by Mark Alpert
“Keter? What’s that?”
“It’s the highest of the Sephirot, the first step in the enumeration of the universe. The instrument of Keter has a special place in the divine plan. That’s why you’re here, why all these crazy things keep happening to you. Keter is God’s most powerful tool, and now you will bring us victory!”
While Olam squeezed his shoulder, another guard came into the room and spoke a few words in Hebrew. Olam nodded, then turned back to David. “My men have finished interrogating Agent Parker and Mr. Goldberg. Neither is a spy, which is lucky. Now they can join the fight. Once I show them how deeply the Qliphoth have infiltrated their agencies, they’ll see why we have to go off the radar.” Keeping his arm around David, Olam led him across the room, stepping toward the large steel-gray cabinet. It had a pair of sliding metal doors, each five feet high and four feet wide. “I want Agent Parker to come to Turkmenistan with us. I could use another good soldier. But I have a different job for Mr. Goldberg.”
“You should probably talk to them before you—”
“No, Mr. Goldberg will like this job. He’s going to decode some messages for me. With a little help from this machine.” Olam grasped the knob on one of the cabinet’s sliding doors and pulled it open. Inside the cabinet was a crowded mass of wires and electronics. Hundreds of small glass tubes were arranged in neat rows. “The Caduceus Array isn’t the only project I’ve been working on. I thought of a way to build something else from Jacob’s trapped-ion technology.”
David peered into the cabinet. He looked closer at one of the glass tubes and saw a pair of needlelike electrodes inside. It was a single-ion trap, just like the ones in the Caduceus Array, but David got the feeling that this device wasn’t a clock. The tubes were connected to optical fibers that tangled together in an unruly skein. It looked a bit like the inside of a FiOS junction box, with dozens of fiber-optic lines delivering streams of data every which way.
As David studied the machine, trying to make sense of it, Monique let out a delighted gasp. “Oh my God. You’ve got hundreds of ions here!”
Olam nodded. “Four thousand and ninety-six, to be exact.”
“And they’re all linked together by fiber-optic lines!” Monique pointed at the tangle of glass fibers. “Each ion emits optical signals that travel through the lines, right? And those signals enable the ions to interact and perform calculations?”
“It was a good idea, yes? This quantum computer is the first in the world that can actually do something useful.”
“But how did you do it? I thought the technology wasn’t ready yet. Isn’t that why Jacob gave up on quantum computing?”
Olam’s face turned serious. “I succeeded because I needed to succeed. We will use this computer in our battle against the Qliphoth.”
AFTER SUNSET NICO SWITCHED TO HIS INFRARED BINOCULARS, WHICH showed the trailers of Shalhevet as glowing white rectangles against the black hilltop. The Israelis and Americans had tried to evade his surveillance by sneaking off to this settlement on the West Bank, but Nico had followed them. Now he hid behind a boulder on a neighboring hillside, about two hundred meters away. Shalhevet was full of armed Jews, some patrolling the outpost’s perimeter and others guarding the large trailer where Olam ben Z’man was conferring with his men. Nico had caught a glimpse of Olam earlier. He matched the description that Cyrus’s informants had provided: a big, bald kelb wearing a black eye patch.
Just as Nico was about to move to a closer observation point, several figures emerged from the trailers. The infrared display in his binoculars didn’t show much detail, but he saw enough to recognize two of the figures as Swift and Reynolds. A half-dozen bearded Zionists escorted them back to their van and stepped into the vehicle with them. Then Olam came out of his trailer with the silver-haired FBI agent and walked toward an identical van. Nico clenched his right hand, suppressing an impulse to grab his rifle. His orders had been clear: don’t attack until you’re certain you can kill all of them. So he did nothing but observe the pair of vans as they left the settlement, trundling down a dirt trail that led to the highway. Although neither driver turned on his headlights, the warm engines and exhaust pipes glowed brightly in Nico’s binoculars.
After a few minutes the vans turned left on Highway 60, heading north. By that point Nico was already in his own vehicle, half a kilometer behind. As he drove past Nablus he reached for his radio. Brother Cyrus would be pleased.
20
AS DARKNESS CAME, THE PAIN IN MICHAEL’S FACE SUBSIDED. SOON HE COULD open his left eye and walk across the yurt without getting dizzy. Then he heard the sound of an engine starting and rushed to his peephole just in time to see Angel and two other soldiers get into a Toyota pickup. Michael watched the truck leave the camp and disappear down the trail, heading toward the stretch of horizon where the sun had set fifteen minutes ago.
This was a lucky thing, he thought. Now there were only four soldiers left in the camp, and Michael knew he could easily slip past them in the darkness. But he also knew he couldn’t avoid leaving a trail as he fled across the desert. When Angel and his men returned to find him missing, they would quickly catch up to him by following the trail in their pickup truck. So escaping by foot was a bad idea. But there were still two Land Cruisers in the camp, and Michael realized that he could get a much longer head start on his pursuers if he commandeered one of the vehicles. He didn’t know how to drive, but Tamara did. And Angel had said she was locked in one of the other yurts.
The four soldiers were still patrolling in pairs. One pair was moving in a figure-eight pattern that threaded around the yurts on the western side of the camp, while the other pair did the same thing on the eastern side. It was a good pattern because it allowed the soldiers to keep most of the camp in sight at all times. But Michael noticed that one pair was moving slightly faster than the other, and every six minutes there was a brief period when none of the soldiers could see the entrance to his yurt. He checked his watch and decided to leave at the next opportunity, which would occur at approximately 8:57. The sky was getting darker but the soldiers had not yet turned on their flashlights.
At 8:55 he opened the large bag of potato chips and poured about six ounces of Jägermeister inside, soaking the chips thoroughly. The steel-wool pad and the nine-volt battery were already in his pockets. At 8:56 he retrieved the M67 grenade from his pile of dirty clothes and went to the yurt’s door. During the last minute he rehearsed the arming sequence he’d learned from America’s Army. First hold the grenade’s lever down, he remembered, then pull out the safety clip and pin. When the grenade is thrown, the lever will release. The fuse will burn for four seconds before detonation.
Michael held the grenade and the bag of potato chips in his right hand and the bottle of Jägermeister in his left. He waited another fifteen seconds. Then he pushed the door open and slipped outside.
It was darker than he’d expected. The yurts were black mounds against the dark gray sand. After closing the door as quietly as he could, Michael ran to the closest yurt. He tiptoed around the structure, staying close to the curving wall and on the opposite side from where he estimated the soldiers should be. As he stepped barefoot on the sand he heard a high-pitched yelp coming from inside the yurt. He recognized the voice as Tamara’s, but he couldn’t tell whether she was laughing or crying. Michael wanted to stop and listen, but he knew the soldiers would be coming around the perimeter any second, so he kept moving. He dashed across a clearing to the next yurt and finally to the one at the southeastern corner of the camp. He headed straight for the yurt’s door, pulled it open, and dove inside.
The room was pitch-dark, but Michael felt mattresses and piles of clothes under his feet. This must be the place where the soldiers slept, he thought. He scrabbled toward the section of wall opposite the door and set the grenade, the potato-chip bag, and the bottle on the Turkish carpet. Then he removed the steel-wool pad and the nine-volt battery from his pockets.
Michael had learned the fundamen
tals of electricity from The Concise Scientific Encyclopedia. A nine-volt battery, he knew, was more powerful than a D battery or a double-A because it pushed electrons more forcefully between the battery’s terminals. And if the conductor connecting the terminals is a material with high resistance—like steel wool—the electrical current will generate heat. So Michael wasn’t surprised by what happened when he rubbed the steel-wool pad against the terminals on top of the battery: the mesh of wires glowed orange and burst into flames. He’d seen this done on YouTube and had always wanted to try it himself.
Once the pad was aflame, Michael placed it on the carpet next to the yurt’s wall. Then he overturned the potato-chip bag and poured the Jägermeister-soaked chips on the fire. Thanks to their combination of alcohol and fat, they were very good tinder. He splattered the rest of the Jägermeister on the surrounding area, but this really wasn’t necessary—the wool carpet and wooden slats were so dry, they didn’t need an accelerant. By the time Michael raced out the door, the flames were spreading across the floor and climbing the wall.
He ran about thirty feet beyond the yurt and hid behind a dune, lying on his stomach in the sand. Then he waited for the soldiers to arrive, holding the fragmentation grenade in his right hand. This part of the plan had almost stumped him because he was generally unable to predict the actions of other people. How could he lure all four of the soldiers within the grenade’s killing radius? He found it impossible to put himself in someone else’s shoes—even the metaphor confused him—so he couldn’t imagine what would cause the soldiers to draw together in such a tight grouping. But then he thought of the burning crater of Darvaza, the vast pit of flames. It was simply logical that the soldiers would respond to a fire, especially if it was big enough. They would come to the burning yurt and try to put out the fire before it destroyed their possessions.
And that was exactly what happened. First one pair of soldiers arrived, then the other. They shouted and stamped their boots on the flames. Their actions were as logical and predictable and inevitable as the trajectory of the grenade after it left Michael’s hand.
21
ANGEL WAS ANNOYED. ONE OF THE TRUCKS IN THE CONVOY HEADING FOR Kuruzhdey had veered off the trail and gotten stuck in a ditch about ten kilometers west of the Darvaza camp. Because Angel’s pickup was the only vehicle with enough horsepower to tow the truck out of the sand, he’d had to leave the camp with two of his soldiers and drive to the accident site. He found this assignment a little demeaning—he was a Soldier of God, not a tow jockey!—but there was no getting around it. The convoy was carrying important materials for Brother Cyrus.
Luckily, he and his men finished the task quickly, pulling the truck out of the ditch on the first try. They were unhooking the towline when Angel received a transmission from Brother Cyrus. “Headquarters to Angel. Are you there, Angel?”
He fumbled for his radio and pressed the talk button. This was the call he’d been waiting for. “This is Angel,” he said. “Ready for instructions. Over.”
“The Lord has provided, Angel. We will meet in heaven. Over.”
He grinned. The message meant that everything was ready. Brother Cyrus had finished double-checking the code, running the program on his powerful computers to confirm that it was consistent and complete. Now the Lord’s plan was in its final stage. The Redemption was less than forty-eight hours away.
“Roger,” Angel said into the radio. “Requesting permission to proceed with the cleanup. Over.”
“Permission granted. Peace be with you, Angel. Over and out.”
Angel hooked the radio to his belt and ordered his men into the pickup. Then he got in the driver’s seat and turned the truck around and headed back to the Darvaza camp. He usually wasn’t fond of cleanup operations, and he wasn’t looking forward to shooting Tamara—until her loss of faith, she’d been an excellent soldier—but he knew he’d get some satisfaction from killing the boy. He was a stubborn child who needed to be taught a lesson. As Angel drove east, gripping the pickup’s steering wheel, he imagined that his hands were around the boy’s throat. He wouldn’t even have to waste any bullets.
TAMARA JUMPED WHEN SHE HEARD THE EXPLOSION. IT HAPPENED ONLY A few seconds after she smelled the smoke, and at first she assumed that a crate of ammunition had exploded because of a fire in one of the other yurts. But there was a terrible silence after the blast, no shouting soldiers or squawking radios or clumping footsteps in the sand. She listened carefully and heard the distant crackling of a fire, but nothing else. Then she heard something much closer, the sound of her door being unlocked. Tamara stood up, ready to pounce on whoever stepped inside. When the door opened she saw a tall, barefoot nineteen-year-old with matted hair and a swollen black eye.
“Michael!” she shouted. “What happened to you?” She rushed toward him with her arms spread wide, but at the last moment she stopped herself. He didn’t like to be touched.
He took a step backward. “Excuse me,” he said. “We should leave the camp as quickly as possible.”
She looked him over. It had never been easy to read Michael’s expression, but now he seemed blanker than ever. Aside from the contusion around his left eye, his face was pale. “Oh God!” she cried. “Did Angel do that? Or one of the other soldiers?”
“Four of the soldiers are dead. I recovered two weapons from their flak jackets.”
He raised his hands and for the first time Tamara noticed what he was holding. In his right hand was an M-9 pistol and in his left was an MK3A2 concussion grenade. “Michael, give me that thing!” she yelled, reaching for the grenade. “It’s dangerous!”
But Michael took another step backward and held the grenade away from her. “I know how to use this weapon,” he said.
His voice was slow and monotone. Tamara stared at him and shook her head. Something terrible had happened to the boy. Something had changed him. She felt a chill as she looked at his bruised face.
“We should leave the camp as quickly as possible,” he repeated. “Angel and the two other soldiers will return very soon.” He tucked the pistol in his pants and put the grenade in one of his pockets. Then he turned around and walked out of the yurt.
Tamara followed him outside. The sky was black and moonless but the light from the burning yurt flickered across the camp. Within ten seconds they reached the pair of Land Cruisers. Tamara peered through the window of the nearer car and saw that the keys were in the ignition, thank the Lord. She got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Michael opened the passenger-side door but didn’t get in.
“Come on!” Tamara yelled. “What are you waiting for?”
He was staring at something in the distance. He raised his arm and pointed. “Headlights,” he said. “In the west.”
ANGEL COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. ONE OF THE YURTS WAS BURNING OUT OF CONtrol. And none of the soldiers at the camp had radioed him. It didn’t make sense. Unless his men had deserted, which was very unlikely, they would’ve contacted him in this kind of emergency.
His eyes were focused on the fire, so he almost didn’t notice the movement to the left. One of the Land Cruisers was hurtling across the camp. Its headlights were off, but Angel could see the firelight reflected off its body. The vehicle got on the trail and headed east, toward the burning crater.
Angel floored the gas pedal and his pickup lunged over the sand. As he got closer to the camp he saw bodies near the flaming yurt. No, not bodies—pieces of bodies. Torsos and arms and legs, still wrapped in khaki. Four of his soldiers were dead. And the prisoners who’d killed them were trying to escape.
Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he looked over his shoulder at the truck bed. His two remaining men sat on ammunition crates next to the tripod-mounted M240. One of them, Angel thought, could jump out of the pickup and get into the Land Cruiser that was still parked at the center of the camp, a hundred yards ahead. The other could open the crates and start feeding the machine gun.
TAMARA KEPT HER HEADLIGHTS OFF AS SHE
DROVE OUT OF THE CAMP, HOPing to plunge unseen into the vast black desert, but Angel spotted her too fast. He headed straight for her in his pickup, his high beams glaring in her rearview mirror. Her only chance now was to outrun the bastard, so she stomped the gas pedal. She’d gone off-roading in Land Cruisers many times before, and she knew all the pluses and minuses of the car. It had a big V-8 engine, but it handled like a fucking elephant. And the pickup behind her was a Toyota Tundra, which had the same damn V-8. To make matters worse, another pair of headlights soon appeared behind her—the second Land Cruiser. Shit, she thought, what the hell was I thinking? She should’ve punctured its tires before they left the camp.
The trail ran up the slope of a long ridge, skirting sand dunes to the left and right. The pickup and the other Land Cruiser were about two hundred yards behind. At first the pursuing vehicles drove in tandem, but then the two pairs of headlights diverged, with the pickup moving to the right and following a second trail that ran parallel to the first. She worried now that the parallel trail was slightly shorter, which would allow the bastards to cut her off. For a moment she considered leaving the trail altogether, but she knew this was the riskiest option—if she got stuck in the sand, she and Michael were as good as dead. And while she was thinking about all this and trying to drive as fast as she could without flipping the car or diving into a sand dune, she heard a distant, chugging noise. Then she remembered what Angel carried in the truck bed of his pickup.
She turned to Michael, who sat rigidly in the passenger seat. “GET DOWN!” she screamed. “GET—”