The idea was like a spark that had smoldered within him and suddenly ignited with a breath of air. As he returned to his computer, he was grateful the headache was keeping itself at bay. His fingers flew across the keys as he rewrote a portion of the code. Then he reran the simulation analysis. He wiped his palms on his khakis while he stared at the three open windows on his laptop. One contained the script of the code he’d been writing, the second a graph showing the electrical impulses the Logos would create in a subject’s brain, and the third a series of ones and zeroes—binary code—that was the computer’s translation of his programming.
When the analysis was complete, he studied the results. Was the answer to the past five years of research really that simple? He swiveled his chair and stared at the machine. Now all they had to do was to test it.
He thought back to Liz’s vision. “What do you mean by infinity?” he’d asked her.
“Words are inadequate, trivial,” she’d said. “It’s something that must be experienced.”
“Can you try?”
She’d put a finger to her lips for a moment, shrugged, and said, “God.”
CHAPTER 4
DUBAI
As his daughter played in the white sand on the edge of the blue-green Persian Gulf, Mousa sat on a beach lounge chair by the Royal Mirage Hotel. He rewrapped the Ace bandage around his knee, pulling it tighter and crisscrossing the joint to add stability. He didn’t need an MRI to know that the ligament that normally did that job was ruptured. He tugged his linen pants leg down over the wrap. It fit, barely. He’d picked up an elaborately carved cane in the hotel’s gift shop, much fancier than he needed, but it would allow him to walk well enough until he returned to Amman. He thought about which one of his colleagues would do the surgery to repair his ACL. Too bad I can’t operate on myself, he thought.
Their flight left in four hours, and it was time to head back inside the hotel to clean up, but he decided to give Amira a few more minutes to play. She was chatting to herself as she built a sand castle, miraculously uninjured from the bombing that had killed countless others the previous day.
Alhamdulillah, Mousa mouthed for the hundredth time that day. Praise Allah. The emergency lights above the ski slope had kicked on a few seconds after the main power went out. Mousa had somehow navigated down the slope on his back, maneuvering past the dead and dying in the bloody and blackened snow, frantic to get Amira out before the entire building ignited in flames. When they reached the metal fire door at the bottom of the slope, he put a hand on his daughter’s bony shoulder to steady his balance as he stood. He hopped on his good leg to the door as Amira clung to his waist. The cries of his fellow skiers called to him to do his duty: to help. He was a doctor, after all. But the groaning sound of metal twisting against its will overpowered the voices. And what use would he be if he couldn’t even steady himself?
He and Amira had managed to wobble out onto a side street and into the harsh sunlight. He led her away from the exterior of the mall in case the walls failed. In the time it took to reach the intersection with the main street, police and fire trucks screamed up to the building. He’d paused, breathing deeply and resting his leg. People and smoke poured out the main doors to the mall.
How could this happen? he’d wondered, paralyzed by the shock of the past few minutes. Then an image popped into his head, one that was almost as disturbing as the injured people he’d passed on the ski slope: the other Jordanian he’d seen in the mall, the one with the backpack.
Mousa surveyed the police cars screeching to a halt in the street around them. He had to get Amira far away. The ambulances were arriving, and he rationalized that they wouldn’t need one more doctor, especially one who was lame and accompanied by a child. If he stayed, the police would ask him questions. A quiet voice in his head told him that he had a duty to tell them about the Jordanian, but he also knew how things worked. A louder voice said that it was better not to get involved. He had a greater duty to the little girl beside him.
Now that he sat on the peaceful beach out of danger, his daughter safe and himself with only a burst right eardrum and a bum knee, he felt guilty. Maybe he should have remained and helped. But he’d been afraid. Terrified, if he was honest with himself. More for Amira’s safety than his own, of course, but he’d also heard rumors of where men were taken after a terrorist attack. He shook off a chill even though the sun warmed his skin. Within a few hours they would be back in Amman with his wife and new son.
As he looked up across the flat waters of the Persian Gulf, he noticed how the city looked manufactured, the same thought he’d had the previous day in the mall. The beach was groomed by a crew with rakes every morning and was off limits to the local population. He and Amira were the only Arab-looking people on the beach; only guests at one of the expensive hotels bordering the Gulf were allowed access. Three German tourists strolled ankle-deep in the water. Bellies, pink from overexposure to the sun, extended over their too-small bikinis. Just offshore he saw more high-rise buildings than he could count, thousands of condos recently constructed on a manmade island in the shape of a palm tree.
The display of wealth around him reminded him of the news reports that morning. The story about the bombing played worldwide. The UAE was supposed to be an example of a peaceful, safe Muslim state that had put aside politics and religious fanaticism in the name of capitalism. But that was exactly why terrorists had targeted the city.
An Internet press release from an unknown terrorist group had declared a jihad against any Muslim state or organization that had turned its back on the teachings of the Prophet and had embraced Western capitalism and the lust for material items. The actions of fanatical Muslim terrorists over the past two decades pained him. Their exploitation of his religion—a faith centered on prayer, charity, and justice—in the name of terrorism was a dismaying phenomenon he’d seen develop since his childhood. In the seventies and eighties, when terrorism in the Middle East began to rise, its proponents had been motivated by politics. He recalled hearing Yasser Arafat, founder of the PLO, quip that “fighting wars over religion is like arguing about who has the best imaginary friend.” But the previous day’s bombing was even more troubling: now they were pitting Arab against Arab.
The irony was that Mohammad had been known during his day not just as a Prophet of Allah, but as a great statesman—a ruler who had united the Arab world and brought an economic prosperity that had not been seen before and would last for centuries. Mousa shook his head. The problem in his fellow Arab countries was not rampant religious fanaticism itself; it was poverty, a lack of opportunity for young men, and illiteracy. Discontentment bred anger, and those who couldn’t read and think for themselves were easily led astray. The billions invested in the construction on the fake island before him was one example of the wasted resources of countries that concentrated their vast oil wealth to benefit the few. Simple economics, he thought.
“Baba, come play with me.”
He pushed himself out of his chair and hobbled to her side. “Just for a minute, dear, and then it is time to go home.”
“I miss Ummi.”
He thought of Bashirah’s silky curls, her warm embrace, and the mischievous twinkle in her eye. “I miss your mum too, Princess.”
While he searched the signs for directions to the departure gates, Mousa kept an eye on Amira, who pulled her small pink suitcase behind her. He wished he could take her hand, but he pulled his own suitcase in one and used the other to bear down on his cane.
Dubai International Airport was like the rest of the country: new, shiny, and large. The main terminal was a giant stainless steel and glass tube designed with a nod to an aircraft fuselage. Palm trees grew down two rows the entire length of the tube. Mousa noted that many of the same posh clothing and jewelry stores that were in the Mall of the Emirates had outlets here too. He shuddered at the memory.
When they reached customs, the muscles in his chest tensed. Military men dressed in black and car
rying machine guns paced around the passengers who waited in front of a line of desks at passport control. Mousa had never seen so much security at the airport before. Their taxi had been stopped three hundred meters before the building while a bomb-sniffing German Shepherd circled the car. He looked down at his daughter in order to tear his gaze from the eyes of a security guard who was staring at him.
“Let’s wait in this line, sweetheart.” He stopped behind two American businessmen. While Amira chattered to a stuffed puppy she had pulled from her backpack, he glanced at the backlit advertisements on the wall to the left of the customs agents. He had no reason to feel guilty, but the way the military men studied each passenger was unnerving. The bright ads drew his attention: each was for a different high-end condominium in the city. One declared that anyone who bought a property would be given a free Bentley; another promised that buyers would be entered into a lottery whose grand prizes included a year’s use of a private jet and an island off the coast of Africa.
“Next!”
The customs agent in front of them waved impatiently. Mousa approached the desk, pulled his and Amira’s passports from the inside pocket of his tan blazer, and handed them over. The man was dressed like all the other customs agents, wearing a white robe that reached to his ankles, sandals, and a red-and-white-checkered headdress. The agent was well fed, but not obese, and had a darker complexion than Mousa. He took the passports without smiling. With the practiced movement of countless repetitions, he opened each to the first page and studied the pictures. First, he scrutinized Amira and then swiped the bar code on her passport through the scanner on the computer. Next, the agent opened his and held it up so that he could compare the photograph with Mousa’s face. He never knew what he was supposed to do in that moment: did he smile, look bored, make a small joke?
He stayed quiet and looked passively ahead. The agent studied him for a few seconds longer than he was used to, and the tension began to creep back into his chest again, restricting his breathing. After the trauma of the previous day, he assured himself that his anxiety was natural. He pushed back the twinges of guilt he still felt for leaving the mall without speaking to the police or helping with the injured. His first duty was to his daughter. Allah understood that.
Finally, the man seemed to be satisfied. He swiped the passport through the computer, but he didn’t hand it back to Mousa. Instead, he stared at the monitor, his bushy brow furrowed. Then he keyed in a command and looked up.
“Network slow today. It will just take a moment.” He smiled. Mousa thought the smile seemed forced.
An unmarked white door behind the customs desks opened, and three military officers hurried out. They were dressed similarly to the others patrolling the terminal: black cargo pants, thick-soled black boots, black turtlenecks, and black bulletproof vests. The lead officer had a pistol on his belt; the two behind him carried submachine guns. Following the three men was a woman dressed in a traditional black burqa with a scarf over her hair, but her face was uncovered and she wore a subtle shade of lipstick.
The men split up and strode around the desks. Then they converged on Mousa and Amira. The other travelers waiting in line stepped back. The tightness he’d felt in his chest cinched in like a python trying to squeeze the air from his lungs.
“May I help you?” He tried to keep his voice relaxed.
The lead officer rested a hand on the butt of his pistol and asked, “You are Mousa bin Ibrahim Al-Mohammad?”
“I am Doctor Al-Mohammad.” His voice came out weaker than he wanted, even with the emphasis on Doctor. He had done nothing wrong, but the determined look in the officer’s eyes concerned him. Before Mousa could process what happened next, the officer standing to his left grabbed his arms, jerked them behind his back, and tightened a plastic handcuff tie around his wrists until it dug into his skin. His cane rattled to the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“Come with us, please,” the lead officer said.
“Baba! Don’t leave!”
His heart lurched. He turned his head to see Amira staring at him with terror on her face for the second day in a row.
“My daughter—” He struggled against the men who pushed him forward. “Please, let her come with me.”
“She will be taken care of.” The officer nodded to the woman in the burqa who bent to Amira’s level and put a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Princess,” Mousa tried to sound comforting in spite of the surging fear in his gut. “Just a misunderstanding. This will only take a minute, I’m sure.”
“No!” she pleaded. “Let my Baba go!” The tears streaming down her face tore at him.
He hesitated again but was shoved from behind. His weight fell on his injured knee and he stumbled, but the men on either side of him grabbed his arms and dragged him toward the white door. The first officer opened the door, which led into a narrow hallway. The last sounds he heard before the metal door slammed behind him were his daughter’s screams.
CHAPTER 5
SSS, YALE UNIVERSITY
As the memory of Liz’s mystical vision echoed through his mind, Ethan packed his laptop into his satchel. He was tired, and the dark silence of the building reminded him that once again he’d worked too late.
“Dr. Lightman, explain yourself.”
Ethan jumped in his chair. He swiveled to see Samuel Houston, Chair of Yale’s Human Research Protection Program—the HRPP—standing in the doorway. Houston was in his late fifties, a few years younger than Elijah, wiry thin, and mostly bald with a ring of salt and pepper hair around the crown of his head.
“Explain what?” He tried to keep the tension out of his voice. He didn’t have much contact with Houston, and that was by design. He let Elijah handle the temperamental chair. A former researcher and psych professor himself, Houston was now a full-time administrator whose job was to oversee human experimentation at Yale. When he took his position four years earlier, he had moved from being a peer to being a thorn in the side of his former colleagues.
Houston removed the wire glasses that teetered on the tip of his nose and stabbed them in Ethan’s direction. “I should have terminated your research when your funding dried up a few months ago, but Elijah persuaded me to give you two more time. After what happened yesterday, I’m making an executive decision: your time is up.”
“But the data we collected . . . I just—”
“Your treatment of your patient, Doctor, was out of line.”
My treatment of Liz?
“You’ve let your ambitions for this project cloud your professional judgment.” His voice was larger than his slight frame seemed capable of.
“How dare you question—” Ethan took a breath and fought the urge to lash out at the administrator. In his role as Chair of the HRPP, Houston had the power to close down a lab, to prevent a researcher from receiving funding, and to keep a professor from achieving tenure.
He tried again in a calmer tone. “All of the protocols were followed to the letter. My patient gave the necessary consents to stop her medication. She volunteered to have a seizure so we could conduct the EEG testing.”
He glanced toward the far corner of the room to Chris Sligh’s desk, bare but for a thick file folder. The grad student conducted preliminary patient interviews and obtained the necessary consents before they began any experiments. Ethan knew how paranoid the university was about liability. Since the cutting-edge but controversial experiments conducted there in the 1960s by Stanley Milgram, the administration was especially sensitive to human psychological testing.
In a now infamous study, Milgram had devised an experiment to see how far people would go in deference to authority. His subjects were falsely told that the experiment they volunteered for was about the effects of punishment on recall and learning, through the administration of electrical shocks that the subjects would give when a confederate answered a question incorrectly. Although the experiment showed how powerful authority could be in determin
ing behavior, it also created a firestorm of controversy over the intense stress and anxiety the subjects suffered as they went ahead shocking people against their better judgment.
But that was fifty years ago, Ethan thought. Houston was overly cautious, worried about a past that was no longer relevant.
“My information is that you withheld medication when the seizure spread, putting the patient in danger of injuring herself.”
Judith. He’d worried the nurse might be a problem. Neither she nor Houston understood the true nature of his work.
“If you review the patient’s chart, and you are welcome to watch the video as well, you’ll see the protocols were followed exactly as approved by the institutional review board.” Ethan’s colleagues who had reviewed his proposed experiment and then reported to Houston’s committee had been skeptical that the Logos would ever work, but they had approved the research. “We had to allow the seizure to proceed along its natural course to capture all of the relevant EEG data. Liz agreed to this protocol precisely.”
“I will review everything.” Houston enunciated each syllable. “We aren’t the Yale of Stanley Milgram anymore. My responsibility”—he stretched his body to its most erect posture—“is to shut down any project that doesn’t smell right. It’s not just the university’s reputation that’s on the line; half-a-billion dollars in federal grants is contingent on us upholding the highest ethical standards.” He leaned in close to Ethan. “From the beginning, this nonsense you and Elijah have concocted hasn’t smelled right to me.”
Ethan forced a smile. “My grad assistant, Chris, will email you the files in the morning.”
Houston surveyed the lab, his eyes lingering on the two-foot-square metal box in the center before returning to Ethan. “So, does this machine”—he gestured to the Logos with a dismissive wave of his spectacles—“do anything yet?”
The Jericho Deception: A Novel Page 3