The Omega Theory (22 page)

Redrawing the illustrations was the best part. Michael’s favorite illustration in chapter three was the black-and-white photograph of Albert Einstein. The caption said it was taken in 1905, the year Einstein discovered the theory of relativity. Michael took special pleasure in reproducing this picture because it showed his great-great-grandfather at the age of twenty-six, only seven years older than he was. He felt a twinge, though, when he finished the drawing. Despite his best efforts, an unwanted thought had occurred to him. Looking at the picture of Einstein had reminded Michael that the physicist’s greatest discovery, the unified field theory, was now in Brother Cyrus’s hands. And that Michael had broken his promise to keep it secret.

It was almost six o’clock in the evening. Michael put down his pencil, which was worn down to a nub. Sitting on the edge of his mattress, he stared at the empty space on the desk where the Ultra 27 workstation had been. He knew this would be difficult, but he needed to think about the program he’d seen on that computer. He needed to figure out if Cyrus was telling the truth when he said he could use the code to remake the universe. The problem was that Michael didn’t fully understand the program. He knew it was equivalent to the unified theory, and he’d formulated and memorized every line of its code, but as David Swift had told him so many times, memorizing isn’t the same as understanding. David was always urging Michael to think about the textbooks he read, to run the information back and forth in his head until it made sense. So that’s what Michael started to do. He closed his eyes and thought about the program.

The first thought that occurred to him was that the program had been running for a very long time. According to
An Introduction to Modern Physics,
the universe had existed in its present form since the Big Bang started nearly 14 billion years ago. If it were possible to disrupt the program, it should’ve happened in the first milliseconds of existence, when spacetime was densely packed with energy. Then the universe would’ve ended almost as soon as it began. But the program had kept running through the primordial maelstrom, and it had survived all the cataclysms of the following aeons. Michael suspected that parts of the code acted as error-correction algorithms, preventing any anomaly from queering the system. So he concluded that Brother Cyrus must be lying. Even if he built a bomb the size of the Milky Way, he couldn’t generate enough energy to change the program.

But then another idea occurred to him. Maybe Cyrus didn’t need quite so much energy. The fact that the universe had survived for so long didn’t necessarily imply that a disruption couldn’t happen; it just meant that the event had to be highly improbable. It had to be so rare that it was unlikely to spontaneously occur anywhere in the observable universe for at least 14 billion years. But it wasn’t impossible. And a clever person could increase the odds by deliberately triggering it.

Scrunching his forehead to close his eyes more tightly, Michael forced himself to remember the program. Once again it flashed on the black screen of his eyelids, and he examined each line of code. At the same time, he remembered what Cyrus had said about the Kingdom of Heaven.
All the clocks will stop running,
he’d said,
and time will stand still. The whole past of our universe will be compressed into one moment, and the Lord will embrace us all forever.
And as Michael thought of those words, he focused on a block of code that stood out from the rest in his mind’s eye. He saw the quantum variables and operators shift to new positions within the block, realigning themselves to form a radically different instruction. It was so simple he was amazed he hadn’t seen it before. He changed his conclusion—Brother Cyrus could indeed remake the universe. A small alteration in the code could do it.

Michael had to stop thinking about it. He was shivering, even though the yurt was very hot. He opened his eyes and stared at the Turkish carpet that covered the yurt’s floor. The carpet had a pattern of white and orange polygons repeating across a red background. It was a tessellation, a tiling of squares and triangles and hexagons that fit together perfectly, with no gaps or overlaps. For fifteen minutes Michael forgot about Brother Cyrus and simply studied the tessellation in the carpet, trying to identify all of its rotational symmetries. Then he took a deep breath and rose to his feet.

He went to the section of the yurt’s wall behind the desk and found the small hole that had been punched through the mesh of wooden slats. The power cord for the computer had threaded through this opening, but now the computer was gone and so was the cord. Michael knelt on the carpet and peered through the hole.

He saw a large green truck parked about forty feet away. It was the same truck that had transported him to the desert camp. Two of Cyrus’s soldiers were in the truck’s cargo hold, and another two were on the sandy ground nearby. The men on the ground were carrying a rectangular black case and walking very slowly toward the back of the truck. The case was small, only a foot and a half long, and Michael was surprised that two men were needed to carry it. When they reached the truck they passed the case to the men in the cargo hold. Then the men on the ground picked up a section of gray pipe, about ten feet long and six inches in diameter, and put that in the truck as well. They continued loading the cargo hold for fifteen minutes, and then the soldiers closed its doors and drove the truck away, heading west on the desert trail.

Then another pair of soldiers loaded the cargo hold of a second truck and drove it away, too. Then a third truck. Four Land Cruisers and three Toyota pickups also left the camp, heading west. By seven o’clock only two Land Cruisers and one pickup remained. Michael counted seven soldiers still patrolling the area, six of them walking in pairs between the empty huts. The seventh was Angel, who was talking into his radio. He had a gauze bandage taped over his nose, and his cheeks were purple from the head butt Michael had given him.

The sight of Angel made Michael turn away from the hole and look at the pile of dirty clothes at the foot of his mattress. This was where he’d hidden the fragmentation grenade. He’d wrapped the sphere in his pee-stained underwear, reasoning that no one would want to touch such a disgusting thing. He was familiar with the M67 grenade because it was a weapon in America’s Army, a computer game that the U.S. Army had developed to attract new recruits. The game had a training program that taught players how to use the grenade, so Michael knew it had a kill radius of sixteen feet. This made the M67 very effective in combat, but now it posed a problem. Michael couldn’t throw the grenade at anyone entering the yurt because it would kill him, too. He’d have to wait until someone unlocked the door; then maybe he could run outside with the M67 and throw it at the soldiers. But if he wanted to escape from the camp, he had to make sure that all seven of Cyrus’s men were within sixteen feet of where the grenade exploded.

Deep in thought, Michael scanned the yurt again, staring at the mattress where he slept and the desk where he worked and the plastic bucket where he went to the bathroom. From his long experience playing computer games, he knew that every program had its shortcuts, its cheats. If your character touches a secret panel, a door will unlock. If you find a hidden object—a key, a ring, a canister—your enemies will dissolve. So Michael started looking for hidden objects. First, he noticed the pad of steel wool lying next to the plastic bucket. It was for cleaning the bits of poo that stuck to the bottom of the bucket, and until now Michael hadn’t touched the thing. But now he picked it up. Then he reached for the pocket flashlight on his mattress—he used this to find the bucket in the middle of the night—and removed its nine-volt battery. Last, he went to the desk and opened the top drawer. Inside were a large bag of potato chips and the bottle that Tamara had brought the day before, which was still half full of the brown alcohol she’d called Jägermeister.

He carried these four objects to the foot of his mattress and hid them under his dirty clothes. Then he turned around and went to the yurt’s locked door. This is a game, he told himself. You’re going to touch the secret panel.

Raising his hand over his head, Michael pounded on the door. “HELLO!” he yelled. “HELLO! WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE COME HERE?”

He waited for an answer. There was no sound of approaching footsteps. After ten seconds he pounded on the door again. He was about to try a third time when the door swung open and Angel stepped inside, stooping low so he could fit through the doorway. He was still in the bulky flak jacket he’d worn the night before, and in the close quarters of the yurt he looked even larger. In his right hand he held a pistol, an M-9 semiautomatic.

Michael stepped backward, retreating to the center of the yurt. For a moment he wished he’d stolen a gun instead of a grenade. But Angel would’ve certainly noticed if his pistol was missing, whereas he hadn’t noticed the theft of the M67.

Angel stared at him for six long seconds. His gun was aimed at Michael’s chest. “What do you want?”

Michael focused on the crescent-shaped scar on Angel’s neck. It wasn’t a pleasant sight, but it was better than looking at the man’s bruised face. Or at his gun. “I’d like to speak with Tamara, please,” he said. “Could you ask her to come here?”

A snort came out of Angel’s bandaged nose. “I’m afraid not. Tamara’s a prisoner now, just like you.”

“Excuse me, I don’t understand.”

“It was your fault. She lost her faith because of you.” Angel took a step forward. He raised his pistol so that it pointed at Michael’s head. “She’s locked up in another yurt. The Lord may forgive her, but Brother Cyrus won’t.”

Michael clenched his hands to stop them from shaking. His fingernails dug into his palms. “Then I’d like to see Brother Cyrus,” he said. “I’d like to talk to him as soon as possible.”

“Brother Cyrus isn’t here. Is there anyone else you want to see?”

“Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“He’s not coming back. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re breaking camp. We’re going to the mountains. A place called Kuruzhdey.”

Michael remembered something Tamara had said. She’d gone to the mountains, she’d said, to do an important job. About 150 miles to the southwest, she’d said. “Then I’d like to speak to Brother Cyrus as soon as we get to this place.”

Angel shook his head. “I have some bad news for you. You’re not coming with us. You’ve caused enough trouble already.”

“Excuse me, I don’t understand.”

“Brother Cyrus is supposed to radio me within the hour. He’s double-checking the information you gave him. As soon as he’s done, we won’t need you anymore.”

“Excuse me, I don’t—”

“Then I’ll make it very clear.” Angel took another step forward. He stretched his arm and pressed his M-9 against Michael’s forehead. “Once I get the word from Brother Cyrus, I’m going to shoot you. The Lord wants you out of the way, and I will obey His command. You’ll be the last person I put to sleep before I enter His kingdom.”

Michael could feel the cold circle of the gun’s muzzle. Trembling, he continued to stare at Angel’s scarred neck. This is a game, he reminded himself. And he was good at games. Michael knew he couldn’t outfight this man, but maybe he could outsmart him. Angel had already made one mistake. Now he might make another.

He forced himself to look at Angel’s face—the gauze pad taped to his nose, the purple skin around his eyes, the dull brown pupils. And then Michael grinned, because he’d just thought of something appropriate to say. It was a line that one of the characters in Desert Commando said after he punched another character in the face during the game’s hand-to-hand combat scene.

“How does your nose feel, asshole?”

Michael said it, and then the world went black. The next thing he knew, he lay on his back on the Turkish carpet. The left side of his face was hot and swollen, and he couldn’t open his left eye. Angel was gone and the yurt was silent. Thin bands of evening light squeezed between the slats in the circular wall.

He turned his head from left to right. Then he flexed his arms and legs and wiggled his fingers and toes. Luckily, nothing was broken. When he clambered to his feet, the room whirled around him, but after a couple of seconds it came to rest. Then he staggered to the door and leaned beside it.

He tested the door. He applied as little pressure as possible. And it moved. The door crept forward about an inch before Michael gently pulled it back. In his fury, Angel had forgotten to lock it.

19

OLAM BEN Z’MAN SMUGGLED THEM INTO THE WEST BANK. FIRST, HIS MEN
drove to an empty parking lot where they abandoned the Shin Bet limousine and transferred David, Monique, and Lucille to the black van. Aryeh was already inside, and soon all four of them were seated on the van’s floor, guarded by bearded
kippot srugot
wearing black clothes and carrying Uzis. For the next hour David couldn’t see anything outside, but he surmised from the frequent turns and jolts that they were navigating the West Bank’s twisting back roads. He started to feel nauseous, partly from all the twists and turns, and partly from anxiety. Although he was grateful to find Olam at last, this wasn’t how he’d expected it to happen.

The van finally stopped and the bearded guards opened the rear doors. The sun was setting and its last rays made David squint. One of Olam’s men grasped his arm and pulled him out of the van, leading him toward a cluster of battered, beige trailers on the summit of a treeless hill. Another guard escorted Monique. More
kippot srugot
emerged from the trailers, each with an Uzi dangling from his shoulder. A white banner hung from the largest trailer, and painted on it were a pair of Jewish stars and the name of the settlement:
SHALHEVET
. While the guards led David and Monique toward this trailer, which seemed to be the settlement’s headquarters, other settlers approached the van and grabbed Lucille and Aryeh. David noticed with some dismay that the
kippot srugot
were taking the agents to a different trailer.