The Omega Theory

by Mark Alpert

  Cyrus gave him a smile. “Are you having doubts?” he asked. “About your sacrifice?”

  The general shook his head firmly. “No, Brother. No doubts at all.”

  “Then perhaps you’re concerned about your troops? Maybe because they don’t know what will happen to them?”

  McNair shook his head again. “No, it’s better this way. The burden of decision would’ve been too great, so I’ve made it for them. I can think of no finer mission for my men than opening the gates to God’s kingdom.” He closed his right hand into a fist and held it high. Then his arm fell to his side, slapping against his fatigues. “But the nearer we get, the more I worry. My superiors at Central Command are watching me closely. And the Joint Chiefs are demanding updates on Cobra every hour. My faith is still rock solid, Brother, but I’m worried that the unbelievers will discover our operation and shut it down.”

  “Be calm, Samuel.” Cyrus rested his hand on McNair’s shoulder. “You must always remember that God is on our side. Hasn’t He given us everything we need?” He gestured at the gun tube standing in the center of the tent. “Even the unbelievers in Washington are playing their part, advancing the Lord’s plans without knowing it. Speaking of which, what’s the latest word on the timing of the Ranger assault?”

  “The Iranians haven’t responded to the president’s ultimatum, but no one expected them to. Now that they have the bomb, they’re not going to give it up without a fight. The president is going to give them another twenty-four hours, and if they don’t respond by then, we’ll get the green light. That means we’re scheduled to launch the surprise attack after nightfall tomorrow.”

  Cyrus smiled again. “You see? We have plenty of time to put everything in place.”

  McNair nodded, but he still wouldn’t look Cyrus in the eye. “Brother, I spoke with Lukas a few minutes ago. He was in the convoy that just arrived from the Darvaza camp. He told me that Tamara was no longer a Believer. He said you cast her out because she disobeyed your orders.”

  Cyrus stopped smiling. It was painful to remember the incident. And he suspected that it was distressing for McNair, too. The general had become quite fond of Tamara. Cyrus squeezed the man’s shoulder. “Yes, she weakened. Because of her sympathy for the boy. I had to order Angel to put her to sleep. But listen to me, Samuel—her rest will be brief. In just a matter of hours, she’ll be resurrected along with the rest of us and we’ll see her again in the eternal kingdom.”

  “No, she’s still alive. Lukas told me that the convoy lost radio contact with Angel, so they sent a couple of men back to the camp. The men found four dead soldiers and no sign of Tamara or the boy. It looks like they escaped. One of the Land Cruisers was missing and the charred wrecks of two other vehicles were at the bottom of the burning crater.”

  Cyrus felt a twisting in his chest, a coil of righteous anger. “What? Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

  “Lukas said he just received the news. He was afraid to tell you, so he asked me to do it.”

  The coil of anger tightened. Cyrus closed his eyes. The corruption of the world never ceased to amaze him. It was so deeply embedded in the fabric of the universe that he sometimes felt as if every particle was conspiring against him. Now Tamara had put their entire operation in jeopardy. Cyrus knew that as soon as she reached the nearest town, she would try to contact the American authorities. Although the officials might not believe her story at first, they would certainly make inquiries. The woman had to be stopped.

  Cyrus tilted his head back and took a deep breath. He followed the same advice he’d just given McNair—he reminded himself that God was on their side. Then he opened his eyes and pointed at the general. “All right, we’re going to take care of this. We’re going to organize a search party. Does Lukas have any idea where the prisoners might’ve gone?”

  “He said the men who went back to the Darvaza camp found Land Cruiser tracks leading away from the crater. The men followed the tracks northeast through the desert, but they estimate that the prisoners are several hours ahead.”

  “Good, very good. I’ll send Lukas and another team to Dashoguz so they can approach the prisoners from the opposite direction. With the Lord’s help, we’ll cut them off before they can reach any of the oasis villages.”

  “Is there anything I can do, Brother?”

  Cyrus nodded. “I want to you to take advantage of the connections you’ve made with the Turkmen government. Get in touch with your new friend, the president-for-life, and tell him to mobilize his internal security forces. We may need their help to clean up this mess.”

  24

  AN IDF TRANSPORT PLANE HOLDING FOURTEEN PASSENGERS—OLAM, DAVID, Monique, Lucille, and ten heavily armed kippot srugot—landed at the airport near Baku, Azerbaijan, at 2 A.M. on June 12. The pilot, an old friend of Olam’s from his days in the Sayeret Matkal, taxied the plane to an empty hangar. They rendezvoused there with another of Olam’s former Sayeret comrades, now a Mossad agent who ran Israel’s intelligence operations in the region. David was surprised at first that Loebner had so many useful contacts, but Olam explained that the Sayeret Matkal was a fraternity of sorts. Veterans of the commando unit held influential positions in Israel’s government ministries and intelligence agencies. Over the years, Olam said, he’d done many favors for his old colleagues, and now they were paying him back.

  Inside the hangar Olam’s team exited the plane and transferred to a minibus. They left the airport without any trouble—the Mossad agent had already bribed the Azerbaijani officials—and the minibus sped to Pirallahi, a grim petroleum depot on the Caspian Sea. When they reached the waterside Olam ordered everyone out of the bus, and they ran in the darkness toward a decrepit wooden pier. At the end of the pier was a rusty fishing trawler, about ninety feet long, with a tall mast near the bow and a two-story deckhouse at the stern. A dozen more kippot srugot who’d come to Azerbaijan on an earlier flight were already on the trawler. Once everyone was aboard, Olam started the boat’s engines and within minutes they were gliding across the Caspian. David leaned against the deck rail as they headed east toward Turkmenistan. He saw nothing on the horizon but the distant lights of the offshore oil derricks.

  The deckhouse had two cabins, a small one intended for the boat’s captain and a much larger one for the crew. Olam assigned the smaller cabin to Lucille and Monique, and everyone else piled into the bunks in the larger room. David stretched out on an upper bunk and closed his eyes. Exhausted, he fell asleep almost immediately, but as he drifted off he pictured a long silver cylinder, lying on its side like a cannon. Its aluminum skin glinted under fluorescent lights. It was the X-ray laser, he realized as he slipped into unconsciousness. The Russian copy of Excalibur was waiting for them in the Turkmen depot on the other side of the sea.

  David was so tired he could’ve slept for twelve hours, but at seven in the morning he awoke to the sound of off-key chanting. Olam’s men stood in a circle, rocking back and forth as they read from their prayer books. Each man wore tefillin, the small black boxes that religious Jews strap to their foreheads and arms during morning prayers. For several minutes David lay in his bunk with one eye open, secretly watching the kippot srugot pray. As their singsong voices rose and fell, he wondered what Olam had told them about the universal program.

  In a way, the program was a confirmation of their faith: the devout had always believed that God had a plan for the world, and now they could view His actual instructions, written in the divine language of quantum code. But it was still unclear, at least to David, exactly who had written the thing. As Monique had said, the universal program could’ve evolved on its own, emerging from randomness at the beginning of time and surviving to this day simply because it was more robust than any of the alternatives. So faith remained a choice, or perhaps more accurately, a predilection, and David was jealous of these kippot srugot who were blessed with the predilection for belief. For a moment he longed to join them, to grab a prayer book and sing a hymn to the Almighty. But
the feeling didn’t last long. The prayers went on and on, and after a while David lost interest. He quietly got dressed and slipped out of the cabin.

  On the deck, the morning light was blinding. The Caspian Sea was still, its gray surface broken only by oil derricks and channel buoys. The boat smelled strongly of anchovies, which wasn’t David’s favorite aroma, so he walked toward the bow, hoping to get a bit of fresh air. Then he heard a distinctive clicking noise, the muffled bang of a pistol fitted with a silencer.

  He ran toward the noise, then froze. Agent Parker stood next to the boat’s railing, pointing her Glock at an abandoned derrick about a hundred yards off the starboard bow. The derrick’s platform was unoccupied and David couldn’t understand why Lucille was shooting at it. Then he realized she was practicing her marksmanship. She held the gun at eye level, clutching it with both hands, and took another shot. The bullet pinged off one of the derrick’s struts.

  Satisfied, she lowered her gun and replaced its empty magazine with a full one. She wasn’t wearing her bright red suit anymore, nor the bright yellow one; she’d changed into a pair of bulky camouflage pants and a black turtleneck. Her shoulder holster hung from straps that looked like suspenders, running down to a belt cinched around her thick waist.

  He stepped forward, moving slowly so as not to startle her. “Nice shot,” he said. “I’m glad you’re not one of the bad guys.”

  Lucille holstered the Glock and turned around. She looked different in the early-morning light—younger, fresher, healthier. Her face was pinkish, and the wrinkles under her eyes didn’t seem quite so deep. She looked more like the Lucille whom David remembered from two years ago, the implacable FBI agent who’d chased him across thirteen states.

  “Morning, Swift,” she drawled. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

  “Olam’s soldiers woke me up. They start their praying early.”

  She chuckled. “Well, let’s hope they can fight as well as they pray. If the Turkmen Army catches us sneaking into their country, there’s gonna be some shooting.”

  David nodded. He felt a wash of uneasiness in his gut. Until now he’d been so focused on finding Michael that he hadn’t really thought about the dangers to Monique and himself. “What’ll happen if they arrest us? You know anything about the prisons in Turkmenistan?”

  “Prison? We’d be lucky to go to prison.” She leaned against the boat’s railing, propping her elbows on the top bar. “Far as I know, relations between America and Turkmenistan aren’t so great. There’s a good chance they’d hang us as spies. And the State Department wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.” She shook her head. “No, we’re on our own now. The only person who can help us is old Mr. Glock here.”

  She raised her right hand to her shoulder holster and patted the butt of her pistol. She was scaring the hell out of David with her dire warnings, but she didn’t seem too concerned herself. She looked happy. David pointed at her gun. “Is that why you’re doing target practice?”

  “Yeah, it’s been a while.” She stretched her right arm, opening and closing the hand. “I was feeling a little stiff this morning, so I thought I’d give it a go. I figured if I used the silencer I wouldn’t attract too much attention.”

  “You don’t have to worry. There’s no one else around for miles.”

  “You’re right about that. I’ve been out here for almost an hour now and I haven’t seen another boat. I suppose the fishing ain’t so good around here.”

  “Well, the Caspian has a lot of environmental problems. It used to have tons of sturgeon, but the poachers killed almost all of them for their caviar. Now there’s only smaller fish and those are disappearing, too.”

  Lucille cocked her head and smiled. “That’s what I like about you, Swift. Your head’s full of facts. And some of them are even useful.”

  She chuckled again, then removed her Glock from its holster. David thought she was going to resume her target practice, but instead she offered the gun to him. She held it by the barrel, pointing downward. “You should get some practice, too. You’ve fired a Glock before, right?”

  David nodded. This was something else that had happened two years ago. “Yeah, but I was firing wild. I wasn’t trying to hit anything.”

  “Okay, I’ll teach you how to hit something. Go on, take the gun.”

  He hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted to learn this.

  Lucille frowned. “Look, Swift, you signed up for this job. And you’re a danger to everyone if you don’t know how to shoot. Now take the damn gun.”

  He grasped the handle. It was warm and a little slick from Lucille’s sweat. She let go of the barrel and David felt the weight of the gun in his hand.

  “It’s loaded,” she said. “So keep it pointed downrange. First thing you do is pull back the slide to put the round in the chamber. But you already know that, right?”

  David cocked the gun. “What’s my target?”

  She pointed at a channel buoy about twenty-five yards from the boat. “Try hitting that thing. Now remember, the boat’s moving, so you gotta track the target and aim a little behind. Keep your right arm straight and in line with the barrel. Wrap your left hand around your right, with the thumbs crossed. Line up the front sight inside the rear sight and the target just above. And squeeze the trigger nice and slow.”

  Trying to keep all these instructions in mind, David aimed at the buoy. It was a pretty big target, a bobbing cylinder about the size of an oil drum, and he didn’t think he’d have any trouble hitting it. But when he pulled the trigger, the bullet dove into the water about five feet to the side.

  “Wrong,” Lucille said. “You screwed up the trigger pull. The Glock’s got a heavy trigger, and if you jerk it back you’ll throw off the aim. Don’t worry about speed now. Just do it nice and steady.”

  David found another buoy to target. But he missed this one, too, by about the same margin. He tried and missed a third time and was about to try once more when Lucille said, “Wait,” and stepped behind him.

  “You’re all tense and you’re not breathing right,” she said. She placed her right hand on the small of his back and her left on his chest, just below his collarbone. Then she straightened his spine. Her hands were fantastically strong. “Don’t lean over so much. Now forget about the gun for a second and take three deep breaths.”

  He did as he was told. He was afraid not to. He breathed in the brackish air of the Caspian.

  “Now take a few shallow breaths, baby breaths,” she said. “Calm down, then take the shot. It’s easy if you don’t tense up.”

  Baby breaths. David liked that phrase. He took a few baby breaths and willed himself into stillness.

  After several seconds he spotted another buoy. He lined up the sights and tracked the target. Then he squeezed the trigger nice and slow. The bullet clanged against the metal.

  “There you go!” Lucille cried. “Don’t stop now, keep shooting!”

  He held the gun steady and pumped the trigger, adjusting his aim as the buoy slipped past. He counted nine more clangs before he ran out of ammunition. Nine hits out of the thirteen remaining bullets. Almost 70 percent, he calculated as he lowered the gun.

  Lucille smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “You see, I told you it was easy! And once you learn the trick, you never forget it. It’s like riding a bicycle.”

  David smiled back at her, although he wasn’t feeling quite so triumphant. He’d just learned that there was a trick to killing people, which wasn’t a happy thought. “Well, you’re a good instructor. Thank you.”

  “When all this is over, you can enroll at the FBI Academy. I’ll even write you a letter of recommendation. It’s never too late to serve your country, you know.”

  He handed her the Glock, glad to be rid of its weight. She ejected the empty clip and put in another full one. Then David heard footsteps behind them. He turned around and saw Monique on the trawler’s foredeck, looking strong and beautiful in her own turtleneck and camouflage pants.
Lucille waved at her cheerily. “Hey, come on over! I’m teaching combat skills to the peace activist.”

  Monique came toward them but didn’t return the greeting. Her face was sober, her mouth a grim line. She’s worried, David guessed. She’s thinking about their mission.

  Lucille pointed at her. “I’d give you a few tips, too, but I know you don’t need ’em. I remember your dossier. You owned a Smith and Wesson before you moved in with Swift, right? Went to the shooting range once a month, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Monique nodded but didn’t say anything. David could tell she was quite upset. Her eyes were glassy.

  Lucille noticed, too. She holstered her gun and started walking away. “Well, I better get going. I’m gonna see if there’s anything to eat on this boat besides anchovies.”

  David waited until Lucille reached the stern and entered the deckhouse. Then he slipped his arm around Monique’s waist. “Hey, what’s wrong? What—”

  “Shhh.” She put her index finger on his lips. “Don’t talk, baby. Just hold me.”

  They stood by the boat’s railing, neither saying a word. David smiled and caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, which she usually liked, but her worried expression didn’t ease. Instead, it grew more severe. Her brow furrowed and she bit her lip. Turning away from him, she stared at the eastern horizon, where the coastline of Turkmenistan had yet to appear. It was more than worry, David thought. It was a premonition. Monique had a terrible look of despair on her face, as if she’d just foreseen her own death.

  He couldn’t stand to see that look. He wanted to erase it, expunge it, expel the evil thing forever. So he pulled her close and pressed his lips against hers. They were moist and warm and salty from the sea spray. She leaned into him, opening her mouth and closing her eyes. He closed his eyes, too, and felt her fingers on the back of his neck. The boat rocked under their feet but they were in perfect balance. David had the sensation that time itself was slowing down, each second stretching and stretching until everything stood still, his whole life contained in a single bright moment.