The Shimmer by David Morrell Read Free Book Online

from the earphones changed again, sounding definitely like music. But it was unlike any music he had ever heard.
    As a teenager, he'd dreamed about becoming a rock star. He'd had a garage band and still played an electric guitar damned well. He knew about major and minor keys and four-four and three-four beat patterns. But this music didn't have any key he'd ever heard, and it sure didn't have any beat pattern that he recognized. Faint as it was, the music floated and dipped, glided and sank. The notes merged and separated in a rhythm that was almost like the way he breathed if he were on R & R, lying on a beach in Mexico, enjoying the salt smell of the air, absorbing the warmth of the sun.
    "I don't know what that is, but it's the most beautiful thing I ever heard."
    Gordon took off his glasses, and to Halloway's surprise, he didn't protest again. Instead, when he spoke, it seemed as if he felt relieved to do so, to share his discovery with someone.
    "It is beautiful," he said.
    "Why didn't we hear it this afternoon?" Halloway asked.
    "I have no idea. Whatever this is, it happens only after the sun goes down."
    "And you hear that every night?"
    "No. Not like that. Until two nights ago, it was always faint and fuzzy, sort of hovering behind the static. I needed to do a lot of electronic filtering to get a sense of what it sounded like."
    "What happened two nights ago?"
    "Your guess is as good as mine. But all of a sudden, that's what I started hearing."
    "I can't hear it very well," Halloway said. "Why don't you turn on the speakers?"
    Gordon hesitated, evidently concerned that doing so would violate his orders. But then he shrugged as if to say, What the hell; I can't keep this to myself any longer, and flicked a switch.
    Instantly the floating, gliding, sailing music filled the room, making Halloway feel as if he were standing on a cushion of air. The instruments--whatever they were--had a synthesizer quality that made them impossible to identify. Perhaps it was only his imagination, but the wave-like tones seemed to drift into his ears like the arousing whisper of a woman pressed against him.
    "My God, that's beautiful," he repeated. "What's causing it?"
    "We've been trying to figure that out since this place was built."
    Gordon paused, then added, "And apparently a lot longer than that."
    Those last words were cryptic, but before Halloway could ask about them, Taggard appeared in the doorway.
    "What kind of radio station is that? I've never heard anything like it. Is it on the Internet? How do I download that music?"
    "If you tried to record it, somebody would have to shoot you,"
    Gordon said.
    Taggard looked surprised.
    "That's not a joke," Gordon told him.
    Halloway barely paid attention to what they were saying. He felt the music drifting around him and then inside him, becoming part of him. The cushion of air on which he seemed to float became even softer. At the same time, the headache he'd been struggling with finally emerged from the hole where he'd managed to suppress it, like something that had festered until it couldn't be denied.
    The pain was beautiful.

    Chapter 15.
    The U. S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, known as INSCOM, is one of the few branches of the U. S. military that is also a branch of a civilian organization, specifically the National Security Agency, the world's largest electronic intelligence-gathering service.
    Although INSCOM maintains several bases, the one affiliated with the NSA is located at Fort Meade, Maryland, where the NSA is headquartered.
    From his office window, Col. Warren Raleigh could see a mile away to the NSA's headquarters, a tall complex of buildings topped by a vast array of antennae and microwave dishes. Two massive black structures dominated the group. During the day, their shiny dark windows reflected the five thousand cars that sat in the sprawling parking lots that surrounded them.
    Raleigh thought that the reflection was appropriate. While the NSA's occupants