The Omega Theory (2 page)

Michael saw the doctor in his memory, tumbling backward with the bloody hole in his polo shirt. David had warned that something like this might happen. There were bad people, he’d said, who wanted to use the secret theory to make weapons. Michael had asked, “What kind of weapons?” and David had replied, “Weapons that are worse than atomic bombs. Guns that could kill half the people on earth with a single shot.”

The woman named Tamara tried to stroke his hair again, but he shook his head. “I won’t tell you anything! You want to use the theory to make weapons!”

“Are you referring to the unified field theory? The equations you’ve memorized?”

Michael pressed his lips together. He wasn’t going to say another word.

“Let me set your mind at ease. We already know some of the equations in the unified theory, and if we’d wanted to use that knowledge to build weapons, we could’ve done so a long time ago.” Her strong hand cupped his chin and held him still. “Listen closely now. Brother Cyrus is a man of peace. Like the prophet Isaiah. Have you ever read the Book of Isaiah?”

Michael felt sick. Tamara’s hot breath was on his face. She was too close and he couldn’t turn away. “Let go of me! I want to go home!”

“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. And a child shall lead them.”
She smiled. “That’s you, Michael. That’s why Brother Cyrus needs you. You’re going to help us fulfill the prophecy.”

He started screaming. There was nothing else he could do.

Without letting go of his chin, Tamara stretched her other hand toward the steel canister and turned its valve. “But now you need to rest. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

Then the oxygen mask came down again.

2

AT 4:52
P.M.
, LESS THAN TEN MINUTES BEFORE DAVID SWIFT WAS SCHEDULED
to open the Physicists for Peace conference, the Islamic Republic of Iran announced that it had just tested a nuclear bomb. One of the conference organizers got an alert on his iPhone, and the word quickly spread to the hundreds of scientists and journalists who’d gathered for the event. They made a beeline for the nearest television set, which was in the lobby of Pupin Hall, Columbia University’s physics building. David went with them and watched the story unfold on the flat-panel screen. Somber CNN reporters stood in front of the White House and tirelessly repeated the few facts that were available. A grainy video showed the celebration in the Iranian Parliament, bearded men in black turbans embracing each other. Then a map of Iran stretched across the screen, with a red
X
in the Kavir Desert marking the site of the underground detonation.

“Officials at the State Department had no comment,” the anchorman intoned, “but intelligence analysts said the nuclear test was apparently successful. They estimated that the strength of the explosion was between ten and fifteen kilotons, about the same as the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.”

No one could say it was unexpected. For almost a decade all the experts had predicted that Iran would eventually manufacture enough highly enriched uranium to build a nuclear weapon. But seeing the predictions come true on CNN was still a shock. David stared at the television and wiped the sweat from his brow. He felt empty and anxious and sick to his stomach.

“The president is meeting with his advisers in the Oval Office. White House sources say he will address the nation at nine o’clock tonight.”

David shook his head. All his efforts over the past two years had been aimed at preventing this. Officially, he was still a professor in Columbia’s history of science program, but his work with Physicists for Peace took up most of his time now. He’d used his contacts in the scientific community to create an organization with more than two thousand members around the world. As the director, spokesman, and chief fund-raiser for the group, David had appeared several times on CNN himself, a hopelessly earnest forty-six-year-old activist in a threadbare tweed jacket, preaching about the need for international friendship and cooperation. All along, though, he’d suspected that no one was taking him seriously. To the networks and newspapers, he was just another oddball, another eccentric professor with unkempt hair and impractical ideas. Good for an occasional quote, but ultimately irrelevant.

“In a brief statement, the secretary of defense said the Pentagon was studying its options. A carrier group led by the USS
Theodore Roosevelt
has reversed course and is now heading toward the Persian Gulf.”

He stood there, paralyzed, for the next few minutes, listening to the newscasters’ breathless reiterations. At 5
P.M.
he was supposed to give the welcoming address for the conference, but he made no move toward the lecture hall. It was pointless, he thought. How could he talk about peace when the whole world was preparing for war? He wished he could cancel his address and go home to his apartment. Maybe take Baby Lisa for a stroll in Central Park. Or toss the softball with Jonah and Michael.

Then he heard someone nearby clear her throat. He turned around and saw Monique. His wife cocked her head and smiled. One of her lovely eyebrows rose slightly, arching a few millimeters higher on her forehead. Her face was dark brown and shaped like a heart. “Isn’t it time for your speech, Professor?”

David was delighted to see her. Although Monique was also involved in Physicists for Peace—she was one of the most highly regarded theorists in the country—she’d told David she couldn’t attend his opening speech because she was working at the computer lab that evening. She and another physicist from Columbia’s department were running a particle-collision simulation program on the university’s supercomputer, which was so much in demand that the time slots for using the machine couldn’t be rescheduled. “What happened?” David asked. “Did your computer break down?”

She shook her head. She wore her usual work clothes—faded jeans, old sneakers, and a Bob Marley T-shirt—but she still looked better than anyone else in Pupin Hall. Her hair was braided in gorgeous cornrows that trailed down her back. “No, it’s just a delay. They bumped our run by twenty minutes. I had just enough time to swing by and wish you luck.”

He smiled back at her. “Well, I can use it.” He pointed at the television screen. “You see the news? The Iranians tested a nuke.”

Monique’s face turned serious. She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes. “Forget the news, David. You have—”

“How can I forget it? No one’s gonna be interested in anything else.”

“No, you’re wrong. These people have come from all over the world to hear you. They want to hear about peace, not war.”

“That reminds me of an old saying. Peace activists can’t put an end to war, but war can put an end to peace activism.”

“I don’t believe that. Not for a second.”

A thin vertical line appeared between those lovely eyebrows. David knew what it meant. Monique was a fighter, born in a rough housing project in the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C. Although she’d suffered all the disadvantages of poverty and neglect, she’d fought her way out of the ghetto and into the Ivy League, becoming a professor at one of the best physics departments in the world. It wasn’t in her nature to give up. She hadn’t even considered it.

David leaned over and kissed her forehead, brushing his lips against the vertical line. “All right. I’ll start herding the crowd. Thanks for the pep talk.”

“Anytime, baby.” She slipped her hand under his jacket and gave his waist a surreptitious squeeze. “I’ll come home as soon as I finish the computer run, okay? I’ll give you a little reward for all your hard work.” She winked at him before heading for the exit.

He watched her leave, his eyes fixed on her jeans. Then he gave a signal to one of his grad students, who began directing the conference attendees toward the stairway. Within ten minutes everyone had reassembled in the lecture hall, settling into rows of varnished seats that hadn’t been renovated in half a century. David had chosen this venue partly for its symbolism. On the same floor of Pupin Hall was the laboratory where the atomic age had begun. Seventy-two years ago a team of scientists led by Enrico Fermi had used Columbia’s cyclotron to split uranium atoms. Although the scientists later relocated to a bigger lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico, the effort became known as the Manhattan Project because that was where it had started. The cyclotron was gone now, dismantled and carted away and sold for scrap, but David still felt its presence. He couldn’t think of a better place to have this discussion.

Striding toward the lectern at the front of the room, he noticed that every seat was filled. Still more people crouched in the aisles and stood behind the last row. He recognized most of the physicists in the crowd and many of the journalists as well. The Physicists for Peace conference had suddenly become quite newsworthy, and the reporters in the first two rows eyed David intently.

He placed his notes on the lectern and adjusted the microphone. “Welcome, everyone,” he started. “Welcome to the first annual conference of Physicists for Peace. I have to admit, I’m a little overwhelmed by the turnout. I know from personal experience how hard it is to gather so many physicists in one room, especially when no one’s offering free beer or pizza.”

There were one or two laughs, then silence. The crowd was too distressed to respond to the usual jokes.

“As most of you know, I’m not a physicist. I’m a historian of science, which makes me something of an outsider here. My work has focused on the founders of modern physics—Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, and so on. I’ve studied how their discoveries have changed the world, for better and for worse.”

David paused. He spotted two Nobel Prize winners in the middle of the third row. Dr. Martin Chang, the discoverer of the tau particle, sat next to Dr. Leon Hirsch, who’d developed the theory of superconductivity. Their presence was a little intimidating.

“Over the past fifty years,” he continued, “the advances in physics have triggered a technological revolution. They led to the invention of lasers and computers and MRI machines and iPods. But at the same time, military leaders have used these breakthroughs to develop ever more sophisticated weapons. Ballistic missiles, satellite killers, Predator drones, Hellfire rockets. And, of course, nuclear weapons, which unfortunately have just spread to yet another country. The human race seems determined to invent new ways to destroy itself, and many scientists are appalled that their work is being used this way. That’s why we started Physicists for Peace.”

David reached for the glass of water on the lectern. The audience was dead quiet, waiting for him to go on. Of course, he couldn’t give them the full explanation for why he’d devoted himself to this cause, because that would mean telling them about the unified field theory and the ordeal that had nearly killed him two years ago. And David knew that if he wanted to promote world peace, revealing the existence of the unified theory was the last thing he should do.

He took a sip of water and set the glass down. “Our work at Physicists for Peace is based on the premise that people are more alike than different. We all want to lead long, happy lives and ensure the same for our children. It’s a universal desire, just as strong for Iranians and Russians and Palestinians as it is for Americans and Italians and Israelis. And yet our governments keep saying that we’re different, that we’re in conflict. The American government tells its citizens to be afraid of Iranians, and the Iranian government teaches its people to hate Americans.” He shook his head. “Well, I didn’t believe what my government was saying. I wanted to talk to people in other countries and see for myself. And I discovered that many of my colleagues felt the same way. So we started to build an international network of scientists, opening new lines of communication that bypassed our governments. We have members in more than fifty countries now, including Pakistan, Syria, and, yes, Iran. And despite today’s disappointing news, I firmly believe that our efforts are more important than ever.”

He scanned the audience, trying to gauge their reactions. Physicists were a tough crowd, notoriously skeptical. They were adept at finding the weak points in any argument. But as David studied his colleagues, what he sensed was impatience. They weren’t interested in the historical perspective. They wanted to hear about the immediate crisis. So he decided to switch gears. He picked up his lecture notes and waved them in the air. “This is the speech I was going to deliver this evening. Unfortunately, the events in Iran have rendered it obsolete. So I’m going to do something different. I’m going to listen rather than talk. One thing I’ve learned in my new career as a peace activist is that everyone ought to listen more and talk less.”

He crumpled his notes into a ball and tossed it aside. Then he leaned forward, propping his elbows on the lectern. “We all saw the news about the Iranian nuclear test. I’d like to know what all of you are thinking. How should we respond to this development? How does it change our mission?” He held out his hands, gesturing to the whole crowd. “Please, anyone can start the discussion. I want to hear from as many of you as possible.”

A murmur rose from the audience, but no one spoke up. The physicists shifted in their seats. The Nobel laureates in the third row leaned their heads together, and it looked like Dr. Hirsch was about to raise his hand and make a comment. But then David heard a deep, gravelly voice from the standing-room-only section at the back of the lecture hall. “Yes, you should change your mission. What happened today proves that your organization is a failure.”

David had heard this voice before. He peered beyond the heads of the people in the last row and recognized Jacob Steele. He was dressed very conservatively, in a blue three-piece suit that draped loosely over his gaunt frame. David hadn’t seen him in five years, not since Jacob left Columbia to head the Advanced Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland, and it was shocking to see how much his old friend had deteriorated since then. He and David were the same age, but Jacob looked at least fifteen years older.