Final Theory

by Mark Alpert

  He managed to deflect her right hand, but the nails of her left raked the side of his neck. Jesus, he thought, this woman is fast! He shoved her backward but she came at him again, firing a kick that barely missed his crotch. It was like battling a wild animal, a fight to the death, and David was beginning to think he’d have to knock her out cold to get her into the station wagon. But then, before she could lunge at him again, Elizabeth saw something out of the corner of her eye. She stopped in her tracks and pivoted to the right, balancing on one of her lethal boot heels. Then she raced across the parking lot toward Monique and Michael, who stood in front of Graddick’s car.

  “Michael!” she cried, flinging her arms around her son.

  THE DELTA FORCE HAD SET up its field headquarters in a Pentecostal church in Jolo. Lucille stared at the simple, wood-frame building—the Church of the Living Lord Jesus—and shook her head. This was a spectacular piece of military stupidity. If you want cooperation from the locals, you don’t occupy their houses of worship. But the special forces had come straight from Iraq, where they’d obviously lost some of their patience for local sensitivities.

  Lucille and Agent Crawford stepped into the church and started looking for Colonel Tarkington, the squadron commander. His men had organized a command post beside the pulpit. Two soldiers worked the radio, another pair bent over a map of West Virginia, and two more pointed their M-16s at a group of blindfolded detainees sitting in the pews. Lucille shook her head again. The prisoners were sullen, mulish hillbillies who feared God but little else. Even if they knew the whereabouts of the fugitives, they certainly weren’t going to reveal anything to the commandos.

  She finally spotted Colonel Tarkington at the back of the church. He was champing on the wet stub of a cigar and shouting orders into a field radio. Lucille waited until he ended the transmission before approaching him. “Colonel, I’m Special Agent Lucille Parker, your FBI liaison. I want to talk about the evidence your troops seized at Carnegie’s Retreat last night.”

  The colonel eyed her and Agent Crawford for several seconds, using his lips and teeth to maneuver the cigar to the corner of his mouth. “What about it?”

  “You need to send the damaged computer to the Bureau’s lab in Quantico. We may be able to extract some of the data from the shattered disks in the hard drive.”

  Tarkington managed to grin around his cigar. “Don’t worry about it, darling. We sent all that stuff to the DIA.”

  Lucille bristled at the “darling” but kept her voice steady. “With all due respect, sir, our equipment at Quantico is far superior to anything the Defense Intelligence Agency has.”

  “I’m sure our boys can handle it. Besides, we ain’t gonna need that information anyway. We’ve shut down all traffic in this part of the state. We’re gonna find those fugitives before lunchtime.”

  She doubted this very much. Over the past thirty-six hours she’d learned not to underestimate David Swift’s talent for evasion. “Just the same, sir, the Bureau wants that hard drive.”

  The colonel stopped grinning. “I told you, the DIA’s got it. Go talk to them. I got an operation to run here.” Then he marched over to the pulpit to confer with his men.

  Lucille stood there for a moment, fuming. To hell with him, she thought. If he doesn’t want my help, what was the point in offering it? She was too old for this bullshit anyway. She should just go back to her office in Washington and sit on her ass like all the other goddamn bureaucrats.

  She stormed out of the church and back to her SUV. Agent Crawford hurried to keep up. “Where are we going now?” he asked.

  She was about to say, “D.C.,” but then an idea occurred to her. It was such a simple, obvious thing, she was surprised she hadn’t thought of it earlier. “That computer in Carnegie’s Retreat, it had a connection to the Internet, right?”

  Crawford nodded. “Yes, a cable connection, I think.”

  “Get on the phone with their Internet service provider. Find out if there was any activity last night.”

  ELIZABETH GUPTA LAY ON A bed in room 201 of the Army Mule Motel, across the street from the Night Maneuvers Lounge. This was the room where Elizabeth usually serviced the johns she picked up at the strip club, but now she was alone in the queen-size bed, lying under the covers in a terrycloth bathrobe. Monique sat on the edge of the bed, stroking Elizabeth’s hair and murmuring softly, ministering to the girl as if she were a five-year-old with the flu. Michael sat in one of the chairs, playing with his Game Boy again, while David peeked through the window curtains, checking for any unusual activity on Victory Drive. They’d sent Graddick outside to get some coffee; his exhortations about redemption and divine forgiveness had turned out to be counterproductive.

  Monique unwrapped a Nutri-Grain bar she’d bought from the motel’s vending machine and offered it to Elizabeth. “Here, have some of this.”

  “Nah, ain’t hungry,” she rasped. Since her screaming fit in the parking lot, she hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words.

  Monique held the Nutri-Grain bar right under her nose. “Come on, take a bite. You need to eat something.”

  Her voice was gentle but firm. Surrendering, Elizabeth nibbled at a corner of the bar. David was impressed at how deftly Monique was handling the situation. It was clear that she had some experience dealing with addicts.

  Elizabeth took another bite of the granola bar, then sat up in bed so she could sip some water from a Styrofoam cup that Monique pressed to her lips. Within seconds she was eating ravenously, jamming the bar into her mouth and picking up the crumbs that fell on the bedsheets. And the whole time she kept her eyes on Michael, staring fixedly at the teenager as her jaw moved up and down. When she finished eating, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and pointed at her son. “I can’t believe it. He’s grown so much.”

  Monique nodded. “He’s a handsome young man.”

  “The last time I saw him, he was only thirteen. He barely came up to my shoulders.”

  “So your father never brought him down here for visits?”

  The fierce scowl reappeared on Elizabeth’s face. “That cock-sucker never even sent me pictures. I used to call him collect once a year, on Michael’s birthday, but the fucking asshole wouldn’t accept my calls.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Monique bit her lip. She seemed genuinely saddened. “I didn’t—”

  “So is the bastard dead? He told me I’d never see Michael again while he was still alive.”

  Monique glanced at David, uncertain how to answer. He stepped away from the window and approached the bed. “Your father’s not dead, but he’s in the hospital. He told us to bring Michael here because he didn’t want the boy to go to an institution.”

  Elizabeth gave him a suspicious look. “That doesn’t sound like my father. And why is he in the hospital?”

  “Let’s start from the beginning, okay? I used to be a student of your father’s friend, Hans Kleinman. You remember him, don’t you?”

  The name struck a chord. Her face relaxed a bit. “Sure, I know Hans. He’s my godfather. He’s also the only person in the world that my father hates more than me.”

  “What?” David was thrown off balance. “Your father didn’t hate Dr. Kleinman. They were close colleagues. They worked together for many years.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “My father hates him because Hans is smarter than he is. And because Hans was in love with my mother.”

  David studied her face, trying to figure out if she was putting him on. “I knew Dr. Kleinman very well, and I find it hard to believe that—”

  “I don’t give a shit if you believe me or not. All I know is that I saw Hans at my mother’s funeral and he was bawling like a baby. There were little wet blots all over the front of his shirt.”

  He tried to picture it, his old teacher weeping at Hannah Gupta’s grave. It seemed so unlikely. Then David dispelled the image from his mind. No time for this now. Get to the point already. “Your father told us that Hans came down to Colu
mbus a few years ago. He tried to help you get straight, right?”

  A sheepish look came over her. She looked down at the bedsheets. “Yeah, he got me a job at Benning, answering the phone for some general. And he found an apartment for me, too. I even got Michael back for a few months. But I fucked it up.”

  “Well, that’s why we’re here, Beth. You see, Dr. Kleinman died a couple of days ago, but he left—”

  “Hans is dead?” She sat bolt upright on the bed, her mouth wide open. “What happened?”

  “I can’t go into all the details right now, but he left a message saying he’d—”

  “Jesus Christ,” she muttered, raising her hand to her forehead. “Jesus fucking Christ!”

  She grabbed a fistful of her own hair and tugged at it. Monique leaned closer to her and patted the back of her bathrobe. David was a bit surprised by Elizabeth’s reaction; he’d assumed that a meth-addict hooker would be too hardened to feel any grief. But Dr. Kleinman was the only person in her life who’d ever tried to help her. There had obviously been a strong connection between the old physicist and his goddaughter. Maybe that was why he’d hid the Theory of Everything in Columbus.

  David sat on the bed beside Elizabeth and Monique. The three of them were in a tight huddle now, their heads almost touching. “Listen, Beth, I’m going to be honest with you. We’re in a lot of trouble. Dr. Kleinman had a secret, a scientific secret that plenty of people would love to get their hands on. Did Hans leave any papers with you when he came down here?”

  Elizabeth scrunched her face, uncomprehending. “No, he didn’t leave anything with me. Except some money. Enough to cover the rent on my apartment for a few months.”

  “What about a computer? Did he buy one for you?”

  “Nah, but he got me a television set. And a nice radio, too.” She smiled at the memory, but it faded an instant later. “I had to pawn that stuff after I lost my job at the base. All I got now is that box of clothes.”

  She pointed at a cardboard box beside the window, overflowing with panties, bras, and nylons. David doubted very much that the unified field theory was in there. “So this is where you live now? In this room?”

  “Sometimes this room, sometimes the one next door. Harlan takes cares of all the motel bills.”

  “Harlan?”

  “Yeah, he’s the manager at Night Maneuvers.”

  In other words, her pimp, David thought. “Dr. Kleinman’s message gave us the address of the bar. So Hans must’ve known what happened to you.”

  Elizabeth winced. She hunched on the bed, folding her arms across her stomach. “Hans called me after I got fired. He said he was gonna come down here again and get me into a treatment program.”

  Now David pictured Dr. Kleinman at the Night Maneuvers Lounge, another unlikely image. He started to wonder if the strip club had a computer in its office. “So did Hans see you at the club? And did he go into the club’s office, by any chance?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “No, Hans never came. I was high when he called, so I told him to fuck off. And that was the last time we ever talked.”

  She bent forward until her forehead was just a few inches above the bedcovers. She didn’t make a sound but her body began to shake with sobs, rocking the mattress.

  Monique patted her back again, but this time it had no effect. So she went over to Michael and gently grasped his elbow, bringing the teenager to his mother’s bedside. Elizabeth automatically embraced him. Michael would’ve screamed his head off if anyone else had tried this, but he seemed to have a natural tolerance for his mother’s touch. He didn’t return her affection, though, or even look at her. As she folded her arms around his waist, he turned a bit to the side so he could go on playing Warfighter.

  After a while Elizabeth pulled back and held her son at arm’s length. She wiped the tears from her eyes as she gazed at him. “Still playing that damn war game,” she sighed, glancing at the Game Boy’s screen. “I would’ve thought you’d be sick of it by now.”

  Michael didn’t respond, of course, so Elizabeth turned to David and Monique. “Michael started playing that game when I was working at Benning. Hans fixed one of the computers in my office so Michael could play the game there.” She ran her hand through the boy’s hair, making a part on the left side. “On the days when the school for autistic kids was closed, I’d take him to work and he’d just sit in front of that computer for hours and hours.”

  Elizabeth lowered her hand a bit and caressed Michael’s cheek. It was a touching sight, and ordinarily David wouldn’t have interrupted. But his mind was racing. “Wait a second. Dr. Kleinman came to your office at Benning?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, on my first day there. He wanted to introduce me to General Garner, my new boss. Hans knew the guy from way back. They worked together on some army project a hundred years ago.”

  “And while Hans was in your office, he worked on one of the computers there?”

  “Yeah, that place was full of computers. It was called the VCS office, Virtual Combat Simulation. They had all kinds of crazy shit—treadmills, goggles, plastic rifles. The army didn’t even use most of that crap, so they let Michael play with it.”

  “How long was Hans working on the computer?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. A few hours, at least. He and the general were old friends, so Hans had free run of the place.”

  David’s heart was pumping fast now. He exchanged a look with Monique, then focused on the Game Boy in Michael’s hands. By coincidence, the screen showed the same dark hallway that David had seen on the Game Boy when he’d looked over Michael’s shoulder the night before. Once again, an animated soldier in a khaki uniform burst into a small room and fired his M-16 at half a dozen enemies. Once again, the opposing soldiers fell to the floor, bleeding simulated blood. And once again a flashing message appeared: “CONGRATULATIONS! YOU’VE REACHED LEVEL SVIA/4!”

  “What the hell is that?” Monique asked, pointing at the screen. “SVIA/4?”

  David had no idea, but he knew whom to ask. He bent over until his face was right in front of Michael’s. The teenager had talked to him the night before. Maybe he’d do it again. “Listen to me, Michael. What’s on Level SVIA/4?”

  The boy tucked in his chin, avoiding David’s stare. “I can’t get to that level,” he said in his toneless voice. “It goes back to Level A1.”

  “I know, you told me that already.” David tilted his head, keeping his face in front of the boy’s. “But why can’t you go to Level SVIA/4?”

  “The Game Boy doesn’t have that level. It’s only on the program that runs on the server. That’s how Hans set it up.”

  “And why did he set it up that way?”

  Michael opened his mouth wide, as if he were about to start screaming. But instead, for the first time, he looked David in the eye. “He told me it would be safe! It was a safe place!”

  David nodded. Dr. Kleinman had apparently altered the Warfighter software. Because the Game Boy could fall into anyone’s hands, it held a shortened version of the program. The complete version, containing all the information that Kleinman had added, was in a more secure location. “Where’s the server?”

  Before Michael could answer, the Game Boy let out a ping to announce that it had bounced back to Level A1. The teenager quickly turned away from David and left his mother’s bedside. He retreated to the other side of the room, faced the wall, and resumed playing Warfighter.

  Elizabeth glared at David. “Hey, stop asking him questions! You’re upsetting him!”

  “Okay, okay.” He backed away from her bed. The truth was, he didn’t need to ask Michael any more questions. He knew where the server was. Dr. Kleinman had chosen the most audacious hiding place imaginable. He’d put Einstein’s unified field theory on a computer at Fort Benning.

  DR. MILO JENKINS AND HIS wife lay facedown on their living-room carpet. If not for the bullet holes in their heads, Simon might’ve thought they were taking a nap. He’d finishe
d them off at 9 A.M., shortly after the hillbilly doctor announced that Professor Gupta was out of danger and sleeping peacefully on the dining-room table. The shots woke up Agent Brock, who was sprawled on the doctor’s living-room sofa, but after a few seconds he rolled over and went back to sleep.

  Simon would’ve loved some sleep himself. He’d gotten precious little of it over the past thirty-six hours, and the blood transfusion had weakened him more than he’d expected. But his client, the enigmatic Henry Cobb, was due to make his daily phone call at nine-thirty to check on the progress of the mission, and Simon felt a professional obligation to give him some favorable news. So, with a weary grunt, he stepped into the dining room and approached the gore-encrusted table where Professor Gupta lay.

  The intravenous line hanging from the chandelier was still attached to Gupta’s arm, but the IV bag was empty. The tiny professor slept fitfully on his back, with his wounded leg propped on a sofa cushion. Whatever painkillers Dr. Jenkins had given him had surely worn off by now, so Gupta would be in agony as soon as he regained consciousness. Which was exactly what Simon wanted.

  He started the process by pounding his fist on the sutured hole in Gupta’s thigh. The professor’s body convulsed: the back of his head banged against the mahogany tabletop and his uninjured leg kicked the sofa cushion to the floor. He emitted a long, ragged moan and his eyelids quivered.

  Simon bent over the table. “Wake up, Professor. Time for class to begin.” Then he smacked Gupta’s thigh wound again, hard enough to strain the stitches that Dr. Jenkins had so carefully woven.

  This time Gupta opened his eyes and let out a high-pitched scream. He tried to sit up, but Simon pinned his shoulders to the table. “You’re a lucky man, you know that? You almost didn’t make it.”

  Gupta looked up at him, blinking rapidly. The old man was obviously a bit confused. Simon gave his shoulders a squeeze. “It’s all right, Professor. You’re going to be all right. You just need to answer one question. Just one little question and we’ll be done.”