The Religion War (14 page)

The Avatar joined Mackey in the backseat and closed the door. Hector tucked the gun under his seat and started to drive.

"Are you trying to get me killed?" asked Mackey.

"Actually, I saved you. His gun has a silencer. The streets are littered with wounded and dead already. He would have killed you back there, and no one would have noticed, if I hadn't insisted that you come with me."

"So, what, now he just whacks me after he drops you off?" asked Mackey, agitated.

"No. He will realize that you're working with me. And he'll reason that if al-Zee wants me alive, which he obviously does for now, he might need you alive too if we're working on the same task. He's trained not to ask what al-Zee or any other part of the organization is planning, in case one of them gets caught and interrogated. So he can't ask us what your role in this is. In the face of uncertainty, he will be unusually receptive to the opinion of anyone who is certain."

Mackey could see Hector's eyes in the rearview mirror. He was livid, squeezing the steering wheel so hard that his ringers looked deformed.

"And this certain person is you?" asked Mackey, not convinced that this theory would hold.

"Yes," said the Avatar to Mackey, then leaned forward to talk directly to Hector. "After you drop me off, take Mackey anywhere he wants to go.Your leader needs me and I need him."

Hector's shoulders slumped, and he squeezed out a sigh of resignation.

"Now, on to more important things," said the Avatar to Mackey.

"Right. More important than my life," said Mackey, rolling his eyes.

"I assume you can continue your work despite the bombing."

"The computers are fine. But it's hopeless. There's no algorithm that can find this one 'influencer' person you're looking for.There just isn't enough data to make all the connections."

"There must be," said the Avatar, showing frustration for the first time. "I could feel the pattern when I approached your building."

"Okay, that's all very spooky, and I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Ijust mean that I am confident you can do it."

"Well, I appreciate that. But confidence doesn't write code. I'm telling you it can't be done."

"Are you telling Hector that I have no further use for you?" asked the Avatar.

"Uh, no. I'll take another look at it. Maybe I overlooked something. Never happened before, but maybe this time."

As they spoke, all of the GIC victims' bodies were recovered from the site, the debris entirely removed, and new construction crews were in place, all in less than an hour. The Christian Alliance spared no expense to fully rebuild everything that al-Zee destroyed, as soon as possible. It was good for morale.

Hector drove onto the tarmac and right up to the wing of the privatejet. He pressed the door-open button and said nothing.

"Eric, everything depends on you finding the Prime Influencer. I can stall, but not forever."

"No pressure," said Mackey, more to himself.

Two guards pulled the Avatar out of the hydrocab. A third aimed his gun between Mackey's eyes. Hector held up a hand and told him in Arabic to stand down. The men briefly exchanged heated words that Mackey couldn't understand. His heart didn't stop pounding until Hector dropped him off two blocks from his house and drove away. The relief was temporary. Everything depended on him, but deep down he knew the task was impossible, either because there really was no such thing as the Prime Influencer or because the pattern was too subtle for his algorithms to detect. That night he sat home alone in the dark, thinking of his co-workers who had died, how he almost died himself, and the Avatar's programming challenge. He rotated each of the horrible thoughts in his mind until exhaustion overtook him.

The Avatar slept for most of the flight, waking up blindfolded. The sounds and smells on the way to al-Zee's underground compound were different from the last time. It was a new route. When the blindfold was removed, the Avatar blinked back the excess light until his eyes adjusted. Al-Zee was standing in front of him, waving the guards out of the room. "Do you know why you're here?" he asked with an unmistakable undertone of anger.

"By now you have found a magician," said the Avatar. "And something happened that you can't explain."

"Who is the magician? Does he work for you? For Cruz?"

"The magician is just a magician. He works for himself, I assume."

"I don't believe in coincidences," said al-Zee over his shoulder, his back to the Avatar to conceal how shaken he was.

"Do you believe that you could flip a coin twice and have it come up heads both times?" asked the Avatar.

"I believe in
simple
coincidences. I'm talking about the most unlikely sort."

"For example," the Avatar tried to clarify, "you believe God must exist because it's too much of a coincidence that the universe is so perfectly designed."

"That is obviously true. What is your point?"

"Cruz and you are true believers: You will be gambling billions of lives on your beliefs. How certain are you that you're right?"

"Completely certain," snapped al-Zee. "Allah does not side with infidels."

"Have you seen anything recently that would make you question your perceptions?" asked the Avatar.

"You know I have," said al-Zee. "You knew I would see a magician. How did you know?"

"I didn't know for sure. But I used a technique from hypnosis to make it likely."

"I was not hypnotized," said al-Zee.

"You weren't in a trance, that's true. But last time we spoke, I put a suggestion in your head about a magician, and that changed how your mind filtered your perceptions. Magicians have worked your streets for years, but until now you paid no attention. The brain can only handle so much information, so it automatically ignores what it judges to be irrelevant. Once the suggestion of a magician was in your mind, it seemed relevant, so your brain no longer ignored it."

"Perhaps that explains why I saw him. It does not explain how he made a camel disappear in front of me and reappear in my washroom, only to disappear again the next moment. How was that done?"

"Were you watching him the whole time the camel disappeared?"

"I was standing right in front of him."

"Were you distracted by anything?"

"No."

The Avatar said nothing, waiting. Al-Zee paused, then corrected: "Yes. A messenger told me that you had escaped. I must have looked away. But that doesn't explain how the camel got in my washroom, much less how it got out."

"That part is the simplest.The camel was never in your washroom."

"I saw it with my own eyes."

"Like all great leaders, you are a true believer. You don't believe for the sake of convenience or tradition in the way that ordinary people often do. You literally see and hear things that other people do not see and hear.You are highly suggestible by nature. When you saw the magician, and were confused at how I predicted it, the confusion put you in a highly suggestible frame of mind.The brain resists confusion. It will create delusions to fill the gaps. In this case your brain tried to solve the puzzle of the disappearing camel. The beast had to go someplace."

"You would have me believe that I imagined a camel?"

"You believe that Allah talks to you."

"That
is different."

"If it were
completely
different, you wouldn't have brought me here," said the Avatar. "You're having doubts about your perceptions."

"I know what I saw. And I know what I heard."

"Did you see the camel up close?"

"I heard its hooves. I smelled it. And I saw its head in the shadows."

"You heard
something
while you were in a suggestible frame of mind, while you were wondering where the camel went. Your brain interpreted the sounds and smells and even sights to solve your uncertainty."

"Are you calling me crazy?"

"Most people believe they've seen at least one ghost in their life.Their false memories are created the same way as yours.They are in a suggestible frame of mind, perhaps frightened, or overwhelmed with grief at the passing of a relative, and they hear a noise, detect a smell, feel a breeze, and their brains create details that don't exist. A curtain becomes an apparition of a young gkl. A reflection in glass becomes a disembodied spirit. What happened to you is a lesson in the fragility of your perception. I wanted you to experience it firsthand."

"How do you know what you know?"

"Talent is unevenly distributed."

"And you are so...
talented...
that you can see the world more clearly than everyone else?" al-Zee asked sarcastically.

"Consider that each person has a different understanding of the world. Logically, only one of those people can have the most accurate understanding. Surely that one person exists, just as there exists a strongest human, one who is the best at math, and another who can leap the highest. For every skill, someone has the most."

"What is your game? What do you want of me? Just tell me so I can be done with you. I have important things to do."

"Come to Basel, Switzerland, tomorrow at noon. There is someone I want you to meet."

Al-Zee looked at the Avatar and shook his head. There was so much wrong with this request that it was hard to know where to begin. First, it would be difficult for someone of his profile to travel unnoticed outside the Muslim-controlled countries, especially now. War was about to break out. He needed to focus all his energies on the conflict. He barely knew the Avatar, and he knew nothing about the person he was supposed to meet. It was an absurd request. Completely out of line.

"You know I won't go.Why do you ask anyway?"

"I know you have doubts about the war."

"And this will eliminate my doubts?"

"It will increase your doubts."

"Who is this mysterious stranger I should meet?" al-Zee asked, shaking his head.

"If I told you, then you wouldn't go."

"I have had enough.You are a distraction."

Al-Zee opened the door and motioned for the guards to take the Avatar away. "This time make sure he doesn't escape."

"The Hotel Euler, in Basel, at noon tomorrow. I will meet you there," said the Avatar over his shoulder as he was led away.

"I should have known you were crazy," muttered al-Zee.

That night, al-Zee welcomed the knock on his bedroom quarters door at 2:00 A.M. He couldn't sleep, not even close. This emergency, whatever it was, would provide a reason to be awake.

Being awake wouldn't seem so bad if he had a reason. "What is it?" snapped al-Zee at the breathless messenger.

"He's gone."

"Who's gone?"

"The old man. The guards just...let him go. They can't explain why."

Al-Zee ripped the covers off his bed and stood.

The messenger explained, "We are looking everywhere for him. He can't escape."

"Stop looking," said al-Zee.

"Stop looking?"

"And tell my aides I'm going to Switzerland tomorrow."

Even on the brink of global war, al-Zee's diplomatic flights were permitted. No one needed to know who was onboard the small jet.Al-Zee's security people were apoplectic. It was insane to fly to a Christian country right now, even a nonaligned one, especially to meet a stranger recommended by a nut. It was foolish in every way.

Al-Zee fumed the entire trip. He hated the Avatar for screwing with his mind. Or was it his own fault for letting him burrow in? Why was this old man so persuasive? Al-Zee convinced himself that it had been so many years since anyone challenged his opinions that the Avatar had put him off balance, made him doubt. And this was the worst time for doubt. How did the old man keep escaping? The escapes conferred credibility, in some way that al-Zee couldn't reconcile.

It wasn't uncommon for Arabs in traditional garb to travel to Switzerland, to take advantage of either the scenery or the banking. Al-Zee and his security force drew almost no attention as they traveled from the airport to the hotel. There were no published pictures of al-Zee, so no one took a second look. He was one of the most famous people in the history of the world, but outside his personal contacts no one really knew what he looked like. His security guards scanned the hotel lobby, expecting the worst. They were armed and ready for anything. All they saw was the Avatar's small body in an oversize chair, napping. Al-Zee approached the sleeping Avatar and cleared his throat, waiting to be noticed. It didn't work. After an awkward pause, a bodyguard tapped the Avatar on the shoulder to wake him.

"Ah, you're here," said the Avatar, still half asleep. "The other is already in the room."

"And just who is the other?" asked al-Zee, in a worsening mood.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me. It's easier to show you. Come with me."

The Avatar led the suspicious group to an elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. The ride was unpleasant for everyone but the Avatar, who seemed entirely happy to be there. When they entered the penthouse suite, a large figure, alone, was gazing out the window. He turned and looked at al-Zee, not liking what he saw. Expressions of horror crossed the faces of al-Zee's bodyguards, and they reached for their weapons. The Avatar casually walked between the nervous guests.

"General Cruz, I would like you to meet al-Zee," said the Avatar with a nonchalance that seemed inappropriate to the occasion. Al-Zee and Cruz stared at each other, both in disbelief.

"How do I know that's al-Zee?" asked Cruz.

"How do you know you can't flap your wings and fly?" asked the Avatar. "Some things you just know."

"I am al-Zee. What is this trick?"

"It's just the two of you," said the Avatar, gesturing for his guests to sit. "The bodyguards will have to leave. General Cruz's men are already gone."

Wanting to appear unworried, al-Zee motioned to his guards to leave. They performed a quick search of the closets, bathroom, and hiding spaces before stepping outside.

"I'll be damned," said Cruz, still in amazement.