Game Changer (37 page)

60

The instant Rachel Howard learned the precise regions Kovonov
wanted targeted with his designer virus she knew what he had in mind. This time
Quinn called for a vid-meet, which Coffey’s duties delayed until eight at
night.

At the appointed time the participants seated themselves around
the glass table on the office side of Rachel’s extended quarters and waited for
a virtual Cris Coffey to join them.

For this call the Plum Island contingent had grown by one, and
Quinn knew he would have some explaining to do. He was in attendance along with
Rachel Howard, Roger McLeod, and Karen Black. But this time, Carmilla Acosta
had also joined the proceedings, wearing a soft blue bathrobe they had provided
to maximize her comfort since she had been stitched and bandaged in a number of
places.

When Coffey did beam into the proceedings his expression revealed
just what Quinn had expected it would: anger. “I see we have a newcomer,” said Coffey
immediately in clipped tones. “Quite a surprise,” he growled through clenched
teeth.

“This is Dr. Carmilla Acosta,” said Quinn, “the Princeton
molecular biologist
—
and
Dmitri Kovonov victim
—
we
told you about.”

“Yeah, the robe and the bandage on her forehead were big clues,”
said Coffey. “You do remember bringing me up to speed on her and the whole
train track thing, right?” he added.

“She’s here at my request,” said Quinn, holding his ground. “As a
passive observer rather than a participant for now. Not because we don’t value
her input, but she really should be resting in a hospital bed right now. We
made her promise not to tax herself.”

Coffey turned to face the newcomer. “I understand that you’ve been
helpful to our efforts,” he said, “and I thank you for that. I don’t mean to be
rude, and don’t take anything I say personally, but I’m going to need to
discuss this situation with Kevin as though you aren’t in the room.”

He turned and stared sharply at Quinn, not waiting for a response.
“Since she’s here, I have to assume you’ve read her in completely.”

“She’s as up to speed as you are,” said Quinn, an accurate
statement since Coffey wasn’t as fully briefed as he believed.

“And you did this under whose authority?”

“My own. We have a fluid, fast-moving mission objective and I made
a call.”

Coffey shook his head. “So I’m risking everything keeping this
from President Davinroy
—
at
your request
—
and you
decide, unilaterally, to read in a random civilian?”

“You and I decided that Kovonov was so dangerous,” replied Quinn,
“and the mission so important, we should keep it on a need-to-know basis. Well,
Davinroy and Henry don’t need to know. Not yet. And they also could have been
compromised. Unlikely, but in this case, possible. Kovonov managed to get to
me, after all.”

“So your argument is that Dr. Acosta has a need to know?”

“Yes,” replied Quinn. “Kovonov put Carmilla right in the center of
this.”

“On a related note,” said
Rachel, “I think it’s time to begin thinking about bringing Davinroy and Henry
into the fold, after all.”

“Why the change of heart?” said
Coffey.

“We’ve learned more and could
use even higher level resources and string-pulling,” she said. “Not that you
and the major haven’t come through beautifully,” she added with heartfelt
appreciation. “But the president and head of DHS do add some pull, you have to
admit.”

“You argued earlier that these
were the very men Kovonov would most want to manipulate.”

“They still are, but I’m making
enough progress that I should soon be able to know for sure if someone has been
tampered with. Right now I can only tell with a convoluted memory implantation
scheme. But I think I’m close to figuring out how to stimulate the nanites to
broadcast their presence back to me. Maybe a week. Maybe less.”

“Bringing the president and Greg
Henry into the loop will take some delicate maneuvering,” said Coffey, “because
they can’t know they were ever
out of
the loop.”

“I agree,” said Quinn. “We can
talk more about this later. But Davinroy and Henry think Rachel and I are in
Israel working with the Mossad. So we can schedule a vid-meet after Rachel has declared
these men free of nanites and keep that facade going. I know the Israelis will
agree to it. We’ll bring the president fully up to speed on our results,
telling him we didn’t want to report on our progress piecemeal, or waste his time
on preliminaries.”

Coffey paused in thought. “We’ll need to think through all the
angles very carefully,” he replied. “But like you said, that’s a discussion for
another time. So let’s get back to your decision to bring a civilian into
this.”

“The truth is I pushed hard for this course of action as well,”
said Rachel. “Carmilla
does
need to
know. And she’s a world-class genetic engineer, which we can use. She’s also loaded
with nanites, someone else that Kovonov has manipulated, and she’s volunteered
to be a test subject alongside Kevin.”

She paused and stared deeply into Coffey’s virtual eyes. “But most
importantly, sending her back to Princeton right now is a death sentence.”

“In what way?” said Coffey.

“I’m administering a sophisticated treatment. She’ll continue to
be in a state of severe depression for some time, but she shouldn’t be suicidal.
At least as long as I’m involved. I know what’s been done to her and the best
way to help.”

“You really think she’d still try suicide if not in your care?”
said Coffey in disbelief. “Even knowing what she knows?”

“Yes. Kovonov’s turned her unconscious brain against her. She
can’t reach it to reason with it. But even if this wasn’t a concern, Kovonov
clearly wanted her dead. We shouldn’t even be calling what happened attempted
suicide. It was attempted
murder
, plain
and simple. If she pops back up in Princeton, I think he’ll send some mercs to
finish the job.”

“She’s already called in and is arranging for a sabbatical,” noted
Quinn. “Like Rachel did. The authorities found her car at the edge of the
tracks, but Major McLeod managed to have some strings pulled so they wouldn’t pursue
her for a statement. The official line is that a maniac tried to ram her car
onto the tracks, but he overshot the mark.”

“And the perpetrator got his just reward when he ended up on the
tracks instead,” added Rachel, “and was pulverized by the train.”

“Since Carmilla is the victim, the investigators have agreed to
keep her identity confidential,” said Quinn.

Coffey considered for several long seconds. “Okay,” he said
finally. “You’ve sold me. We can’t put her back in harm’s way, and she may be
able to help.” He turned to Carmilla. “Apologies for talking like you aren’t
here. Welcome to the team. My name is Cris.”

“Carmilla,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Really, really crappy,” she said with a weak smile. “But I’ll
survive.”

“We made sure her communications were untraceable,” said Quinn,
letting Carmilla go back
 
to being a
passive observer. “We then had her text colleagues and family members that she
decided to take an unplanned sabbatical. But we’ve also planted a story online.
If you Google
Dr. Carmilla Acosta
and
suicide
, you’ll find a story indicating
that she succeeded in killing herself.”

“Smart,” said Coffey. “Kovonov is the only person likely to ever search
using these terms.”

“That was our thinking,” said Rachel. “So the story is there if he
uses the Web to learn if his plan succeeded. If he falls for this, so much the
better. She’s off his radar. But if he doesn’t and learns she’s still alive, at
least he won’t know where to find her.”

“Good thinking,” said Coffey. He spread out his hands, palms up.
“So what have you learned?” he asked. “Last I heard you discovered that she’d engineered
a virus for him. Any idea what it might do?”

“We know precisely what it does,” said Rachel. “Carmilla provided
the exact specifications of what he wanted.” She blew out a long breath. “I
suspect you’ll find this hard to fathom. Are you ready?”

Coffey visibly braced himself. “Go for it.”

 
“Basically,” said Rachel,
“to put it in its simplest terms, the virus is designed to wipe religious
belief off the face of the Earth.”

61

Cris Coffey was sure he hadn’t heard right. Ever since he had
learned that Kevin Quinn’s memory had been tampered with the world had
continued to get more bizarre by the day. This must have been how Alice felt after
falling through the rabbit hole. His forehead wrinkled in dismay. “
What?
”
 

“Kovonov wants to destroy religion,” replied Rachel, like this was
something that could actually be done. “Or more accurately, religiosity.
Spirituality. His virus is designed to erase these beliefs in whoever it
infects. He’s almost certainly concluded that the global Islamic caliphate
could be reversed if fundamentalist religious passions were annihilated.”

“I have so many questions I don’t even know where to begin,” said
Coffey. “First . . .
what
? How can
you erase spirituality? That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.”

The hint of a smile appeared on Rachel’s face. “Like many
behaviors that have been found to have an unexpected genetic origin,” she said,
“religiosity is baked into our genes. Prewired into our brains. Those who are
more spiritual than others just respond to these genes, this wiring, more profoundly.
And environmental factors do come into play, triggering this wiring more
potently in some than in others.”

“So you’re suggesting religious belief is like
hair color
?” said Coffey skeptically.
“Just another genetic trait?” He shook his head adamantly. “I find that very
difficult to believe.”

“The evidence is irrefutable,” replied Rachel. “Clear even before
modern neuroscience and genetics came along. Although these tools have
confirmed and bolstered the case.”

“Not clear to me,” said Coffey. “If it’s common knowledge that
religion is prewired, I must have missed that class. How long has this been
known?”

“A century,” said Rachel. “Maybe more. The trick is to ask
yourself, what does prewired behavior even mean? How do we know what is
prewired versus what is learned?”

Coffey didn’t respond, deciding she really wasn’t looking for him
to answer.
 

“Behavior is wired in,” she continued, “if it’s exhibited by all
humans across the globe, across all societies. The suckling reflex is wired in.
All newborns can find a nipple and know what to do with it. Facial expressions
are prewired. All humans cry when we’re sad and laugh when we’re happy. Even
blind people who have never seen a smile, on themselves or anyone else, smile
when something strikes them as humorous. This behavior is involuntary. A
genetic reflex. The same expressions occur in every society, and are unchangeable.
Try to train someone to laugh in response to sadness and see how much luck you
have.”

“Are you saying that religious beliefs are like facial
expressions?” said Coffey.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. No human culture has ever been
found without supernatural beliefs. Man is a spiritual animal. There is not a
single civilization known to us that didn’t have a belief in one or more gods.
Over a hundred years ago, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung studied the
mythology of hundreds of cultures. He was stunned to find so many common themes
among them, which he dubbed
archetypes
.
He concluded that the only way this could be the case was if these archetypes
stemmed from some inherent psychic substrate shared by the entire species.
Something he called our collective unconscious.”

Coffey found himself fascinated. He had heard these terms before,
but never knew how they had arisen.

“Jung called this our
natural
religious function
, long before neuroscience would confirm it. He wrote
that our religious function influences us as powerfully as sexuality and aggression.
That man throughout the ages had been as preoccupied with religion as in acquiring
food and fulfilling other basic needs.”

“Then how would he explain atheism?” asked Coffey.

“Good question,” said Rachel. “The propensity for religious belief
is wired in, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be actively ignored. Catholic
priests choose not to have sex, and no one would argue that
this
impulse isn’t prewired. But when
all is said and done, there really are no atheists in a foxhole. When facing
death, even atheists tend to plead with some higher power.”

“But isn’t organized religion in decline around the world?” said
Coffey.

“I thought so too,” said Quinn. “But after I learned what Kovonov
was up to, I spent some time before this meeting brushing up on the subject. Since
2005, Gallup has conducted a survey of religiosity across a large number of
countries around the world. Turns out that, collectively, organized religion is
growing. And even those people who don’t believe in standard religions tend to believe
in the supernatural. Sweden and Iceland are often held out as examples of places
where reason has triumphed over religion. Church attendance is very low in both
countries. But over a third of Icelanders believe in reincarnation, and more
than half believe in elves and trolls. A majority of Swedes believe in mental
telepathy, or reincarnation, or healing crystals, or even ghosts.”

“I really thought religion was on its way out,” said Coffey, “but
I’ll take your word for it. But all of this aside,
why
would we have a religious function?”

“Because religion must have a survival benefit,”
said Rachel, “like sex and language. Lucretius said, ‘fear begets gods,’ and he
was right. Humans evolved consciousness, intelligence, and this gave them a
huge advantage. But at the same time we became smart enough to realize that death
was inescapable. No matter what we do, the sword of Damocles is dangling above
us.”

She paused. “Primitive man faced death every
day. Harsh conditions, short lifespans, no medicine. An anxiety function is
built into every animal to help them survive, us included. But once we became
aware of death, this function would have become overwhelming if not
counterbalanced with something hopeful. Life is useless, meaningless. Why
struggle to survive when it’s only a matter of time before you fail? Spirituality
allows us to
know
we’re going to die,
but to
believe
we’ll still survive this
event. Even with our religious function, awareness of death has made mankind
hopelessly unstable psychologically. Turned us into what Freud called
the neurotic animal
.”
 

Coffey made a face. “Great,” he said sarcastically. “How lucky for
us.” He paused in thought. “You said earlier there was also more modern
evidence that religion was prewired. Like what?”

“Religiosity has been studied in thousands of pairs of identical
twins,” replied Rachel, “who were separated from each other at birth and reared
apart. Imagine one is raised by an atheist and the other by the pope. Turns out
the likelihood that they both go on to be religious, or both go on to be
areligious
, is greater than it is with non-identical
twins reared together.”

“Just to be certain this point is clear,” said Karen Black,
jumping in for the first time, “identical twins have identical genes. So this
result shows beyond a doubt that the genes you carry play a clear role in your
propensity to embrace religion. Not the only role, by any means, but a clear
role.”

“And with respect to the wiring of our brains,” said Rachel, “the
evidence is just as conclusive. Parkinson’s can cause people to lose their
faith. Head injuries have been known to do the same. Individuals with
passionate religious beliefs have lost all interest in religion after a head
injury. Others who were areligious have suddenly become hyper-religious after a
head injury.”

“Hyper-religious how?” asked Major McLeod.

“Obsessive praying,” responded Rachel. “Religious urges. Intense
religious passion. A feeling of certainty about one’s beliefs.”

“Go on,” said Coffey.

“As I’m sure you’re aware,” continued Rachel, “any number of drugs
can induce mystical, transcendent, spiritual experiences in people. Epileptic
seizures can also lead to hyper-religiosity. Seizures have also been known to
cause a condition called religious hyperagraphia, which is an obsessive urge to
write about religion and God.”

Coffey tilted his head in thought. “So you’re saying that if
religion, if belief, can be ramped up and down by natural causes, by trauma to
the brain, it can be manipulated
unnaturally
.”

“Exactly,” said Rachel. “There is a growing sub-field of
neuroscience called neurotheology. Very recently, scientists have been able to
unravel this system, to identify interactions of over a dozen pinpoint areas in
the brain required for spiritual belief.”

“The virus Carmilla designed,” said Karen, “targets these precise
regions. The chance that Kovonov chose these neuronal clusters randomly is infinitesimally
small. So it is absolutely clear that the abolition of religion is his endgame.”

“I am so sorry,” said Carmilla as a tear escaped her left eye. “I
can’t believe I let him use me like this.”

“You didn’t
let
him,”
said Quinn quickly. “You had no choice. We all know that. Hell, I almost killed
a president I took an oath to protect.”

Carmilla nodded and dried her face with the back of one hand.

“But aren’t these findings you’ve spoken about conclusive proof that
God isn’t real?” said Coffey. “That religion isn’t real?”

“Depends on who you ask,” said Rachel. “Some think so. Others
don’t. If you believe a Creator designed us, then this Creator designed
these
regions of the brain as well.
Perhaps to make it easier for us to have faith. Let’s face it, for the most
part we’re a very skeptical species. We don’t believe anything we can’t see for
ourselves.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Except when it comes to the
supernatural, which is prewired in. If I claim that an invisible giant hamster
is hovering above me, I’m a lunatic. If I sense the spirit of God hovering
above me, I’m simply a spiritual being.”

“Are you saying God might have baked in this religious function to
overcome our skeptical natures?” said Major McLeod. “So we can still choose to
believe in an unseen Creator if we want?”

“It does make sense,” said Quinn. “If there is a God, he would
need to do that. One part of the Moses story from the Old Testament always
bugged me. If I have this right, Moses brings down ten plagues on Egypt. After
each one he asks Pharaoh if he’s ready to let the Jewish people go. But each
time, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, so that he refuses, when he might otherwise have
agreed.”

Karen nodded appreciatively. “I never thought about that,” she
said. “But you make an interesting point.”

 
“Hardly seems fair, does
it?” said Quinn. “If God forces you to refuse, how can he be justified for punishing
you when you do? You have to have free will. So it makes some sense that
—
if there is a God
—
he would give us a genetic God-function,
which we can either cultivate or ignore.”
 

“That’s exactly how believers explain our predisposition to
spirituality,” said Rachel. “Non-believers continue to think these findings
provide absolute evidence that religion is all an illusion.”

 
“This is fascinating,” said
Coffey. “But given what we’re up against, this debate is irrelevant. Because
Kovonov’s virus will kill off this religious function no matter
how
it came to be there. Right?”

Rachel nodded. “That’s right,” she said. “But weren’t you the one
who said the idea of a virus wiping out religion was absurd?”

“It is absurd,” said Coffey. “But you’ve also convinced me it’s
possible.” He paused. “But does Kovonov really think this will slow the jihad? These
terrorists are just using religion as an excuse to destroy the West, aren’t
they? They are radical, no doubt. But is what they do really about religion?
Seems impossible that it is.”

“Some are just
using
religion to achieve their goals,” replied Rachel, “but many are inspired by it.
Many wouldn’t do what they do if not for their religious passion. You’ve been
trained in the Judeo-Christian ethic. So you imagine if someone is truly
spiritual, truly religious, they would be like Gandhi. But this is the opposite
when you are truly spiritual and you believe your god and prophets want you to
wipe out all infidels, engage in global genocide.”

“But most Muslims who are truly religious don’t subscribe to this
part of the religion,” said Major McLeod.

“That is true,” said Rachel. “There are all different levels and
interpretations. Just because most jihadists are hyper-religious doesn’t mean
that all Muslims who are hyper-religious are jihadists. But Kovonov doesn’t
care. If he succeeds, the global caliphate will die out as a threat, and
ultimately even a concept.”

“But his virus won’t discriminate,” said Coffey. “It will take
down all the world’s religions.”

Quinn nodded grimly. “Speaking of which, it occurs to me that we
should reassess the recent Cockaponset massacre. These evangelicals were wiped
out soon after Carmilla gave the virus to Kovonov
. In my view, this is
too much of a coincidence.”