The Kafir Project

by Lee Burvine

  As luck would have it, there were no interviews or TV appearances scheduled for the next several days. Rees had a deadline for a Scientific American article coming up at the end of the week, but he'd finished the first two drafts. It only needed a polish. He could get to it later.

  For the moment, Rees could do what he wanted. And he wanted to find some goddamn answers.

  If he went public now with what he'd seen and nothing to back it up, it would only damage his reputation. Maybe he would be safe confiding it all to a close friend, but for the small matter of his not really having any. Warm acquaintances both professional and personal, sure. Closer than that and the risk/reward ratio just didn't work. Not for him.

  People ultimately disappoint. He'd learned that long ago.

  So, no phone calls. No statements to the press.

  For better or for worse, you're in this thing alone.

  The bath water had gone tepid. Rees climbed out of the tub, toweled dry, and wrapped himself up in one of the hotel's luxurious, terrycloth robes. Thinking next, as he always did, that there was no good reason to wear anything but one of these things. Ever.

  He carried a dry, white towel with him out of the bathroom and spread it out across the hotel room's mahogany writing desk. Then he removed Fischer's wet leather pouch from the clear plastic bag in which the hospital had returned it to him.

  The police and hospital staff had just assumed the pouch belonged to Rees. At first he thought the bag's contents might connect it to Fischer, and support his story. Then he realized he couldn't establish a timeline to prove he hadn't just possessed the pouch since before Fischer was supposedly blown up.

  So, on the chance that something in there might throw some light on all of this, he decided not to inform the police of their mistake. He kept the pouch and its contents for himself.

  Rees carefully removed those contents again, one item at a time, and laid them out on the towel.

  "All right, let's take another look at all this stuff."

  Green, spiral notebook thoroughly waterlogged. He set that aside.

  Bus schedule from Greyhound. That didn't look very promising.

  Next, he gently pulled out several soggy, loose sheets of paper, covered in mathematical expressions and the occasional brief note. Most of them were badly smeared.

  One loose sheet stood apart, inasmuch as it had not been authored by Fischer-a printout of a published paper on DNA synthesis. Something about the author byline drew Rees's attention. Upon closer inspection, he didn't recognize any of the scientists listed there. He moved on.

  Toothbrush. Cheap reading glasses, and...

  "Hey, hey, hey. Where'd you come from?"

  Something there at the bottom of the pouch he hadn't noticed back in the ER. A black, plastic flash drive.

  Unsurprisingly, the drive was as wet as the rest of the pouch's contents. It might be waterproof, many were these days, but if not, borrowing a laptop and plugging the flash drive in with any moisture present would fry it.

  He set the drive on the towel to dry out thoroughly. Then he returned to the green notebook. Fischer had written #127 on the cover. Perhaps this was part of a series?

  Rees opened it. As with the loose sheets the ink here had smeared, though not quite as badly. Large portions were perfectly legible.

  The entries were dated. Turning to the very last page showed the notes there had been made about five years ago. Why had Fischer been carrying around this particular old notebook?

  The notebook's contents looked familiar to Rees, as they would to any astrophysicist with the requisite mathematical training.

  The first section contained explorations of the Einstein Field Equations for General Relativity. These ideas alternated back and forth with novel formulations of the Dirac and Yang-Mills equations, which suggested thinking more along Quantum Mechanical lines.

  "What are you up to here, Dr. Fischer?"

  Further along, Rees found formulae representing higher dimensional structures called D-Branes. Some form of String Theory there. An angry hand had viciously crossed out several pages of those expressions, rewritten them somewhat differently, and crossed them all out again.

  "Well, that didn't quite work for you, did it?"

  The ideas in the notebook seemed at war with each other. And no surprise there, really. Relativity was in a sense at war with Quantum Mechanics. Or if not war, then at least hostile estrangement.

  Relativity described gravity and the universe on a vast, cosmic scale. Quantum Mechanics operated mainly at the sub-atomic level and described the other three fundamental forces. Each theory required the other for completeness, but no one had succeeded in marrying them together into a workable theory of Quantum Gravity.

  Rees turned another page and stared at it for a full minute in wonder.

  "What in the world?"

  Something bizarre and elegant, to be sure. Still mathematical expressions of some kind here, but the symbols and diagrams were entirely unknown to him.

  Fischer had written out something like a key at the bottom of the page and on the next few pages, along with a note.

  not workable, nothing for it but the Newtonian approach

  "The Newtonian approach? Calculus? This thing is already filled with calculus."

  Rees flipped forward through the notebook. The strange notations decorated the pages like some kind of fantastic alien artwork. He could sense something here of enormous power and beauty, and the effects of it were almost hypnotic. He felt his mind relaxing open.

  And as he flipped back to the pages containing Fischer's key, it came to him.

  Nothing for it but Newton's approach.

  "Jesus. He's invented a whole new mathematical discipline."

  When Newton developed his laws of motion and optics, the mathematics available to him at the time were inadequate to the task. So he simply invented the calculus. Apparently Fischer had done the same sort of thing here.

  Rees studied Fischer's key, applying it to the complex expressions that filled the rest of the notebook. He flipped back and forth, slowly but steadily teasing out the ideas expressed in this glorious new language that he was reading.

  And as he did, Fischer's math completely transported him. He no longer sat in a hotel room in San Francisco. He was soaring above a landscape of pure idea.

  This was the world Rees had longed to live in since his teens, a world beyond human cares and woes. An eternal place, shining and true, that revealed itself only to the pure of mind. This was the very reason he had turned to science as his passion. To live and work here, among the forces that shaped the universe and ignited the stars.

  * * *

  SABEL PARKED THE van at the bottom of Nob Hill and walked up Mason Street toward the Mark Hopkins. The wet, black asphalt shone like volcanic glass, reflecting the rubies and diamonds of car taillights and headlights as they passed.

  Finding this target had been a routine matter. Gevin Rees left a local address with San Francisco General as part of their standard patient processing protocol. The government ID Sabel had flashed at hospital staff gained him easy access to their records.

  Through his shoes, Sabel felt the faint vibration of the twisted steel cable whirring beneath the street. The power that drove the city's cable cars flowed underground, out of sight.

  Where all real power dwelled.

  A tingle arose deep inside him. A city at night, even cold and damp like this, always excited Sabel. Darkness invited those who didn't fear it. And fear was another emotion that Sabel only knew from witnessing it.

  But he had done that many, many times.

  CHAPTER 5

  A SOUND INTRUDED into Rees's awareness. Rhythmic. Thumping. Someone knocking on the hotel room door.

  Rees realized that the knocking had actually repeated several times already. So deeply had Fischer's notebook engrossed him, that his mind hadn't fully processed the interruption. Even now he resisted breaking o
ff from the mathematical high wire act before him. Especially since he had just begun to see that this was more than pure theory.

  It had a purpose.

  The knocking persisted.

  Rees sighed and rose from the desk. He checked that he'd properly closed and tied his bathrobe and walked over to the door.

  Probably hotel staff bringing up the socks and underwear he requested. He'd felt like some spoiled aristocrat asking the concierge's assistance with something like that. But then, high-end hotels were always happy to pamper their guests. Particularly quasi-famous guests like Rees. And it certainly couldn't be the oddest request the concierge had ever fielded.

  He started to undo the security chain, then flashed back on the events of the day, and paused to take a look through the peephole.

  It was not hotel staff. Hotel staff would not be holding up a piece of government ID with a badge on it.

  A thrill of optimism shot through him. The authorities wouldn't bother with a personal, nighttime visit unless they'd found something of real consequence. Perhaps another witness to the shooting had come forward.

  He un-slotted the chain, turned the bolt, and opened the door.

  "Gevin Rees?" the woman standing there asked.

  "Yes. Are you with the police department?"

  "No, sir. I'm with the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. We're a federal agency. May I come in?"

  Rees felt awkward inviting an attractive woman into his hotel room while dressed in nothing but a bathrobe. He considered asking her to wait. That seemed like a foolish bit of old fashioned modesty, though. Particularly with a law officer. So, he stepped aside and let her in, then closed the door after her.

  They faced each other there in the suite's foyer. She stood about Rees's height, five feet eleven. A little tall for a woman. Late twenties, he would guess.

  "I'm Special Agent Kerry Morgan," she said. "I understand you witnessed a shooting this afternoon on Fisherman's Wharf, Mr. Rees."

  "Yes, I did." It was Dr. Rees, technically, but he never made that correction and always flinched a little inside when another academic did.

  Agent Morgan pulled out a notebook and pen. She had a hard look about her. Short cropped dark brown hair. And an athletic build, at least from what Rees could see. Somehow it all added to her visual appeal. "I apologize in advance for asking a lot of the same questions you probably already answered for the San Francisco Police Department, but DCIS has to conduct its investigation independently."

  Rees nodded. "Sure. That's not a problem. But I'd like to know ... you understand who was shot out there today, along with those two tourists? Who it is that I saw?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Edward Fischer."

  "Yes."

  Rees paused, then said very clearly, "Dr. Edward Fischer. The man who was blown up at Fermilab yesterday."

  "Yes, sir. I understand."

  She kept her expression blank, but the words were enough for him. Rees let out a long, slow breath, and felt some of his tension going out with it. Finally someone here believed him. What followed immediately on the heels of that was a question.

  Why should she?

  He could think of only one reason.

  He invited Agent Morgan into the dining area. He offered her some bottled water. She declined. Rees noted her clothes as they stepped over to the table. Khaki pants and a dark winter coat that didn't look departmental.

  When they were both seated Rees said, "Agent Morgan, before we begin, you knew that Edward Fischer wasn't killed in that explosion at Fermilab. You must have, or you wouldn't be here talking to me."

  Morgan took a moment, and Rees got the impression she was weighing how much she needed or wanted to reveal to him.

  "Not immediately," she said. "But Fischer called me last night."

  "He called you too? So you knew him."

  "He was involved in a project for the DOD and we met once, about a year ago. Last night he provided information that verified his identity. He asked me to meet him here in San Francisco today. Out by Pier 35."

  Rees just stared, utterly confused now. "Wait, you were supposed to be there today?"

  "I was late. I booked a commercial flight from D.C. that was delayed. When I got to Pier 35, SFPD was already there responding to a report of a shooting. Your report."

  Something Fischer said came rushing back to Rees. "You're the muscle."

  "What?"

  "Fischer mentioned you. Not specifically, but he was talking about you. It had to be. The muscle."

  "I've been called worse, I guess."

  A hundred questions swirled in Rees's head like autumn leaves in a whirlwind. He mentally snatched one as it flashed by. "You took a commercial flight? The Department of Defense doesn't have transport jets at its disposal?"

  Morgan paused again. "The Department of Defense didn't know that Fischer was still alive. Because I didn't tell them."

  The whirlwind had just turned into a tornado.

  A knock came at the door.

  Rees headed over to it. "That would be the hotel staff. I asked them to pick something up for me."

  When Rees opened the door, a man in a gray business suit stood there in the hallway. He held up an SFPD Detective ID and badge for Rees. Something about him felt vaguely familiar. Light blond hair, almost white. Pale blue eyes.

  "Dr. Rees?" He flipped the ID wallet closed, put it away.

  "Yes, are-"

  With no change of expression, the blond man shot an arm out and grabbed a fistful of the front of Rees's robe. He shoved Rees backwards into the room.

  "Hey!" Rees backpedaled, flailing his arms.

  The man's head snapped to the left as he spotted something. He reached into his jacket with his free hand.

  "Don't." Agent Morgan had a gun out and aimed in their direction.

  The blond man went still. A tense stillness. A predator who sees it's been spotted by its prey, and freezes. Suddenly he jerked Rees toward him and spun him around while backing them both out through the door.

  Out in the hallway, he threw an arm lock around Rees's neck and dragged him backwards down the hall. Rees felt something hard and cold pressed painfully against his right ear.

  Rees stumbled on the hem of his bathrobe.

  "Stay on your feet," the blond man hissed.

  At that moment Agent Morgan's head and one shoulder appeared out of Rees's hotel room door.

  It sounded like a bomb exploded in Rees's ear. Morgan disappeared just as a window shattered at the other end of the hallway.

  His hands flew up in a defensive reflex to the loud noise. He found them wrapped around the other man's hand, and what had to be a gun.

  He knew he didn't have any advantage in physical strength or fighting skills, since he didn't possess either in meaningful amounts. But he knew force vectors and simple machines.

  He pulled down with both arms, then lifted his feet off the floor, as if he were doing a chin-up off the other man's forearm. Let gravity do the work for him.

  Rees's attacker was strong, but not strong enough to hold up a hundred and seventy-five pounds with one bicep. The man's arm gave out. Too late, though, to stop Rees from tugging them both off balance, exactly as he'd hoped.

  Together they crashed into the wall on one side of the hallway.

  Rees slid to the carpeted floor, and flopped face down. Something pointy jabbed him in the ribs. He'd fallen right on top of the gun. It must have been knocked loose.

  The blond man seemed to know where the gun was too. He flattened out on top of Rees and started reaching under him.

  Rees tried to get his hands to the gun first, without lifting himself and giving the other man access to it. The two of them grappled like football players fighting for a fumble down on the grass.

  "Stop! Show me your hands!"

  Rees looked up in the direction of Special Agent Morgan's voice.

  She crab-walked toward them dow
n the hallway, her gun held out in front of her. "Show me your hands! Now!"

  The blond man sat up on his knees, and raised both his hands.

  Where's the gun?" Morgan asked.

  Rees still hadn't moved. "It's under me."

  The blond man began slowly standing up.

  Morgan stepped in closer, her gun still trained at Rees's attacker. "Get back on your knees and lace your hands behind your head."

  "Yeah, all right," the man replied calmly, as he continued to stand.

  "I said on your knees!"

  The blond man sprung like a jack-in-the-box. One moment he stood there in the hallway, the next moment the sound of crashing glass made Rees flinch and close his eyes.

  In his mind, though, he could still see the blond man's black socks and dress shoes as they disappeared out of the hotel's sixteenth story window.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ten months earlier-San Francisco

  IN AN EMPTY lecture hall, in the science department of San Francisco State University, Edward Fischer played the recording for the man who would henceforth be called only Herodotus.

  If he agreed to come along.

  If he didn't, if he decided instead to blow the whistle...

  Fischer comforted himself with one thought. I won't even see the bullet coming.

  Fischer had viewed the video clip and the ceremony in it many times by then, but he was looking forward to this moment. He kept his attention mostly on the other man's full, round face.

  Herodotus watched the images on Fischer's tablet computer with a childlike awe, frequently shaking his balding head. At one point, teary and overcome with emotion, he had to pause the playback.

  When the short clip ended, he sat back in his seat, blinking rapidly. "How can you even play this for me, Edward? Here on this, I mean," he tapped the tablet. "I thought the data sets were impossibly large."