The Fourth Law Read online

  Copyright © 2010 Paul Stein

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1452820600

  ISBN-9781452820606

  E-Book ISBN: 978-1-61789-199-1

  FOR MY TWIN BOYS:

  GALEN WHOM I STILL MISS

  JASON WHOM I LOVE

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  AUGUST THIRD

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  AUGUST FOURTH

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  AUGUST FIFTH

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  AUGUST SIXTH

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  AUGUST SEVENTH

  FIFTY-TWO

  FIFTY-THREE

  FIFTY-FOUR

  FIFTY-FIVE

  FIFTY-SIX

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  FIFTY-NINE

  SIXTY

  SIXTY-ONE

  SIXTY-TWO

  SIXTY-THREE

  SIXTY-FOUR

  AUGUST EIGHTH

  SIXTY-FIVE

  SIXTY-SIX

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  SIXTY-NINE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  AUGUST THIRD

  22:00 Hours

  ONE

  PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

  THE MOONLESS, star-swept night was ideal for flying. The pilot glanced at his gauges and could see that the horizon was in perfect alignment with the wings of the twinengine Cherokee. They were approaching the drop-zone in Palo Alto from an easterly heading, a distance of only twenty miles from his hangar in Half Moon Bay. On the left side of the fuselage, the great metropolis surrounding San Francisco Bay shone resplendent with millions of twinkling lights. Travis marveled at the industriousness of generations of Californians that played a role in creating this prosperity. From his vantage point, the city lights appeared like an enormous treasure chest, its burgeoning jewels shimmering in the night.

  “Five minutes to the drop-zone,” the pilot said into his mic.

  A brief moment followed. Travis Marlon began adjusting the aircraft’s controls so that the engine RPM slowed. He feathered the prop, reducing torque to the engine, the plane stabilizing at a slower speed to give the parachutists a safe departure from the fuselage. He heard two clicks of static in his headphones, indicating the jumpers had received his message, recognizing they were just minutes away from their target.

  Travis Marlon loved his job, aware that few were as fortunate as he was to follow a career path that mirrored their passion. Flying in the Bay Area was especially exciting: the Pacific Ocean; Silicon Valley; palm trees and sunshine; central nervous system to the sixth biggest economy in the world; epicenter of biotechnology research on the West Coast. Palo Alto was considered one of the finest places to live in California, even considering the overburden of three million people in the greater San Francisco Bay that called this area home.

  But this density of humanity was precisely why Marlon also hated the Bay Area. The freeways were intolerably congested at all times of the day, making air quality an oxymoron rather than a measurement; even the simplest of trips needed careful planning to take advantage of when commute traffic was ebbing. Everything considered, Marlon relished his good fortune, flying high above the chaos that strangled everyday movement below.

  The two ninja-looking skydivers in the Cherokee’s fuselage began a final inventory of their equipment in preparation for exiting the aircraft. Both skydivers were completely dressed from head to foot in black Nomex suits. Each wore night-vision goggles, black leather gloves, and storm trooper boots to facilitate their cloak of invisibility. Even their chutes were black—the usually bright metallic carabineers and hardware associated with normal parachute harnesses were top-dressed with black antireflective paint. The two parachutists would be nearly undetectable against the nighttime sky.

  “Three minutes,” Marlon said into his radio, and this time he slowed the plane to final approach speed at the predetermined altitude of 5,000 feet. At this height, an observer on the ground would still be able to hear the approaching aircraft, but he had cut the running lights so that anyone looking up from the ground would only see the starry sky. Marlon knew well that cutting the running lights was highly illegal; it would guarantee suspension of his pilot’s license by the FAA were he caught. But this was merely the smallest of infractions that these three were presently undertaking.

  The two parachutists completed their safety check and secured the Cherokee’s open door, sitting with their legs dangling outside the fuselage. They removed their headsets and awaited the pilot’s final command before launching into the night sky. Richard Kilmer inspected the lights of the city below, and although he didn’t immediately recognize the Quantum Building, he knew the pilot would get them over the intended target without fail. They had shared scores of military night jumps together and he took great comfort in knowing that Marlon wouldn’t let him down.

  At the one-minute mark, Marlon triggered the yellow light indicating that the jumpers were within sixty seconds of the target. Kilmer turned and gave him a thumbs-up. He then looked at the second hand on his illuminated LED dive altimeter to follow the final seconds prior to the jump.

  Kilmer clenched his fist and struck it firmly on Dallas Weaver’s thigh. They exchanged a fist pump to confirm they were ready, mindful of the danger of a low-altitude night jump atop an unlit building, but eager to dive from the plane and get on with the job.

  “Jumpers away,” Travis whispered to himself, while activating the green light above the back door of the plane. Both parachutists immediately pushed away from the Cherokee, dropping into the sky and letting gravity pull them toward the intended target.

  Kilmer was immediately disoriented, as was customary upon exiting the aircraft, especially on a night dive. At first, all he could process was his body flipping end over end, registering brief flashes of light from the city below juxtaposed between fleeting glimpses of a star-strewn black canvas. He instinctively arched into a classic dive posture: chest pushed forward with arms and legs trailing behind. This orientation assured the swift recovery of his bearings, which was essential in a jump from only 5,000 feet. Kilmer would have a mere fifteen seconds of free fall to aim toward the Quantum Building before opening his chute.

  Finally gaining his bearings, he looked at the altimeter and positioned his body into a flying wedge to speed himself closer to the target. Each parachutist would need to be nearly perfect to avoid overshooting the building. To do so would put them perilously close to landing on Highway 82. Kilmer had no concern abou
t his partner. He knew Weaver was doing exactly as instructed. They would both safely rendezvous on the Quantum Building at Stanford in the next several minutes. No communication was allowed throughout their jump; more pressing matters demanded their undivided attention.

  At 1,000 feet, precisely on schedule, Kilmer pulled the rip cord, releasing the Kevlar straps attached to the parasail chute. His descent decelerated as the black nylon ballooned when his chute caught the air. He spotted the target and tugged on the toggle straps, allowing him to guide his descent in broad, sweeping arcs, closer to the target with each completed circle. Finally, at about twenty-five feet above the surface of the LZ, he pulled down hard on the opposing toggle cords, creating a braking maneuver by the chute. Kilmer dropped silently onto the roof of the Quantum Building, about ten feet from the edge of the nine-story building. Not bad, he thought. His night-vision goggles had given an excellent view of the roof’s limited landing zone. Let’s hope the rest of this job goes as smoothly as the jump.

  Kilmer quickly gathered his nylon chute, stuffing the material and cord into his recovery rucksack. Then he looked over his shoulder for Weaver. As expected, he was at the identical point in their neatly choreographed jump. Both men advanced to the south side of the Quantum Building at about the same time.

  “That was fun,” Dallas Weaver said eagerly, as he approached Kilmer near the edge on the building. “Did you notice the lights on the sixth floor right above our target?”

  “Yeah, I saw ’em,” Kilmer replied tersely, his tone signaling that he wanted no wasted time before penetrating the fifth-floor office. “We’ll give it a bash…no worries now, mate. Git geared up,” he ordered.

  The next step in the breach was to rig an anchor point to the top of the building. Weaver wrapped the metal air-conditioner cabinet with a small diameter Kevlar cord, connecting the free ends with a figure-eight knot. Next he gathered up a bight of the rope and tied a jumbo overhand figure-eight. As a last point in the rigging process, Weaver clipped a steel carabineer into the loop created by the knot and attached the two climbing ropes to the anchor.

  “Anchor’s ready,” Weaver said, as he walked back over to the edge of the building, where Richard Kilmer was fastening miniature edge rollers to its side.

  “Good oh, let’s git vertical,” Kilmer commanded.

  Weaver sensed from the tense look on Kilmer’s face and his surly demeanor that ‘Boss’ was uncharacteristically nervous this evening.

  Kilmer climbed on top the building’s edge, holding fast to the rope. “I’ll feel better once we git inside. The roof’s dodgy…no matter Holloway’s recon. Once I breach, we’ll know for sure.”

  “Affirmative,” Weaver replied, trying to sound encouraging. He had long ago learned to read between the lines of Kilmer’s colorful Aussie slang.

  Both men had donned climbing harnesses over their jumpsuits prior to exiting the plane, so it was an easy transition from parachutist to rappeller. The plan was for Kilmer to rappel from the roof to the fifth floor, a distance of about fifty feet. He would place a diamond-tipped cutting tool on the tempered glass to cut a twenty-four-inch-diameter hole. Four-inch suction cups would secure the glass while Weaver hauled it back to the roof. Thereafter, Weaver would rappel to the office for retrieval of the equations they were sent to acquire.

  Richard Kilmer was a specialist at breaching high-tech security systems, so he would enter the building first. Once he had deactivated the alarm, Weaver could get to work.

  Kilmer stood on the edge of the roof and slowly leaned into the climbing harness as the rope bore his weight. He lowered himself over the edge, keeping his feet firmly planted and his knees slightly flexed, making a smooth transition from standing horizontally on the roof to vertical against the side of the Quantum Building. His rappel rope was drawn from a small sack at the rear of his climbing harness so it wasn’t visibly dangling against the building. The length was measured to exactly sixty-five feet; a monkey-fist knot at the end assured he couldn’t accidentally rappel off the rope.

  As Kilmer cautiously backed down the building, he was forced to invert as he approached the sixth-floor window. This allowed him to secretly peek over the edge of the window to assure that the room was empty. Even if empty, it wouldn’t be wise to leave two climbing ropes exposed for even a short time in case someone returned from another part of the building. Kilmer stole a furtive look below the ceiling of the brightly lit office, and couldn’t help smiling at what he saw.

  Lying bare-chested across the center of a large oak desk was a middle-aged man, his pants hanging loosely around his ankles. On top of him was a voluptuous red-haired woman who had unbuttoned her blouse, exposing her well-endowed breasts. She was astride the man, her skirt raised high above her thighs, riding up and down in a slow, rhythmic motion. The woman’s mouth was open and she appeared to be moaning as she pinned the man’s arms down along his sides.

  Kilmer watched for a long moment and then forced himself to refocus on the task at hand. He unclipped a small L-shaped piece of black anodized aluminum from an assortment of climbing gear hanging from his harness. Still partially inverted, he placed the bracket in the top left corner of the window and redirected his rope against this pivot point. This changed his rappel angle, avoiding the illuminated window altogether.

  Following this slight diversion, Kilmer re-inverted, continuing his graceful descent past the lit office, all the while avoiding another glance at the happenings within. He finally stopped at the office they planned to breach.

  “I’m at the target,” he whispered into his mic. “There’s a Sheila on the sixth floor. Sneak a peek but don’t be droolin’,” he added with a slight chuckle. “Stand by for the glass,” he continued, returning to his normally succinct commands. “It’s out in a quickie.”

  “Ten-four, I can’t wait,” replied Weaver. “Is she good-looking?”

  “She’s no bush pig,” answered Kilmer

  Kilmer repositioned himself squarely in the middle of the plate-glass window of the fifth-floor office. He tied off his rappel device to facilitate working hands free to remove the glass. His night-vision goggles worked perfectly to identify two internal security sensors, the first one located in the corner directly above the entrance, the other positioned in the opposite corner of the room. Kilmer assessed that these electronic sensors were capable of identifying a wide range of subtle changes within the office. Sensors of this type could usually distinguish vibrations from incidental movement: sound disturbances, motion detection, and any change in the ambient room temperature. Simply smashing the glass would trigger the alarm from a number of variables that these sensors were installed to monitor. Fortunately, there didn’t appear to be any photo surveillance to overcome, which made deactivating the physical sensors a bit easier.

  Kilmer deftly attached a stainless-steel rod with the suction cups to the window. He then firmly mounted a large protractor to the top of the rod and adjusted the arc to cut a two-foot-diameter hole in the glass. Finally, he attached a diamond-tipped scoring tool to the end of the protractor and rested the tip gently on the glass.

  “Gimme the line ‘n heave ho…,” Kilmer radioed.

  Weaver was waiting for this command. “Ten-four, rope’s coming from your left side,” he responded. Two swings of the rope later and Weaver deftly delivered the knotted end of the haul line to his partner.

  Before cutting the glass, Kilmer reached into his breast pocket and removed what appeared to be a small flashlight. The device was actually a powerful laser that could be used to interrupt the surveillance sensors long enough for him to remove the glass and enter the office. The sensors couldn’t be permanently deactivated or this, too, would trigger the alarm system. Rather, by simultaneously shining the laser directly onto each sensor, the system could be temporarily deactivated as the program diagnostics automatically ran a series of redundant analytical queries. From this point, he would have approximately ninety seconds to cut the glass, enter the building, and reset th
e sensors.

  Kilmer removed a miniature signal mirror from his breast pocket and taped it to the glass. The mirror contained several pivot points that allowed him to reflect both sensors on opposite sides of the room at the same time. Then he aimed the penlight onto the surface of the mirror and two ruby-red laser beams perfectly dissected the interior of the office, neutralizing the sensors.

  The countdown began. Kilmer worked swiftly, tracing the cutting tool throughout the protractor’s arc. He connected the haul line to the crosspiece between the two suction cups, securely gripped the tie rod, and flexed his knees to provide maximum force as he jerked the glass toward him in one nimble move. The quarter-inch-thick glass popped out cleanly.

  “We’re golden,” Kilmer muttered softly, looking up briefly as Weaver silently hauled the round piece of glass up the side of the building.