by Lee Burvine
Truby coughed out a short laugh. "The US Mail. He beat the best signal intelligence technology in the world with stamps and envelopes. It's funny really."
"Yes, hysterical."
The two men had reached a red light. They stopped and waited for the signal to change.
Truby noted the Korean Christian church on the corner and its blue neon cross as a signpost for the walk back. "So what now?" he asked.
"As I said, we grab Rees and find out what he knows. Then we terminate him, and move on to the others in Fischer's little cabal."
Truby thought he heard optimism in Doubleman's voice and he didn't like it. Now wasn't the time for it. "And what happens if Rees is a dead end? What if these other two have access to the backup, wherever the hell it is? What if all the artifacts turn up at the goddamn Smithsonian?"
"The artifacts themselves are worthless without the corroborating data, and vice versa. It's all or nothing there. That's good for us, because if we knock down either half of the equation, we're done. And in any case, we're being paid to stop this, and we will. You needn't be concerned about the details."
The signal turned to walk, and the two men headed across the intersection.
"How? How will you stop them, if you don't get the names from Rees?" Truby looked over at Doubleman. He wanted to read the man's face when he answered.
"The Office will take broader action." Businesslike. Almost nonchalant.
As they reached the other side of the street and continued along, Truby's guts tightened up. He stayed silent for almost a half block. Finally he said, "'Broader action.' Really? All of them, then. Everyone who worked on the project."
"It's the surest approach. We're reasonably confident that only two more scientists were involved, but we can't be absolutely certain. On the other hand, if we eliminate them all..."
Doubleman was looking at him, waiting. Truby knew enough of the project details to understand exactly how many lives they were talking about here.
He gave a single nod.
They set the time and place for the next meet and Truby walked away, back in the direction of that little Korean church. He could still see the blue neon cross off in the distance.
Truby marveled, as he often did, at the near endless variety of religious belief. Such a strange force. It could simultaneously pull people together while at the same time pushing them away from other groups, even within the same faith. An amazingly useful property.
You just condoned the murder of fourteen people.
The thought had arisen unbidden, and Truby forced it back down. Some things were easier done than considered.
Where do you draw the line? When everything you care about is at stake? Everything you ever fought for or accomplished.
At whatever it takes, he realized. He and the powerful people he represented would do or sanction whatever it takes.
There was no damn line.
CHAPTER 9
AS SHE DROVE south on Hyde Street keeping a wary eye out for anyone who might be tailing them, Kerry Morgan struggled to get some kind of handle on this whole thing.
Despite everything she knew about Edward Fischer and the stratospheric level of genius he possessed, it just seemed too fantastic to take seriously.
Time travel. Really?
It was hard to imagine. But then up until now, Morgan couldn't have imagined her own agency would ever be involved in the assassination of a US citizen and the related cover-up. You can't deny the evidence, though.
And Morgan was taking it as a personal betrayal.
She glanced over at the passenger seat. Gevin Rees was lost in Fischer's notebook again. She was pretty sure that if Bigfoot lumbered by in a crosswalk wearing white vinyl go-go boots and spinning a flaming baton, Rees wouldn't notice it. Whatever Edward Fischer had written in there, it was apparently quite engaging.
She'd only known the famous scientist briefly. They met during her investigation of a security breach at Fermilab the year before. He was leading a small team of particle physicists in some DARPA sponsored research. So top secret, Morgan wasn't even allowed to have its code name. Maybe they called it Project Time Tunnel. In which case, yeah, that would've been a bit of a giveaway.
At any rate, someone had tried to smuggle out project-related data on an advanced type of storage device. Hidden within containers of food scraps intended for composting.
Morgan never did determine who'd done it. It might have helped if she were permitted to examine the contents of the drives. Not a chance.
Nevertheless, she had some idea who could be behind the breach. Mainly through the process of elimination, and various factors involving access and timing.
Fischer himself.
She confronted him during lunch one day in Fermilab's cafeteria. They sat together at their own table in a corner, away from other scientists and staff. As she'd planned.
"This is where you did it, right?" Morgan said over a so-so chicken salad sandwich and some pretty good coffee.
Fischer had just finished jotting in a diary he nearly always had with him. Something he did rather obsessively. For posterity, he once explained.
He closed the diary and looked up at Morgan. "That's your theory, then?"
"That's my theory."
He gave her a challenging look that must have withered many a physics grad student. "Since you didn't witness the primary event, I'm assuming your theory explains all the observed secondary effects."
"I didn't, and it does."
Fischer sipped a spoonful of his tomato soup, then wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "Then it's a good theory, Special Agent Morgan. But it hasn't helped you. Because you still don't have the answer you're really after."
He regarded her openly, calmly. His dark brown eyes, which Morgan knew well from photos and a couple of very popular posters, looked even larger and more penetrating in person. A hint of humor sparkled in there. It would be very easy to get lost looking into those brilliant eyes.
"What answer am I really after, Dr. Fischer?"
Fischer tented his fingers in front of his chest. "Let's say, hypothetically, that I did this. Why? You'd want to know why. Given that I'm apolitical, care nothing for money, and already have the best research tools in the world available to me, why would I expose myself and my work to so much risk by smuggling out classified data? Why would I turn traitor, so to speak?"
Morgan waited to see if Fischer would continue on his own. But apparently he wanted to be prompted. She obliged him. "All right. Hypothetically then. Why?"
Fischer leaned back in his chair and smiled. "You know the funny thing is, that's the one question science ultimately can't answer. Why? The fine structure constant-I can measure its value to the nth decimal place. But I can't tell you why it is that particular number and not something else. Same with the other dimensionless physical constants. And if just one of them were a smidge different in one direction, there's no carbon. Just a tic in the other direction, no stars. Either way, no life in the universe. At least not human life. Now why should that be? Some people believe this is the hand of God at work."
"Are you going to suggest now that God told you to leak classified information?"
Fischer's smile broadened. "It would be exceptionally difficult to prove that He did not."
"And what if I don't believe in that sort of God? Who whispers directions and fiddles around with the numbers."
Fischer nodded awhile and seemed to be considering the question. "Well, if you did, at least you'd have an answer to the so-called 'fine-tuned universe' question."
Morgan could see Fischer intentionally leading her away from the investigation here. But the opportunity to talk about God and religion with one of history's greatest minds-that was just too valuable to pass up.
"I don't need answers that desperately, Dr. Fischer. I'm not afraid of a little mystery. How does the quote go? 'I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can
't be questioned.'"
Something shifted in Fischer's expression then. "Special Agent Morgan, I am engaged in a kind of war, fighting a most dangerous enemy. It's an idea. The idea of truth by human authority. Argumentum ad Verecundiam. The arrogant notion that some revered book or prophet or even a head of state represents the final word on what is or isn't so. Throughout history no single concept has generated more human misery. As a scientist I have spent my entire life steadfastly opposing that kind of irresponsible thinking. So, I'm no traitor. My alliances remain unchanged and will until the day I die." His eyes softened and he smiled again. "And that might not be that far off, eh? God only knows."
Morgan's investigation never progressed any farther than that. She recommended a few places to tighten up security at Fermilab, and moved on.
She didn't give the episode another thought. Not until the explosion and the phone call from Fischer.
"Impossible," Rees said from the passenger seat.
Morgan glanced over. Rees still had his head buried in the notebook. "What's impossible?" she asked.
Rees looked up and seemed to notice the world around him again, which had literally and figuratively declined quite a bit from Nob Hill. At that moment they were passing a homeless man sleeping on the sidewalk outside an adult book store.
Rees scowled at his new surroundings. "Nice neighborhood. Where are you taking me?"
They were cruising the heart of the Tenderloin District, one of San Francisco's sketchiest neighborhoods. Morgan had her eyes peeled for a dive hotel that would take cash and not worry about foregoing any ID. The Tenderloin was as likely a place to find one as anywhere in the city.
"Someplace safe," Morgan told him. "And what's impossible?"
"Oh, the method Fischer is proposing for handling the infinities that arise out of Quantum Gravity."
"I'll play. What's Quantum Gravity?"
"Ah. Quantum Gravity can be, and in this case it is, an attempt to reconcile Relativity with Quantum Mechanics into a Theory of Everything. But renormalizing is a problem."
"And without the jargon that means...?"
"Sorry. The problem is that the math gives rise to infinities. It's like trying to divide numbers by zero. You don't get meaningful answers. Fischer found a brilliant mathematical trick for dealing with the infinities, what we call renormalizing. But the resulting complexity is hellish. The best supercomputer in the world, running for thousands of years, might grind out approximate solutions to these equations."
Suddenly Morgan knew why Fischer had made his way to San Francisco. Why he absolutely needed to be here. "What about a quantum computer? Could you do it with that?"
Rees raised his eyebrows. "Oh, well, yes, theoretically. A quantum computer with enough qubits might do the job. But that's decades away."
Morgan made a quick right turn at the corner. "Actually, it's more like an hour at this time of night."
CHAPTER 10
Six months earlier-Syrian Desert
ADNAN TOTAH SQUINTED against a dusty gust of hot wind, and looked out over the dig. He felt a twinge deep in his gut, as he had for days now. His crew was excavating in the desert about eight kilometers southwest of Busra, and something was not right.
It wasn't just that the dig was probably illegal. In Syria, particularly in wartime, the difference between legal and illegal was just a matter of opinion. Opinions could be bought, in any case.
No, it was the whole approach here. On the face of it, very amateurish looking. Too narrow a field, and no test digs at all. The grid system they used was also entirely unorthodox.
And yet, nothing about Joshua Amsel, the American archaeologist they worked for, bespoke amateur. He knew the desert. He was well financed and equipped. His security team was shockingly well armed and trained. And the old man's face--Totah prided himself on his ability to read faces--it was wily, not stupid.
And then there were the finds.
Everywhere Amsel directed them to dig, they struck pay dirt. Not most spots. Every one. And not just the usual potshards either, but tools, and foundations. At first it looked like wild good luck. Then like magic. And while Amsel certainly seemed pleased, he did not appear at all surprised.
He uses a jinni, one of Totah's men had told him with eyes narrowed. Others thought the same.
Totah's crew foreman was hurrying toward him now, kicking up more dust as he came. "We have found more artifacts," he said, in the Levantine dialect they all spoke at home and amongst each other.
When Totah reached the active site, Amsel was already there. Totah's men had begun uncovering this particular structure three days earlier.
The day before, Totah had overheard the old man speaking to someone on the sat phone in English. He used the word repository, which Totah looked up with his smartphone.
A place where things are stored.
Gold. Let it be gold.
They might be seeking caches of ancient coins, possibly Roman. It would be dangerous if they succeeded. And difficult. To hide and export such a treasure out from under the nose of Assad and the rebels-that would be no mean feat. But Totah's agreed upon cut could make him a very rich man.
Amsel stood near the center of the dig, taking measurements with something like a GPS unit. Very bulky though, this handheld device of his. And custom made by the looks of it. Certainly not any piece of archaeological equipment Totah had ever worked with.
The old archaeologist seemed to find the spot he wanted, and got to work with hand tools.
Mere minutes later he appeared to have what he sought. He held his prize aloft. "Yes! By God, yes. We have it."
Not gold. A codex. Vellum pages bound between two covers. Metal covers, it looked like. Very unusual, that.
The old man reached up for a hand to climb out of the dig. "Someone help me here! Let's go!"
In his blue rubber-gloved hands, Amsel carried the codex back to one of the trucks. Totah and some of his men followed to watch.
Amsel removed some kind of high tech scanner from an AV case in the back of a truck. He passed it over the codex, several times front and back. This appeared to be yet another custom piece of equipment. A standard USB cable connected the scanner to a laptop computer.
Then Amsel spoke to the man who Totah had decided was his lead researcher. A frail man with one leg shorter than the other. That man hooked a satellite phone to the computer, and undertook some kind of uploading or downloading procedure.
Amsel lit a cigarette and sat, and waited. Totah waited too. The tension in the air made clear something of great import was set in motion.
Before Amsel finished the cigarette, his man looked up from the computer with eyes shining.
"The signature matches," the frail man said.
Totah knew the English word signature, but this only confused him. They hadn't even tried to open the codex yet. And certainly nothing like a legible signature could be read on the oxidized metal covers.
Amsel spoke quickly after hearing that, and used an English word Totah was most definitely not familiar with.
Lectionary.
He would look it up, later.
Something about the codex held great meaning for the grizzled old archaeologist. That much Totah could be absolutely sure of. Amsel had just broken out a bottle of whiskey in celebration.
And he was laughing now. Laughing and smiling broadly. But with malice in his hooded eyes.
CHAPTER 11
THE NSA HAD a fully functioning quantum computer.
Well, all right then. Just when Rees thought the day couldn't possibly get any stranger, Special Agent Morgan had laid that on him.
Morgan drove them along the 80 East in light traffic, toward the Oakland Bay Bridge. They were heading to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which housed the quantum computer.
"They use if for cryptography, right?" Rees said. "With a quantum computer running Shor's algorithm, you could crack any public key cryptosystems bas
ed on integer factorization. You could read your enemies' encrypted files."
"You could," Morgan confirmed.
"Yes. I knew it."
"Which is why the US and every other government in the world switched over to security based on, uh, symmetric ciphers and hash functions. Post-quantum cryptography, they call it."
"Oh," Rees said, feeling a bit sheepish now.
Morgan glanced over. "You thought we were the only country that had one of these things, or was trying to get one?"
"No. I thought they didn't exist. Apparently I'm a little behind the times on my super-secret government programs."
Morgan changed lanes. "Don't feel bad. They were thinking cryptography when they funded it. So you're more or less right there."
Rees let out a little laugh. "Well, that's why they pay me the big bucks. To be more or less right."
