Singularity

by Bill DeSmedt

  “Is that going to be an issue?”

  “The added drag’ll slow us down some, not a whole lot. We can still make pretty good time, maybe five hundred miles per hour. Question is, where are we going?”

  “Well, the original plan was to fly back to D.C. In this very plane in fact. I guess we could still do that. But are you sure you’re okay flying this thing? I mean, I heard what you said before about not being trained on jets. Wouldn’t we be better off circling around and landing at JFK? We could both go back to being just passengers.” Preferably on a train.

  “Not an option. It’s a war zone down there right now. Tower’s reporting unknown numbers of perps still on the loose, burning hunks of Airbus all over the apron, pitched battles in International Arrivals. Security’s called a lockdown; ATC’s diverting all inbound flights to Newark and La Guardia. No way they’re going to assign us a runway anytime soon.”

  “Well, what about Newark or La Guardia?”

  She shook her head. “Even if we got down okay, we couldn’t be sure whose people would show up first—ours or theirs.”

  “So, it’s straight through to Dulles?”

  “That’s our current heading. But there’s a problem there, too, Jon. We can’t count on CROM extending much of a protective envelope tonight. There’s only a skeleton crew on duty, and if Grishin’s arranging another reception for us . . .” She trailed off.

  “Skeleton crew? Where is everybody?”

  After a long pause she said, “They’re out of area, on assignment.”

  Knox waited, but it was plain she wasn’t going to say any more.

  “So landing at Dulles could be hazardous to our health?”

  “I could always try setting her down on Route 50. Hardly any traffic this time of night. We could taxi right up to the front door.”

  He shot her a sharp look. She was kidding, right?

  “Maybe we’re looking at this destination thing all wrong,” he said after a moment. “The real question is why Grishin’s trying to kill us in the first place.”

  She shrugged. “Keep us from telling what we know.”

  “And here’s my problem with that: it’s been a good twenty-four hours since we left Rusalka. Who’d believe we hadn’t found a way to report in before now? Grishin’s no fool.”

  “If he’s not trying to silence us, what then? Revenge?”

  “I don’t think so. Old Arkady Grigoriyevich didn’t strike me as the type. Swat you like a fly if you got in his way, but nothing personal in it. Anyway, no vendetta could justify the cost of the operation they mounted back there—or the hell it’s going to raise. No, I don’t think Grishin’s out to get us because of anything we’ve done.”

  Knox shifted to look out the side window. Though the last rays of sunset still burnished the Learjet’s wings, the suburban New Jersey landscape sliding by beneath them had already fallen deep within the Earth’s shadow. Houselights and streetlamps were coming on. But he wasn’t watching them, he was watching an answer take shape. If not because of anything they’d done, then perhaps because of something they might still do.

  He turned back to her. “The only way that industrial-strength reception makes sense is if Grishin thinks we’re still in a position to stop him.”

  “But we don’t even know what he’s up to.”

  “Somehow the key must be in us making it back to CROM headquarters. That’s what Grishin’s trying to prevent, anyway. So what’s there? What’s Chantilly got that we don’t?”

  She shrugged again. “Very little that we can’t access from out here in the field, one way or another. Really good comm security, of course, the best. Oh, and a world-class Russian-area research library, in case you had it in mind to finish your doctoral dissertation.”

  A research library? To do what—follow up on that stray thought he’d had back on the transatlantic flight? Well, if world-class research was the key, they didn’t need CROM for it. On the contrary.

  “Can we make it as far as North Carolina? Out to the west of the state, I mean, toward the Blue Ridge?”

  Marianna glanced at the fuel gauge and nodded.

  “And can I send an email from here? Encrypted?”

  “There’s a built-in console back in the main cabin,” she motioned with one shoulder. “Just be sure and put on one of the passenger oxygen masks. Why, what’ve you got, Jon?”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but how’s CROM’s consulting budget holding up?”

  “Based on performance to date, I’d say you’ve pretty much got carte-blanche. Why?”

  “We’re going to need it,” he said. “Marianna, I think it’s time you met Mycroft.”

  29 | Discovery

  ARKADY GRISHIN WATCHED the timestamp floating in the Residence’s datawall roll over to 2:30:00 A.M. local and move on. He heaved a great sigh. The flickering digits, the sole light source in the room, continued counting down the hours and minutes toward total disaster. In their pallid glow the portrait of General Secretary Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov over on the far wall regarded his protege mournfully, reproachfully.

  What good, Andropov seemed to be asking, was foresight without follow-through?

  Grishin tightened a fist and slammed it down on the desktop; the bang echoed like a pistol shot in the hushed chamber. Foresight without follow-through: the latest timeprobe had told him exactly when and where to intercept the two CROM agents. Perfect information, flawed execution.

  Meanwhile, his agents in Washington were reporting no contact with the targets. And that was not the most disturbing thing they were reporting.

  The CROM headquarters building in Chantilly was staffed twenty-four/seven. Usually. Tonight it loomed over Route 50 an all but deserted derelict, two-thirds of its offices dark, an equal proportion of empty spaces in its parking lot.

  Grishin prided himself on being a realist; still, he shrank from pondering the implications of that development.

  He cursed himself for not having sent Yuri to tend to matters personally. Even with one arm in a cast, he would have gotten the job done. Especially with one arm in a cast, seeing who put it there. But no, the timing was all wrong; there was no way the Georgian mercenary could have arrived in New York in advance of the Air France flight. Time, again, devil take it!

  “If only, if only—” He barked a bitter laugh. “If only mushrooms grew in your mouth, it wouldn’t be a mouth, but a whole garden.” The old nonsense rhyme reminded him just how nonsensically he was behaving. Such speculation on alternative outcomes was pointless. At least in the present case.

  He returned to the problem at hand. His two fugitives should have been easy to intercept on the approach to Dulles. A plane in a landing pattern has few options, and his people had all the approaches covered. Stingers, too, this time, not those antiquated SA-7S.

  He sighed. All to no avail; the quarry was already an hour overdue at Dulles. Wherever they were bound, it evidently wasn’t back to CROM headquarters. Starting from their last known heading, the Learjet’s fifteen-hundred-mile flying range described a cone encompassing most of the southeastern United States. They could be anywhere within that volume.

  Where could they be going?

  So close, he had been so close.

  Grishin cradled his head in his arms, in a despondency so deep that he almost failed to notice his wristtop was chiming.

  Mid-morning sun filtered through the stand of birch beyond the fretted triple windows and into the upstairs den where Jack Adler sat hunched over a keyboard, putting the finishing touches on his paper. A bar of vibrant green-gold sunlight had been creeping down along the tapestry-hung wall since he’d begun work at daybreak, until now it rested on his right shoulder. The warmth felt good, especially on muscles still aching from his encounter with the wolf. Jack made a final edit, then leaned back in his chair and stretched.

  One more read-through and his findings should be ready to post to the arXiv.org online physics site. Easy enough to do from here: among its other amenit
ies, the dacha had its own fiber-optic link to the Tomsk University Internet node. Nineteenth-century charm side by side with twenty-first century gear, as though the lamentable Russian twentieth century had never happened at all.

  Medvedev had been far too modest in calling this place a dacha. It was a former tsarist hunting lodge, a veritable hobbit-house embellished with the fanciful towers and ornate wooden friezes typical of the pre-revolutionary homes still scattered here and there throughout the Tomsk region.

  Officially, the lodge was a national landmark administered by the university. Unofficially, Medvedev had the use of it as a personal retreat. Nothing was too good for the esteemed Academician.

  Who was even now tramping up the stairs, his good hand clutching two steaming glasses of amber liquid in chased silver holders. “Tea, Dzhek!” Medvedev boomed. “To keep you on the road to recovery.”

  “Thanks, Dmitri.” Jack accepted a glass. “Actually, I feel pretty recovered already.” He did, too, despite the occasional throb at the base of his skull and the twinges from his right arm if he moved it too suddenly.

  It felt good just to be back at work again. He’d lost most of a day and a half, drowsing in the peaceful, shuttered dark of the lodge’s guest bedroom following his release from the hospital. But today he’d risen with the dawn chorus. The melodic birdsong wafting in through the open bedroom window had reminded him how good it was to be alive . . . and had reawakened his sense of purpose. Maybe there wasn’t anything he could do to stop his mysterious adversaries, but dammit he was going to try!

  What had that old shaman said about confronting the Wolf with knowledge, not might? Well, here was the means. He glanced over at the last few paragraphs of the electronic submission glowing on the display.

  “Do I interrupt your work, Dzhek?” Medvedev asked, settling into an overstuffed armchair.

  “No, no, I was just finishing up, in fact.” Jack took a sip of the tea. It was hot and sweet, and had a hell of a kick to it. He raised an eyebrow at Medvedev.

  “There was no sugar,” the Russian said with a grin. “Until I can go into town for provisions, it is necessary to sweeten the tea with rum.”

  “Breakfast of champions.” Jack grinned back, and took another swig. “Gives shy people the strength to get up and do what needs to be done.”

  Medvedev doubtless didn’t recognize the Prairie Home Companion tagline, but it elicited a chuckle nonetheless. “And just what is it, if I may ask, that needs to be done? And in such urgency that you must monopolize the Tomsk astrophysics department’s computer, rather than wait until you are back at your desk in Teksas?”

  “Had to write up my findings from the expedition,” Jack said, adding, “Actually, I wanted to ask you about that: is it okay if I post to the physics archive from your email account? I’ve made it clear in the abstract and the body that you and the University aren’t involved in any way.”

  “Neither involved, nor convinced this is wise, Dzhek.” The chair creaked as the big man shrugged. “You are, of course, free to do as you will, but I fear you are making a mistake—one that could have disastrous consequences for you.”

  Jack swung around to face Medvedev, squinting into the sunlight. “I’ve been as careful as I could. I couched the whole thing in language only another astrophysicist could love. No one outside the field will pick up on it till it’s way too late.”

  “Dzhek, I must confess I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about.”

  Medvedev’s previous remark had resonated so well with his own forebodings of a shadowy conspiracy that Jack forgot he hadn’t broached that topic yet. For good reason.

  “Well, uh, that is . . .” he backpedaled. “What did you mean by dangerous consequences, then?”

  “Not dangerous, Dzhek—disastrous. Professionally disastrous. You are talking about publishing unsubstantiated opinion as though it were fact. And that to the international physics community.”

  Jack’s sigh set dust motes dancing in the sunbeam that now fell across his chest. Medvedev was right. “Archive” was a misnomer. In actuality, arXiv.org was a physics hotline. Between its new-arrivals listing and the associated email-alert service, every astrophysicist in the Western world would be reading the abstract of Jack’s paper with their second cup of coffee.

  But that was exactly the point.

  “I appreciate your concern, Dmitri, but this is something I’ve got to do.”

  “But why, Dzhek? Why in such haste? If your micro-hole is real, it will still be there next year.”

  “flit’s real? We went all over this last night. My discovery—”

  “I know, Dzhek, I know. You saw what you saw. But I did not, nor did anyone else. You must face facts: with no hard evidence, with your equipment and records destroyed, you have no discovery. What you do have is no different, scientifically speaking, from a UFO sighting.”

  Ouch! A week ago it’d been Jack lumping Medvedev in with the flying-saucer fanatics. If the Russian was conscious of the irony, it didn’t show in his face.

  “But you believe me, don’t you, Dmitri?”

  “I believe you to be a man of integrity, a serious scientist. Few have dared confront me as you have done.” A small smile played for a moment about the bearded lips. “But, as a scientist, you must know that it matters not what I believe, only what I can prove.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you: the proof is out there, waiting for us!”

  “And, as I have been trying to tell you, there is always tomorrow. Speaking for myself and my colleagues, we would welcome your participation in next year’s Tunguska Expedition.”

  We may not have until next year! But Jack couldn’t say that—coming on top of his wolf-man “delusion,” running off at the mouth about shadow conspiracies was sure to land him back in Ward Seven. For his own good, of course.

  Instead, with as much calm as he could muster, he said, “I appreciate your invitation very much, Dmitri, but I’ve got to get back there now. Summer’s almost over. When does the snow start to fall in Tunguska, anyway?”

  Medvedev thought a moment. “First or second week of September, at the latest.”

  “You see? I’ve got to start right now, or there’s going to be zero chance of a return expedition before spring. I’ve got to start building support in the astrophysics community, pulling together equipment and funding. And all of that means publishing my results.” He wrenched his chair around till he was facing the keyboard again.

  “Dzhek,” Medvedev was rising even as Jack’s fingers flew over the keys. “I beg you to reconsider, to entertain the possibility that you might be wro—”

  “Too late,” Jack declared, and clicked the Send button that would dispatch his paper to arXiv.org, and the world.

  Grishin regarded the newly-arrived cylinder where it lay on his otherwise bare desktop, sparkling in the light from the single overhead spot. This one was the least distorted yet, its inscription legible almost without straining—a sign they must be close, very close. Five words this time, one of the longer messages. It varied between three and five. Seven once, but those were all short words. One thing didn’t change. Regardless of the length of the message, it had about it an air of the cryptic, of the confounding convolutions of prescience.

  The first three message-units were clear enough: a word, Weathertop, followed by latitude and longitude for a location in the northwestern corner of North Carolina. So far, so good: not only the name of the fugitives’ destination, but precise coordinates for finding it. It was the last two words that had Grishin puzzled: Return Them.

  No matter—that’s what Sasha was for. The telltales from the younger man’s badge were already tracking his progress along the main corridor of accommodations deck in the direction of the Residence. His agonizingly slow progress: Sasha was taking his time, giving himself a chance to come fully awake before he got here. It was three in the morning, after all.

  Sasha wasn’t alone. No one would be getting much
sleep tonight. The whole vessel was stirring to life as the strikeforce assembled for departure still within the hour. Grishin himself should be up on the bridge by now, supervising the operation.

  One thing to do first, though.

  The steel portal slid back soundlessly and admitted Sasha. He stood a moment framed in the doorway, peering into the gloom, hands hanging at his sides. “Good evening again, Arkasha. Or perhaps I should say ‘Good morning.’ Is something happening?” Then his gaze fell upon the desktop. “Another probe?”

  “Sit down, Sasha. I have something to tell you.”

  Disbelief alternated with consternation on Sasha’s guileless face as Grishin sketched out the duplicity of his “friends.”

  “So, Yuri’s presence onboard the helicopter was intended—”

  “Yes, an attempt to dispose of the problem once and for all time. It failed.”

  “But, but why was I not informed?”

  “I told you plainly enough the evening of their departure. It was you who refused to hear. I saw no reason to involve you further. It could only prove a distraction, just when you most needed to focus on your tasks.”

  “In that case, why are you telling me now?”

  Grishin sighed. “Things are evolving rapidly, Sasha. We can afford no more mistakes. I thought it best to consult with you as to the meaning of this latest message before giving the final go-ahead.”

  Sasha reached out and plucked the cylinder off the desk. He sat peering at it, twirling it in his hands. “Well,” he said finally, “map coordinates, of course. Where Dzhon and Marianna might be found? And instructions to bring them back here. Yes, that all seems to fit.”

  He laid the probe back in the center of the table. “Arkasha, with your permission, I should like to accompany the strikeforce.”

  Grishin looked up in surprise. “You, Sasha?”

  “Yes, of course, me. Coordinates can err. It might become necessary to ask the local inhabitants for directions to this Weathertop. Who did you imagine would do that? Yuri?”

  Grishin chuckled at the mental image of Geladze trying to understand, or make himself understood by, the hillfolk of rural North Carolina. Perhaps he could explain that he was from neighboring Georgia?