Randi looked down at the phone’s screen and confirmed that the call was encrypted. Not that Marty was in the habit of talking on open lines. He was extremely suspicious of the NSA and lately had become concerned about space aliens.

“I think that’s safe to say,” she responded. “What the hell happened out there, Marty? How were those cars being controlled?”

“It’s really not all that hard. Modern cars don’t have mechanical linkages anymore. They’re computer controlled. All you have to do is get into the onboard system. You know that asshole neighbor I have who keeps calling the cops on me? I got into his Lexus through the tire pressure sensor. Now his heat is on full blast all summer and his AC runs all winter. If I wanted to, I could take control and make him drive through his garage door. In fact, that’s not a bad idea…”

“Okay,” Smith said before Zellerbach could embark on one of his legendary tangents. “But you had physical access to the car. You plugged your laptop into it and if you wanted to drive it remotely you’d have to have either a cable connected or some kind of a radio controller, right?”

There was a long pause. “That’s true. Yes.”

“There’s no way someone could have gotten to all those cars to hack them, Marty. And I’d be willing to bet there was no one within radio controller distance either. Explain that.”

Silence. Clearly, this was a problem he couldn’t entirely figure out. And if there was one thing that Zellerbach couldn’t stand, it was a technological issue on which he couldn’t pontificate endlessly.

“Maybe someone got access during the manufacturing process. Radio control could be handled by hijacking cell towers or even satellites. The airport would be an ideal location—lots of security cameras to tie in to so you could see what you were doing.”

“They were different makes and models,” Randi said.

“Yeah, but parts for those cars are built all over the world. It doesn’t matter who upholstered the seats and made the shift knob. What you need to know is who made the engine control unit.”

“So how hard would this be, Marty?”

“That’s kind of a vague question. It would depend on—”

“Okay, let me rephrase. How much would it cost me to hire you to do it?”

“I’d probably ask for a fifty-million-dollar retainer and five years. No guarantees, though. I mean, I’d have to infiltrate the manufacturing and design companies that make the ECUs and figure out how to hide some very sophisticated software in their systems. Then I’d have to figure out a way to communicate with it…” His voice faded as he became lost in thought.

“You know all these guys,” Smith said. “Who do you think did it? Give me some names.”