Ransom X

  *****

  At 5:07 eastern time, the feed for the Laura went to static. At 5:10 Legacy got a call from Tyke.

  “Tell your boys up in operations to look for a tack signature on a long-wave arc at these coordinates.” He spewed out three twelve-digit sets of numbers. “One of the receivers I put a trace on requested a re-initialization thirty seconds ago, it should give you a location.”

  “I can’t believe Blue would be this sloppy.” Legacy tore the page of notes from his notebook and stood, uncertain where to go with it.

  “Maybe he didn’t have a choice, the signals been down for three minutes. This might be it.”

  Legacy’s voice rose in anger. “No. It’s not. He had plans, and he never scraps his plans.”

  Tyke let it pass. “Sure man, it’s probably just a lucky break. There’s no way he’d know you were scanning for a socket connection like this old satellite receiver requires. He slipped up.”

  Legacy called up the website on his computer, a test pattern had replaced the usual feed. “I’ll believe it when I see it, how long will it take for the satellite to reacquire?”

  “Five, maybe ten minutes.”

  Legacy entered the operations room, with all hell breaking loose around him. Screens showed the transmission break, and all of the websites that had lost the feed. People scrambled from station to station in the unreasonable assumption that somehow what they were seeing might change. Legacy gave the number sets to the tech in charge, Edwards was his name, and he wore an angry scowl. He didn’t like the interruption. “Where did you get these?”

  “It’s part of my investigation.”

  “Why the hell isn’t it part of ours?” An underling whispered something in his ear. “Sorry, special Agent Legacy, I meant to say why the hell isn’t it part of ours, sir?”

  “I just worked up the theory.”

  “Yeah, right.” He tapped the computer keys, called up a communication window with an old FORTRAN interface prompt. “I’m taking to the satellite now, let’s see who it’s talking to.”

  “And where. My source said we should be able to track this down to fifty square miles.” Legacy added. “The source you worked this up with just a few minutes ago.”

  “That’s right.” Deputy Bailey entered the room. “Is this really important, or is this a glitch?”

  Both Legacy and Edwards dismissed Bailey without a word, fixated instead by the stream of code. Edwards spoke, “So if this establishes a link, are we going to see Laura again?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “It’s communicating. Why are you looking for this kind of receiver, it’s over thirty years old?”

  “It’s got certain properties that the abductors – utilize.”

  “I can see where this might be hacked for receiving an open channel to programming. Is this how they got all of those local channels?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It’s communicating. If they’re using it for distribution we should have picture in the next ten seconds.”

  They watched the websites, all still flashing a message of disconnect from media.