The side of the parking garage across from the building was bedecked with equipment. The lion’s share, by mass at any rate, was in the form of large loudspeakers, attached unobtrusively to the walls. They played, at volume loud enough to deafen the very close, a single tone.
The tone was beyond the range of human hearing – infrasonic, in fact, and at the resonating frequency of intracranial fluid. It was like a concussion without the impact. Twenty seconds after the tone started, everyone in the building was unconscious.
At the airport, Gonçalves called 911. “There’s something happening, at the office building at 2323 Hyacinth… I don’t know, I was on the phone, and then she started screaming, and then she stopped…”
At the same time, a dozen operatives emerged from a soundproof chamber in the back of a van. They ran, in a double-file line, through the entrance.
Across the street, in another van, this one covered in screens, an old man smiled. Operation Headroom had begun.