Unforgettable - eARC (15 page)

Parham wore traditional Iranian garb that looked very different from the more western wear to which he was accustomed. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but it was something.

Yelena dressed in tight jeans and a white blouse.

“Won’t you kind of stand out dressed like that?” I asked.

“When men look at me,” she said, “they see beautiful foreign woman. They do not see agent on mission. Also, around me, you become almost invisible. Nobody remember you, and not because of your talent.”

“You are brilliant as well as beautiful,” said Parham.

It irritated me that he had told her she was beautiful and I hadn’t. But I couldn’t do it now, because then it would sound like I was copying him.

“Thanks, Yelena,” I said. “If we’re going to be stuck on a plane together until we get to Langley, I’m glad we’ve got fresh clothes.”

“I am not going to America with you,” said Yelena. “You were right that I must plan before going to rescue my sisters. I will go back to Moscow and replace equipment I lost in BMW.”

I didn’t want her to leave, so I tried to think of a good objection. I couldn’t. But just because she was leaving didn’t mean I would never see her again. With sudden certainty, I said, “You go to Moscow. After I get Parham to safety, I’ll meet you back here. I’ll help you rescue your sisters. I’ll be your backup.”

“What if your handler says no?” she asked.

“He’ll get over it.”

She tilted her head slightly to the right. “You would do that?”

“Of course. We’re tied together—entangled, isn’t that what you called it, Parham?”

Yelena looked puzzled, but before she could say anything Parham said, “Excuse me? I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I had apparently gotten so used to Yelena remembering me that I’d forgotten that Parham could not.

I briefly explained my talent and how we had met yesterday but he had forgotten me. Showing him his own notes in the notebook helped bring him up to speed.

“This is fascinating,” he said. “Are there more like you?”

Shrugging, I said, “I don’t know. I don’t remember meeting anyone like me, but would I?”

“An excellent question,” Parham said, scribbling in the notebook. “It is quite possible that your probability waves would merge while you were together, so on separating you would still remember each other. But it is not certain. I’ll have to do some more calculations.”

“You’ll have plenty of time for that on the flight,” I said.

Parham stood up and pointed his pen at Yelena. “Wait a minute. You are the woman in the notes, the one who can remember him?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You can’t go to Moscow!” he said.

“Will that make me forget him?” she asked.

“We’ve been that far apart before,” I said, “and she still remembered me.”

He shook his head. “How am I supposed to work on my paper if you go to Moscow? You must come with me so I can study your entanglement.”

Yelena shot me a glance. “What does he mean, entanglement?”

“It’s a quantum thing,” I said. “He thinks the laser in Barcelona connected us somehow, and that’s why you can remember me.”

“A laser in Barcelona?” asked Parham. “Really? Did I say that?” He wrote a note. “What were you doing with a laser in Barcelona?”

“I’ll tell you the whole story once we’re on the road,” I said. I looked around the room, which was a rather useless gesture since I didn’t have anything I needed to take with me other than Parham. “I guess we should get going. And, uh, be careful getting out of the country, Yelena.” It was going to be tough adjusting to not having her around, even though that’s how my life had been just a few days ago. But making preparations to rescue her sister was the right call.

“With Russian passport, is not problem,” she said. “But I will come with you to make sure you get out safe.”

It was silly, but I felt happy to get just a couple more hours with her.

“I am ready,” Parham said.

“Then let’s go,” I said.

On the way out of the hotel, Yelena stopped at the concierge’s desk, slipped him a few bills, and asked him to mail the letter she had written.

“What’s that about?” I asked.

“For my mother. In case something happen,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Yelena had rented another car, a nondescript blue Volkswagen, because we didn’t want to be seen driving around town in the Mercedes she had stolen. She entered the coordinates Edward had texted her into the GPS. “One hour, thirty-eight minutes,” she said. “Grasshopper arrives in three hours, so plenty of time.”

I sat in the front passenger seat, while Parham lay down in the back seat and covered himself with a blanket we’d stolen from the hotel.

“How you doing back there?” I asked.

“Not the most comfortable car ride I’ve ever taken,” he replied. “But I prefer it to being spotted by Jamshidi’s men.”

“Unfortunately, I’m going to have to be a bit of a chatterbox,” I said. “Once we’re safely outside of town and you can sit where you can see me, then I’ll shut up, but until then I need to keep the connection between us going so you don’t panic on finding a strange man in the car.”

“Very well,” he said. “Tell me about the laser in Barcelona.”

“You said it had something to do with—”

“Stop. Do not tell me what I said. Allow me to draw my own conclusions. Start from the beginning, as if telling me for the first time.”

“Okay. It was the first time I met Yelena. I was cracking a safe at InterQuan in order to steal a prototype chip, and she interrupted me and took the chip at gunpoint.”

“I still do not remember that,” Yelena said. “I remember entering room and safe is already open, and I wonder if is trap, but I decide to risk it and take chip. Then I—”

I coughed to make a sound, but motioned her to continue.

“—I went out and guard stop me.”

“Meanwhile,” I said, “I waited the sixty seconds until I was sure she had forgotten me, and then went out to find her and the guard there. Another guard came up, but they only had one pair of handcuffs between them, so they handcuffed us together.”

“You forgot part where they make us take off clothes.”

Heat rose in my cheeks as I remembered her in her bra and panties. “I didn’t think that was really relevant.”

“It’s all relevant,” Parham said. “When something unprecedented happens, all the potential factors need to be examined in order to determine which were actual factors.”

“Fine. We were stripped down to our underwear. Then they took us and locked us in a basement room, then we escaped from the room, still handcuffed together because they were magnetic handcuffs, or else I could have just picked the lock.”

“Magnetic handcuffs, held together by magnets?” asked Parham.

“No,” Yelena said. “Lock is magnetic, needs special magnetic key to open.”

“So we looked in a lab for something to unlock or separate the handcuffs, and there was this laser that we tried, but it didn’t do any good. But you said before that the words on the lab door were important.”

“Really? What were the words?”

“
Laboratorio de Entrelazar
. I thought it meant something about lasers, which is why I took us in there. And there was a laser.”

“Ah. My guess is you tried to cut the handcuffs with the laser before it reached a prism that split the beam.”

“Yes. You mentioned that before, and I don’t know how you knew.”

“The lab was obviously conducting experiments with entangled photons. They use the prism to send some photons one way and their entangled partners another. By trying to cut the handcuff with the beam, you reflected entangled photons into yourself and Yelena.”

“This entanglement,” said Yelena, “how can it stay if laser is not on us anymore?”

“When photons hit atoms, the photons can disappear but they make changes to the electrons in the atoms. Entanglement can sometimes survive that. So it is atoms in your bodies that are now entangled.”

“How long will it last?” I asked.

“Hard to say. Maybe as long as those atoms remain in your body. Maybe less time.”

So my entanglement with Yelena wasn’t permanent. There went my slim hope of a lasting relationship.

* * *

After about an hour and twenty minutes, the GPS wanted us to go off-road in order to get to the pick-up zone. The Volkswagen jounced over the rocky desert terrain for over a mile, but it was no Jeep, and eventually we had to leave it behind.

Yelena examined the GPS, then pointed toward a ridge. “Two kilometers. We have sixty-five minutes.”

“I wish Edward would have found us a more convenient spot,” I said.

“Is good spot because is not convenient,” she replied.

Fortunately, the terrain wasn’t too difficult, and we reached the rendezvous spot with over twenty minutes to spare.

As I squinted at the clear blue sky to the west, searching for some sign of the Grasshopper that would carry Parham and me to Langley, I said, “Oh, I forgot to ask—since you didn’t close the deal with the Iranians for the viewer, can I have it to take back to Langley? Or did you lose it with the BMW?”

She didn’t respond, so after a few seconds I looked over at her.

“Nat,” she said, “I am sorry.”

“What for?” I asked.

“I make terrible mistake. When I meet with Jamshidi’s men, I offer them the quantum viewer in exchange for my sisters. They talk to their headquarters, lots of talk, take long time. Then they refuse and try to shoot me. I escape.” Her eyes glistened.

“I understand,” I said. “You were desperate to get your sisters back, so you tried to cut a different deal.”

“That is not the end,” she said. “When I go back to my hotel room, viewer is gone. They have someone steal it during negotiations.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Did she say quantum viewer?” said Parham.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s a piece of technology we stole—well, not exactly stole. More like obtained.”

Parham frowned. “Not from ChazonTec in Israel?”

“Yes,” I said. “And here’s some more quantum weirdness for your theory: when it took a picture with me in the room, it left me out of the picture once, but showed me the second time.”

Parham waved that off and focused on Yelena. “So Jamshidi’s men have it?”

She nodded. “Since yesterday.”

“You must stop him from finishing his blasphemous project,” Parham said.

“Blasphemous?” That seemed a strange word to use about a computer.

“Jamshidi calls it the Prophet.” Parham’s voice seethed with indignation. “The blessed Prophet Mohammad, praise be upon him, was the final prophet, and this machine of Jamshidi’s is an abomination.” He looked at me, then said, “I know you do not share my faith, but he must never complete the machine. I will go with you and show you what must be done.”

“Parham,” I said, “we’re not really equipped for this. I’ll take you back to Langley, and you can explain what needs to be done. They’ll send a full team to pull the plug on Jamshidi’s operation.”

“No,” Parham said. “You do not understand. Once the quantum supercomputer is activated, it will be too late to do anything about it.”

“Why?” I said. “Even if it can predict the stock market or whatever, Jamshidi can’t do much damage in a couple of days.”

“Predict the stock market? Is that what the CIA thinks the computer is for?” he said.

“Well, other stuff, too, but that sounded like the major problem with a supercomputer that can predict the future.”

“Oh, it will do far more than that,” said Parham. “Once it is fully online, it will control the world.”

“That’s a little overdramatic, don’t you think?” I said.

“I am not exaggerating.” Parham’s voice was agitated. “We must get to London immediately.”

“London?” Yelena and I spoke together.

“Jamshidi is a deceiver. He keeps his secrets within false secrets. Your CIA cannot find the hidden lab in the desert of Iran because the lab is underground, in London. It is spread out, connected via tunnels, but I do know that the main processing facility is under a Jamshidi Oil warehouse.”

I shook my head in wonder. “We tracked some technology shipments, and you, to a warehouse, but we thought he was shipping stuff back to Iran from there. The ships left carrying something.”

“Probably dirt removed while digging the facility.” Parham looked up at the sky. “Will this plane never arrive?”

“Calm down,” I said. “Can you explain exactly what’s so bad about this supercomputer? Will it be able to take control of other computers out there and run everything?”

“No. I mean it will literally control everything,” Parham said. He swept an arm across the desert view. “Look out there at the world. It’s unpredictable. Yes, we can make pretty good guesses as to what will happen in the future, but we can’t tell whether it will rain in Rome ten days from now, or whether a particular horse will win a race. There are too many variables—like the old chestnut about a butterfly flapping its wings in China and causing a hurricane. And when you get down into the realm of quantum physics, things become even more uncertain. Particles are little more than waves of probability. So a computer that can take into account all the variables and predict what will happen is impossible. It can’t work. The world is just too unpredictable.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “First you tell us the computer’s going to take over the world, and now you tell us the computer won’t even work? What’s the problem, then?”

Parham took a coin out of his pocket. “Can you predict whether this coin will end up on the ground showing heads or tails?”

“I can guess,” I said. “But it’ll be fifty-fifty whether I’m right.”

“Ah,” he said. “But I can accurately predict that it will end up heads.” He leaned down and placed the coin heads up on the sand.

“That’s cheating,” I said. “You could predict it because you made it show heads.”

“And the computer will cheat, too. It will collapse probability waves in order to cause the future it predicts. Somewhat like your ability, which forces the wave to collapse in a certain way, except the computer determines which way the wave should collapse. It does not merely predict the future: it chooses the future.”

I thought through some of the implications. “So once it’s turned on, it will choose a future in which we can’t turn it off.”

Parham nodded. “Perhaps it is improbable that a lightning strike will hit the plane with a CIA strike team and cause it to crash, but it is possible. But something like that becomes a certainty if the computer collapses the probability wave in the right way. Once the computer has been activated, it will control the future.”

“And Jamshidi will control it,” I said.

“Yes. I tried to delay, but now that he has the quantum viewer…”

“But it’s glitchy,” I said. “When we first tested it out, it didn’t show me, but then it did.”

“Let me guess,” Parham said. “The first time, Yelena was not within range of the viewer, but the second time, she was.”

“You’re right,” I said. “How did you know?”

“The quantum viewer does not take a photograph in the normal way. It builds up a picture based on quantum interactions between things. However, you are unconnected to anything but Yelena—and possibly other things that were with you and the laser in Barcelona. The quantum viewer could only detect you through your connection to Yelena. But, when combined with the power of the supercomputer, the viewer would be able to see you anywhere in the world. But because observation collapses the wave functions, the viewer will also allow the computer to affect things anywhere in the world.”

“Is all my fault,” said Yelena. “If I had not—”

“What matters,” I said, “is what we’re going to do about it. How long do we have, Parham?”

“The quantum viewer will require modifications in order to integrate with the rest of the supercomputer. Jamal—one of my assistants—would be the one to do it, and he might be done by this evening. If not, he will probably work through the night, so we have twenty-four hours at the most.”

Less than twenty-four hours. “I’ve got to call this in,” I said.

Yelena handed me her cell phone, but before I could dial Edward’s number, she said, “Do you hear noise?”

After a few moments, I heard a high-pitched, steady whine, but I couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from. It was getting louder, though. A flicker of motion on the ground to the west caught my eye. A shadow moving over the sand, headed a bit to our right.

As it passed by, the whine suddenly jumped to a roar almost directly above us, joined by a hot wind swirling down. I looked up and saw blue sky, shimmering a bit like air does when it’s hot. As the roar faded to a whine again, the shimmer moved about ten yards west of us, then descended to the ground. I squinted to block the sand that blew away from that spot.

A black rectangle about five feet high and two feet wide opened in the shimmer, and someone with a black flight suit and helmet lowered a ladder from the bottom edge, stretching about ten feet to the ground. He or she beckoned for us to come.

I was so astonished I just stood there for a moment.

“I wonder if it’s active camouflage or metamaterials,” Parham said, and he headed toward the door.

“Wait,” I said. “How do we know it’s the CIA?”

Parham laughed. “‘You’ll know it when you see it,’ your handler said. Neither my government nor Jamshidi has the technical capability to create an invisible plane.”

I felt a little foolish at my paranoia. Edward had said it was a stealth plane, and how likely was it that someone else’s stealth plane would just happen to come to the coordinates where we were waiting?

As we got within a couple of feet of the door, the engine sound increased to a roar again, but the opening hung steady. As I climbed inside, the engine noise faded again.

Once all three of us were on board, the person in the flight suit sealed the door behind us. The inside of the plane was too small for me to stand up straight. There were three seats on each side of the plane, facing inward, separated by a narrow aisle. There were no windows.

I sat down across from Yelena, and Parham sat next to her. We fastened our seatbelts.

The person in the flight suit sat next to me, but did not put on a seatbelt. “We were expecting Dr. Rezaei and Ms. Semyonova. Who are you?” Her voice was feminine.

“My name’s Nat Morgan,” I said. “I need you to get Edward Strong at Langley on the line. He can confirm my identity. Also, we need to switch destinations to London.”