"Still doesn't explain the need for the Wave Bubble," Auggie said. Of the three, he was the most suspicious, not because he distrusted me, I'd realized, but because he was very concerned with how what he made might be used.
"Where she is now-where I think she is-the people who have her, they've got some police in their pocket," I said. "All of these people are using cell phones, they don't like landlines, they don't like anything that can be traced. I don't want them calling for help when I go to get her."
"How do you know they've got the cops in their pocket?" Solomon asked.
I indicated my face.
"Go to the feds," Sharala said. "Or the state police."
"And what if someone tips these people off first?" I asked. "Then I lose her. I can't take the risk."
"This one girl, she's there, maybe, but… but there are other girls there, too. You're just going to leave them there?"
"No," I said.
"What're you going to do for them?"
"I'm working on it. Look, I've told you guys as much as I think it's safe to tell you. I'm dealing straighter with you than I've dealt with anybody in a long, long time. Are you willing to help me or not?"
"Of course we'll help you," Sharala said.
"I'll pay for the equipment, anything you need," I said. "I'll pay for your time."
"We'd do it for free," Auggie told me.
"But money's good, too," Solomon added.
"So what do we do now?"
"Now?" Sharala asked, with a grin that seemed almost too delighted for her face to hold. "Now we make shit."
CHAPTER
Thirty-two I went apartment hunting that afternoon. I found myself a cheap place on West Cheyenne for six-fifty a month, and had a rental agreement with Matthew Twigg's name on it by four in the afternoon. That gave me just enough time to get to the DMV before they closed at five. With the rental agreement in one hand and my Washington State driver's license in the other, I was able to provide proof of residency, and left just as they were locking the doors with a brand new Nevada State driver's license.
I raced down to Tropicana, jockeying through traffic and watching the clock. My haste wasn't truly necessary, but the more I got out of the way now, the less I would have to do later, and the plan I was forming-such as it was-was going to keep me fairly busy for the next few days. According to the rental's clock radio, it was seven past six when I pulled into the parking lot of The Gun Store, and when I went inside I got eyefucks from just about everyone behind the counter, which is never a nice thing, and all the less pleasant when the people delivering them are also wearing firearms, as all of them were.
I made it easy on them, though, because I knew what I wanted, and they had it. I picked up a Glock 19 and one hundred rounds of nine-millimeter, and while I was at it I acquired a small Benchmade knife from their selection. They ran my brand new driver's license while I listened to the sound of gunfire in all calibers coming from the shooting range. They even had submachine guns and a Squad Assault Weapon available for rental. The check on Matthew Twigg came back, and nothing in it said I wasn't to be trusted with a pistol.
Next task was to find an electronics or, better, an office-supply store, but the hour had gone late enough that I didn't think I'd be able to manage it today. I headed back to the hotel, ordered up some food, and set about checking the pistol I'd purchased, fieldstripping it and reassembling its parts before loading it and stowing it deep in my messenger bag. I was sore and tired, and when I looked at the clock, I realized it was time to call Ballygar.
Alena answered this time, sounding miserable.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I've been sick," she told me. "Throwing up."
"Something you ate?"
"No, sick."
"Oh."
"Yes." She sounded very far away, and small, and it made me miss her all the more. "I feel awful."
"I think I've found her," I said. "If everything goes well, I could be in Ireland in another seven days or so. Maybe less."
"When you reach her, speak in Georgian," Alena said. "That will help her."
"I'll remember that. Can you put Bridgett on?"
"Here she is."
"Bridgett?"
"She gets angry when she throws up," Bridgett said. "It's funny."
"Nice to know you two are still getting along."
"Things are better."
"That's good to hear."
"Yeah, she's been so tired the last couple of days she barely has the energy to insult me."
"Ah."
"I hear her right? You're close?"
"Think so."
"Good," said Bridgett. "I want to go home."
"You're not the only one," I told her. Sharala, Auggie, and Solomon met me for breakfast the next morning at a greasy spoon close to the campus.
"We've got a design we like," Sharala told me. "Limor, when she did the Wave Bubble, it was a little thing, could fit in a cigarette pack. The power you're talking about, we need to scale that up. So we're thinking of a toolbox, one of those big metal ones, which'll give us some design benefits, as long as everything's insulated. It's gonna be heavy, though."
"How heavy?"
"Well, we're using a car battery for power, so, you know, that plus some."
"Doesn't sound like anything I can't handle."
"We emailed the Gerbers this morning, like, at three A.M.," Solomon said. "We're having the PCBs sent FedEx, like, warp speed, they should be here tomorrow."
"In English," I said.
"Gerbers," Sharala explained. "Think circuit diagrams, okay? PCB is printed circuit board."
"Gotcha."
Auggie slid a piece of notepaper over to me, a sketch of the design. The drawing was of a standard-sized toolbox, cutaway, notations all over it.
"With the car battery, this thing should go two, three hours before burning out," Auggie interjected. "And it's going to burn out, this much power, it's going to get hot, start melting components."
"That's more than enough time," I said.
"Cool. The other thing with the design, here, is that you'll need to attach the antennae yourself-we're using two of them, you can see here. You just pop the toolbox open, screw 'em on, then hit the Big Red Button and away you go."
"Big Red Button?" I asked.
The seriousness with which they regarded me made it seem as if we'd been discussing a nuclear bomb, and not a cellular jammer.
"There must always," Solomon told me, "be a Big Red Button." After our meeting, I made my way to an Office Depot and dumped a couple hundred dollars on a printer, plain and photo paper, extra ink cartridges, and a spindle-stack of CD-ROMs. Next stop was a Walgreens, where I bought myself two packs of white cotton gloves, the kind used for dermatological care.
I'd checked out of the hotel before leaving for breakfast, and so headed to the apartment, where I set up a workspace on the floor. I got the printer unpacked and communicating with my laptop, and then, wearing a set of the gloves, loaded the tray with photo paper. Then, one after the other, I began printing off multiple copies of all the photographs that Vladek Karataev had taken with his BlackBerry. While the printer ran, I opened up the word processor and began writing.
It was a long process. While the writing went quickly, the printing did not, and each time a sheet was finished, I had to don my gloves to remove it from the tray. It slowed an already time-consuming process immeasurably. I'd gone through most of the ink cartridges, and the world had shifted back into night, before I was finished.
Then, again using the gloves, I loaded the plain paper, and printed out sixteen separate copies of what I had written. I put each aside, with a set of the photographs.
Last, I began burning the CDs. On each one, I included digital copies of the photographs, and most of the video that Vladek had taken. As with the photographs, I left out all images of Tiasa Lagidze. "Wow, you look wasted," Sharala said to me the next morning. "Have some coffee."
"Don't do coffee."
"You get any sleep?"
"I was up all night," I admitted. "Where are we?"