Wild fire

left police headquarters yet, which is over an hour from here. Second, they really don’t know what’s happening here. Third, even if they got here in the next thirty minutes, they’d be too late.” He explained, “This will all be over in less than twenty minutes.”

I noticed now that the second window in the black box was spinning red letters.

Madox swiveled in his chair and said to us, “The second letter is sent, and the four receivers in the suitcase nukes will pick it up in about fifteen minutes.”

I thought maybe he was juking and jiving us about how much time we had left, so to show him we’d done our homework, I said, “About thirty minutes.”

“No, fifteen. That’s how long each repetitive ELF wave will take to reach San Francisco and Los Angeles, and have its signal decoded in the receiver.”

“The Mideast,” I corrected. “Thirty minutes.”

“No,” said Mr. Madox impatiently. “You still don’t get it-which is good news for me.”

Kate asked, “Get what?”

“Get Project Green and Wild Fire.”

Madox swiveled around again and read his electronic dials, commenting, “The generators are maintaining six thousand kilowatts.” He put his hand on the keyboard. “Now, all I have to do is type the encryption for the last letter in the three-letter code.”

As he said that, the second letter on the black box froze at “O.” So now it read “G-O.”

He noticed it and said, “We have a G and O. So, what’s the code word? I can’t remember. G-O-B? G-O-T?” He laughed over his shoulder at us. “G-O-C-O? No, too many letters. Help me. John? Kate? Please, God, let me remember… ah! That’s it. G-O-D.”

The man was clearly having fun, while losing his marbles.

He typed on his keyboard, and the last window began spinning letters.

He swiveled back to us and said, “So, what’s happening is that my encryption software has successfully sent the letters G and O via ELF wave toward the four receivers, which is confirmed by the G and O on the black box. But, as you know, it takes a while for these repetitive waves to actually reach the receivers and for them to properly decode. Understand?”

I didn’t think he really gave a shit if we understood, unless he was trying to see what we knew, so I said, “We understand.”

“Really?” He informed us, “I’ve used a repeating, self-correcting code, which is continuously transmitted until the initiating sequence is received. In other words, D-O-G won’t work. Only G-O-D can make an explosion. Follow?”

I reminded him, “Don’t forget to activate your isotopes.”

“To… what?” He looked at me like I was crazy, then continued, “This is the same software system that the Navy uses for their nuclear submarine fleet. But maybe you knew that. Do you know about my little experiment back in the 1980s?”

Kate replied, “We do. And so does everyone in the FBI.”

“Really? Well… that’s too bad. But not relevant now. In any case, when that black box spells G-O-D, about fifteen minutes later, the four receivers will have the entire three-letter code in proper sequence. GOD. Then, after two minutes, if there’s no change in the continuous transmitted signal, the four receivers will send an electronic pulse to the four detonators, which are attached to the receivers, and we have four nice nuclear explosions, thanks to Dr. Putyov.”

Neither Kate nor I responded to that.

Madox lit another cigarette and watched the black box as the last window kept spinning letters. Then, the window read “D,” and the box read, “GOD.” Madox, who thought that meant him, said, “So, all three letters are now being sent across the country in a continuous pattern.”

I still wasn’t understanding why he was saying “across the country,” but maybe I did understand, and I didn’t want to know.

Madox pushed a few buttons on the console, and four green LED numbers-15:00- appeared on a big screen, then he hit another button, and the numbers began to count down. He told us, “It’s hard to say exactly how long the ELF wave will take to get properly decoded by the receivers, but about fifteen minutes is a good guess. Then, as I said, the receivers need to hold these letters for precisely two minutes to be certain they’re reading the continuous, self-correcting code correctly. Then”-he slapped his hands together-“BOOM!”

I saw that coming, but poor Luther almost wet his pants.

Madox thought that was pretty funny, so he did it three more times. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! But the surprise was gone, and no one jumped.

I mean, this guy was out of his fucking mind, and I hoped that Carl and Luther were getting it. I was sure that Harry had gotten it at some point, and maybe Carl and Luther would remember what happened to Harry.

I focused on the countdown clock, which now read 1:36, then :35, and so forth, on the way to nuclear ecstasy for Bain Madox.

Madox chain-lit another cigarette, looked at his watch and then the countdown clock, then checked some of his instruments, then glanced at the six security monitors.

Madox seemed to be in a manic state, and I could understand that this was his payoff moment for years of work and planning.

I, on the other hand, didn’t have much to do except kneel with my hands on my head, watching and listening. I mean, I wasn’t exactly bored observing a nuclear event unfolding, but I’m more of an action guy.

On that subject, Carl was still behind us, so going for the BearBanger, which had dropped a bit south in my tightie whities, was not an option. I might get the BearBanger out, but I’d be dead before I could figure out which way was up and press the button on the other end of it.

Kate had a better chance of reaching into the front of her jeans and pulling the thing out before Carl or dim- witted Luther noticed. And I could see she was getting tense just thinking about it.

She was watching Luther as much as she could get away with it, but we couldn’t watch Carl, and I had no idea how closely he was focused on us. Plus, just when Luther’s dim brain seemed to be wandering, Madox would suddenly swivel around and chat with us.

In fact, he now turned toward us. “You probably think I’m crazy.”

I replied, “No, Bain, we know you’re crazy.”

He started to smile, but then realized his troops were present, and he didn’t want to put any ideas into their heads, so he got serious, like he was sane, and said to me, “There’s not one major figure in the history of the world who has not been called crazy. Caesar, Attila, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hit-. Well, maybe he was a little unbalanced. But you understand what I’m saying.”

“I understand that if you think you’re Napoleon, you may need to speak to someone.”

“John, I don’t think I’m anyone except who I am.”

“That’s a good start, Bain.”

He informed us, “I don’t think you appreciate what I’m doing.” He thereupon went into a whole riff about great men who changed the course of history, including some guy named King John of Poland, who saved Vienna from the Turks and didn’t get anything out of it. I mean, who gives a shit, Bain?

Meanwhile, the countdown clock read 11:13, and counting.

Kate took advantage of Madox’s pausing to light a cigarette and asked him, “What is Wild Fire?”

He blew a few smoke rings, then answered, “It’s a top secret government protocol that goes into effect if and when America is attacked with a weapon or weapons of mass destruction. It’s the only good and sane thing we’ve ever done since MAD-Mutually Assured Destruction.”

Kate followed up with, “What does that have to do with… with what’s happening now?”

He looked at her through his smoke and asked, “So, you really don’t know, do you?”

I had the impression that if we answered some of these questions wrong-if he thought we were really clueless-then we’d be joining Putyov and the IRS guy sooner rather than later, so I replied, “We were briefed, but-”

“Good. Tell me.”