“Yes, yes, I know,” David said. “Its clock ticks a billion times a second.”
“Which makes it more powerful, because it can run more calculations in the same amount of time. But the clock of the universe would work a little differently, because time itself is determined by the universal program. And because the program is constantly adjusting its own run time, it would leave a telltale clue in the physical world: the flow of time would fluctuate ever so slightly from place to place. These variations wouldn’t be easy to detect—you’d need a pair of very precise clocks located thousands of kilometers apart. But the discovery would prove the existence of the universal program and show that It From Bit is literally true.”
“So you think that’s why Jacob Steele got involved? He heard about Loebner’s idea and thought he could share the Nobel Prize by building the Caduceus Array?”
“Yeah, it makes sense. Jacob would’ve had no trouble designing the clocks, because they used the same trapped-ion technology as his quantum computers. And he could pay for it with the money he diverted from his DARPA grant.”
“And what about the disruptions they detected on the morning of the Iranian nuclear test? Have you got any ideas about what might’ve caused those?”
She didn’t respond at first. The limo’s backseat became quiet, and David heard another song on the Israeli radio station. Then Monique took a deep breath and shook her head. The passionate determination that had animated her face ever since she’d started talking now seemed to dissipate. She turned back to the car window. “No, I haven’t figured out that part yet. All I know so far is that the disruptions were a surprise. But what caused them . . .” Her voice trailed off.
David looked out the other window. Panic tightened his chest again. Michael had been gone for three days now. They didn’t know who his kidnappers were or why they’d taken him. The only clues came from a mentally unstable Israeli scientist who’d apparently tried to prove that the universe was a computer. And they couldn’t find him either.
Pressing his forehead to the car window, David closed his eyes. Then he felt Monique’s hand on his shoulder. It slid down his arm, slowly and gently. When it reached his hand he clasped it, lacing his fingers between hers. Neither said a word.
Five minutes later, the limo exited the highway and headed west on a two-lane road. Aryeh stopped humming and turned off the car radio. “Almost there,” he said. “That’s the gate for Palmachim Air Base.”
David looked ahead and saw a landscape of sandy hillocks, dotted with thornbushes and olive trees. Running across this scrubland was a high barbed-wire fence. Beyond the fence David caught a glimpse of the Mediterranean, less than a mile away.
Aryeh drove the Shin Bet limo to a guardhouse manned by soldiers in Israeli Air Force uniforms. He spoke a few words in Hebrew to the commander, who checked Aryeh’s ID and waved them through the gate. The road continued toward the sea, passing several asphalt landing zones half hidden among the dunes.
Lucille peered through the windshield, then turned to Aryeh. “This is a helicopter base, right?” she asked.
“Correct,” he replied. “We station Black Hawks and Cobras here. And this is where we launch our missiles and satellites. Our country may be small, but it’s full of clever people, yes? Many scientists besides Oscar Loebner have worked in this place.”
“Well, let’s hope Oscar talked to one of them when he came here last Tuesday. We need a lead on this guy.”
As they neared the base’s runway, Aryeh made a right turn and headed for a cluster of low buildings. In the middle of the complex was a structure with an oddly shaped dome. It looked like a white teacup that had been turned upside down on its saucer. David recognized the building from the work he’d done for Physicists for Peace, which had compiled a catalog of the world’s nuclear facilities. It was a five-megawatt reactor, the centerpiece of the Soreq Nuclear Research Center.
Aryeh parked the car in a lot about a hundred yards from the reactor. Then he stepped outside and led them to the lab’s administration building. The office of Rahm Elon, Soreq’s security chief, was on the first floor.
David got a little worried when he walked into the office—Rahm was a fierce-looking soldier, tall, olive-skinned, and impressively muscled. He wore sunglasses and an air-force uniform, and he carried an oversize Desert Eagle pistol in his belt holster. Standing behind his desk, Rahm shook hands with Aryeh. Both men smiled and exchanged a few pleasantries in Hebrew. But Rahm stopped smiling when Aryeh introduced him to Lucille, David, and Monique. He clearly wasn’t comfortable with the presence of the Americans on his base.
They took seats in front of Rahm’s desk. Aryeh leaned back in his chair. “So we’re wondering if you’ve made any progress,” he said, switching to English. “My G-man friends are eager to find Mr. Loebner. Or Olam ben Z’man, as he now prefers to call himself.”
Rahm nodded, but his expression remained cold. “We’ve confirmed that Loebner was on the base Tuesday night,” he said. Then he closed his mouth and stared straight ahead.
Aryeh waited a few seconds, unperturbed. “Ah, that’s good,” he finally said. “Because Shin Bet is curious, too. They’d like to know how Loebner waltzed through the gate of an IDF installation, considering that his security credentials were revoked four years ago.”
“And why is Shin Bet so curious?” Rahm asked. “This is military security, not a police matter.”
“You know how it is.” Aryeh shrugged. “Some big shot in the Justice Ministry gets interested and starts shouting orders at his deputies. Typical government bullshit, eh?”
“You’re right, it’s bullshit. You and your American friends have no business being here.”
Aryeh smiled again and held out his hands in a placating gesture. “Look, Rahm, we don’t want to cause you any trouble. We just want Loebner. We can’t let him run around like a madman. He has too many nasty secrets in his head. So maybe you can tell us what he was doing at Soreq, yes? And maybe, please God, where he went afterward?”
Rahm said nothing at first. He just sat behind his desk, glaring at them, demonstrating his displeasure. Then he reached into one of the drawers and pulled out a folder. “Loebner didn’t waltz through the gate. He cut through the fence.” He handed the folder to Aryeh. “We believe he infiltrated the base at approximately ten o’clock on Tuesday evening. Unfortunately, we didn’t discover the breach until midnight.”
Aryeh opened the folder and leafed through it. “That’s a bit slow, eh? Don’t you have intrusion detectors on the perimeter?”
“We have motion sensors, infrared cameras, and closed-circuit video. But Loebner disabled the equipment in Sector 34. It’s all in the report.”
Lucille, who sat in the chair next to Aryeh’s, craned her neck to see the folder. Then she turned to Rahm. “I guess Loebner remembered his training, huh? From
Sayeret Matkal
?”
Rahm kept his eyes on Aryeh, refusing to look at Agent Parker. “
Matkal
is our Special Forces unit assigned to counterterrorism. They’re very good at infiltration.”
“How do you know it was Loebner who cut through the fence if all your cameras were down?”
“Only the cameras in Sector 34 were disabled. Once Loebner was on the base, he appeared on other surveillance videos. He wore his old IDF uniform, so he didn’t look suspicious to the security personnel who were monitoring the video feeds. But after we detected the perimeter breach, we reviewed the tapes and identified Loebner.” Rahm reached into his desk drawer again and pulled out a computer disk. “This holds the video taken by our cameras in Building 203. That’s Soreq’s supply warehouse. The camera at the front door shows Loebner entering the building at ten-seventeen
P.M.
on Tuesday. A minute later, the camera in the basement shows him walking toward the Long-Term Storage Room and punching in the room’s access code on the security panel. At ten fifty-two the cameras show Loebner coming out of the room and exiting the building. Then he left the base, presumably through the same breach in the fence.”
He handed the disk to Aryeh. Lucille stared at the thing, craning her neck again. “What’s in the Long-Term Storage Room?” she asked.
Rahm still wouldn’t look at her. “Miscellaneous items. From projects that have been discontinued and declassified. Our classified material is stored at a more secure location in Building 101. Most of the items in the Long-Term Storage Room are at least twenty years old.”
“What about Loebner’s research?” David interjected. “Does the room contain any materials related to his work on warhead designs?”
Very slowly, Rahm turned his head and fixed his eyes on David. Mentioning the word “warhead” had been a mistake. The expression on Rahm’s face shifted from cold to murderous. “I can’t comment on Loebner’s research. But I’ll repeat what I said before: classified material is stored at a different location. We wouldn’t keep it in the Long-Term Storage Room.”
“Well, is there anything missing from the room?” Monique asked. “Have you done an inventory yet?”
“Nothing’s missing,” Rahm replied. “But there’s been some damage.”
“What kind of damage?”
With a grunt, the security chief rose to his feet. “No more questions. I’ll take you to the storage room and show you. And then I very much hope that we’ll be finished with this business.”
NICODEMUS CROUCHED IN THE BUSHES OUTSIDE THE FENCE, ADJUSTING HIS
binoculars to sharpen the focus on Soreq’s administration building. He’d known in advance where the meeting would take place. Thanks to Brother Cyrus’s informants in Shin Bet and the FBI, Nico had also learned Olam ben Z’man’s real name. Cyrus had devised a new plan for eliminating the Jew, and Nico’s job now was to shadow the Americans. He wasn’t very happy with this assignment; it was infuriating to do nothing but observe these
kilab
when every cell in his body was crying out for vengeance. But Cyrus had counseled him to be patient and Nico had obeyed. They were doing the Lord’s work and their reward would be in heaven.
The Americans and the Shin Bet agent came out of the administration building about fifteen minutes after they’d gone inside. Soreq’s security chief, another filthy
kelb,
led them across the parking lot toward a boxy gray structure that looked like a warehouse. David Swift and Monique Reynolds walked beside the FBI agent, a fat hag with silver hair. Nico clamped his lips together as he stared through the binoculars, feeling an excruciating mix of anger and anticipation. It won’t be long now, he whispered at his targets. The True Believers will pay you a visit very soon.
17
THEY SPOTTED THE DAMAGE AS SOON AS RAHM ESCORTED THEM INTO THE
Long-Term Storage Room. It was a huge, well-lit, windowless space, filled with dozens of wooden crates arranged in neat rows. The crates were quite large, each big enough to hold a sofa, and they’d been stenciled with red Hebrew letters. The room’s walls were an unblemished white and the linoleum floor was immaculately clean. The place was so orderly, in fact, that David was a little startled when he saw the mangled aluminum object on the floor. It lay in an aisle between two of the rows, just in front of an opened crate. The area was marked off with yellow crime-scene tape, as if the wreckage were a corpse.
He and Monique moved closer, stepping in front of Aryeh and Lucille. They reached the strip of tape that stretched across the aisle and leaned over it so they could get a better look at the object. It was a big silver cylinder, about three feet in diameter and ten feet long. Oscar Loebner had apparently wrenched open its crate, pulled the thing out, and pummeled it with a hammer. The pounding blows had crumpled the cylinder and punched a gaping hole in its midsection. Through this gap David glimpsed smaller pieces of metallic debris: shattered struts and brackets, broken rods with jagged ends. Judging from its shape, he guessed that the object might be a missile casing. Aryeh had mentioned that the IDF launched missiles and satellites from Palmachim Air Base. Perhaps this broken cylinder had once been part of an experimental rocket. Maybe one that had been designed to carry a warhead.
It looked like Lucille was thinking the same thing. After inspecting the wreckage for several seconds, she stepped back from the crime-scene tape. Aryeh also backed away from the cylinder. “Tell me something, Rahm,” he said, turning to the security chief. “There’s nothing radioactive in that mess, is there?”
Rahm frowned. “I already told you, we don’t store any sensitive material here. Most of the items in this room are one step away from junk. Old and declassified and good for nothing.” He pointed at the Hebrew letters on the opened crate that had held the cylinder. “That shows the date when the crate was sealed—August fifth, 1989. Almost twenty-two years ago.”
“Well, what is it?” Monique asked, pointing at the wreckage. “If it’s declassified, you can tell us, right?”
Rahm reached into his pocket and pulled out a small notebook. He was still frowning, but now his expression seemed more perplexed than annoyed. “This item is so old, we had trouble identifying it. It came from a project called
Cherev
. That’s the Hebrew word for ‘sword.’” He opened his notebook and started reading from one of the pages. “The project ran from 1984 to 1989. Researchers from Soreq’s Laser Science Laboratory and Satellite Development Group were involved.”
“Was Oscar Loebner working on the project, too?” David asked.
Rahm shook his head. “No, he worked in the Supercomputer Laboratory during those years. But researchers from the various labs at Soreq often meet at seminars and social events, so there’s a good chance that Loebner knew about
Cherev
.”
Monique continued to stare at the cylinder. “So is this thing a laser?” she asked. “Or a satellite?”
“It’s both.” Rahm turned to another page in his notebook. “It’s a laser that was supposed to be launched into orbit. But it never left the ground, obviously. The project was canceled in 1989, and the item has been sitting here ever since.”
“What was it supposed to do in orbit?”