The Omega Theory (26 page)

“Sir, if I may ask, where did those records come from?”

“From the contractor that did the dismantling. A small company in Sacramento called Logos Enterprises.”

“And is this a reliable source?”

“We have no reason not to believe them. What’s going on, Lucy? Spit it out.”

Lucille took a deep breath. “My contacts here have given me a piece of intelligence that they haven’t officially shared with Washington yet. The Israeli listening stations have been working overtime ever since the nuclear test, monitoring all communications in and out of Iran. Two days ago they intercepted a message from California to a location in western Afghanistan, close to the Iranian border. The message had U.S. military encryption, but the Israelis managed to break it.”

“What?” The director raised his voice, forcing Lucille to move her BlackBerry a little farther from her ear. “They can’t break our codes. That’s impossible.”

He was right—the Israeli intelligence agencies couldn’t do it. But Olam ben Z’man had deciphered the message with that fancy quantum computer of his. He’d tried to explain the technology to Lucille before they left Shalhevet, but it was all gobbledygook to her. “Whoever sent the message must’ve screwed up the encryption,” she said, sidestepping the truth for now. “Anyway, here’s what it said: ‘RECEIVED INQUIRY ABOUT REMOVAL OF EXCALIBUR. GAVE THE PREPARED ANSWER. AWAITING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.’ As you can see, sir, the message suggests that some kind of cover-up may be going on.”

“Who sent this? And who received it?”

“Both the sender and the receiver used unregistered wireless devices. But the sender’s signal went through a cell tower in Sacramento, which is why I think you should take a closer look at Logos Enterprises. The receiver’s signal went through a tower in the Afghan city of Herat. I checked with a contact at the National Security Agency who said the Taliban in that part of the country sometimes use cell phones, but they’ve never encrypted their messages this way.”

There was another long pause. The director said nothing, but in the background Lucille heard him tapping his fingernail on his desk, which was something he always did when he was agitated. “This isn’t good, Lucy. At the very least, this is an unauthorized use of military encryption. And if there’s a connection to the Taliban or the Iranian nuclear program, we could have a real problem here.”

Lucille agreed. She’d been worried as hell ever since Olam told her about Excalibur. She hadn’t understood much of what he’d said, and she was reluctant to tell the director the crazier parts of the story—the data overloads, the memory caches, the universal program. He would say she was talking nonsense and dismiss her warnings altogether. But the intercepted message was solid evidence. It was proof that foreign operatives had stolen U.S. military codes and infiltrated a nuclear-weapons lab, which was a pretty goddamn serious security breach. And that was why Lucille had agreed to tag along on Olam’s unauthorized mission. There was a nest of rats in Washington, and some of them had burrowed their way into the Bureau. She needed to convince the director to start flushing them out.

“Sir, if I may offer a suggestion? When you assign the team that’s going to interview the folks at Logos Enterprises, instruct the agents not to reveal anything about the encrypted communications. They should just ask for more details about the dismantling of Excalibur. Then the contractor might get nervous and send another message we can intercept. If we’re lucky we’ll figure out who’s on the receiving end in Afghanistan, and then we can get the Pentagon to track them down.”

“Good idea. I’ll set the wheels in motion.” He coughed and started tapping his desk again. “Where exactly on the West Bank are you?”

Lucille looked out the van’s window. They were less than ten miles from the airport. If she boarded Olam’s plane, she would be violating every rule in the Bureau’s manual. But that was okay, she thought. She was planning to retire soon anyway. “I’m sorry, sir, your signal’s breaking up. I’ll contact you again when I’m back in range.”

23

BROTHER CYRUS REMOVED HIS GLOVES SO HE COULD HOLD THE DISK OF URA
nium in his bare hands. It was only four inches wide and less than an inch thick, but it was heavy for its size, almost ten pounds. Dull silver in color, it looked like an oversize coin. Five identical disks lay inside the black case in front of him, each nestled in its own lead-lined compartment. Another case contained nine more pieces of uranium that had been fashioned into rings that would fit neatly around the disks. Individually, each piece was safe to handle. Because U-235 decayed so slowly, the disks and rings emitted little radiation. In fact, they didn’t even feel warm to the touch. The danger came from putting the pieces together.

In all, Cyrus had two hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium, which was far more than the critical mass he needed. He’d obtained the fuel from a research reactor in Kazakhstan. Despite all the American efforts to stop nuclear smuggling, tons of old Soviet uranium were still stored in lightly defended facilities in Central Asia. For the sake of simplicity, Cyrus had decided to build a “gun-type” device to trigger the explosion, the same design used in the Little Boy bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. He was familiar with the technology; during the early part of his career he’d learned the basics of nuclear weapons so he could better oversee the development of new ones. He’d been a cocky young man in those days, obsessed with earthly wants and ambitions, but God had been preparing him all along. He saw now that the Lord had guided his life from the start, giving him all the tools he would need to bring about the Redemption.

Cyrus put the disk of uranium back into its compartment, then rose from his chair. He was inside a DRASH, a Deployable Rapid Assembly Shelter, which was a fancy name for a large military tent, about twenty feet wide and forty feet long. At the center of the tent stood the ten-foot-high gun tube, which was anchored vertically into the ground. The uranium disks would be lowered to the bottom of the tube in a loose stack. The rings would be positioned near the top of the tube, held in a bullet-like canister. Bags of cordite would be stuffed into the tube just above this bullet. When everything was ready, Cyrus would order his men to detonate the cordite. The explosion would propel the bullet down the tube at a thousand feet per second, smashing it into the stack of uranium disks at the bottom. The rings would encircle the disks and the U-235 would go critical. The uranium’s slow decay would accelerate in a chain reaction, releasing the energy from trillions and trillions of atoms at once.

He stepped toward the gun tube and ran his hand along the steel. The design had already proved itself at the Kavir test site. Cyrus had given the Iranians everything they needed, including another hundred pounds of the enriched uranium taken from the Kazakh reactor. In return, the Revolutionary Guards had allowed Cyrus to test the Excalibur prototype he’d stolen from Livermore. The Iranian nuke had fit neatly inside Excalibur, the gun tube slipping into the fat silver cylinder like a pencil inserted in a soda can. When the bomb went off, Excalibur’s laser rods absorbed the X-ray radiation from the explosion and channeled billions of joules of energy into twelve powerful beams that converged inside the cylinder. By focusing on a tiny area, the X-ray lasers had challenged the limits of the universal program, pouring intense streams of data into specialized memory caches that had never handled so much information before. The resulting disruptions hadn’t been severe enough to crash the program—the universe, like man, was a stubborn creature, unwilling to accept the light of God’s love. But thanks to the code Michael had provided, Cyrus now knew the ideal beam configuration for overcoming the error-correction algorithms. Just as important, he planned to set off a bigger blast this time, which would intensify the flood of data into the caches. The explosion would be a hundred times more powerful than the Kavir test. It would guarantee the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Keeping his hand on the gun tube, Cyrus closed his eyes. He’d sacrificed so much to reach this point. And one last sacrifice was still to come. The world had such a long history of suffering, it seemed cruel to add any more in its final hours. Yet it was necessary. It was brutal and ruthless and cold-blooded, but it was the only way to end the suffering once and for all. A flaw in the program had corrupted the universe, and this flaw was the dimension of time, which was the wellspring of evil and sin and death. By offering the infinite choices of the future, time destroyed the perfection of the present, just as Adam destroyed the Garden of Eden when he chose to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. But now the Redemption was at hand, and the True Believers would correct the flaw. They would eliminate the dimension of time and make God’s kingdom unchanging and eternal.

Cyrus unwrapped his head scarf so he could stand face-to-face with the Almighty. “Oh Lord,” he whispered. “Keep my will strong. Let me not be distracted by the wickedness of this world as we near the end. Let me think only of You. Soon I will lead Your subjects into the kingdom, and our resurrected thoughts will meld with Yours forever. Your Creation will be a flawless gem, fixed in the bliss of Eternal Life! From beginning to end, from alpha to omega!”

He continued praying for several more minutes, his hand on the steel column that pointed toward heaven. When he opened his eyes he saw General McNair in front of him, standing with his head bowed and waiting patiently for him to finish.

“Ah, Samuel!” Cyrus cried. “Have you been praying with me?”

“Yes, Brother,” the general replied, raising his head. His face was long and gaunt, but his eyes were a vibrant blue. “As it says in the Book of Ruth,
Whither thou goest, I will go.
”

Cyrus wasn’t wearing his head scarf, but it didn’t matter. McNair had seen Cyrus’s repellent face many times before. The two men had known each other for twenty-five years. More important, it was McNair and his Special Forces team who’d rescued Cyrus from the cave in Gazarak Mountain after he’d been tortured for three days by Satan’s foot soldiers. The general had seen Cyrus’s degradation and disfigurement, but the sight hadn’t made him flinch. Instead, it had strengthened the bond between them.

“This is a glorious moment,” Cyrus exulted. “After all our years of effort, we’re standing on the Lord’s doorstep! Very soon we will see His blessed face!”

McNair nodded. “Yes, Brother, I long to see Him.” His voice was fervent but his eyes wouldn’t meet Cyrus’s. He kept licking his lips and opening and closing his hands. His combat uniform smelled strongly of perspiration.

“What’s wrong, Samuel? You look troubled.”

McNair was silent. Although he had a reputation as one of the toughest generals in the U.S. Army, he was often hesitant in front of Cyrus. He’d done more than any other True Believer to pave the way for God’s Eternal Reign, and yet he needed constant reassurance.

Cyrus gave him a smile. “Are you having doubts?” he asked. “About your sacrifice?”

The general shook his head firmly. “No, Brother. No doubts at all.”

“Then perhaps you’re concerned about your troops? Maybe because they don’t know what will happen to them?”

McNair shook his head again. “No, it’s better this way. The burden of decision would’ve been too great, so I’ve made it for them. I can think of no finer mission for my men than opening the gates to God’s kingdom.” He closed his right hand into a fist and held it high. Then his arm fell to his side, slapping against his fatigues. “But the nearer we get, the more I worry. My superiors at Central Command are watching me closely. And the Joint Chiefs are demanding updates on Cobra every hour. My faith is still rock solid, Brother, but I’m worried that the unbelievers will discover our operation and shut it down.”

“Be calm, Samuel.” Cyrus rested his hand on McNair’s shoulder. “You must always remember that God is on our side. Hasn’t He given us everything we need?” He gestured at the gun tube standing in the center of the tent. “Even the unbelievers in Washington are playing their part, advancing the Lord’s plans without knowing it. Speaking of which, what’s the latest word on the timing of the Ranger assault?”

“The Iranians haven’t responded to the president’s ultimatum, but no one expected them to. Now that they have the bomb, they’re not going to give it up without a fight. The president is going to give them another twenty-four hours, and if they don’t respond by then, we’ll get the green light. That means we’re scheduled to launch the surprise attack after nightfall tomorrow.”

Cyrus smiled again. “You see? We have plenty of time to put everything in place.”

McNair nodded, but he still wouldn’t look Cyrus in the eye. “Brother, I spoke with Lukas a few minutes ago. He was in the convoy that just arrived from the Darvaza camp. He told me that Tamara was no longer a Believer. He said you cast her out because she disobeyed your orders.”

Cyrus stopped smiling. It was painful to remember the incident. And he suspected that it was distressing for McNair, too. The general had become quite fond of Tamara. Cyrus squeezed the man’s shoulder. “Yes, she weakened. Because of her sympathy for the boy. I had to order Angel to put her to sleep. But listen to me, Samuel—her rest will be brief. In just a matter of hours, she’ll be resurrected along with the rest of us and we’ll see her again in the eternal kingdom.”

“No, she’s still alive. Lukas told me that the convoy lost radio contact with Angel, so they sent a couple of men back to the camp. The men found four dead soldiers and no sign of Tamara or the boy. It looks like they escaped. One of the Land Cruisers was missing and the charred wrecks of two other vehicles were at the bottom of the burning crater.”

Cyrus felt a twisting in his chest, a coil of righteous anger. “What? Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

“Lukas said he just received the news. He was afraid to tell you, so he asked me to do it.”

The coil of anger tightened. Cyrus closed his eyes. The corruption of the world never ceased to amaze him. It was so deeply embedded in the fabric of the universe that he sometimes felt as if every particle was conspiring against him. Now Tamara had put their entire operation in jeopardy. Cyrus knew that as soon as she reached the nearest town, she would try to contact the American authorities. Although the officials might not believe her story at first, they would certainly make inquiries. The woman had to be stopped.