The Omega Theory (34 page)

To David’s surprise, Cyrus’s voice wasn’t cruel. It was calm and reasonable, even sympathetic. He was simply stating the facts.

“And maybe it’s good for you to scream a little,” he continued. “Maybe you need to purify your spirit. Purge your anger and fear, and think only of the Lord. We can take a special joy now in turning toward God because these are the last hours of the corrupt world. Very soon, His love will flood the universe.” He spread his arms wide in a benedictory gesture. “And you, of all people, should be joyful, David. The Redemption is just as much your doing as mine. The Lord called you to this task and you performed it well. That’s why I brought you here, to give thanks and rejoice with you!”

David shook his head. Who the hell was this guy? It was maddening to listen to him and not be able to respond. He wanted to grab Cyrus by the neck and turn him toward the gun tube and shout,
Jesus Christ, what the fuck are you doing?
But with his hands tied and his mouth gagged, all he could do was shake his head and scream.

“Think about it for a moment, David. Two years ago, when you uncovered Einstein’s unified theory, you gave us the first glimpse of God’s plan. I know you tried to hide the theory again, but while you went back to New York and your job at Columbia, intelligence agencies around the world began investigating the incident. I would’ve liked to talk to you then, but you and your family were under FBI surveillance. So I started doing some research of my own. I knew a few scientists who could help me make sense of the intelligence reports. And I knew that sooner or later the Lord would provide.” He held out his gloved hands as if preparing to accept a gift. “And He did. Within a year we’d assembled half the equations in the theory. What’s more, my scientists discovered that the equations flowed from a universal program that had been running since the Big Bang. They even managed to reconstruct a good chunk of that program. And I saw—praise God!—that the program had a weakness. The Lord showed me the flaw and told me what to do.”

Brother Cyrus sat down on the bench, his rear end a couple of feet from David’s head. He lowered himself carefully, as if his joints were hurting him. He wasn’t a young man, David realized. He was probably in his sixties. A good, hard punch to the solar plexus would be enough to take care of him. David jerked his arms, trying to loosen his bindings, but his hands were going numb now, pinned between the bench and the small of his back.

“The next step was to gather the tools I needed, but the Almighty had already provided most of those. I knew we could use Excalibur to exploit the weakness in the program because in my younger days I’d worked on the X-ray laser project at Livermore. I also knew we could steal the uranium from one of the reactors in Kazakhstan, and I was certain that the Iranians would let us test Excalibur at the Kavir site if we gave them some of the nuclear fuel. And after Michael Gupta joined our party and filled in the gaps in the code, we could determine how to properly adjust the Russian laser we’d acquired. Michael showed us not only how to overload the flawed program, but how to remake the universe as God intended, a perfect and timeless Kingdom of Heaven where we will all be resurrected and live in eternal peace. And you assisted us, too, David. Our operation had two loose ends—Jacob Steele and Olam ben Z’man—and you helped us eliminate both of them.”

Cyrus leaned closer as he said this and rested his gloved hand on David’s shoulder. The gesture surprised and sickened David. He twisted his body, writhing so violently that he would’ve toppled the bench if Cyrus hadn’t been sitting on it. The man retracted his hand but stayed bent over David, lowering his voice almost to a whisper.

“There was one last obstacle. To trigger the memory overload, we needed to intensify the laser beams. And the only way to pump more power to the beams was to explode a more powerful weapon. We needed at least five hundred kilotons, which is beyond what a simple uranium bomb can generate. An American thermonuclear warhead could do it, but how could we arrange to detonate the bomb next to the X-ray laser? Because of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, neither America nor Russia explodes nuclear weapons in underground tests anymore. And even if we could steal a warhead from one of the nuclear arsenals, we wouldn’t be able to detonate it. The permissive action links lock the bomb’s firing mechanism, and only the president can release those codes. So we faced a problem, a serious problem that threatened to derail all our efforts.”

He stood up, rising with a grunt, and walked back to the gun tube. He spread his arms again, standing with his back to David and gesturing at the weapon as if he were blessing it.

“But the Lord provided once again. He spoke to me in my thoughts, where He is always present. I knew I had to force America to deploy one of its nuclear weapons. And I knew the president had promised never to do that unless another country launched a nuclear attack first. So the only option was to meet the president’s condition.” He pointed his gloved hand at the bottom of the tube. “My Little Boy will explode at two o’clock this afternoon, incinerating and burying this camp. And because the uranium in this device comes from the same stockpile as the U-235 we gave to the Iranians, the debris from the blast will have the exact same radioisotope signatures as the debris from the Kavir test. The CIA will quickly send reconnaissance drones here to investigate the nuclear catastrophe, and when they analyze the fallout debris they’ll conclude that this was another Iranian bomb. Which is perfectly logical, of course. Wouldn’t it make sense for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to use one of their nuclear weapons to eliminate the Ranger battalion that was preparing to attack them?”

David closed his eyes. The horror pressed down on him, close and suffocating. The nuclear explosion would collapse the cavern. The American soldiers would be crushed under tons of rock and dirt. And in response, the United States would launch a nuclear attack of its own.

“The target of the American retaliatory strike will be a facility near the Iranian town of Ashkhaneh. That’s where the Revolutionary Guards are storing the rest of the U-235 we gave them. The facility is located in a cavern much like this one, deep underground. So the U.S. Air Force will send a B-2 bomber to deliver its strongest bunker buster, a modified B83 nuclear warhead. The bomb is attached to a precise guidance system and designed to burrow twenty feet into the ground before exploding. And it has a yield of twelve hundred kilotons, which is more than enough for our purposes. We know the coordinates of the target, and in a few minutes my True Believers and I will go to Ashkhaneh to deliver the X-ray laser. We’ll position the device at the target point so that the laser rods will be close to the warhead when it detonates.”

Cyrus’s calm, reasonable voice droned on. He sounded as if he were reciting a shopping list instead of the preparations for Doomsday. David kept his eyes closed, too appalled to even look at the man. Jesus, he thought, how the hell did Cyrus acquire all this classified information? How did he know so much about the air force’s warheads and targets? It couldn’t have all come from General McNair. David couldn’t begin to fathom it. In frustration, he gave up thinking and started banging the back of his head against the bench. It was the only response that made any sense.

He soon felt Cyrus’s gloved hand on his forehead, holding him still. David opened his eyes and saw the man kneeling on the floor. “I understand, David. I’ve felt this pain, too. I was also a prisoner once, in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. I’d come to Afghanistan to field-test a new reconnaissance drone. An infantry platoon was escorting me to an airfield near Jalalabad when the Taliban ambushed us.” He lowered his head and stared at the ground. “Satan’s foot soldiers captured me and took me to a cave in Gazarak Mountain. Then the interrogations began. Satan’s men took turns, torturing and mutilating me. And then, three days later, I was rescued. My old friend Sam McNair led a Special Forces team that raided the hideout and killed my captors. But the Lord had already saved me, David. I saw His blessed face for the first time on that mountain. And now the same thing can happen to you. All you need to do is turn to Him.”

David pushed his forehead against the gloved hand, trying to shake it off, but Cyrus pressed down firmly. Then, with his other hand, he began to take off his head scarf. He gripped the end of the black fabric and carefully unwound it, moving his hand in slow circles around his head. “I’m going to show you something now. I was once a sinful man, proud and arrogant in my corruption. And I still live in that man’s body and speak profanities with his tongue. And I still wear his hideous face. I’ve endured it like a deadweight for the past seven years while I hid my true self and my knowledge of the Lord. But in just a few hours I will cast it off. I will give up this mutilated flesh and deliver my soul to heaven, where my thoughts will rest eternally with God.” His hand went around his head one more time, pulling the last band of fabric from his face. The scarf fell to the ground. “Pray with me now, David. Let us show our true selves to the Lord.”

David stared at him. Cyrus had a square, pinkish face. His lips were slender, his eyes were gray, and his forehead was topped with thinning white hair. His face wasn’t hideous or mutilated. It was unscarred and perfectly ordinary, the face of a mild-mannered sixty-something-year-old man.

He smiled. “You’ve seen me before, haven’t you?”

It was true. David had seen him before.

JOE DOWLING OF THE DEFENSE INFORMATION SYSTEMS AGENCY CALLED BACK
after fifty-eight minutes. “Aryeh? I got the information you wanted. I’ll put it in a packet and leave it for you at the usual place.”

Aryeh squeezed his phone. He couldn’t wait for the information. He needed to know this instant. “No, tell me now. Tell me the name.”

“Over the phone? Are you sure—”

“Yes, over the phone! Do you want to get paid or not?”

There was a pause. “Okay, here goes. The network access code used by the contact in Turkmenistan belongs to a director at DARPA, the Pentagon’s research agency. The name is Adam Cyrus Bennett.”

33

MICHAEL WAS CRYING, BUT THERE WERE STILL NO TEARS. MONIQUE HANDED
him a canteen and told him to take a small sip of water. Then she helped him stand up and led him to one of the helicopters. Halfway there, his knees buckled and he started to fall, but the big soldier with the eye patch grasped his arm. He was one of the biggest men Michael had ever seen. He had a terrible smell, like an old sneaker.

“Shalom!” he boomed. “My name is Olam.” His voice was loud, but Michael didn’t mind so much. It was better than listening to the pounding of his own pulse.

When they reached the helicopter, another soldier helped Michael climb aboard. Two more soldiers gripped his elbows and guided him to a bench seat on the left side of the cabin. They were odd-looking soldiers—they had long, scruffy beards and wore black uniforms and knitted skullcaps. But Michael didn’t care. He’d never been inside a helicopter before and he was eager to look around. The cabin was about seven feet wide and fifteen feet long, with bench seats on both sides. He craned his neck to see the cockpit, but Monique stopped him from getting up to take a closer look. She sat beside him on the bench seat and made him take another sip of water from the canteen, a bigger sip this time. Then she hugged him.

“Oh, Michael! Thank God! Thank God!”

He would’ve screamed if anyone else had hugged him. But for some reason Monique’s touch felt different—not as alien or jarring. It had been the same way with his mother. Michael didn’t really like the hug, but he could tolerate it.

“How long were you in the desert?” she asked. “And how did you get here? What were you doing with that motorcycle?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to talk about Tamara or how he got the Ural. He took another sip from the canteen instead.

She pulled back and looked at his face. Then she nodded. “It’s all right, Michael. I’m just glad we found you.”

“Yes, it’s a miracle,” said Olam. The one-eyed soldier stood beside the bench seat, bending over so his head wouldn’t hit the cabin’s ceiling. “Like a story from the Bible, yes? The well in the middle of the desert? The God of Abraham has given us a hard time, but He hasn’t abandoned us.”

A thought occurred to Michael. He looked around the cabin again, counting all the people inside. “Where’s David Swift?” he asked. “Is he in the other helicopter?”

Monique lowered her head. Her cheeks were wet. She wasn’t dehydrated, so there were tears when she cried.

Olam patted her arm. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “He’s alive.” Then he turned to Michael. “David was with us until eight hours ago, when we were ambushed in Yangykala Canyon. I saw the bastards capture him and kill Agent Parker, but they didn’t kill David. They put him in one of their Land Cruisers and headed southeast.”

Michael dared to glance at the man’s lone eye. It looked very big for an eye, as big as a golf ball. Its iris was bright blue. “Is this your helicopter?”

“It is now!” Olam laughed, and the sound echoed in the cabin. “After we escaped from Yangykala, we regrouped with the six men I’d sent on reconnaissance. Then the Turkmen Army sent their MI-8s after us.”

Michael knew what an MI-8 was. He’d seen them in his computer games. The helicopter he was sitting in, he realized, was an MI-8. He would’ve recognized it earlier if he hadn’t been so woozy. “The MI-8 is a Russian-made troop-transport helicopter,” he told Olam. “It can also be used as a gunship.”

“Yes, the Turkmen Army inherited some of them after the Soviet Union broke up. I have to tell you, they’re not very good. I like to fly the Yanshuf, the Israeli version of the Black Hawk. Compared to the Yanshuf, this is a piece of garbage.” He banged his fist on the wall of the cabin. “And these particular MI-8s have no rockets or missiles on their racks. The only armaments are the built-in machine guns.”

Michael smiled. He liked talking to this soldier. “But if these helicopters belong to the Turkmen Army, how did you—”

“Ah, yes, we played a little trick on them. When the helicopters approached, we put down our guns and surrendered. But once they landed, we changed our minds about surrendering.” He let out another booming laugh. Then he reached into the pocket of his fatigues and removed a piece of paper. “We found these orders on the helicopter pilots. Someone had told them where we were. And the same orders instructed the pilots to search for you, too.” He pointed at Michael. “This paper said you were headed south from an oasis village in Dashoguz province. That’s how we found you.”