Quantum Lens

by Douglas E. Richards

  Craft shook his head. “No, Eben was as surprised as anyone when I contacted him. But I brought him up to speed fairly thoroughly with a long e-mail message. I described how I had proven my theory. The situation with Al Yad, both historical and current. And my hopes that I could recruit you.”

  “But why? Why did you suddenly change your mind and decide to bring him in now? A titan of industry. A billionaire. When you’ve killed yourself to keep this absolutely secret?”

  “I screwed up big by approaching you on a dating site,” replied Craft miserably. “I put myself squarely back on the radar. I kicked a hornet’s nest. Both with respect to the government, and Al Yad. I needed help. Powerful help. And I happen to have a close friend who’s a billionaire, and who already knew my theories about tapping zero point energy. A man with nearly unlimited resources, who can pay to get top drawer IDs on the fly. Who has a private jet or two. And who could send men immediately to watch my back if I asked him to.”

  Alyssa had to admit that these were all good reasons.

  “It turned out to be a good decision. I contacted him while I was lying low at the IU campus. I asked him to recruit some muscle in case I needed it. And I decided I needed it when you entered the hospital. I knew there was a chance Al Yad would keep tabs on you after he let you go. I had to be sure.”

  “You thought we might be ambushed? And you didn’t tell me?”

  “No. I thought if we were being followed, whoever was following would just . . . follow. I never in a million years thought they would attack. Al Yad, maybe, but not them. And if Al Yad attacked, we could have had an army protecting us and it wouldn’t have helped.”

  “So you’re sure the men who attacked us were sent by Al Yad?”

  “Positive. I interrogated one of the men before he . . . died. The description of his boss fit Tariq Bahar to a T. ”

  “But why would Bahar be after me? He already had me.”

  “It’s hard to fathom,” agreed Craft. “All I can think of is that Al Yad heard a recording of your interrogation and figured out why I needed you.”

  “Then why not just kill me?” said Alyssa. “Much less hassle.” She shook her head. “They went to a lot of trouble to capture me alive.”

  Craft shrugged. “Maybe Al Yad, as powerful as he is, thought that you could enhance his belief even more. Make him even better able to harness the zero point field.”

  Alyssa thought about this. They might never know for sure, but this was as good a conjecture as any.

  “So why didn’t Al Yad attack himself?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he first wanted to learn if I’d grown as strong as I had said I would. I had guessed he would try to track me back to my base, so he could carefully devise a foolproof attack at his leisure.”

  “You mean, make sure he had enough concrete to trap you in?”

  “Yeah, that sort of thing. But having his men attack when they did was the last thing I would have ever predicted.” He blew out a long breath. “Which is one of the reasons I decided to bring Eben in. I’ve proven I can make mistakes.”

  A pained expression came over Craft’s face. “And now you’re involved,” he said softly. “I may be invulnerable. But you’re not.”

  Adam Turco pulled open the door to the Acura and seated himself.

  Alyssa glanced meaningfully at Craft. “Before we go,” she said to Turco. “I just realized I’m thirsty. I’m going to grab a bottle of water inside.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Craft on cue.

  Turco raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.

  Once inside the small gas station mini-mart, Alyssa stood by Craft near a wall of refrigerated beverages, but made no move to take one.

  “So you brought in one of the wealthiest, most famous men in the world,” continued Alyssa. “And you had him hire mercenaries to watch our backs. And again, you decided this wasn’t something I needed to know?”

  “I was going to tell you. There was no avoiding it. But I had already drowned you with information. How much could I throw at you in one day? I thought I’d make sure we weren’t being followed, and then tell you about Eben at the hotel while we were waiting to go to your lab.”

  Alyssa considered. This did make sense. They would need to wait until late at night, so he would have had plenty of time to fill her in as thoroughly as he wanted.

  She removed a bottle of water for herself from the row of refrigeration units and handed another one to Craft, but didn’t yet make her way to the register a short distance away.

  “And you think you can trust Eben Martin with this? People with that kind of money and power always want more. And you’re offering infinite power. It’s the most potent secret—literally—in history. I don’t care if he’s your friend. You just offered the world’s most irresistible bourbon to an alcoholic. He’s not going to want to just sit on this like you are.”

  “He will,” said Craft. “I promise. The Eben Martin I know is generous and compassionate to a fault. Some men rise to the top because they’re ruthless psychopaths. Eben did it—with my software help—because of his talents. He is a very good man. The best I’ve ever met.”

  Craft paused. “Even so, I did share your concerns. I worried about how his success might have changed him. So I hacked into his computer. Read his private files. His private e-mails. Everything. At the risk of being inelegant, I spent a few days shoving a microscope up his rear. And he checked out. Same old Eben. As good a man as he always was.”

  While Craft paid for their waters, Alyssa decided she still wasn’t certain how she felt about his decision to include Martin. But it didn’t matter. She had no choice. It was done. And besides, she’d be in the hands of Tariq Bahar by now if Craft hadn’t made this decision.

  And now that Martin was involved, she would actually be meeting a man who had skyrocketed to the top of the business world and was the darling of the media, replacing Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg before him.

  Eben Martin was larger than life. She never imagined she’d have the chance to meet him some day. Or that when she did, he would only be the second most interesting, and powerful, man she would meet that week.

  37

  Al Yad rose from the polished marble floor and floated briskly to the picture window in his bedroom, looking out over the city far below. He pulled his vision back and surveyed the landscape halfway down the small mountain his compound crested, choosing one of several small boulders off in the distance and causing it to rise into the air.

  He practiced his fine control every day, and it had improved. Yes, a god could destroy the entire world with a blink, reduce it to molten rubble. But a god should also be able to wield lesser force with the skill of a surgeon.

  Al Yad unleashed pure energy at the boulder—almost certainly the same energy that formed his shield—and parts of it disappeared. They didn’t melt. They didn’t redden and then flow off like lava. They simply vanished in the maelstrom of energy—as if hit by a star trek phaser set to kill—their individual atoms torn from each other and dispersed into the ether at incredible speeds.

  The boulder had now been reshaped into two perfect, joined tablets, a miniature version of the ones Moses might have carried down from Mount Sinai.

  Thou shalt obey The Hand of God, thought Al Yad, and these letters burned themselves into the tablet in fine print.

  This was one of many theatrical flourishes he had planned once he had finally nullified the threat posed by Shaitan, and took his rightful place as the ruler of the world, respected and feared as a god by every living person. He liked the idea of being original, but stone tablets containing ten commandments was an image seared into the collective consciousness. Besides, he would do Moses one or two better.

  He would arrive at a stadium in front of a hundred thousand followers, with the few hundred million people he would let live watching on screens. And while rising from the heart of a raging orange bonfire at the center of the stadium, his
white robes remaining immaculate, he would carve tablets from a giant block of granite spinning in the air. He would inscribe his new commandments while the world marveled at his power.

  Although, at that point, the full extent of his power, and his wrath, would be well known by all.

  The sixty inch television screen on the wall behind him came to life and announced that Tariq Bahar was calling in. Al Yad unleashed a force he thought of as a constrictive one, of pure weight and pressure, which might well have been an intensification of gravity, and the distant stone tablet was flattened to the thickness of a sheet of paper, as though a million ton steam roller had driven over it. Finally, he made it disintegrate into nothingness.

  Al Yad faced the screen and accepted the call. Bahar’s face appeared larger than life in front of him.

  “Thank you for taking my call, oh Great One,” he said in Arabic.

  Al Yad waved a hand at him impatiently. “Report,” he said.

  Bahar winced, almost imperceptibly. “Forgive me, Al Yad, but the news is not good.”

  “How so?”

  “I have failed you, Al Yad. The five men I sent to capture Alyssa Aronson did not report in, and I am unable to contact any of them. They are almost certainly all dead.”

  Al Yad noted that Bahar was all but cowering on his screen. But this had not been Bahar’s fault. Al Yad had known this would be a long shot with Craft in the equation. He knew mere men could not defeat the incarnation of Shaitan on Earth, and that taking his demon mistress from him would require considerable fortune.

  He could have reassured Bahar, but decided to let him roast further. “What was the strategy they used?”

  “They planned an ambush on a backwoods road, oh Great One. With ample cover on either side. They planned to feign an attack on Craft’s side, driving Aronson to take cover on the other side, where they would also be waiting. They understood the need to stay out of Craft’s line of sight. The plan was sound. I have no idea what went wrong.”

  Al Yad stroked his chin in thought. “What steps have you taken since?” he said.

  “I’ve activated our closest available man, Great One. In Chicago. He’ll travel to Indiana to inspect the ambush area. But the police will have been there by the time he arrives, so he won’t be able to learn much. I’m having our best computer specialist hack into the local police department so we can get their report.” There was a pause. “I’m also doing everything in my power to find them again.”

  Al Yad glared at him for almost a full minute, letting him twist in the wind against the might, and wrath, that this stare signified. He couldn’t have Bahar getting sloppy. He couldn’t have him thinking failure might be forgiven too quickly, even if he had done nothing wrong.

  “You have served me well, Tariq,” said Al Yad. “This is the only thing that has saved you from this failure.” He paused for dramatic effect. “I trust that you will not fail me again.”

  Bahar shook his head vigorously. “No, Al Yad. Never. Thank you, oh Great One. You are as merciful as you are wise.”

  Al Yad nodded. “The lab this Jewish whore, this Aronson, mentioned during your interrogation,” he said. “You know its location?”

  “Yes, Al Yad. It is protected by advanced electronics and biometric scanners, but they try to pass it off as a harmless offshoot of a local university. They have made no effort to hide its location.”

  “Good. I want you to get a man to its vicinity, and have him surveil the lab after hours. If he sees either Craft or Aronson, you are to call in a team to tail them as before. But no further attacks this time. Until I say otherwise.”

  “I will set this up immediately, oh Great One.”

  “See that you do,” snapped Al Yad.

  38

  Alyssa Aronson and Brennan Craft were now in possession of new sets of identification. They had thanked Adam Turco for everything he had done, and now found themselves in a limousine approaching the gated entrance to an isolated airfield at the Cincinnati Airport. This was part of the airport that precious few people even knew existed, but one that executives, the rich, movie stars, and dignitaries flew into and out of on a daily basis.

  It was only a little past eight at night, but Alyssa was so exhausted that she barely managed to keep her head up as the guard checked their identification and waved them through. Their forged IDs had been as effective as advertised.

  They were dropped off in front of an all white plane, the Boeing Business Jet 2, which they had been told was a customized 737, now the private property of Eben Martin. It had set him back eighty million dollars, but this represented a smaller proportion of his net worth than the average person spent on the family car.

  Many millions of this total had been poured into the jet’s elongated, thousand square foot interior, which was magnificent. It contained furnishings and art that would be at home in the finest luxury apartment, configured with two bedrooms, each with a private shower, a boardroom, a wet bar, and an executive suite. Leather chairs and couches—with hidden seat belts for takeoffs, landings, and rare bouts of turbulence—lacquered cabinetry, cherywood tables, elegant carpeting, and high end electronics and television screens were everywhere. The scent of garlic and pasta wafted through the jet, probably from a recent dinner prepared by the onboard chef that Martin had hired.

  The two visitors were escorted to the boardroom and left alone to gawk at the brilliance of the design and furnishings of this flying apartment. They were doing so when Eben Martin stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

  “Bren!” said the billionaire excitedly upon seeing them.

  The two men embraced in a warm hug a grizzly would envy.

  “Welcome aboard,” said Martin. “I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed you until just this second.”

  “It’s great to see you, too, Eb!” said Craft. “I didn’t know you’d be on the plane.”

  “I wanted to surprise you.”

  Martin turned to Alyssa and extended a hand. “And you must be Alyssa Aronson. To say Bren thinks the world of you is an understatement.”

  “I told Eben you were above average in every way,” interjected Craft with a twinkle in his eye.

  Alyssa shook Martin’s hand. “Nice plane,” she said. “And thanks so much for your help.”

  In another lifetime, meeting Eben Martin inside a fantasy jet would have been intimidating. But after everything else that had happened recently, it didn’t faze her at all.

  “I’m just glad it worked out,” said Martin. “You should both know that I’ve cleared my schedule for a week, and told my staff I was taking an impromptu vacation. The people on this plane will know nothing about you, and only know you by your aliases. We’ll be landing in Florida, and then we’ll take a helicopter to an island I own, where we can hole up. No one knows I own it, and I told my office I would be out of reach at an unspecified location. I told them I felt the need to get out of the limelight for a while.” He sighed and shot Alyssa an apologetic look. “I know this is all a bit showy. Sorry about that.”

  “I’m not,” said Alyssa. She waved her hand to encompass the small but lavishly appointed room. “It’s going to be hard to go back to a middle seat in coach after this,” she added with a smile. “And I’ve never known anyone with their own island.”

  “There are over a hundred and fifty thousand islands in the world,” said Martin. “So it’s really not that impressive. You can buy one for under a million dollars.”

  “You can,” said Alyssa in amusement. “But why do I get the feeling you didn’t? Not that this is a bad thing,” she hastened to add. “I mean, who wants to stay on a starter island?”

  Martin laughed out loud. “I can see why Bren likes you so much,” he said. “But there’s a reason I told you I’ll be joining you for a week. So you’ll know we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.” He gestured toward the door. “But right now, we’re kicking you out. You need to recuperate.”

  “I made sure Eben
was aware of what you’ve been through,” said Craft. “I didn’t expect him to be on the plane, but I did make sure he put a doctor onboard.”

  Alyssa had a sudden urge to throw her arms around Brennan Craft and kiss him as passionately as they had done outside a cornfield in Indiana—a scene they had managed to repeat several times since then whenever they could get some privacy—but she restrained herself in Eben Martin’s presence.

  “So I’ll take you to your room,” said Martin. “After you shower and dress—Bren texted your size, and I’ve taken the liberty of providing an assortment of clothing for you to choose from—I’ll send in the doctor. He’ll check your vitals and fluids, give you any meds you need, and then leave you alone to get a good night’s sleep.”

  Alyssa smiled wearily. “Sounds like heaven,” she admitted. “But isn’t Florida only an hour or two flight from here?”

  “It is,” replied Martin. “But once we arrive in Florida, we’ll stay parked at the airport overnight so you can get a solid block of sleep. Given what you’ve been through the past day or so, it’s a wonder you’re still standing.”

  39

  Eben Martin deposited Alyssa in her room and he and Craft took up in the main cabin, which was the jet’s living-room equivalent. Martin left instructions that they were not to be disturbed, and then made himself a Tom Collins at the bar, fishing a lemon slice from several that had been pre-cut with a pair of small, gold tongs, and adding it to the glass.

  Craft poured himself a Diet Coke and took a seat in a wide leather captain’s chair that was so cushioned and comfortable, he seemed to melt into it.

  Martin was surprised his friend looked so great after everything he had been through recently, and wondered if the ability to turn one’s mind into a quantum lens had the effect of helping one stay . . . energized.

  The billionaire took a sip of what looked like lemonade and sat on a beige leather couch across from Craft.