Alert Page 15

  “I think I read it,” Noah said. “It was written by the guy who cofounded Sun Microsystems and created Java, right?”

  “That’s the guy,” I said. “One of the theories in the article is that as computer tech gets more powerful for regular folks and makes their lives easier, this more powerful tech could also put power into the hands of disgruntled individuals.”

  I rolled the bot in my palm like it was a die.

  “That’s what I think is happening here,” I said. “We’re seeing the pivot where cutting-edge technology, being very well utilized by two or even just one motivated nut job, can kill a massive amount of people.”

  “One guy is doing all this?” Arturo snorted. “C’mon.”

  “You don’t believe me?” I said. “Then what about the Unabomber?”

  “Who?”

  “Ted Kaczynski. For twenty years, this guy went on a nationwide bombing campaign from a cabin in Montana that didn’t have electricity or running water. What he had instead was an extremely keen intelligence that he used to make incredibly intricate letter bombs. And that was in the seventies and eighties. Imagine what he could do today if he was free.

  “What I think we have here is a Kaczynski-level intelligence running amok.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that,” Emily said, suddenly frantically thumbing her phone.

  “What?” I said.

  “Ted Kaczynski. Two days ago, I got an e-mail from the Washington office,” she said, tapping her cell screen. “Here it is. The Bureau of Prisons sent a request from Kaczynski to the FBI. He said he saw the news of the bombing and put in a request through his lawyer to help us.

  “Which I and everybody at the Bureau dismissed as crazy. Until now. I think you’re right, Mike. About the intelligence involved here. It’s very similar to Kaczynski’s. Maybe we should interview him.”

  “Interview the Unabomber?”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “Why not? He’s completely brilliant and crazy. Just like the person we’re trying to catch. Maybe he can give us some insight.”

  “How is the Unabomber still alive?” said Brooklyn. “Didn’t the feds execute him?”

  “You’re thinking of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber,” said Doyle.

  “Doyle’s right. Kaczynski is alive,” Emily said. “He’s in his seventies now and housed at the fed supermax in Florence, Colorado. So what do you say, Mike? My bosses couldn’t be more ready to do something. This is the worst loss of life in the Bureau’s history. Let’s go talk to him.”

  “When?” I said.

  “Ain’t no time like the present,” she said. “There’s a Bureau plane at Teterboro that flew in the director for all the funerals. I’ll get us on it. What do you say?”

  I rolled the strangely heavy little bot across the blotter of my cluttered desk and peered at it.

  “I say let’s go to Colorado.”

  Chapter 65

  It was evening when the FBI Gulfstream V bounced down hard onto the tarmac of the Fremont County Airport in Colorado.

  Two young male agents were standing beside a black Ford Explorer outside the aircraft’s dropped door. They speedily helped move us and our files and bags into the backseat before spinning the roof lights as they floored it out of the rural airport and onto the service road.

  As we got onto a highway, outside my window in the distance, I could see the blood-orange glow of the sun that must have just settled behind the dark, serrated peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

  “Well, what do you know?” I said to Emily through a yawn as we looked over the piles of Unabomber case files. “Those mountains actually do look like the ones on the beer cans, huh? Speaking of which, where is the Coors brewery? Close by? Do they give tours? With tastings?”

  “Unfortunately, that’ll have to be the next trip, Mike. The warden is waiting on us,” Emily said as she opened a laptop. “But believe me, when this is over, the first six-pack of Silver Bullets will be on me.”

  Known sometimes as the Alcatraz of the Rockies, ADX Florence is a 490-bed concrete-and-steel hotel that the feds reserve for its system’s most notorious and most extremely violent prisoners. In addition to Kaczynski, it houses convicted foreign and domestic terrorists, spies like the ex–FBI agent scum Robert Hanssen, and leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood and the Gangster Disciples.

  “So, Mike, what do you think? You’ve read the files. You ready to talk to Ted?” said Emily as our SUV went up the long driveway and was buzzed in at the gate, flanked by towers manned with armed guards.

  “I don’t know,” I said as we rolled in past the twelve-foot-high fencing, topped with razor wire. “The guy isn’t your regular perp, is he? I never interviewed a killer who went to Harvard at sixteen or was a Berkeley math professor at twenty-five. Why do you think he wants to talk to us now? He’s never offered his help before.”

  Emily shrugged.

  “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  The assistant warden was a tough, matronly Native American woman named Marjorie Greene. She met us at the administration building’s sally port and helped us get through processing, where we handed over our service weapons.

  The inside of the prison was like no facility I’d ever been to. Everything was made of smooth poured concrete—the floors, the walls, the ceiling. There wasn’t a window in sight. Prisons are usually loud, with slamming gates and people yelling, but here it was quiet and almost bizarrely serene.

  “Like walking into a spaceship or something, isn’t it?” Marjorie Greene said as she led us with four guards down a meandering corridor to the interview room. “They designed it that way on purpose, so the prisoners don’t know where they are in relation to the outside. I don’t even know myself half the time, and I’ve been here seven years.”

  “Seems like overkill, no?” said Emily. “Aren’t they locked down in their cells twenty-three hours a day at a supermax?”

  “Well, it’s not so much that the inmates will escape from in here per se,” Marjorie explained as we walked. “It’s that some of these guys are heads of the kinds of organizations that actually might try to break them out from the outside.”

  “What’s Kaczynski like as a prisoner?” I said.

  “Tidy cell. Nice rapport with staff. Reads a lot. Figures, his being a genius and all. Never caused any kind of trouble. Quiet as a church mouse, really. He’s…different. You’ll see.”

  We came down some steps into another concrete corridor with a lower ceiling and a frosted, probably bulletproof, Plexiglas door at the far end. One of the four guards slipped a long tubelike key into a metal box beside the door as Marjorie Greene spoke into her radio. A moment later, there was an electric buzz and the crack of a lock snapping open.

  I took a deep breath as the guard opened the door.

  And then I was standing there looking at the Unabomber in the flesh.

  He didn’t look like the famous crazy-mountain-man picture of him taken when he was arrested. He was clean-shaven and just looked sort of oldish, with age spots on his forehead and skin drooping off the sharp bones of his face. You wouldn’t know who he was—just some sickly-looking man in a baggy orange jumpsuit.

  It was actually bordering on ridiculous that this scarecrow of a man, who looked as threatening as a kitten, was cuffed to a concrete desk behind a set of thick steel bars that divided the room.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said, smiling weakly, as one of the guards slammed the door closed and locked us in. “I didn’t think you’d take me up on my offer. I’m surprised, not to mention hopeful.”

  Chapter 66

  “I’m Agent Parker. This is Detective Bennett. We don’t have a lot of time here, so why don’t we get to it?” Emily said, clicking her phone to record the conversation as we sat in the two folding chairs in front of the bars. “Why did you want to talk to us today, Mr. Kaczynski?”

  He looked at us with his lips pursed for a second, like he was mulling something over.

  �
�They’re going to destroy New York City—you know that, right?” he finally said. “That’s going to be next. The next step. The entire city will be destroyed.”

  Emily and I exchanged a glance.

  “Um, how do you know that?” I said. “Do you know the people who are doing this?”

  “It isn’t people,” Kaczynski said. “There is one person behind this. One genius, and he’s good. And he’s toying with you. Punishing you. Unless you get a bead on this person in the next few days, I would recommend evacuating New York City. Because the loss of life will be like nothing ever seen.”

  We stared at him. What was disturbing was the dead certainty in his tone. He seemed incredibly sure of what he was saying.

  “You didn’t answer our question. Do you know these people?” Emily repeated.

  “No. I don’t know them personally, of course,” Kaczynski said, “but I know what they’re like. I used to be this person. Technically gifted, highly intelligent, dedicated, and very, very angry. You should be looking for someone like me. Someone who knows advanced math and computer science, maybe a chess master or a think-tank guy. Whoever it is, he is highly analytical and lives alone, most likely in a messy place. Look for a hoarder, probably someone on the autistic spectrum, a man who lives exclusively inside the expansive confines of his own head.”

  “What do you think will happen to the city?”

  “Something huge and unexpected—something biological, perhaps. Or who knows? Even something to do with nanotechnology. Schopenhauer said that a smart man can hit a target that others can’t reach, but a genius can hit a target that others can’t see.

  “I think you’re up against a genius here, unfortunately. God help all of us if this guy knows nanotech. He could come up with an artificial virus that destroys the world’s vegetation or oxygen or water supply. You really have to catch this guy!”

  Chapter 67

  “Why do you think total destruction will be next?” I asked.

  “Because it’s the next logical step,” Kaczynski continued. “The last and final upping of the ante. The perpetrator hasn’t asked for money, has he? He hasn’t claimed credit for some cause. That’s because the man behind this doesn’t have any ulterior motive. He just wants to destroy New York City—or who knows? All of humanity, maybe.”

  “Why do you care about all this, Mr. Kaczynski?” I said. “I mean, three people were killed and many others maimed, and the entire country was terrorized by your campaign. You even tried to blow up an airliner. I’d think if anything you’d be rooting for the destruction of New York City.”

  He took a deep breath and looked down at the floor. His bony fingers began to drum loudly on the concrete desk.

  “How many times do I have to explain this? In the beginning, all I wanted to do was to live freely by myself in Montana. I didn’t want a damn thing from anyone. Just to be left alone. But one day I went for a hike, and I saw that industrial society would never leave me alone. I’ll admit I was angry and motivated by revenge against the system. But quite quickly, I began to see my bombing campaign as a way to wake people up to the existential threat posed by technology, which I detailed in my Times article.

  “The fact that someone is now blowing up New York with advanced technology is the very outcome I was trying to warn everyone about. Your bomber wants to destroy New York City and maybe the world. I never wanted that! Don’t you see? I wanted to stop humanity from killing itself. I wanted to stop things so a guy like the one you’re dealing with here would never have the power to do what he’s doing. My campaign was to see the world saved.”

  He was referring to his antitechnology manifesto, which the New York Times and Washington Post had agreed to publish in 1995 in order to stop him from sending mail bombs. I’d read it on the plane, and though it was definitely bonkers in parts, I found it surprisingly well written.

  “So you still think technology is going to destroy the world?” Emily said.

  “Going to?” he said, wide-eyed. “It’s happening right before our very eyes! How much time do you spend with your smartphone? A lot, I bet. More than you spend with your spouse. Than with your children. Even the guards here. I see them. They’re good men set to keep watch and protect the world from some of the worst criminals on earth, and here they are sneaking little peeks at the screen. It’s here. We’re already dependent on the machines.”

  He winced as he rubbed a hand through his hair nervously.

  “It’s simple, really. The more we ask technology to do for us, the more power we have to give it. Right now, the world’s most brilliant minds are designing artificial intelligence and robots that they think will solve all our problems but will only spell doom for the entire human race! Human beings can’t handle this kind of power. Who could? Once AI and robots are in place, they will either destroy humanity outright or give one person—the head of Google, say—a measure of godlike power that Caligula never dreamed was possible.

  “Right now, who is really more powerful? Google or the NSA? How about tomorrow? I tried to stop all this from happening. I saw what was coming. Now, if you actually solve this case and prevent this nut from wiping everyone out, I think you have another chance to finally make the threat visible to the world. You have to open people’s eyes!”

  “But I don’t understand. How does what you’ve said relate to the bombings in New York?” Emily said.

  “Can’t you see what you’ve got here?” Kaczynski said, starting to rock back and forth in his chair. “This case is an opportunity for you guys in the political system and law enforcement to do your jobs and protect the public. You need to highlight the dire danger that computer technology is posing.

  “You need to use this as a lever to urge politicians to pass cautionary laws to put a stop to drones and especially robotics and artificial intelligence. People urge gun control after a school shooting, right? Well, we won’t have to worry about a school shooter in the near future because he’ll be cooking up a genetically engineered supervirus in his basement, and everyone on earth will be dead. You need to ensure that these technologies are treated like radioactive nuclear material, because that’s how dangerous this is, and—”

  “Thanks for the advice, Mr. Kaczynski, but unfortunately, we didn’t come out here to sit and talk the politics of technology. Do you have any more specific information on our case?”

  “Well, no,” he said, gaping at Emily.

  “Okay, this interview is over, then. Thanks for your help, Mr. Kaczynski,” I said, standing with a sigh.

  Tears sprang into his eyes as we knocked on the door to summon the guard. Kaczynski rapidly tapped at the concrete desk with a gaunt finger.

  “We’re at the precipice, don’t you see?” he said. “The precipice! Only you guys can slam on the brakes here! You have to! This is bigger than New York City! It may be our last chance.”

  Chapter 68

  “Sorry, Mike. That was pretty fruitless,” Emily said as we were driving back into Manhattan from Teterboro Airport after our return flight the following evening.

  “What do you mean?” I said as I tapped impatiently on the steering wheel. We sat at a dead stop after going through the George Washington Bridge tolls. Up ahead on the span, blue and red emergency lights flashed around a broken-down charter bus they were trying to tow away.

  “I should have anticipated that Kaczynski would only use this as an opportunity to spew his warped ideology. We probably would have done better if we’d hit the Coors tour, like you said.”

  “Chin up, Parker,” I said. “We took a stab. Besides, I think he gave us some insight into our perpetrator or at least confirmed what we were already thinking. And oddly enough, some of the stuff he said about technology I think is actually true. These military robots they’re starting to build really are scary.

  “And this self-driving smartcar idea? Maybe it’ll make some things cheaper, but won’t it also put every truck driver and cabbie and FedEx and UPS worker in the world out of wo
rk? For what? So college kids can drink and drive safely? That you can do something amazing is amazing, but when is it too much?”

  “You got me,” she said. “Come to think of it, his comments about the perpetrator’s anger and introversion are actually pretty interesting. Kaczynski left the world to live in his cabin until the world intruded upon him in a way that truly pissed him off. Maybe that’s what happened with our guy. He’s sitting there hoarding and counting buses or what have you, and suddenly the world—or, more specifically, New York City—hurts him in a deep, fundamental way. Name some ways the city can hurt you.”

  “Gee, that’ll be hard,” I said, gesturing at the unbelievable traffic. “Let me count the ways. Taxes, tickets, traffic, red tape, fines, towed cars, broken buses, broken trains, stuck elevators, jury duty, getting mugged, no place to park, homeless people urinating on your doorstep. How am I doing so far?”

  “You’re on a roll,” she said. “Maybe this guy is an ex–city employee who got fired without justification. Or he lost a lawsuit. Got screwed on a business deal by a city councilman. Maybe he was hurt on the subway, considering the first blast.”

  My cell rang. I glanced at the screen.

  “Open the window. Maybe I’ll start my Luddite conversion after all by chucking my phone into the Hudson. It’s my angry boss, Fabretti.”

  Instead, she lifted my phone and hit the Accept Call button and handed it to me.

  “Hey, Chief. Just got off the plane,” I said.

  “Good. Get over to City Hall as fast as you can. They just called.”

  “Who just called?” I said.

  “The bombers. They just called the acting mayor. We have first contact. Get over here now.”

  Chapter 69

  I took the West Side Highway and drove all the way south, until it turned into West Street.

  Half a block east of our exit, we had to stop abruptly at a checkpoint where a massive Bradley Fighting Vehicle was parked sideways in the intersection. After we showed our ID, a young bespectacled National Guardsman in khaki camo mirror-checked the underside of my cop car for a bomb.