And Lucy, your aunt's here."
She briefly paused, then went on as if she had not heard what the person just said. "Look, I'll do the C code before morning. We gotta be sharp or Toto's going to end up stuck or failing down stairs. And then we're totally screwed."
Toto, I could only conclude, was the odd bubble head with one video eye that was mounted on a boxy steel body no more than three feet high. Legs were cleated tracks, arms had grippers, and in general he reminded me of a small animated tank. Toto was parked to one side, not far from his master, who was taking off her helmet.
"We got to change the bio-controllers on this glove," she said as she began carefully pulling it off. "I'm used to one finger meaning forward and two meaning back. Not the other way around. I can't afford a mix-up like that when we're in the field."
"That's an easy one," said Jim, and he went to her and took the glove.
Lucy looked keyed up to the point of being crazed when she met me near the door.
"How'd you get in?" She wasn't the least bit friendly.
"One of the guards."
"Good thing they know you."
"Benton told me they'd brought you back, that HRT needs you," I said.
She watched her colleagues continue to work. "Most of the guys are already there."
"At Old Point," I said.
"We've got divers around the area, snipers set up nearby, choppers waiting. But nothing's going to do any good unless we can get at least one person in."
"And obviously, that's not you," I said, knowing that if she claimed otherwise I would kill the FBI, the entire Bureau, all of them at once.
"In a way it's me going in," my niece said. "I'll be the one working Toto. Hey, Jim," she called out. "While you're at it, let's add a fly command to the pad."
"So Toto's gonna have wings," someone cracked.
Good thing. We're gonna need a smart guardian angel."
"Lucy, do you have any idea how dangerous these people are?" I could not help but say.
She looked at me and sighed. "I mean, what do you think, Aunt Kay? Do you think I'm just a kid playing with Tinkertoys?"
"I think that I can't help but feel very worried."
"We should all be worried right now," she said, drained.
"Look, I got to get back to work." She glanced at her watch and blew out a big breath. "You want a quick overview of my plan so you at least know what's going on?"
"Please."
"It starts with this." She sat on the floor and I got down beside her, our backs against the wall. "Normally, a robot like Toto would be controlled by radio, which would never work inside a facility with so much concrete and steel. So I've come up with what I think is a better way. Basically, he'll carry a spool of fiber optic cable that he'll leave behind like a snail's trail as he moves around."
"And where is he going to move around?" I asked. "Inside the power plant?"
"We're trying to determine that now," she said. "But a lot will depend on what happens. We could be covert, such as in information gathering. Or we could end up with an overt deployment on our hands, such as if the terrorists want a hostage phone, which we're banking on. Toto has to be ready to go anywhere instantly."
"Except stairs."
"He can do stairs. Some better than others."
"The fiber optics cable will be your eyes?" I said.
"It will hook right into my data gloves." She held up both hands. "And I will move as if it's me going in instead of Toto. Virtual reality will allow me to have a remote presence so I can react instantly to whatever his sensors pick up. And by the way, most of them are in that lovely shade of gray we made him," She pointed to her friend across the room. "His smart paint helps him not to bump into things," she added as if she might have feelings for him.
"Did Janet come back with you?" I then asked.
"She's finishing up in Charlottesville."
"Finishing up?"
"We know who's been breaking into CP amp;L's computer," she said. "A woman graduate assistant in nuclear physics. Surprise, surprise."
"What's her name?"
"Loren something." She rubbed her face with her hands.
God, I should never have sat down. You know cyberspace really can make you dizzy if you stay in it too long. Lately, it's almost been making me sick. U.- She snapped her fingers several times. "McComb. Loren McComb."
"And she's how old'?" I asked as I remembered Cleta saying that the name of Eddings' girlfriend was Loren.
"Late twenties."
"Where is she from?"
"England. But she's actually South African. She's black."
"Thus explaining her poor character, according to Mrs. Eddings."
"Huh?" Lucy looked bizarrely at me.
"What about a connection with the New Zionists?" I asked.
"Apparently she got associated with them over the net.
She's very militant and antigovernment. My theory is she got brainwashed by them the longer they communicated."
"Lucy," I said, "I think she was Eddings' girlfriend and source, and in the end, she may have helped the New Zionists kill him, probably by way of Captain Green."
"Why would she help him and then do that?"
"She may have believed she had no choice. If she had assisted him with information that could have hurt Hand's cause, she may have been convinced to help them or they may have threatened her."
I thought of the Crystal Champagne in Eddings' refrigerator, and wondered if he had planned to spend New Year's Eve with his girlfriend.
"How would they have wanted her to help them?" Lucy was asking.
"She probably knew his burglar alarm code, maybe even the combination to his safe." My final thought was the worst. "She may have been with him in the boat the night he died. For that matter, we don't know that she wasn't the one who poisoned him. After all, she's a scientist."
"Damn."
"I'm assuming you've interviewed her," I said.
"Janet has. McComb claims she was on the Internet about eighteen months ago when she came across a note posted on a bulletin board. Allegedly, some producer was working on a movie that had to do with terrorists taking over a nuclear power plant so they could re-create a North Korea situation and get weapons-grade plutonium, et cetera, et cetera. This alleged producer needed technical help, for which he was willing to pay."
"Did she have a name for whoever this was?" I asked.
"He just always called himsel. "Alias,' as if to imply he might be famous. She bit big time and the relationship began. She started sending him information from graduate papers she had access to because of her graduate assistantship. She gave this Alias asshole every recipe you might think of for essentially taking over Old Point and shipping fuel assemblies to the Arabs."
"What about making casks?"
"Right. Steal tons of the depleted uranium from Oak Ridge. Have it sent to Iraq, Algeria, wherever, to be made into the hundred-twenty-five-ton casks. Then ship them back here where they're stored until the big day. And she went into the whole bit about when uranium turns into plutonium inside a reactor." Lucy stopped and glanced over at me. "She claims it never occurred to her that what she was doing might be real."