The Grid

by Nick Cook

  That depends. ‘Do you ever get intrusive thoughts?’

  ‘No. But if I do stop and think about it, I see everything as it happened – kind of like a snapshot – and that’s not so good.’

  This would have been the moment her superior autobiographical memory kicked in.

  ‘Have you ever seen anyone about your OCD, Hetta?’

  She looks at me.

  ‘You have certain characteristics of obsessive compulsive behavior. OCD is a protection mechanism. You do what you do over and over to stop stuff you don’t want – the really bad stuff – getting into your head. It may be better to have the OCD than the bad memories, but there are professionals I know who can help.’

  She shakes her head and gives me a half smile. ‘People at the first field office I worked used to have this joke about me behind my back, Josh. They called me the Gifted Gimp.’

  Gifted.

  ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘That’s what who said?’

  ‘Schweizer said Gapes was gifted. But he also said, due to his injuries, calibrating the Grid worked best when there were two of them.’

  I shake him awake.

  Schweizer opens a bloodshot eye. ‘Hey, we landing?’ His stale breath turns my stomach.

  ‘Who was the second psychic?’

  ‘What?’ He stares at me.

  ‘Gapes was needed to tune the Grid. Koori had left. Who did he calibrate it with? You said the process required two of them.’

  ‘I never knew the guy’s name.’ Schweizer hesitates. ‘But Kaufmann told me he and Gapes had worked together. He was his monitor at INSCOM. It turned out he had a prodigious talent, too.’

  Offutt.

  Everybody who ever reported to the Canyon and left it – or, in Kaufmann’s case, merely threatened to – has ended up dead.

  Except for Offutt.

  Which means he’s still active – still working the program.

  ‘After Harvard,’ I ask, ‘how did you get funded?’

  ‘I applied for a federal grant.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It gave me enough funding to develop the first-generation computer.’

  ‘And, on the back of that, you started Sub-Quantum Dynetics?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We built second, third and fourth-generation computers and won a contract under the Oak Ridge program. Cash got us through the next few years. We expanded, too fast, got into some trouble, and applied for another tranche of federal R&D funding.’

  ‘Was this after you started working on Kaufmann’s HITS helmet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you get it?’

  ‘The grant? No. We didn’t need it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because in the interim we’d been recapitalized by a venture capitalist.’

  ‘This VC,’ I say. ‘Was his name Vladimir Ilitch, by any chance?’

  38

  TVB STARES AT HIS HANDS, TURNS THEM OVER A FEW TIMES. After I’ve asked him the question, I watch his eyes as he takes himself back – to a time, I’m guessing, when life must have seemed pretty damn simple – especially if you’ve been staring at the walls of a cell. He’s wearing the same sleeveless maroon sweater that he had on the last time I saw him. He looks bewildered – and utterly terrified.

  ‘I was part of a trade mission that went to Russia after the Soviet Union fell. It must have been in ’92. I was interested in experiments that had been conducted under the auspices of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in the area of trauma-induced depression – in particular, a device that had allegedly been developed by an academic called Kalunin to relieve the most radical symptoms. You may have heard of him, Josh. Professor M. M. Kalunin. Revered, even now, long after his death, as the father of modern-day Russian consciousness research.’

  I invite him to tell me about Ilitch.

  ‘Kalunin was ill. He had just months to live. Ilitch was a member of his staff and I barely noticed him.’

  ‘Was he academic or administrative?’

  ‘Administrative – something like an accountant.’

  ‘Go on, Ted.’

  ‘So, years later – I’m talking six, seven years ago – Ilitch contacted me. He’d become extremely wealthy on the back of medical equipment he’d sold all over the world and had diversified into IT and other areas. He told me that consciousness research remained his abiding passion and, because of my work, wondered if there were opportunities for the two of us to collaborate. To be honest, I was flattered. Ilitch was neither here nor there, but I figured the link could be useful, because of his ties to Kalunin.’

  ‘I thought you said Kalunin was dead.’

  ‘He is. But Ilitch had married his daughter and she is – or was – the custodian of his personal papers.’

  ‘So you and Ilitch co-developed tech that’d lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of depression and, same time, you’d be able to review Kalunin’s archive? That was the deal?’

  ‘The open-source part of it, yes.’

  ‘But that wasn’t all …’

  He nods. ‘The Soviet military was all over Kalunin’s work.’ His brow furrows. ‘Is that why I’m here?’

  Yes and no. Ilitch is a person of interest, I tell him, in an ongoing investigation by the US Secret Service.

  ‘Which links him to you and the guy they shot in the tower?’

  ‘Yes. And me to you.’

  ‘I see.’ He stares at his hands again.

  ‘Quid pro quo, Ted. How did Ilitch come to invest in your project?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘Tell me. Neither of us is going anywhere until you do.’

  I am sitting on the bed next to him. Reuben, at least, has been true to his word. TVB’s cell doesn’t have carpets, but it has a bathroom.

  ‘You’ve got to understand, Josh, in the consciousness field, the Russians are pre-eminent. No, let me correct that. The Soviets were. Iron Curtain scientists developed a set of theories about consciousness – unconventional ones – that would never have seen the light of day over here. Their insights into who we are, what consciousness is, and – most importantly – where it comes from, backed by decades of research and millions of roubles in state funding, are beyond any kind of understanding we developed in the West. Access to that data was – is – highly prized.’

  ‘What kinds of insights are we talking about?’

  ‘I have long believed, as you know, that it’s possible to tune our minds through the development of technology to relieve symptoms of distress. But the Russians have been thinking this way for decades. Kalunin was responsible, almost singlehandedly, for a Soviet field of study – a unique area that looked at the integration of mind and machine. The Russians had a name for it: instrumental psychotronics.’

  And so do we, I say to myself, as I look away. We call our damn version of it the Grid.

  ‘This is why I went to Russia,’ Ted continues. ‘I wanted to see if there were areas of research in this field we could bring back to the US. Develop using US know-how. Collaborate on.’

  ‘Were you successful?’

  ‘No. He was too ill to do any business. We just talked, academic to academic, and we discussed some of the truly remarkable things he had been funded by the state to do.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Many things. But the one area that sticks with me is the point at which the conversation turned to the survival of consciousness post-death.’

  ‘In English, Ted …’

  ‘What happens to us when we die.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Like mediumship, spiritualism?’

  ‘No, Josh. There’s more to it than that.’

  Damn right there is.

  ‘What is it?’ TVB says.

  ‘The guy they shot in the tower was a psychic, Ted.’

  ‘Do you think …?’ He hesitates.

  ‘That you got caught up
in something a whole lot bigger than you imagined? Yes.’

  ‘What do I do, Josh?’

  ‘Your trip to Moscow in ’92 …’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘You said it was part of a trade delegation.’

  He nods.

  ‘Which carried US government sanction.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who put it together?’

  ‘The senior Democratic Senator from Wisconsin.’

  Abnarth.

  ‘Susan. Is she aware of what’s happened?’

  ‘No. She’s on a flight to Nairobi.’

  Now I remember: the dig she was preparing for in Kenya.

  TVB looks terrified again. ‘Is she going to be arrested too?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What is going to happen to me?’ he asks.

  ‘You’re going to get out of your arrangement with Ilitch, is what.’

  ‘That may be easier said than done.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s in Moscow. He’s somewhat of a recluse these days.’

  ‘Then email him. It doesn’t matter how you do it, Ted, or how much it costs, but find yourself a good lawyer and kill the deal. Then forget any of this ever happened and get on a plane and go to Susan in Kenya – Susan who loves you and whom you love – and maybe, between the two of you, you’ll decide that it’s a good time to retire and live out your lives with the cats and the dogs.’

  I call Reuben the moment I step out the elevator.

  ‘Big problem,’ I tell him. Hetta was right. ‘There is a Russian connection.’

  ‘Through van Buren?’

  ‘No. Van Buren is collateral. Completely innocent. We can let him go.’

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘Where are you right now?’

  ‘At Camp David. With the President.’

  ‘And the DNI, the CIA Director, the other spooks?’

  ‘They’re either here or on their way. The moment you get here, we’ll assemble at Aspen Lodge. You and Hart can brief them and if that fails to get their attention, we’ll wheel your whistleblower in and see what effect that has.’ He pauses. ‘A Russian connection?’

  ‘The Grid was part-funded by Ilitch. He’s the son-in-law of the man who headed up the Soviet Union’s research into psychic phenomena.’

  ‘How can a Russian have funded an ultra-classified US intelligence program?’

  ‘I think the NSA – or this cabal of intel agencies behind the Grid – has been laundering money through Ilitch to pay for it.’

  ‘That is just way too un-fucking-believable,’ he says.

  ‘Think about it. The Grid is totally off the map, and yet it cost billions. Billions that don’t appear on any congressional budget sheet.’

  ‘But a Russian? Come on.’

  ‘I know. It doesn’t make sense. But there’s another connection. Computers. Specifically, ultra-high-speed quantum computers. Ted van Buren, my professor, had been working on a project he’s running out of Georgetown that analyzes brain waves in a way they’ve never been analyzed before. He was approached by an investor called Vladimir Ilitch. Ilitch’s photo was one of the three that got removed and swapped in the cabin. There were three things in the cabin they didn’t want us to see: the ballotechnic, the shot of the Canyon and Ilitch. The Grid uses highly sophisticated quantum-computing architecture. I think they used Ilitch’s money to pay for early Grid hardware, tested it – it worked – then they shut down the companies responsible … Do I need to go on?’

  There’s a pause.

  ‘Have you called off Jerusalem?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Thompson won’t allow it.’

  ‘Make him.’

  ‘The conference is everything he’s ever worked for, Josh. He won’t.’

  ‘That thing, Reuben, the spherical device that Gapes drew – the ballotechnic – it’s a trigger for an H-bomb.’

  ‘A theoretical trigger.’

  ‘Yes, but a lot of this shit was theoretical and now we’re not so sure.’

  ‘We are. Christy’s proliferation expert briefed us this morning. If our own nuclear weapons labs can’t build a fourth-generation nuke—’

  ‘Then we shouldn’t just presume there’s nobody else out there that can.’

  I also relay to him what Hetta told me. A traditional H-bomb requires several kilograms of plutonium or uranium to initiate the fusion reaction. A Gen 4 weapon’s nuclear material – pellets of deuterium and tritium – are measured in grams. Less, even. A terrorist could smuggle that in easy. Nobody would be able to detect it. Nobody.

  Reuben once made a living on the Hill from his defense-level connections. He understands this stuff better than I do. ‘The heat and pressure required to initiate the deuterium–tritium reaction is so great, the amount of explosive needed is easily detectable,’ he says. ‘Part of Thompson’s insistence the conference goes ahead is based on the fact that we and the Israelis will deploy a phenomenally sensitive security system in and around the city that will make the movement of explosives impossible. And, of course, the conference is still months away. It’s not ideal, I know, but …’

  For a moment, it feels as if the line’s gone dead.

  ‘Reuben?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Your old boss, Abnarth, is up to his neck in this.’

  Another silence. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Reel him in, along with all the others. We need to know exactly what he’s up to.’

  39

  AFTER I’VE TOLD HIM AS MUCH AS HE NEEDS TO KNOW, OFFUTT walks over to the sink, takes off his glasses, runs the faucet and splashes water on his face. He then slumps on the end of the bed.

  We’re alone. His prison cell, two floors below ground, contrasts starkly with TVB’s. There’s the sink, a john, the bed and not much else. The walls seem to be impregnated with the stench of human waste. Only the chill air of the chamber stops it from overwhelming us.

  I ask him how much Johansson knows.

  ‘He got access to the data for his war on terror. That’s all. He doesn’t know where the data comes from. No warfighter is ever made aware of the source. By the time it’s mixed up with all the other sources of raw intelligence, it’s washed clean, made to look like it could have come from anywhere.’ He looks at me. ‘So what are my choices?’

  ‘You don’t have any. When we’re done here, you, Hetta and I are going to head up to Camp David and brief the President. There’s a helicopter waiting.’ I pause. ‘Tell me about the cell.’

  He laughs. ‘The cell? There is not just one cell. The Cube houses dozens. Maybe hundreds. I have no idea how many. Everything was compartmentalized. Ours was focused exclusively on the WMD threat. Others will have been assigned to specific targets, all high priority and inaccessible by other collection methods. We’re talking organized crime bosses, terrorists, Chinese and Russian strategic military planners, politicians … the list is probably endless. I just saw what I saw. My cell got a feed from the Canyon, same as all the others.’

  ‘So, you don’t know who would have targeted the President, or why?’

  ‘The only people who would have known are the people who assign the targets, people we never got to see, and the operatives within the cell itself.’

  He massages the skin on the back of his burned hand.

  ‘Did he … suffer?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The President.’

  I tell him: Yes. From a particularly debilitating dream.

  ‘When?’

  ‘More often than he’d like to admit.’

  ‘Starting when?’

  ‘Nine months ago.’

  ‘Then that’ll be the point of instigation. The Grid keys off events: intel we pick up on people or things that need verification when no other asset can provide it. If they were targeting him, something would have triggered a reason for wanting to get inside his thinking. You need to take a look at what was happening then.’

  I get to my feet. Nine
months ago.

  The new administration had barely got started.

  ‘Sit down,’ he says. ‘There’s more. Calibration required me to ship out to the Canyon every few months. By now, Duke was there full time. Calibration was dull – it meant us wearing more sophisticated versions of the helmets they’d developed for the HITS concept demonstrator and for us to sit there for hours, while the computers were realigned and the engineers did their thing. The process could go on for a day, overnight sometimes, which is why it needed two of us, Duke and me. It’s hard to maintain that level of focus for long.’

  He rests the back of his head against the wall and closes his eyes.

  ‘But on that day, the day before he ran, everything goes haywire. One minute, we’re staring at a load of static on screen, the next we’re watching a feed scrolling at a thousand miles an hour. We see people, famous people, ordinary people, places I know and places I don’t, historical events, wars – Vietnam, World Wars One and Two, stuff that goes back further, even; way, way back. It also starts to show events that I can remember, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, the planes slamming into the Towers …’

  He opens his eyes.

  ‘And then the screens go black and I look left and Duke is standing in the glow of the emergency lighting, staring at the screens, still wearing the helmet. His eyes are open and moving, like the movie we just saw is still running, but it isn’t, there’s nothing to see, until, boom, suddenly the screens burst back into life again and so does the hologram they project onto the plinth when they need to show a target from multiple angles.

  ‘There are images of the Wailing Wall, the gold cupola of the Dome of the Rock; churches, portraits of saints; and then …’

  I lean forward.

  ‘Then there’s this guy waving at a crowd, and it’s waving back, and I suddenly realize it’s Thompson – Senator Thompson – only this is Jerusalem, and he’s President.’

  I hold up a hand. ‘Wait a minute.’

  Offutt stops and looks at me.

  ‘You’re talking about something that hasn’t happened.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You mean …’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. To the Grid, time is entirely fluid. Just as it is to a psychic. Totally meaningless. The holosphere is a perfect record of past, present and future events. The job of the Grid’s processors is to bring the false positives down to a minimum so we know which future events are real.’