Blasphemy wf-2

by Douglas Preston

  Doerfler sat down on the edge of the desk and tried to appear friendly and relaxed. It didn’t succeed: the man was as wound up as the Energizer Bunny. “I bet you’re wondering why you’re here, Dr. Wolf.”

  “How did you guess?” He distrusted people like Doerfler, with their whitewall haircuts, southern accents, and smooth-talking language. He had dealt with too many of them during the design phase of Isabella.

  Doerfler glanced at his watch. “We don’t have much time, so I’ll be brief. They tell me you’re familiar with Isabella, Dr. Wolf.”

  “I should hope so,” he said irritably. “I was assistant director of the design team.”

  “Have you been here before?”

  “No. My work was all on paper.”

  Doerfler leaned over on his elbow, his face serious. “Something’s happened out here. We don’t exactly know what. The scientific team has sealed itself inside the mountain and turned off all external communications. They’ve shut down the main computer and they’re running Isabella at full power using backup computer systems.”

  Wolf licked his lips. This was too far out to believe.

  “We have no idea what’s going on. It may be a hostage situation, it may be a mutiny, it may be an accident or some kind of unanticipated equipment or power failure.”

  “So what’s my role?”

  “I’ll get to that in a moment. The men you flew in with are members of an FBI Hostage Rescue Team. It’s like an elite SWAT team. That doesn’t necessarily mean there are hostages, but we have to plan for that contingency.”

  “Are you talking about terrorists?”

  “Perhaps. The HRT is going to enter the facility, perform hostage rescue if necessary, neutralize undesirables, isolate the scientists, and escort them from the premises.”

  “Neutralize undesirables—you mean shoot people?”

  “If necessary.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  Doerfler frowned. “No, sir, I am not.”

  “You woke me up to join a commando raid? I’m sorry, Mr. Doerfler, but you’ve got the wrong Bern Wolf.”

  “You needn’t be concerned in the slightest, Dr. Wolf. I’ve assigned you a handler. Agent Miller. Totally reliable. He’ll be at your side, guiding you every step of the way. Once the facility is secure, he’ll take you in and you’ll perform your assignment.”

  “Which is?”

  “Turn off Isabella.”

  FROM A PERCH AT THE TOP of the bluffs above Nakai Valley, Nelson Begay scanned the Isabella complex with a pair of old army binoculars. A chopper had passed low over the tipi, its rotors drowning out their Blessing Way ceremony and shaking the tipi like a dust devil. Begay and Becenti had climbed up the hillside for a better view, and they could see it had landed at the airstrip, a mile away.

  “They coming after us?” Willy Becenti asked.

  “No idea,” said Begay, watching. Men with guns were piling out of the chopper. After breaking into a hangar, they drove out two Humvees and began transferring gear into them.

  Begay shook his head. “I don’t think it has anything to do with us.”

  “You sure?” Becenti sounded disappointed.

  “I’m not sure. We better head over and take a closer look.” He glanced at Becenti, saw the eager restlessness in his eyes. Begay laid a hand on his shoulder. “Just keep your cool, all right?”

  53

  STANTON LOCKWOOD LIFTED HIS CUFF TO peek at his Rolex. Quarter to two in the morning. The president had ordered in the FBI Hostage Rescue Team at midnight, and now the operation was in full swing. A few minutes ago, the HRT had landed at the airstrip. They were now transferring their gear to Humvees to take them the half-mile to the secure zone at the cliff’s edge, directly above the opening to the Bunker.

  The atmosphere in the Oval Office was edgy. Jean, the president’s secretary, was shaking the tension out of her writing hand.

  “They’ve loaded the first Humvee,” said the FBI Director, who had been giving the president a running commentary. “Still no sign of anyone. They’re all down in the Bunker, as we thought.”

  “No luck contacting them?”

  “None. All communications from the airstrip to the Bunker are turned off.”

  Lockwood shifted in his chair. He searched his mind for a logical explanation. There was none.

  The situation room door opened, and Roger Morton entered carrying several sheets of paper. Lockwood followed him with his eyes. He had never liked the man, but now he detested him, with his horn-rimmed glasses, his immaculate suit, his tie that looked like it had been glued to his shirtfront. Morton was the quintessential Washington operator. With these sour thoughts in mind, he watched Morton conferring with the president, their heads together, scrutinizing the piece of paper. They waved Galdone over and all three took a long look.

  The president looked up at Lockwood. “Stan, take a look at this.”

  Lockwood rose and joined the group. The president handed him the printout of an e-mail. Lockwood began to read:

  Dear Friends in Christ . ..

  “It’s all over the Internet,” said Morton, speaking even before he had finished. “And I mean everywhere.”

  Lockwood shook his head and placed the letter on the table. “I find it depressing that in America in the twenty-first century, this kind of medieval thinking could still exist.”

  The president stared at him. “The letter is more than ‘depressing,’ Stan. It’s calling for an armed attack on a U.S. government facility.”

  “Mr. President, I personally would not take this seriously. The letter has no directions, no plan of action, no meeting place. It’s just hot air. Stuff like this circulates on the Web every day. Look how many people read that Left Behind series. You didn’t see them taking to the streets.”

  Morton gazed at him with passive hostility. “Lockwood, this letter’s been posted to tens of thousands of Web sites. It’s circulating like mad. We’ve got to take it seriously.”

  The president heaved a sigh. “Stan, I wish I was as optimistic as you about this. But this letter, on top of that sermon . . .” He shook his head. “We need to prepare for the worst.”

  Galdone rumbled his throat clear to speak. “People who think the world is coming to an end might be liable to do something rash. Even resort to violence.”

  “Christianity is supposed to be a nonviolent religion,” Lockwood said.

  “We aren’t impugning anyone’s religious beliefs, Stan,” the president said tartly. “All of us here need to realize that this is a sensitive area, in which people can easily take offense.” He tossed the letter on the desk and turned to the Director of Homeland Security. “Where’s the closest National Guard unit?”

  “That would be Camp Navajo in Bellemont, just north of Flagstaff.”

  “How far is that from Red Mesa?”

  “About a hundred and twenty-five miles.”

  “Mobilize them and chopper them down to Red Mesa. As a backup.”

  “Yes, sir. Unfortunately, half the unit’s overseas and their equipment and their rotary wing aircraft are not what one might wish for an operation of this sort.”

  “How quickly could you bring the unit up to full strength?”

  “We could bring up assets and personnel from Phoenix and Nellis AFB. It might take three to five hours, pushing it.”

  “Five is too long. Do what you can in three. I want them in the air by four forty-five A.M.”

  “Four forty-five A.M.,” repeated the DNS. “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Put out a quiet word to the Arizona State Police to double their patrols and report any unusual traffic on the interstates and secondary roads around the Navajo Indian Reservation. And be ready to throw up roadblocks at short notice.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  Lockwood spoke. “There’s a small Navajo Tribal Police station in Piñon, only twenty miles from Red Mesa.”

  “Excellent. Have them send a patrol out to the Red Mesa road, to che
ck it out.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “I want all this done quietly. If we overreact, the Christian right will kick us around like a football. They’ll accuse us of being anti-Christian, Jesus haters, godless liberals—those people will say anything.” The president looked around the room. “Any other recommendations?‘

  There were none.

  He turned to Lockwood. “I hope you’re right. God knows, we might have ten thousand idiots heading to Red Mesa right now.”

  54

  FORD FELT THE SWEAT TRICKLING DOWN his scalp. The heat was climbing in the Bridge, despite the air-conditioning system running at full power. Isabella hummed and sang, the walls vibrating. He glanced at Kate, but her attention was fully fixed on the Visualizer screen.

  When the universe reaches a state of maximum entropy, which is the heat death of the universe, then will the universal computation come to a halt. I will die.

  “Is this inevitable or is there some way to prevent it?” Hazelius asked.

  That is the very question you must determine.

  “So that’s the ultimate purpose of existence?” asked Ford. “To defeat this mysterious heat death? Sounds like something out of a science fiction novel.”

  Circumventing the heat death is merely a step on the way.

  The way to what?“ Hazelius asked.

  It will give the universe the fullness of time it needs to think itself into the final state..

  “What’s this final state?”

  I do not know. It will be like nothing you or even I could possibly imagine.

  “You mentioned the ‘fullness of time,’ ” said Edelstein. “How long is that, exactly?”

  It will be a number of years equal to ten factorial raised to the ten factorial power, that number raised to the ten factorial power, that number raised to the ten factorial power, this power relation repeated 1083 times, and then the resulting number raised to its own factorial power 10 47 times, as above. Using your mathematical notation, this number—the first God number—is:

  This is the length of time in years it will take for the universe to think itself into the final state, to arrive at the ultimate answer.

  “That’s an absurdly large number!”

  It is but a drop in the great ocean of infinity.

  Where is the role of morality, of ethics, in this brave new universe of yours?“ Ford asked. ”Or salvation and the forgiveness of sins?“

  I repeat again: separateness is but an illusion. Human beings are like cells in a body. Cells die, but the body lives on. Hatred, cruelty, war, and genocide are more like autoimmune diseases than the product of something you call “evil.” This vision of connectedness I offer you provides a rich moral field of action, in which altruism, compassion, and responsibility for one another play a central role. Your fate is one fate. Human beings will prevail together or die together. No one is saved because no one is lost. No one is forgiven because no one is accused.

  “What about God’s promise to us of a better world?”

  Your various concepts of heaven are remarkably obtuse.

  “Excuse me, but salvation is anything but obtuse!”

  The vision of spiritual completion I offer you is immeasurably grander than any heaven dreamed on earth.

  “What about the soul? Do you deny the existence of the immortal soul?”

  “Wyman, please!” Hazelius cried. “You’re wasting everyone’s time with these ridiculous theological questions!”

  “Excuse me, but I think they’re vital questions,” said Kate. “These are the questions people will ask—and which we better be able to answer.”

  We? Ford wondered who Kate meant.

  Information is never lost. With the death of the body, the information created by that life changes shape and structure, but it is never lost. Death is an informational transition. Do not fear it.

  “Do we lose our individuality at death?” Ford asked.

  Do not mourn the loss. From that powerful sense of individuality, so necessary for evolution, flows many of the qualities that haunt human existence, good and bad: fear, pain, suffering, and loneliness, as well as love, happiness, and compassion. That is why you must escape your biochemical existence. When you free yourselves from the tyranny of the flesh, you will take the good—love, happiness, compassion, and altruism—with you. You will leave behind the bad.

  “I don’t find much uplift in the idea that the little quantum fluctuations my existence has generated will somehow give us immortality,” said Ford sarcastically.

  You should find great solace in this view of life. Information in the universe cannot die. Not one step, not one memory, not one sorrow in your life is ever forgotten. You as an individual will be lost in the storm of time, your molecules dispersed. But who you were, what you did, how you lived, will always remain embedded in the universal computation.

  “Forgive me, but it still sounds so mechanistic, so soulless, this talk of existence as ‘computation.’ ”

  Call it dreaming, if you prefer, or desiring, willing, thinking. Everything you see is part of an unimaginably vast and beautiful computation, from a baby speaking its first words to a star collapsing into a black hole. Our universe is a gorgeous computation that, starting with a single axiom of great simplicity, has been running for thirteen billion years. We have hardly begun the adventure! When you find a way to shift your own meat-limited process of thinking to other natural quantum systems, you will begin to control the computation. You will begin to understand its beauty and perfection.

  “If everything is a computation, then what is the purpose of intelligence? Of mind?”

  Intelligence exists all around you, even in nonliving processes. A thunderstorm is a computation vastly more sophisticated than a human mind. It is, in its own way, intelligent.

  “A thunderstorm has no consciousness. A human mind has awareness of self. It’s conscious. That’s the difference, and it isn’t trivial.”

  Did I not tell you that the very consciousness of self is an illusion, an artifact of evolution? The difference is not even trivial.

  “A weather system isn’t creative. It doesn’t make choices. It can’t think. It’s merely the mechanistic unfolding of forces.”

  How do you know you are not the mechanistic unfolding of forces? Like the mind, a weather system contains complex chemical, electrical, and mechanical properties. It is thinking. It is creative. Its thoughts are different from your thoughts. A human being creates complexity by writing a novel on the surface of paper; a weather system creates complexity by writing waves on the surface of an ocean. What is the difference between the information carried in the words of a novel and the information carried on the waves of the sea? Listen, and the waves will speak, and someday, I tell you, you will write your thoughts on the surface of the sea.

  “So what’s the universe computing?” Innes continued angrily. “What’s this great problem it’s trying to solve?”

  That is the deepest and most wonderful mystery of all.

  “Perimeter alarms,” said Wardlaw. “We have an intruder.”

  Hazelius turned. “Don’t tell me that preacher’s back.”

  “No, no . . . God, no. Dr. Hazelius, you better come look.”

  Ford and the rest followed Hazelius over to the security station. They peered over Wardlaw’s shoulder at the wall of screens.

  “What the hell?” Hazelius asked.

  Wardlaw punched a series of buttons. “I shouldn’t have been paying attention to whatever the hell that crazy thing on the screen was saying. Look, I’m rewinding. Here’s where it starts. A chopper . . . a military Black Hawk UH-60A, landing at the airfield.”

  They all stood and watched—astonished. Ford could see men in dark jumpsuits, carrying weapons, tumbling from the chopper.

  “They’re breaking into the hangars,” Wardlaw went on, “taking our Humvees. Loading them up . . . Now they’re bashing down the gates to the security zone . . . . That’s what set off the alarm. Ok
ay, real time begins right here.”

  Ford watched as the soldiers, or whatever they were, jumped from the Humvees and fanned out, weapons at the ready.

  “What’s going on? What the hell are they doing?” cried Hazelius, his voice full of alarm.

  “They’re establishing a classic assault perimeter,” said Wardlaw.

  “Assault? On what?”

  “On us.”

  55

  RUSS EDDY CROUCHED BEHIND A JUNIPER tree and peered out into the fenced security area. The men in black had bashed down the security fence and were busy setting up lights and unloading equipment from a pair of Humvees. He had no doubt these men had been sent to protect the Isabella project in response to his letter. It was too much of a coincidence to be otherwise. Paramilitary forces of the New World Order who had arrived in black helicopters, just as Mark Koernke predicted.

  Eddy knew that his letter had reached those in power.

  He made careful note of how many there were, what weapons and equipment they carried, jotting everything down in his notebook.

  The soldiers finished rigging up a string of portable lights and the area was bathed in brilliant white light. Eddy shrank back in the shadows and retreated to the road. He had seen enough. The army of God would soon begin arriving—and he needed to organize them.

  As he walked back toward the far edge of the mesa, where the Dugway came up on top, that plan began to take shape. First, they would need a parking and staging area far enough away from Isabella so they could amass without being seen. They had to group themselves, organize, then attack. And, in fact, right at the top of the Dugway, about three miles from Isabella, was a vast open area of slickrock that would make a good location.

  He glanced at his watch: eleven forty-five. It had been two hours since he sent the e-mail. People would begin arriving at any moment. He began to jog down the center of the road, to intercept any arriving traffic.

  About a half mile from the Dugway, he heard the rumble of a bike engine. A single light appeared over the top of the mesa, moving rapidly toward him. The light slowed as the beam illuminated Eddy, and a dirt bike stopped in front of him, driven by a muscular man with long blond hair tied in a ponytail, wearing an unbuttoned denim jacket, sleeves torn off, and no shirt. He had a striking face, craggy, movie-star handsome, with the physique of a god. A heavy iron cross dangled from his neck on a metal chain, nestled on his hairy chest.