Pandora's Clock by Nance John J

Author:Nance, John J. [Nance, John J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, Suspense, Mystery, Adventure, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780312960346
Amazon: B000OTQ7I6
Goodreads: 661757
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperback
Published: 1995-08-01T07:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

WASHINGTON, D.C.—SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23—12:45 P.M. (1745Z)

A shaken Dr. Rusty Sanders sat in the driver’s seat of his Chevy Blazer and wondered what to do next.

Three hours ago he had walked into his condo near Herndon, Virginia, dead tired and ravenous. He remembered calmly walking through his dining room and putting his briefcase and handheld computer on the table. The machine had beeped immediately with a message from Sherry Ellis:

Where are you?

Reply only to my PDA.

He removed the stylus and handwritten the answer on the small screen, watching with the usual fascination as the tiny silicon brain deciphered his loops and strokes and replaced his handwriting with the typed version—which he then transmitted with a few keystrokes:

I’m home.

In Herndon.

Why?

He’d set the PDA back on the table and gone to the kitchen to find something to eat when it began beeping again. Rusty put down the carton of eggs he’d removed from the refrigerator and walked back to the table.

The message was clear from five feet away:

GET OUT OF THERE!

GET OUT NOW!

CALL ME LATER ON PDA. DO NOT

TRANSMIT WHERE YOU ARE.

For almost three hours he had driven randomly, keeping his speed within the limit and trying in vain to communicate again with Sherry.

All transmissions went unanswered, as did the burning question in his mind: What the hell is going on?

Finally he’d pointed his Blazer toward the heart of the District and found the largest parking garage he could locate, a huge structure on M Street that went down several levels. He’d backed into the most remote stall available and hunkered down, wondering if Sherry’s PDA had been confiscated by someone at Langley—and whether any messages he tried to send could be traced physically to the spot he occupied by tracing the geographic location of the cellular signal.

It would be safer now to be on foot, he decided.

Rusty popped the PDA computer in his briefcase, locked the Blazer, and walked up Connecticut to the Dupont Circle Metro station. In search of a pay phone, he joined a throng of people descending to track level on the escalator.

Wrong! If I’m traced making a call from here, they’ll know I’m riding the Metro system.

He retraced his steps back up to street level and found a pay phone in the lobby of an office building. He punched in his own number for the condo.

It took three rings for the answering machine to pick up. Rusty hit the star button to end his recorded message, then entered a series of three digits—728–which activated the internal microphone. He’d used the feature several times to make sure the TV was off, or to check to hear whether the cleaning lady was really vacuuming the place.

This time the sounds of crashing and banging reached his ears: furniture being moved and drawers being pulled out. He could hear male voices in the background for a few seconds, then sudden silence.

He could hear footsteps then, getting louder as someone moved closer to the counter where the answering machine sat. A voice suddenly

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