“Roger that,” said Ahn.
“You don’t really think this will be as challenging as Dr. Suave thinks, do you?” said Hank Ridley. The man who had hired Patel went by the alias, John Smith, but the team had taken to calling him Dr. Suave when he wasn’t within earshot. They didn’t care who he really was, as long as he continued to pay well. “You’re the best marksman I’ve ever worked with, Santosh. Even if Craft really can take us out on sight, you’ll have planted a bullet between his eyes before he even knows to look for us.”
“Hard to imagine that’s not true,” replied Patel. He frowned. “But we’re bing paid five times our fee on this one, so let’s not make any assumptions.”
Patel paused. “Volkov,” he said to the big Russian, “there’s a hardware store nine minutes from here that’s just about to open. Find it on your car’s nav and go.”
“Found it,” said the Russian less than thirty seconds later. “Leaving now. What am I buying?”
“The most powerful chainsaw they’ve got. Along with gas for it.”
“Chainsaw?” said Volkov.
“We may need it,” said Patel. “They could be going anywhere once they leave the restaurant. The only destination that wouldn’t be totally random, as far as we’re concerned, is Bloomington, Indiana. Suave says that’s where Aronson is from. Apparently he snatched her off the street there and brought her here.”
“Still an unlikely destination,” said Haas.
“True, but a better bet than anywhere else. They have no luggage, and by rights Aronson should still be in the hospital. If I were in her shoes, I’d want to return home. If only to set my affairs in order before going somewhere else.”
“I agree with Patel,” said Volkov. “We should be prepared for this. If they go somewhere else, so what?”
“Exactly,” said Patel. “I’ve done a virtual recon of the route between here and Bloomington. Only backwater roads almost the entire way. Where there’s not a forest there’s a cornfield. Lots of opportunities. The chainsaw might come in handy if we want to isolate a kill zone.” It was always best to eliminate as many variables as possible.
“Roger that,” said Volkov.
“If they do try to return to Bloomington, this would be ideal for us,” said Patel. “I’ve come up with a solid strategy.” He shrugged. “If not, we’ll have to plan on the fly. But there is one thing I’m sure of. For this kind of money, nothing is going to stop us from delivering Alyssa Aronson.”
25
The moment of truth had arrived. When Craft had first asked Alyssa to leave the hospital with him, she hadn’t been at all sure he would really tell her his connection to the man who was making the US and Syria so nervous. And if Craft did, she couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what his connection to Al Yad would end up being. But the reality was stranger than anything she could have imagined in a hundred lifetimes.
“This is the information you were after, right?” said Craft.
“Yes. The government seems to feel that this Al Yad is the most dangerous man alive.”
“He is,” said Craft simply. “They’re right to worry.”
“I’m not sure what happened at my house,” said Alyssa. “I’m told they only wanted to bring you in for an interview. You weren’t targeted for anything you had done. You were just their best shot at getting some kind of handle on Al Yad. The major swears he doesn’t know how it got out of hand.”
Craft shrugged. “It was . . . unfortunate. And they did begin by politely asking me to join them. When I refused and tried to leave, they got a bit more forceful. When that didn’t work, one of them tried to slow me down by shooting me in the leg and then taking out the car. It kind of snowballed from there. But I think your major is telling the truth. I don’t think it was intentional. They just really didn’t want me to leave.”
Craft paused. “That’s not to say I wasn’t angry with myself for being so stupid. And upset that you had been put in harm’s way. But I can forgive that.” He flashed a good-natured smile. “What I can’t forgive is that they ruined our date. I was having a great time. At least, you know . . . BTW.”
“By the way?” said Alyssa in confusion.
“No. Before the war.”
Alyssa laughed.
“So let me tell you about Omar Haddad.”
“I don’t understand,” said Alyssa. “If you don’t have any problem talking about him, why didn’t you cooperate with the men at my house?”
“Because they’re not you. I’d prefer no one knew about anything I’m telling you today. But you’re critically important. I need you. So I’ll tell you, and hope that you’ll agree it needs to be kept secret.”
“And if I don’t?” said Alyssa.
Craft spread out his hands. “Honestly, I haven’t thought that far ahead. I feel like I know you well enough to believe you will.”
Alyssa studied him. He could have just as easily lied, but she believed he was being sincere. “Before you continue,” she said, wincing. “I really need to use the restroom.”
“Really? I’m finally at the part you’re most interested in.”
“Yes. I’m aware of the irony,” she said with a grimace. “But I’ve been holding it for a long time now. And if my bladder explodes, killing everyone in this restaurant, your information won’t do me any good.”
Brennan Craft just laughed as she hurried off to use the facilities.
She returned a few minutes later, feeling relieved, at least with respect to her bladder. The pain killers the hospital had infused were beginning to wear off, and the stitches in her thigh and the slashes in her arm were beginning to whisper their presence to her. Before long they would be shouting their presence.
“Omar Haddad, or Al Yad, if you prefer, was the most impressive faster I studied,” began Craft. “He had been an accountant in Syria and was visiting a relative in Afghanistan. He was somewhat religious, but not a fundamentalist. He just didn’t know his favorite nephew was one of the top ten on the terrorist watch lists. He was almost collateral damage, as he tells the story, when they went after his nephew. He and his nephew made it to a cave. But our military bombed it back to the stone age, killing Omar’s nephew instantly, and trapping Omar inside.
“Far above him there was a small vent, which provided some light and the air he needed. But there was no way out. There was some underground water, but no food. Two years later, Omar Haddad was found.” Craft leaned forward. “He hadn’t lost a pound.”
Craft took a sip from his refilled cup of coffee and continued. “Omar stayed in Afghanistan while his story made the rounds and the authorities decided what to do with him. There was considerable confusion and red tape to get through before they would allow him to return to Syria. Which gave me the time I needed to learn of his story and recruit him. He was my first. And he was not a jihadist,” insisted Craft. “In retrospect, one has to wonder what kind of mental toll being trapped alone in a cave took on him.”
Alyssa had several questions, but decided not to interrupt.
“Ultimately,” continued Craft, “I recruited others, as I mentioned. And I failed to find anything outwardly different about them. But they all had one thing in common: they never doubted they could live without food. Omar said that he never believed for an instant he would die of starvation. He flat out refused. He imagined himself feasting. Others have said similar things. They imagine they are being nourished. Most, by tapping into a sea of light, which, in their imagination at least, is in the visible range. But it’s ethereal.”
“So why didn’t it work for you?”
Craft frowned. “I don’t know. Somehow, I believed with my mind, but not my heart. I was the only one who understood the scientific underpinnings of what they were doing, what I was trying to tap. But you can either do it or you can’t, to some degree. Just because you understand intellectually doesn’t mean you truly believe.
“A few friends of mine bungee jumped one summer off the side of a bridge,” he continued
. “I researched the hell out of this, because they wanted me to join them. Basically, if you check your equipment and measurements, which you can do ten times to be absolutely certain, you’re going to survive a bungee jump. Intellectually, I knew this. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew in my head it would be okay. I just didn’t believe it in my gut, where it counted.”
“So that explains it,” said Alyssa with a grin.
“What?”
“Why you didn’t list bungee jumping as a hobby on your dating profile.”
Craft laughed.
Alyssa was beginning to have an overwhelming feeling that the chemistry they had experienced during their date had been real. Brennan Craft continued to be brilliant, funny, good-natured, and thoughtful. And Alyssa’s instincts told her he was equally drawn to her, even though she was aware this could still be an act on his part.
“Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. Go on.”
“At some point I began to view the ability to tap zero point energy as a cross between a subconscious skill, and an autonomic response. And this was when I made my breakthrough. Because I realized that people can achieve some mastery over their own physiologic functions. Functions long thought to be involuntary, beyond their conscious control. Using biofeedback.”
Alyssa nodded thoughtfully. This was ingenious, and made immediate sense to her. If you asked a man to raise or lower his body temperature, heart rate, or blood pressure while at absolute rest, he couldn’t do it. But if you hooked him up to sensors that provided him with continuous feedback, biofeedback, at high levels of precision, he could begin to learn how. He could somehow train himself to affect these functions at will. As long as he could get feedback, so his brain knew whatever it was doing was working—or not working. It had been found that along with temperature and heart rate, brainwave patterns, muscle tone, and skin conductivity could be altered at will—once a person had been trained.
The people who were able to control these functions, eventually without the need of monitors, couldn’t provide a recipe of how they were doing it to anyone else. There were no shortcuts. Each individual had to train themselves. Biofeedback had been used in medical practice for some time now, after it had been found that adjusting certain physiologic functions was beneficial for headaches and other maladies.
“That’s why you bought scales,” whispered Alyssa. “Not to weigh drugs. But as biofeedback monitors. So you would know if you were able to exert force on them using zero point energy.”
“Nice intuitive leap,” said Craft in delight. “You’re even more impressive than I’d hoped.”
Alyssa found herself delighted by the compliment, but didn’t respond.
“We didn’t use the scales at first,” explained Craft. “Much too coarse a measuring rod. At first we were just trying to exert pressure that was the equivalent to the weight of a postage stamp. We had very fancy, very precise instruments we tried to affect. And we also used monitors that could register almost infinitesimal bits of electrical currents.”
He paused. “Even at these tiny levels, it took me months of futile effort before I found the secret. A posture of the mind, a way of visualizing what you were trying to do, that is required. And one I can impart on others—although it still takes quite a lot of effort and time to begin to get it. But eventually, we were all able to tap into the zero point field, with various levels of proficiency. Using our minds as a quantum lens to focus and redirect the energy. Having no idea how we were doing it. And after we trained ourselves, we non-fasters were finally able to sustain ourselves on this energy, without the need for food.” Craft gestured to his empty plate, which still smelled of maple syrup. “I do eat, as you know. But now it’s a choice, not a necessity.”
“If this is really true,” said Alyssa. “It’s beyond incredible. It utterly transforms what we know about the universe. And how we see our place in it.”
“I know. Believe me, when I first managed to create a tiny electric current I was so excited, I’m surprised you didn’t hear my celebrations all the way in Indiana. Ultimately we got stronger, although all but two of us defensively only.”
“What does that mean?”
“Once our minds became trained and sort of, ‘got it’ a bit, and our belief increased, we found we could instinctively—and this is going to sound very stupid—create a force field around ourselves. Our own personal shields. You know, like the ones that protect starships on Star Trek.”
Now this was pushing things too far. Exerting half an ounce of pressure on a scale was one thing. But a force-field? Ridiculous.
And yet, Alyssa couldn’t help but flash back to her yard, where Craft had been caught in a crossfire he couldn’t have possibly survived.
“Now this makes no sense at all,” acknowledged Craft. “Force fields are popular in science fiction, but they are one of the most difficult feats known to science. I won’t go into the physics or the energy requirement, but it’s immense. Beyond immense. For us to achieve this, we have to be redirecting energy from the zero point field—quantum lensing, so to speak—at an efficiency of a billion trillion trillion times that required to nourish our bodies. And yet none of us could harness more than an infinitesimal fraction of this power for anything other than a shield.”
“Why would that be?”
“It’s unclear. But once you’ve trained your mind using biofeedback, and get more and more adept using the field, there comes a point when you generate a shield automatically. Involuntarily. When you’re in imminent danger. The mind seems to react instinctively to threats, to work toward self-preservation. But harnessing energy for non-defensive purposes is a choice. Your life isn’t on the line. You’re just doing it to do it. Somehow the subconscious knows.
“Eventually, we each found ourselves protected by two levels of shield. The first became a maintenance level that is always ‘on’. Like a second skin. The subconscious throws it up continually without a thought. If I’m slicing an apple and stick myself by accident, it’s enough to stop the knife from breaking the skin.”
“And the second level?”
“The second level only happens when you’re being attacked. It’s invisible also, and is thrown up about a foot away from the body. I don’t know how your brain does it. And I don’t know how it moves as your body does. But the subconscious quantum engine that is your mind is pretty miraculous. Who knows, perhaps we’re not only tapping into the zero point field, but into the mind of God as well.”
“Do we really need to get even more metaphysical than we’re already gotten?” said Alyssa.
Craft shrugged. “There are miracles all around us. What’s one more?” he said evenly. “Do you know what event I believe to be the most impossible, most miraculous of all?”
Alyssa thought about it for a second and then shook her head.
“The creation of a human being from the union of a sperm and an egg. Think about it. A single fertilized egg cell gives rise to many trillions of cells. Impressive enough already. But how do these trillions of cells know how to organize themselves into a human body? Into a human brain? How do they know where to be?”
Alyssa smiled stupidly. How did anyone take this for granted? How could a single microscopic cell possibly transform into an entire, immensely complex human being?
Craft continued. “Not only do various cells need to know where to be, they need to know what to be. At first they’re all identical. Then, magically, certain cells begin to change, as stretches of DNA are turned on and off differentially. Some suddenly become heart cells. Others brain cells. Still others blood cells, or bone cells, or liver cells, or neurons. How in the world can this happen?” He shook his head. “If a microscopic grain of sand were to reproduce madly, resulting in a trillion grains of sand, and these grains began specializing, ultimately constructing an entire computer spontaneously, we’d call it a miracle. But a fertilized egg manages a feat much more impressive than this.”
Alyssa tilted her hea
d in wonder. He was right. He had such a unique way of looking at things. And his enthusiasm was contagious. “Okay, just so you know, you’ve officially blown my mind about ten times today.”
“Only ten?” replied Craft, raising his eyebrows. “Well, don’t worry,” he added in amusement. “The day is still young.
26
More and more people had been piling into the restaurant during their lengthy stay at the table, and their waitress eyed them warily. Craft made a show of leaving a tip much greater than the entire bill was going to be and ordered more toast.
When the waitress had gone he said, “I also have offensive capabilities. They’re feeble, but I can control them consciously—which is a nice change of pace. But even though I can conjure them up consciously, they are still driven entirely by my subconscious. I still have no idea how I’m doing it.” Craft raised his eyebrows. “Would you like a demonstration?”
Alyssa looked uncertain.
“A very gentle demonstration, of course.”
She braced herself. “Go ahead.”
“I’m going to apply some pressure to your head. Just a slight amount.”
His expression didn’t change, but she felt an unmistakable tightening, pressing inward from both of her ears. “Amazing,” she whispered. “It’s basically telekinesis.”
“Yes. But it has the potential to be so much more.”
“Is that how you knocked the commandos unconscious in my yard?”
“Right. But this represents the full extent of what I think of as my offensive ability. I can clap you in the ears, so to speak, hard enough to knock you out for a short time. But that’s about it.”
“And bullets just ricochet off your, um . . . shield?”
Quantum Lens Page 14
