The Oracle Year(80)
“My guy had his lever, he just didn’t want to use it. He was scared of his own creation. And maybe he was right to be—it blacked out half the world, didn’t it?”
The Coach kept talking, rambling, but Will had stopped listening. Headlines ran through his head—with lights out, detroit ravaged by looting; alitalia flight 579 crashes on approach to darkened milan runway; ukrainian nuclear plant vents cloud of radioactive steam when safeguards fail . . .
He screwed his eyes shut. Little flashes of white light flared on the inside of his eyelids.
All those people . . . all of them . . . they were on him too. His fault.
He felt himself recede, until he was drifting in an interior space, floating on a black sea of guilt and uncertainty and helplessness. Floating—no, he was drowning.
“. . . from my perspective,” the Coach was saying, “I have to say that I admire what you’ve been able to accomplish. I don’t know if I would have used those predictions the way you did, but I can’t argue . . .”
“Enough,” Will said and opened his eyes.
The woman stopped in midsentence. She looked a little surprised at the interruption, and irritated, and not much like a librarian anymore—more like a pissed-off old Viking queen.
The ambulance was slowing.
“Why?” he said. “Why didn’t you just leave me alone?”
“Well, maybe I would have, Will, if you hadn’t made yourself so damned interesting,” the Coach said.
The ambulance came to a stop.
“In fact,” she went on, a smile returning to her face, “I’d say you’re probably the most interesting man in the world.”
The rear doors of the ambulance opened. The paramedics reappeared, pulling Will’s gurney from the back of the ambulance and extending the wheeled legs beneath it. They undid the straps and helped Will sit up. His head swam, and he almost fell back off the gurney. One of the paramedics caught him by the arm.
“Just relax. You should be completely fine in an hour or so,” the man said. “Don’t exert yourself too much before that.”
“Thanks for the concern,” Will said. He swung his legs over the side of the gurney and stood, feeling unsteady and slow.
He was outside, in the middle of a large, fenced-in area, standing on concrete in the center of a circle of cold-eyed men holding assault rifles and wearing sparse military uniforms, blank except for U.S. flag patches.
Past the cordon of soldiers stood an enormous corrugated steel building—an airplane hangar. Similar buildings stretched off to either side of it. In front of the open doors of the hangar, perched on three delicate wheels that seemed too small to hold its bulk, was a large, two-tone helicopter—white on top, navy-blue on its lower two-thirds. Painted on the white section, just below the rotors, was an American flag.
The helicopter’s ID tag was visible on the tail section—five numbers: 42132. Will stared at them, trying to understand why they seemed familiar to him.
A trim, middle-aged man, graying around the temples and wearing a dark suit, appeared from behind the helicopter and came toward Will. He cut through the circle of marines and, unbelievably, put out his hand for Will to shake. Will ignored it. After a moment, the man dropped his hand. He reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a slim black wallet, which he flipped open to reveal an FBI identification card and badge.
“I’m James Franklin, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You can call me Jim,” the man said, snapping his ID closed and replacing it in his jacket. “You’re Will Dando.”
Will nodded.
The FBI director looked past Will. He turned to follow Franklin’s gaze and saw the Coach, standing near the back of the ambulance.
“Coach, thank you. For everything,” Jim Franklin said. “We’ll take him now.”
The Coach raised a hand, her eyes sharp and focused behind her glasses.
“Anytime, Jim,” she said and shifted her eyes to Will.
“It was a true pleasure, Mr. Dando. As you make your way through this next bit, just remember what I told you. You’re interesting, and they need you more than you need them.”
Franklin frowned.
“Uh, Coach, why . . .”
“Oh, you know me,” the Coach said. “I’m a confirmed pot stirrer. Besides, I see a lot of myself in this kid. I’m actually pretty excited to see what he does next.”
The Coach turned and ambled away across the tarmac, ignoring the marines, expecting them to move out of her way—which they did.
Will watched the woman vanish into the darkness of one of the hangars, like she’d never been there at all.
“Please come with me, Mr. Dando,” Franklin said. “We’re going for a ride.”
Will walked with the FBI agent to the helicopter, the marines pacing them. The door was open; a set of steps had unfolded from the side of the aircraft for easy access to the interior.
Will’s eyes returned to the five digits painted on the vehicle’s tail.
42132. 23–12–4 in reverse, he thought.
The Site suddenly became very present—almost a physical pressure, as if Will were caught in the gears of a great machine, turning him to some new configuration.
He reminded himself that it had almost certainly wanted this.
Several of the marines entered the helicopter first and turned, their faces blank, to cover Will while he climbed the steps.