For the same reason, the president didn’t reveal the involvement of David, Monique, or Michael. He gave the full credit for stopping Brother Cyrus to the Israeli and American soldiers who’d fought the True Believers at Ashkhaneh. Seven of the coffins in the C-17 contained the bodies of the Rangers who’d died in that firefight. The Pentagon had retrieved their remains after several weeks of diplomatic wrangling, and now the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were at Dover Air Force Base to honor their homecoming. They stood at the midpoint of the line of officials, holding their right arms in stiff salutes until the soldiers in tan berets unloaded the next-to-last coffin from the transport plane. Then another carry team headed for the C-17, a nonmilitary team this time, consisting of four men and two women wearing identical gray suits. A minute later they came down the cargo ramp with the last coffin, which held the body of Special Agent Lucille Parker.
The FBI director stepped forward. So did David, Monique, and Aryeh. They advanced across the tarmac, heading for a shiny black hearse parked next to the panel truck. The carry team of FBI agents also headed for the hearse, marching slowly. David’s throat tightened as he stared at the flag-draped coffin. It was no different from the other coffins that had been taken out of the C-17, but he couldn’t bear to look at it. He turned away and looked at the FBI director, who’d lowered his head and closed his eyes. His lips moved, but he spoke so softly David couldn’t make out what he was saying. Maybe it was a prayer, he thought. Or an apology. David closed his own eyes and remembered seeing Lucille on the deck of the fishing trawler, pointing her Glock at one of the oil derricks in the Caspian Sea. She’d been happy that morning. David wanted to remember her that way.
He opened his eyes just as the six FBI agents slid the coffin into the hearse. Once they closed the vehicle’s rear door, the FBI director shook hands with the carry team, muttering a quiet thank you to each agent. Then David heard the sound of more cars approaching. He turned around and saw three black limousines drive across the airport’s apron and stop near the line of Pentagon officials. More men in dark suits emerged from the cars and briskly reconnoitered the area, positioning themselves around the limousines. They were Secret Service agents, David realized. After another few seconds the agents opened the back door of the middle car, and the president of the United States stepped onto the tarmac.
The officials saluted him, of course. The president saluted back, but he didn’t stop to chat with the secretary of defense or any of his deputies. Instead, he walked straight toward the hearse. David had never seen the president in person before, and he was a bit surprised by the man’s appearance—he looked older and sadder than David had expected. There were patches of gray in his close-cropped hair.
He stepped toward the FBI director and shook his hand. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said in a low voice.
The director raised his head. His eyes were wet. “Thank you, sir.”
“I know this is small consolation, but I’m going to award Agent Parker the Presidential Medal of Valor. The country owes her a great debt.”
“That’s for damn sure. She was brave as hell.”
There was an awkward silence. The president waited a few seconds, looking uncomfortable. Then he turned to Monique. “Thank you for your service, Dr. Reynolds. And thank you for not revealing the existence of the universal program. It must be difficult for a scientist to hide the truth, but in this case I don’t think we have a choice.”
Monique shook the president’s hand, but said nothing. For the first time since David had met her, she seemed at a loss for words. After a few seconds the president let go of her hand and reached for David’s. “And you must be Dr. Swift?” he said. “Your name came up a few times in the FBI reports I read.”
David felt disoriented. He watched himself shake hands with the president. “Uh, yeah, that’s right,” he said. “The FBI loves to write reports about me.” He stood there with his mouth open. He couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. “I’ve got this bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“We were all in the wrong place, I’m afraid. But you helped us put things right.” He gave David a sober look. Then he smiled. “So I assume you’re back at Columbia now? And still running Physicists for Peace?”
Jesus, David thought. He couldn’t believe it. The president was making small talk with him. “Yeah, we’re still fighting the good fight. We have another conference scheduled for this fall.”
“Glad to hear it. You’re doing important work. We have to find new ways to reach across borders. Because the old ways aren’t working anymore.”
David nodded. It was true: the need for peace activism was greater than ever. The United States had managed to avoid war with Iran—after Bennett’s treachery was revealed, the Revolutionary Guards surrendered all the U-235 that Cyrus had given them—but the Iranian government was still producing its own enriched uranium at the centrifuge complex in Natanz. Another conflict was sure to break out unless the citizens of both countries came to their senses.
The president moved a step closer. He put one hand on Monique’s shoulder and the other on David’s. “I have a proposal for both of you. I’ve been thinking about this tragedy we’ve suffered and what we could’ve done to prevent it. And I’ve decided that I need better information from the scientific community.”
Monique finally found her voice. “What do you mean?”
“There’s an imbalance. I have hundreds of people giving me advice on military, diplomatic, and economic issues. But my contact with scientists is limited. They’re either buried in the federal bureaucracy or isolated on the college campuses. What I need is a liaison. Someone who could put me in touch with the best minds in each field, particularly during a crisis.” He gazed intently at Monique, then at David. “You think you could do something like that?”
David smiled. This had to be a joke. “You want us to work for you?”
“You wouldn’t have official positions. You’d be more like consultants. I’d call on you only when we need your help.”
“But neither of us is qualified. We have no government experience and no—”
“I don’t need more bureaucrats. I need smart people who have plenty of contacts in the scientific community. You two would be perfect for the job.”
Slowly, David realized that the president was serious. The commander in chief was asking for their help
“You don’t have to answer right away,” the president added. “Just think about it. My chief of staff will be in touch.”
DAVID WAS STILL THINKING ABOUT IT FOUR HOURS LATER WHEN HE
returned to New York City. In a daze, he dropped off Monique at their apartment, then drove to the Upper Manhattan Autism Center to pick up Michael. The past few weeks had been difficult for the teenager; he was still suffering from the trauma of the kidnapping and the terrible things that had happened afterward. Two weeks after coming back to the United States he threw a punch at one of his teachers at the autism center. The next week he smashed one of the center’s computers. David had arranged extra therapy sessions for the boy, but his progress had been slow.
Michael was waiting for him in the center’s recreation room, sitting at a square table under the watchful eyes of the staff members. He was hunched over a sheaf of papers and writing something with a ballpoint pen. Probably copying the words from another science textbook he’d memorized. David watched him for a few seconds, marveling at the look of concentration on the teenager’s face. Then he gently tapped the table. “I’m here, Michael. It’s time to go home.”
The boy stopped writing and put down his pen. But he didn’t look at David. He kept his eyes on his papers. “You’re late,” he said. “You were supposed to pick me up at five o’clock. The time is now five-oh-seven.”
“I’m sorry. There was traffic on the interstate. Come on, let’s go.”
Michael didn’t move. David could tell there was something else on his mind. In these situations he’d learned that it was better not to rush the boy. So David stood by the table and waited him out.
“I don’t like this school anymore,” Michael finally said.
David took a deep breath. This wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation. “We’ve talked about this, Michael. I think the teachers here are helping you a lot.”
“No, they’re not. I’m not learning anything here.”
“You’re learning how to get along with other people. And that’s very important.”
Michael shook his head. “I don’t like this school. I want to go to a different one.”
The boy’s voice was calm, but David noticed that the staff members were watching them carefully. He needed to end this argument before it escalated. “All right, I understand. Let me do a little research, okay? Maybe I can find another center where—”
“You don’t have to do that.” Michael picked up the sheaf of papers. “I already found another school and downloaded the application.”
He handed the papers to David, who began leafing through them. It was a long application, with half a dozen pages of essay questions. The pages were out of order, but David could see that Michael had answered each question in his beautifully neat handwriting. He’d written essays about his personal goals and favorite hobbies and fondest memories. He’d even attached the application fee, five twenty-dollar bills he’d saved from his allowance. David finally found the first page of the application and saw the name of the school written at the top. It was Columbia University.
“I want to study physics,” Michael said. “I’m going to become a physicist.”
David’s eyes welled. Of course, he thought. It was the perfect choice.
Michael pointed at a box at the bottom of the last page. “This application requires your signature. Where it says ‘Parent or Guardian.’”
David wiped his eyes. Then he picked up the pen and placed the page on the table so he could sign it.
“It’s my pleasure,” he said. “You’ll make a great physicist, Michael.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Part of the fun of writing science thrillers is putting real technologies and scientific principles into the fiction. Here are some of the facts and theories that I incorporated into
The Omega Theory:
QUANTUM COMPUTERS.
I became interested in this field in 2008 when I edited an article written by two leading experts on quantum computing—Christopher R. Monroe of the University of Maryland and David J. Wineland of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Monroe invited me to his lab at Maryland’s College Park campus, where researchers are taking the first steps toward building ultrafast computers that use ions to perform calculations. The code-breaking computer in
The Omega Theory
is based on the ingenious devices I saw during that visit. (I simplified some of the details; real ion traps, for instance, require additional electrodes and oscillating electric fields.) You can read more about the technology in “Quantum Computing with Ions” (
Scientific American,
August 2008).
IT FROM BIT.
For decades theorists have kicked around the idea that the universe is a computer, running a program that put the Big Bang in motion. The eminent physicist John Archibald Wheeler put it this way in his autobiography,
Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in Physics
(1998): “Now I am in the grip of a new vision, that Everything is Information. The more I have pondered the mystery of the quantum and our strange ability to comprehend this world in which we live, the more I see possible fundamental roles for logic and information as the bedrock of physical theory.” In the 2006 book
Programming the Universe,
MIT researcher Seth Lloyd described how quantum fluctuations at the beginning of time could have generated simple programs that organized the universe, laying down the physical laws that would govern all of the subsequent calculations. My own contribution to this topic is to pose the question: If the universe is a computer, what could make it crash?
EXCALIBUR.
During the 1980s, Edward Teller—father of the H-bomb—promoted a radical idea for missile defense: shoot down Soviet ICBMs using high-energy X-ray lasers powered by a nuclear explosion in space. After researchers tested the concept in underground nuclear blasts in Nevada, the project—first dubbed Excalibur, then Super Excalibur—became the centerpiece of the Star Wars program. Later tests showed, however, that the technology wasn’t as promising as advertised, and the government abandoned it. Excalibur never became a weapon, but it was a step into the unknown, and it’s easy to imagine that this unprecedented physical phenomenon could have unforeseen effects. An excellent book about the project is
Teller’s War
by William J. Broad.
TURKMENISTAN GEOLOGY.
A catastrophic accident at a Soviet drilling site in Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert left a sinkhole that became the burning crater of Darvaza, where the natural-gas fires have been raging for decades. Yangykala is also a real place in Turkmenistan, as beautiful as the Grand Canyon but with far fewer tourists. The Camp Cobra cavern is similar to Kow Ata, a huge cave at the foot of a mountain in the Kopet Dag range. And yes, Kow Ata has an underground lake. You can go swimming there, but it’s a little spooky.
The same people who helped me polish
Final Theory,
the first book in the David Swift series, came to my aid again while I was writing
The Omega Theory
. My friends at
Scientific American
were generous with their support and encouragement. The members of my writing group—Rick Eisenberg, Johanna Fiedler, Steve Goldstone, Dave King, Melissa Knox, and Eva Mekler—plowed through stacks of manuscript pages and patiently pointed out my mistakes. My agent, Dan Lazar of Writers House, made sure that I met my deadlines, and Sulay Hernandez of Touchstone edited the book with care and imagination. And once again I owe a great debt to my wife for reminding me how lucky I am.