Quantum Lens

by Douglas E. Richards

  Apparently the man who had invented the sport, James Naismith, had also founded the University of Kansas basketball program in 1898, and was the coach there for nine years. Ironically, the inventor of basketball was also the only basketball coach in school history, spanning well over a century, to ever post a losing record over his tenure.

  Turco had already conducted a thorough reconnaissance of the lab, and reported that the coast was clear. Given Craft’s superhuman ability with computers, and the backdoor access he had already established, Alyssa expected this to be a routine, in-and-out theft like the one in Bloomington had been.

  Just as she was about to enter the lab, she tried to reduce the tension she felt by making herself smile at the absurdity of her situation. If what they were trying now failed to restore Brennan Craft to full sanity, she thought, at least she could survive as a professional thief while she was in hiding from him.

  This was the best she could come up with, and it failed to elicit even the hint of a smile. Actually, it had the opposite effect, as it reminded her that she was now terrified of the man she had once loved.

  And if they couldn’t turn Craft around, she wouldn’t be surviving as a professional thief for long. With two delusional men at large rather than one, who both also happened to be nearly omnipotent, and with no check on Al Yad once Craft went completely off the deep end, Armageddon would be just days away.

  Alyssa’s raid on the Lawrence lab went as well as she had hoped. Turco was in what Alyssa thought of as the getaway car, and watched the perimeter while she retrieved the compound they needed, which had been painstakingly resynthesized over the previous month. It was highly potent and stable up to two hundred degrees Fahrenheit, so she could carry it in a small plastic vial in her purse.

  Just as she was finishing up in the lab, her phone vibrated, making her jump.

  She finally smiled—at her own stupidity. She was pretty sure professional thieves remembered to turn off their phones while robbing highly secured buildings.

  Eben Martin was calling. She would have loved to speak with him, but chatting on the phone while committing a felony probably wasn’t the best idea. She declined the call, finished up, and rejoined Turco in the car, leaving the lab exactly as she had found it.

  As Turco turned onto a main street she texted Eben. Sorry, not private enough to talk. What’s up?

  A minute later she received a texted reply, which she quickly decrypted.

  Bren is worse than I thought, and deteriorating quickly. He’s barely sane right now. His temper is even worse than you reported. I’ve never been this scared. He’s demanding I help him take over the world. Really! Our only hope is that the real Bren is still hidden inside somewhere. If so, I have to find a way to reach him. And quickly.

  Bile rose in Alyssa’s throat and she suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Her fingers flew over her phone.

  Bren didn’t want you to know, but he thinks having his ability ‘on’ all the time is what’s making him lose his mind. I know a way to temporarily strip him of his ability—at his command. Disconnect him entirely from the zero point field, even the always-on defenses he can’t consciously control, for however long he wants. So he can sleep and his mind can rest. I have a technique, and drug, more powerful than what I used to improve his ability, so I’m very confident this will work. I’ll call him and tell him I’ve got the drug, and will fly back ASAP.

  A minute passed while Alyssa chewed her lower lip. Would she get to Bren in time? And would this actually help him, or had his condition become irreversible?

  No!!!! came the emphatic texted reply. Alyssa, you can’t sever his connection completely. We need to talk first. There are things you don’t know. Things you need to know. Crap. He’s coming. Gotta go. Don’t do anything until we talk.

  “Are you okay?” said Turco. “You look like you’re about to vomit.”

  Alyssa tried to remove the queasy expression from her face. “I’m fine,” she lied, as her eyes welled up with moisture.

  Turco turned away from the road and studied her for several long seconds, but decided to leave it alone.

  “I got us adjoining hotel rooms,” he said, braking for a red light. “Your return flight leaves bright and early in the morning.”

  She nodded, still too stunned to speak. The world seemed to be spinning. How had it come to this?

  They arrived at the Jayhawk Motor Lodge minutes later. Turco unlocked the door to her room and escorted her inside. Alyssa took in her surroundings with one glance. Small and basic, as she had expected, but at least everything looked clean, and the bedspread was a bright and cheerful yellow. She needed cheerful at this point. She had a feeling it was going to be a long, sleepless night.

  “Thanks, Adam,” she said, sitting on the side of the bed facing him. “I’m going to turn in,” she added, wanting to be alone as soon as possible.

  Adam Turco closed the door gently behind him and brought his hand toward her.

  He was holding a gun.

  Alyssa felt the strange urge to laugh. Were the fates really this cruel? Was the universe trying to remind her that no matter how bad things got, they could always get worse? Maybe it was just emotional weariness, but rather than feeling betrayed, outraged, or afraid, she just felt numb.

  “What’s this about, Adam?” she said tiredly. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m really sorry, Alyssa. I like you a lot. I really do. But I’ve hired on with someone I think you know. Soft-spoken. Unplaceable accent, but mostly British. Ring a bell?”

  Alyssa shook her head in disgust. “How?” she whispered.

  “Long story. Let’s just say I figured out who was so interested in you and Brennan and how to contact them. They were even more interested than I thought.”

  “So are you going to kill me?”

  “No. This is a tranquilizer gun. With a dose that will put you out for four or five hours. I’ll put you out and then tell my new employer where you are. He’s only about an hour away. Neither of us were eager to meet the other. Trust and anonymity issues, I’m afraid.”

  “Eben Martin is paying you a fortune. Paying for your loyalty.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. Because Eben will still be paying me a fortune. I’ll just tell him they got the drop on me, and you were killed. It was tragic. And I’m being paid five million dollars for this. Five million dollars to do little more than shoot you with a tranquilizer and walk away. Simplest job ever.”

  Turco exhaled loudly, and for just a moment a look of concern flickered over his face. “I wish you luck, Alyssa Aronson,” he said softly, pulling the trigger.

  Alyssa fell back onto the bed and was unconscious in seconds.

  Turco took a photo of her on the bed and sent it out as a text. His phone rang almost immediately.

  “Satisfied?” he said upon answering.

  “Very,” came the reply.

  “Good. She’ll be out for four hours, and you’re less than an hour away. When I see my bank balance increase by the initial four million dollars, I’ll text you her location and where you can find the room key. And I’ll give you the decryption key to her phone.”

  “And you’ll make sure Craft and Martin think she’s been killed?” asked Tariq Bahar.

  “Yes. This is just as important to me as it is to you. I need to stay clean with my employers, so they don’t ever find her or suspect my involvement. I bought ketchup and various meat products earlier. I’ll photograph her in a heap on the floor, copious amounts of blood and other shit exploding from her head. Trust me, I’ve seen the real thing. I’ll text the photo to both men in the morning, explaining that I found her this way when I tried to get her to leave for the airport.” He paused. “They’ll buy it. I’m sure of it.”

  “Good,” said Bahar, unable to completely hide his excitement. “I’ll wire the four million now. Check your account in five minutes.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “We’ll just need a small amount of intelli
gence from you over the next few days, as we discussed. When this has been accomplished, we’ll wire in the last million, and our association will be at an end.”

  “My favorite kind of association,” said Turco dryly. “Brief. And lucrative.”

  52

  Alyssa awoke, lying on her side on what she suspected was a bed, and wondered what the Guinness Book had to say about the world record for the number of times being knocked unconscious over a span of a few months. And if she hadn’t set a record for frequency, perhaps she had set one for variety, since four different methods had been employed.

  She heard breathing and knew she wasn’t alone in the room. She took a mental breath and opened her eyes.

  She was greeted by a sight she had fully expected.

  “Hello, Tariq,” she said with a sigh to the man sitting in the hotel desk-chair watching her intently. The man she had once thought of as GQ. “I wish I could say I was glad to see you again.”

  Bahar had gone through her small leather purse, which had been turned inside out, and had removed her passport, the small plastic vial she had taken from the lab, and her phone, and had placed them on the small desk beside him.

  “Alyssa,” said Bahar, delighted that she was awake, and unsurprised she now knew his name. “How is my favorite prisoner?” He nodded toward her arm. “Looks like you’ve healed up nicely.”

  Alyssa turned her head again, and as she did so her hair didn’t quite move correctly. She touched the side of her head. It was sticky.

  Her heart jumped. Was it blood?

  She removed her hand and inspected it anxiously. The tips of her fingers were red. But she didn’t feel any pain.

  “Just ketchup,” said Bahar. “So your friends don’t come looking for you. I got most of it off while you were asleep. But I’ll require you to shower before we leave. So you’re presentable.”

  Alyssa’s pulse returned to normal. “Where’s your sadistic asshole friend?” she asked wearily.

  “Interesting question,” said Bahar. “First, he isn’t my friend. He’s a necessary evil in my line of work. But if you must know,” he added in a tone that was somehow ominous, “he’s been working on his photography skills.”

  Bahar pulled a number of three-by-five photographs from his pocket. “You have two brothers, correct? Sam and Jeremy. And they each have two children.”

  He tossed the photographs in Alyssa’s lap and waited patiently. Her face became ashen when she saw what they were: candid shots of her brothers, nieces, and nephews going about their daily lives. Her youngest niece, Allie, was six-years old, and the picture showed her with a pink sundress, smiling from ear to ear as she glided down a steep slide at a local park. Another photo showed Alyssa’s eight-year-old niece, Eve, kicking a soccer ball in the front yard of her brother Jeremy’s house.

  “They look like a nice group,” said Bahar icily. “It would be unfortunate if anything bad happened to them.” He shook his head in mock concern. “Don’t you think?”

  Alyssa’s heart began to hammer once again, and she glared at Bahar with utter hatred and revulsion. “You’d kill kids? Little girls? You are one sick asshole!”

  “I would never kill a child,” he said innocently. “It’s difficult to find anyone who would. No matter how much money is on the line.” He raised his eyebrows. “But the man who assisted me during your initial interrogation, Tom Manning. Where do you think he comes out on this? Would you be willing to believe he’s the rare exception to this rule?”

  “What do you want?” she snapped.

  “Just your cooperation. There is someone who would like to speak with you. Someone in Syria.”

  “No kidding!” said Alyssa coldly. “Put him on the phone. I’ll talk to him.”

  “He wants to meet you,” said Bahar. “In person. So you’ll need to accompany me back to Syria. Without ketchup in your hair. But just so you aren’t tempted to create a scene while we’re going through airport security,” he added, gesturing to the photos once again, “I wanted you to know there would be consequences.”

  “I’ll cooperate,” she said. “You can call off your sick friend.”

  “I will. But in due time. Cooperate with us and they have nothing to worry about. You have my word.”

  “Is that supposed to be comforting?”

  “I’m afraid it’s the best I can offer.”

  53

  The journey to Syria was a blur. Alyssa tried to sleep on the plane but with little success.

  What could Al Yad possibly want with her now? He didn’t want to lure Brennan in for an attempted rescue, because he had made sure Bren thought she was dead. Bren was unkillable, anyway, as he had demonstrated to Al Yad when they had fought to a draw.

  Perhaps Al Yad was after information. But what information did she possess that would be useful to him at this point? Bren’s location in Costa Rica? Maybe. Although given Bren’s deteriorating condition, and her alleged demise, she’d be astonished if he remained there much longer.

  She finally decided it was useless to try to guess Al Yad’s intent. He was psychotic, after all, and his motives might be completely opaque to a rational mind. And she would find out soon enough.

  The trip to the cult leader’s compound was like a dream, and Alyssa felt as though she were having an out of body experience as she was ushered through the gate and onto the expansive grounds.

  She was taken to the main house. Bren had done a good job of describing it. While it had never been built for a king, it was instantly recognizable as a palace rather than as a mere mansion. It was magnificent, but also white and sterile—apparently to symbolize purity and piety—and could have doubled as a bird sanctuary. At least one species was thriving because of this madman.

  Alyssa was escorted to a bedroom on the opposite side of the palace from where Al Yad’s master bedroom had been. And judging from the men walking around with power tools, he was no doubt still in the process of repairing the devastation Bren had wrought on that side of the residence in the initial moments of his attack.

  She was left alone in the room, which was furnished with three white chairs and a white leather sofa. And the obligatory white marble pedestals with gold cages and canaries. While it wasn’t as spacious as the master bedroom, which Bren had reported was the size of a ballroom, it was still one of the largest Alyssa had been in.

  A guard had been posted outside. Not that she was naive enough to think she could escape.

  She sat down on one of the lacquered wood chairs and awaited her fate.

  54

  Al Yad was ecstatic! More ecstatic than he had been since he first realized he was a god.

  Alyssa Aronson had just been brought to his compound, and was waiting for him in what had become his temporary bedroom while his old room was being rebuilt. The four million dollar installment he had paid Adam Turco was the best money he had ever spent. It had not only bought him Craft’s Jewish whore, but the key to decrypting her phone as well.

  And this decryption code had proved more valuable than he could ever have dreamed. He was so close to being able to finally exert his dominion as a god that he could almost taste it.

  He studied the phone of Satan’s whore for the fourth time, still wanting to be sure he had read what he had read. His English was excellent, but one additional reading couldn’t hurt.

  He had read Craft’s texted account of the epic battle they had recently waged in the desert with great interest. But this wasn’t what had made him euphoric. This had happened when he read the recent exchange between Aronson and Turco’s boss, Eben Martin—especially Martin’s very last message.

  The texts made it clear that Satan’s incarnation on earth, Brennan Craft, was beginning to show his evil nature, confirming what Al Yad, in his divine wisdom, had always known about him. And the messages back and forth between the girl and the famous billionaire had grown increasingly frantic. Both were worried Craft would turn on them. Both thought he was going insane and would try to beat Al Y
ad to the punch with respect to reshaping the world to his desire.

  Al Yad scrolled down and reread the last of Martin’s texts the Jew had seen before Bahar had taken possession of her phone.

  Bren is worse than I thought, and deteriorating quickly. He’s barely sane right now. His temper is even worse than you reported. I’ve never been this scared. He’s demanding I help him take over the world. Really! Our only hope is that the real Bren is still hidden inside somewhere. If so, I have to find a way to reach him. And quickly.

  Al Yad scrolled down in delight to reread her reply again as well.

  Bren didn’t want you to know, but he thinks having his ability ‘on’ all the time is what’s making him lose his mind. I know a way to temporarily strip him of his ability—at his command. Disconnect him entirely from the zero point field, even the always-on defenses he can’t consciously control, for however long he wants. So he can sleep and his mind can rest. I have a technique, and drug, more powerful than what I used to improve his ability, so I’m very confident this will work. I’ll call him and tell him I’ve got the drug, and will fly back ASAP.

  When Al Yad had first read this, and then Martin’s emphatic insistence that she not do anything until she had spoken to him, the only conclusion he could draw was that Craft hadn’t told her about his quantum mirror device. Which was astonishing. And Martin had sent one final text, which Aronson had never read, that made this conclusion irrefutable: she knew nothing about the device.

  Al Yad could easily guess the reason for this deception.

  Craft must have suspected that if she had known the truth, she wouldn’t have helped him get stronger. Once he disclosed he had a device that could stop Al Yad, she would realize that strengthening him wasn’t necessary to thwart Al Yad’s divine purpose.