The Kafir Project

by Lee Burvine

  "They are. These are just superficial images abstracted from the complete data. But they're accurate. They're real."

  Herodotus was a heavy man. When he shook his head, his cheeks and the dark flesh on his neck jiggled. "I just can't ... I know what I'm seeing here, but I just can't believe it."

  "Well, your coordinates were very close to exactly right," Fischer said. "And so I have to ask you, have we succeeded?"

  The other man looked again like he might burst into tears. He drew in a couple of deep slow breaths. "I'm sorry. Sorry."

  "It's all right. It really is overwhelming."

  Herodotus took a moment to compose himself. "All my adult life, I've been listening to ghosts. Ghosts whispering in broken sentences. Trying to put together their stories. And now this..."

  "I understand. And I think I have my answer there."

  "Yes, you do," Herodotus said, smiling. We have succeeded. The rest is up to Amsel. I'm assuming the trace showed sufficient continuity for recovery. And enough material has survived?"

  "As you predicted, yes. Very recoverable. And very nearly intact, we think." Fischer let a few moments pass in silence while he held Herodotus's gaze.

  "And there's more, isn't there? It's why you're meeting me out here away from oversight back at Livermore."

  "Yes, there's more. But I will require your help, and our sponsors must remain in the dark. I need more coordinates. For a new target. Amsel has agreed already to what I'm going to propose. I'm not saying that should influence you, just that the path ahead is open if you should choose to join us."

  There it was. Fischer had let out enough rope to be hanged with. And the man sitting next to him held the trap door lever.

  Herodotus looked down at the tablet still in his hands, the screen now dark. Seconds ticked by in silence. "I can guess what it is you want to try for, because I believe I know you well enough by now. So I will just ask this one question. Can you keep my part ... underground? I have a family. Can we do that?"

  "Yes, of course we can. And should." Fischer rose from his seat. "I will require just one other thing from you. The complete data sets-we're going to need a copy on the outside. Beyond the reach of Fermilab and Livermore. Eventually I'll ask you to hold on to that for me."

  Herodotus frowned up at him. "Why don't you just encrypt it? Hide it online in the cloud somewhere."

  "It could be found and deleted. Physical storage is the way to go. Forget the internet. No emails either. Ink and paper. That's how we beat them."

  "Ink and paper. All right. So long as it can't be traced to me."

  "Yes, absolutely. That's the whole point there."

  A look of deep sadness came over Herodotus. "They will kill you for this, Edward. If they can. It was dangerous enough to begin with. You'll have no side to turn to now. You know that, right?"

  Fischer gave just the slightest nod. Herodotus stood up then and ceremoniously offered his hand. Fischer took it.

  He had weighed all the risks, and they were acceptable to him. He had already begun preparations to ensure that his own death wouldn't stop them reaching their final goal.

  The truth.

  It was all he'd ever wanted.

  CHAPTER 7

  REES HAD JUST watched Special Agent Morgan go right out a sixteenth floor window, only seconds after the blond man had done the same.

  He picked himself off the floor and rushed over to look.

  When he reached the broken window, he saw Morgan striding away across a flat stretch of rooftop. Some sections of the Mark Hopkins stopped at fifteen stories, just below this floor. Other sections rose higher. Rees had noticed it coming into the hotel, but forgot in the terror of everything that had just happened.

  Morgan called to him over her shoulder, "Get back in the room and wait there. Don't call anyone. Don't do anything."

  Good idea, Rees thought.

  He retrieved the blond man's gun off the hallway carpet. Then he continued on into his room, locking the door behind him.

  A very long twenty minutes or so dragged past. Rees used some of the time to get dressed, and the rest to worry himself sick. Somewhere in there a hotel security officer called.

  "There's been a disturbance reported on your floor, Dr. Rees. We're just calling to check that you're all right."

  "Yes. I'm fine." Rees tried to sound appropriately concerned for the rest of the brief conversation, but not as shaken up as he genuinely felt.

  More minutes snailed by. Rees started badly when a knock finally came at the door. With the blond man's gun in hand, he checked the peephole, then opened up and let Agent Morgan in.

  Morgan eyed the gun as she brushed by. "Do you even know where the safety is on that thing?"

  "Nope. What happened out there?"

  She stuck a hand out for the gun and he happily gave it to her.

  "Our guy got away," she said. "He must have climbed down the outside of the building. Little too Spiderman for me. Whoever he is, he's got skills and brass balls."

  Whatever efforts she'd made out there had cost Morgan a few scrapes and scratches. Rees offered the bottled water again. This time she accepted it and sat down at the dining table.

  After gulping down half the bottle and wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket, she looked up at Rees. "Was that the same guy from this afternoon?"

  Rees pulled up an image from his memory. A man standing outside a white truck, baseball cap, jeans and T-shirt. "This man was dressed completely differently. But it could be the same person, yes. At the door, he showed me a San Francisco Police Detective's badge."

  "That doesn't mean he was SFPD."

  "It doesn't mean he wasn't either." Rees sat down at the table opposite Morgan. He didn't want to sound like a conspiracy nut. But honestly, who could really be trusted right now? That reminded him of something else. "You said you didn't tell anyone in the Defense Investigators ... whatever agency you're with, about Fischer being alive. Why?"

  "Defense Criminal Investigation Service. At first because Fischer asked me not to, as a condition for meeting with him. He said the explosion wasn't an accident. That he was being targeted for assassination by powerful people. I thought he was just rattled by the blast. Maybe paranoid. Then ... well, you know what happened. Have you seen the news about Fischer's DNA and the body parts?"

  "Yes, but we know that isn't right. This sounds nuts, but they have to be in on it. The investigators, I mean."

  "I agree." Morgan looked away. The muscles in her jaw twitched. She turned back to Rees. "They are DCIS. That's our investigation out there in Illinois. Because Fischer was engaged in DARPA research. Defense Department stuff."

  "Someone in your own agency faked the data."

  Morgan replied without hesitation. "Yes. DCIS is somehow involved here."

  Rees felt like he was trapped inside a bad dream and couldn't wake up. "What do we do? Do we call the local police again?"

  "And report what? Two broken hotel windows? You think they're going to believe you this time? Twice in one day?"

  "Okay, but you were there this time. If you tell them-"

  "No. My agency's involved. They can't know that I'm investigating this. Uh-uh, I'm not here. Also, I don't think these people are done with you."

  "What?" Rees's heart didn't exactly skip a beat, but it did launch into some kind of funky, off-rhythm dance.

  Morgan explained. "They thought they killed Fischer already, right? At Fermilab. So why'd they come to San Francisco if he wasn't the target?"

  It hit Rees like a slap on the back of the neck. "Oh. No, that can't be." He tried to reject the implication. But the scientist in him couldn't do it. "I was the target. They came here for me."

  "Looks like, yeah. Finding Fischer was just good luck."

  "Good luck?"

  "From their perspective. And if you're the target? Airports, bus terminals, and yes, police stations too-those are all good spots to reacquire you. Once
I get you out of here, that is."

  A new species of fear crouched now in the dark recesses of Rees's mind. Not the swift panic he'd felt several times today. Something heavier and more enduring. Dread.

  "But why? Why am I a target?" he asked.

  Morgan rose from her chair and stepped over to a window facing the bay. She stood there awhile with her back to Rees, looking out through the open curtains. He was about to ask her what she was thinking when she finally turned around.

  "Out by the pier today," Morgan said, "you're talking with Fischer and this guy shows up and just starts shooting, right?"

  "Yes."

  "What exactly did Fischer tell you?"

  Rees shrugged. "Not much. There was no time. He said that everything was coming together here. Data and artifacts. Herodotus and Anaximander would do that."

  "Who?"

  "They're aliases for people who are, I don't know, involved. Fischer said he was entrusting me with the science."

  Morgan furrowed her brow. "What science was he talking about? His DARPA research?"

  "Maybe. It was just the one phone call back in June before this."

  "What did he tell you then?"

  Rees laid his hands flat on the heavy table in front of him. Dark hardwood there, myrtle maybe. Something about it felt solid and reassuring. "Dr. Fischer said he was doing some kind of work he wanted the public to understand. Eventually. That was a big part of it, apparently, public perception. He said he wanted my help making it layman friendly."

  "Because you're a science popularizer."

  "Science communicator, but yes. You've seen my work."

  She shook her head. "No. I took a look at your Wikipedia page."

  "Oh. I ... well the last special on exoplanets did pretty good numbers, actually." Rees felt oddly defensive.

  "Listen, Mr. Rees-"

  He interrupted. "You can call me Gevin if you like."

  "Fine. You can call me Special Agent Morgan."

  "Seriously?"

  "Look, they're aware you've had contact with Fischer, the people behind all this. Whatever Fischer was working on, it was a threat to someone. We know he didn't tell you much. But they don't. That makes you a threat too, as far as they're concerned."

  Rees didn't like that idea at all, but he couldn't argue with the logic. "Yes, all right. So where does that leave me?"

  "In a bad spot, obviously. But not without options." Morgan returned to the table and sat down again across from Rees. "Who have you spoken to about this, other than the police?"

  "No one."

  "Not even your closest friends?"

  "I ... don't do close.

  "You don't do close. What does that mean?"

  "It means no one else knows about this."

  Morgan let it go at that. "All right. Here's what I think. If we knew what Fischer was working on, the best thing would be for you to use all your media resources and make it public. Get it all out as widely as possible, as quickly as possible."

  Rees saw the sense of it. "There'd be no point in killing me."

  "Exactly. Except for spite, and I don't think that's the kind of game that's being played here."

  Rees didn't think so either. It all made sense as far as it went. But it didn't go far enough. "That's all great, Agent Morgan. Except Fischer never told me what the project was about. He just said that explicating the science or technology was going to be my part."

  "Then that's what we need to find out." Morgan said.

  "Well, I can show you where we start." He got up and walked over to the desk. "Right here. With this."

  Morgan came over and stood next to him. "What is it?"

  He pointed down at the soggy green notebook. "That's Fischer's. It was in his pouch. When that guy showed up at the pier, Fischer tossed it all in the bay. I found it. And something else." He picked up the flash drive. "It's wet. I haven't tried to access it."

  Morgan gazed at the open notebook with a puzzled expression. "Do you understand this stuff?"

  Rees shook his head. "The only man who understood this fully is dead. But I have a vague idea what he was working on."

  "And what do you think it is?"

  He tried to find some way to say it that didn't make it sound like an insane man's fantasy, or pure science fiction. And then gave up. It was what it was.

  "Time travel."

  * * *

  ON THEIR WAY out of the Mark Hopkins, as Rees and Morgan crossed the lobby, one of the desk clerks called out after them.

  "Dr. Rees."

  Rees started again at the sound of his own name. Obviously he hadn't calmed down as much as he thought. "Yes?"

  A young man with a side buzz haircut stepped out from behind the front desk. He had on the kind of slim, hip-looking suit Rees sometimes wished he could pull off wearing, and knew he couldn't. A little too thick in the waist and a little too old.

  The desk clerk approached them with a slip of paper in his outstretched hand. He looked apologetic. "There's a phone message for you. The caller didn't want to be put through to your room."

  Rees accepted the note with a quick thank you. It was a computer printout.

  From: Herodotus

  To: Dr. Gevin Rees

  If you know my history, you know where to find me at work. Look for me in the JPL library tomorrow afternoon.

  Rees handed the note to Morgan.

  She read it, then looked up at him. "Herodotus. That was one of the men Fischer told you about. An alias, right?"

  "Yes. Unless this is the real Herodotus. That would fit the pattern, at least."

  "What pattern?"

  "Well, counting Edward Fischer, it'd be the second time in two days I've been contacted by people who were supposed to be dead."

  CHAPTER 8

  New York City

  "WE DIDN'T KNOW a backup cache existed until now. We're still going through Fischer's private belongings."

  "I'm no longer surprised by the shit you don't know. You didn't know he got out of Fermilab alive either."

  The only name Carl Truby had for the operative walking beside him was Mr. Doubleman. Together they were making their way past waist high mounds of dirty snow that banked a well-lit street in Gramercy Park.

  "Fischer has been taken care of," Doubleman said.

  Truby shook his head in disgust. "Yeah, terrific timing on that one. Now he can't tell us where he stashed the backup."

  "That's why the other news I have for you is both good and bad."

  "The hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "Gevin Rees is still alive."

  Truby stopped in his tracks. "What?"

  Doubleman stopped and turned to face Truby. "And he may know where that data cache is located. Perhaps the artifacts as well. The plan now is to bring him in alive and interrogate him."

  They had paused beneath a street light, and Truby searched Doubleman's face in the unnatural blue-white glare. The man was tall and quite thin, with a large nose and pronounced Adam's apple. He reminded Truby of an animated version of Ichabod Crane he'd once seen. "You still missed the guy twice," Truby said to him. "I'm beginning to lose confidence in your man on the ground there in San Francisco."

  "He was caught off guard. Rees had armed security. We weren't expecting anything like that. But again, now that we know a backup of the data exists, we're better off with Rees alive. Just long enough to question him."

  Truby shook his head again, but said nothing. The two men resumed walking.

  The outfit that Doubleman worked for was mainly populated by people who were once either military intelligence or elite combat troops. Now they were just shadows. Search as much as you like, you'd find no trace of them, even as a brass plate front company. They referred to the organization as the Office, and they fielded contracts through a network of personal contacts.

  Among people who knew about such things, they were considered the best.

  "You a
ssured me that this all stopped with getting rid of Fischer and the archaeologist, Amsel." Truby said. "Now it turns out this TV science guy is involved. And the two with the Greek names."

  "Aliases. Herodotus and Anaximander. Obviously not their real names. Did I explain the references?"

  "I don't give a shit about the references."

  "We have a strong idea who Herodotus might be. Our man on the ground, as you say, will get to him next. Anaximander we're still working on. And Rees might help us there too. Part of the trouble is whatever planning or communications went down between Fischer and the others, it wasn't done via email or phone."

  Truby thought about that. It had been explained to him that face to face communications were generally the most secure. That's why he was meeting Doubleman here in New York in person like this. But there were practical limitations to it.

  "All right," he said, "they were all part of the original project. But these guys weren't all in the same place. Communications couldn't have been done entirely in person."

  Doubleman shook his head. "No. We found a rented mailbox in Chicago under a phony name, and we have video surveillance of Fischer using it."

  "Mail? You're talking about physical mail?"

  "Low-tech communication has its advantages," Doubleman explained. "You can't eavesdrop on a physical letter if you don't know where it's sent from, or who it's sent to. We're checking that PO box daily for incoming mail. Most likely that will come from another rented mailbox on the other end, though. But you never know. We could catch a break."