Chinese.' He shook his head.
'But that doesn't scan.'
'Why not?'
'The Chinese know I'm with you, and they know who I am, at least
partially. But they only sent four people.
They must be banking on us buying the trick, and that's too many eggs
in one basket. Unless ... this is a feint. A ploy designed to keep
our attention while they try something else. Yes, that makes more
sense.'
'What are we going to do?'
'Leave. That little scooter is quiet and in the dark; they won't see
us. A pickup car is waiting at a spot where nobody will notice it.'
'There are plenty of outside lights until you get well away from the
buildings,' Morrison said.
'And the pad is also lit up like a Christmas tree. They'll notice
us.'
'No, they won't. Come on.'
As he followed Ventura from the trailer, terror gripped Morrison in its
clammy hand. He needed to visit a bathroom, bad, and it was hard for
him to breathe without wanting to pant. None of this had been in his
plan, none of it. It didn't feel real. It felt like some kind of
demented dream.
Since there was no way the FBI or Net Force could know who he was, it
had to be the bastard Chinese coming for him. And he had no doubt that
if they caught him and put him in a cell with somebody who even
threatened to pull out his fingernails or crush his testicles, he'd
tell them anything they wanted to know.
And it wouldn't take long in the telling, either.
The technique for disrupting the human brain into a temporary psychosis
wasn't something easy to figure out, but once it was grasped, it was
easy enough to do. The trick that had eluded researchers for all those
years was that while they had all the pieces to the puzzle, they just
hadn't been able to put them together. Or even known they should. The
broadcast frequencies had to be varied precisely, they had to run for a
very specific duration, and they had to be repeated at exact intervals.
It took a computer to run the sequence--it was too involved for a human
hand--and if one variable was off even a hair, the technique simply
wouldn't work. The odds of happening on the proper code by accident
were astronomically high, even to achieve the partial results Morrison
had managed.
He didn't deny to himself that he had been lucky, as well as good. And
the truth was, driving people mad had never been his goal--controlling
their actions in a more deliberate manner had been, and he had failed
in that. It was as if he had gone searching for diamonds but had found
opals, instead. Still valuable stones, but not what he had sought,
and-Hey! Where was Ventura going?
'The scooter is over there,' Morrison said.
'We're heading the wrong way!'
'No, we're not. We need to do something first.'
