Lipton held the board up. “I saw this earlier. Apparently, your man didn’t.”
“What is it?” Summer asked.
“The answer to the problem.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Krista asked, her eyes burning with intensity. “You barely even checked out the radio.”
“First things first,” Lipton said, holding out his empty palm. “Where’s the mic?”
“I’ll get it,” Summer said, turning and cruising to the desk parked along the back wall. She opened a drawer and pulled out a microphone and its cord before returning in a flash. “Here, but it’s not going to work.”
Lipton plugged its adapter into the port on the device, then played with several of the dials and switches, as if he were searching for something. He brought the microphone up to his mouth and pressed the transmit button. “Mayday. Mayday. This is Doc Lipton. I’m being held prisoner—”
Krista shot forward and ripped the mic from his hand. “I knew you’d try something like that.”
“Relax, Ms. All-balls. It was only a joke. Nothing was ever going to be transmitted,” Lipton said, putting the circuit board down on the table. He sat in the chair and peered up at her, as if he were about to deliver a joke.
Krista looked at Summer, her eyes holding tight. “Maybe we should rethink this idea, boss?”
Summer shook her head, pushing her lips together into a tight line before she spoke. “Don’t really have a choice, now do we?”
“Like I said, you people need to chill,” Lipton added. “And loosen up a bit. It was a joke. As in levity.”
Silence hung in the air until Lipton spoke again, this time changing his tone and his accent, sounding as though he had been raised in a backwoods town somewhere in the Deep South. “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
“Cool Hand Luke,” Wicks said, recognizing the catchphrase.
“Precisely, my giant friend,” Lipton quipped, looking smug.
“What does that old movie have to do with any of this?” Krista asked.
“Not a damn thing. Just trying to lighten the mood. You people are simply wound much too tight to think straight.”
“Okay then, explain it to us,” Summer said. “You seem to know everything.”
Lipton pointed at the radio. “Simple reasoning, my little squirrel. First, your man Morse was somewhat capable, though a little sloppy with his math, as I mentioned earlier. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that he had tested the power supply, the base circuitry, and the components responsible for transmitting before hitting a roadblock. Those are the normal steps when first performing a diagnosis on a non-functioning electronic device.”
“Okay, I get that,” Summer said. “Sort of.”
Lipton pointed to the box in front of Krista. “It also means he assembled those parts thinking he might need them at some point, whether now or in the fut—”
“Actually, I collected them,” Summer said.
“Interesting,” Lipton replied, holding his tongue for a long pause. “Regardless, one can further deduce that those parts are loosely related to this device, otherwise he would not have saved them when space in this silo is at a premium. Now factor in their close proximity to the radio and it means they are specifically designed for this unit, having been vetted through whatever research was available to him. Otherwise, they’d be on a shelf somewhere, collecting dust.”
“Okay, I get that,” Summer said.
“Therefore, there’s a good chance they hold the missing solution, given the quantity of parts and their apparent condition. Excellent, I might add.”
“I only bring back the best,” Summer said.
Lipton resumed, “I can also reasonably conclude that your man would have run through a set of secondary checks next, eliminating each of the parts that were working correctly. Otherwise, he would have been nothing more than a complete incompetent.”
“Well, he wasn’t,” Summer said. “In fact, if he were still alive today, he’d give your sorry ass a run for your money in the intelligence department.”
“So you claim, my little squirrel.”
“Stop calling me that!”
“Do you want me to step in, boss?” Wicks asked Krista, wondering if he might receive the green light to step forward and pummel the man until he stopped flapping his gums.
“Stand down, Wicks,” Krista said, using a look that said, “I’m with you, but we can’t.”
Lipton continued, not skipping a breath. “With that as a basis, I scanned the box of components, looking for something we might use, something that would solve a more obscure problem with the transmitter. Something your man probably overlooked.”
“Wow, that’s a huge frickin’ leap,” Krista said after a roll of her eyes.
“Actually not. I find that lesser minds are often too close to the problem to see the solution. They become obsessed, almost myopic, in their reasoning, missing a critical piece of data that reveals the solution.”
Krista threw up her hands, shooting a glare at Wicks, then at Summer. “My God, does this man ever stop talking?”
“Get to the point already,” Summer said.
“When I inspected the back of the unit, I noticed a number of screws were missing from the casing. In fact, there’s only one still seated in place. Morse must have decided on a partial reassembly, to save time during his repeated attempts to triage the problem. Since that leads us to know he dug into the internals, looking for the cause of the transmission failure, we can begin our diagnosis elsewhere.”
“What do you mean by elsewhere?” Wicks said, not able to contain his words.
“Elsewhere, as in not inside the case.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Krista snapped. “Of course, the problem is inside. Where else can it be?”
“You think far too one-dimensionally,” Lipton said.
“One-dimensionally?” Krista asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I would suggest listening to my words more carefully, just as I chose them.”
“I am listening, but you’re just being the pompous ass that you are.”
“In the world of science, every word matters, especially how they are used in context. It’s how we distinguish theory from fact, after the research has been done.”
“He’s just stalling, boss,” Wicks said to Krista, wanting to help lessen her obvious frustration.
“Bottom line it for me, Lipton. Can you fix it or not?” Summer asked.
“Yes. But I’ll need a few things first.”
“Name it,” she said. “Because we don’t have time for this.”
“Let’s start with pen and paper. Then I’ll make a list, assuming you all can read.”
CHAPTER 34
Dice moved past a trio of men loading out with tactical vests and combat boots for today’s op, his heart full of expectation. His feet seemed to be on a mission of their own, pounding at the floor with purpose. After months of planning, the time had come. And not a second too soon.
This was always his favorite part of a rollout—the sound of eager men and their equipment clattering. Especially the mil-spec weapons and related gear, adding to the anticipation filling the air in Frost’s compound. Wait, check that, Fletcher’s compound, even though the new boss hadn’t had a chance to put his own spin on the place.
It’s hard to break old habits and coin new terms when you’ve been indoctrinated for years under a single command structure. One bolstered by the color red and a blade-first mentality.
After Dice passed a bank of empty lockers that used to be full of gear and personal memorabilia, his mind connected to a set of memories related to the ambush he’d helped orchestrate.