by Ted Bell
“I’m very much in a rush, you see,” he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “In a rush about so many things, rushing about, here, there, everywhere. Which isn’t to say that I don’t have time to talk to you. My goodness, no; I mean, yes, I do. It’s just that—that’s why my office is in such disarray, because I’m so rushed. If you take my point.”
“We very much appreciate your making time for—” Hawke began, before being startled by a large explosion erupting from Congreve. The sun-dappled dust clouds in the room had caused him to sneeze uproariously.
“Sorry about the dust,” Partridge said. “I don’t like the janitors to come sweep for fear they’ll disturb something. Do you care for a stirrup cup at all? Laphroaig. Bit early in the day but . . . but . . .” Congreve sneezed again, something akin to a typhoon.
“God bless,” Hawke said to Ambrose, who was mopping up with his handkerchief. Then, to the professor, “As I was saying, we’re most grateful for your time.”
“Yes, yes, of course, of course. Chief Inspector, Lord Hawke, so good of you to come all this way. I do hope you won’t find it’s been in vain.”
Congreve and Hawke glanced at each other sidewise, neither of them liking the phrase “in vain.”
“So do I, so do I,” Hawke said, shaking the man’s hand. He found it dry and strong, always a good sign.
“Do sit down, won’t you?” Partridge said. “Tea will arrive momentarily unless I’m very much mistaken. Do either of you take sugar?”
His guests declined.
“No?” he said, gazing at them for confirmation.
“Thanks, no,” Congreve said.
Alex and Ambrose took the offered chairs at the professor’s ancient desk. The view of the willows along the river out the tall windows was lovely. Sunshine streamed in, making the dark wood paneled room a very pleasant place to be on a Saturday morning. Congreve had often ruminated about what life might have been had he chosen to remain on at Cambridge, perhaps as a don or Fellow. As charming as the setting was, he couldn’t see himself sitting in the chair across the desk. He’d forever be missing out on all the action. He’d been a copper at heart all his life.
“Well, gentlemen, let me begin by saying how fascinating my colleagues and I here at Magdalene have found the task you set before us. We are odd ducks, you know. We toil away in our laboratories, lost in our tiny realms, oblivious to the outside world and its mysteries. So thank you for providing us with a distraction. And, quite frankly, an enormous challenge.”
“Professor Partridge,” Congreve said, “if I may clarify, what, precisely, is your role here at the college?”
“Of course. I am the university senior lecturer in Machine Learning and advance research fellow and director of studies in Quantum Computing here at the college. Ultimately, your—problem—was kicked along to me. I happened to know the late Dr. Cohen and his work quite well, so I was the logical choice. I did some of my postgraduate quantum computing work in the States, a good part of it at Stanford, as it happens.”
“You worked on the Perseus Project?”
“I did indeed. Only for a brief period, unfortunately. But long enough to have a good working knowledge of what they were after. It was still early days, you see.”
“The Singularity,” Congreve said.
“Precisely. The world’s first ultra-intelligent machine. My particular interests lay in computational modeling of human reasoning. Artificial intelligence, automated reasoning, diagrammatic reasoning, theorem proving, proof planning, cognitive science, machine learning, human-computer interaction, quantum mechanics, and so on. You get the general idea. Perhaps you’ve read my books?”
“Unfortunately not. What are the titles?” Congreve asked, pulling out his notepad and pencil.
“The Fabric of Infinity was the first. Followed by The Fallacy of Reality. Published by Cambridge University Press. Available on Amazon where they languish in well-deserved obscurity. Never seen a nickel in royalties.”
“I would say we’ve come to the right door,” Congreve said, smiling. “Quite impressive. Although I must tell you, sir, that I’m afraid all I know about mathematics is that two plus two equals four.”
Partridge regarded Ambrose above his tented fingers, thought for a bit, and said, “Hmm. I’ve often wondered.”
Hawke laughed at the obvious joke, glanced at Congreve, and could see his friend was uncomfortable, not quite sure whether to laugh or not. But before he could say anything, Partridge looked at Hawke, unsmiling.
“No, I’m quite serious,” he said. “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. If you take my point.”
“Precisely,” Congreve said with a bit of a smirk at his friend. “I was thinking along those very lines myself, Professor.”
“Like you, Chief Inspector, I am merely a detective. And a devotee of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, as are you, I believe, according to Mr. Google.”
“Devotee is putting it mildly,” Congreve said.
“As you know, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never liked detective stories that built their drama by deploying clues over time. Conan Doyle wanted to write stories in which all the ingredients for solving the crime were there from the beginning, and that the drama per se would be in the mental workings of his ideal ratiocinator. The story of quantum computing follows a Holmesian arc, since all the clues for developing a quantum computer have been there essentially since the discovery of quantum mechanics, waiting patiently for the right mind to properly decode them.”
“And that man was Waldo Cohen?”
“It was indeed.”
Hawke said, “Professor Partridge, we would very much appreciate hearing your thoughts on Dr. Cohen and his protégé, Darius.”
“Of course. There are two distinct issues here: the Darius File, as we call it, and Dr. Cohen’s progress, or as much of it as we shall determine by delving further into what we might glean from his workstation. Where would you like to begin?”
“Cohen’s progress,” Hawke said, shifting in his chair. “We know that he was very secretive.”
Partridge laughed. “Oh, you have no idea. There is a level of encryption in his files the likes of which we’ve never seen. We were simply unable to break through here at Cambridge, I’m sorry to say. You’re aware of prime factorization, of course, for centuries the holy grail of mathematics. It’s the basis of much current cryptography. It’s easy to take two large prime numbers and multiply them. But it’s very difficult to take a large number that is the product of two primes and then deduce what the original prime factors are. Prime factorization is an example of a process that is very easy one way, and very difficult the other. Do you follow?”
“Not really,” Ambrose said, covering another incipient sneeze.
“Well. How to put it? It’s very easy to scramble eggs, isn’t it? But nearly impossible to unscramble them.”
“Ah,” Congreve said, nodding vigorously, as if all manner of lights had suddenly popped on in his brain.
“In Dr. Cohen’s cryptography, two large prime numbers were multiplied to create a security key. Unlocking that key would be the equivalent of unscrambling an egg.”
“We’re back to square one, then?” Ambrose asked.
“No, no. I’m saying my colleagues and I here at Magdalene couldn’t crack it. So we had to take it to a higher power. I’m speaking of the new quantum supercomputer at the U.K. Machine Intelligence Research Center in Leeds. It’s the most powerful thing we’ve got at the moment. Classical computers use bits, while quantum computers use qubits, pronounced ‘Q-bits.’ Hold vastly more information than bits. Very difficult rascals to create, mind, very delicate to maintain, but we’re getting there. Can’t give you a precise number. National security.”
“But the quantum computer was able to unsc
ramble Dr. Cohen’s eggs?” Hawke asked with a smile, earning a stern look from Congreve, who seemed to be taking all this mumbo jumbo frightfully seriously.
“Yes, we were successful.”
“And?”
“I can tell you that Cohen was quite right in his desire for secrecy. He had entered vast, uncharted realms in the world of AI. He had, on paper at any rate, come dangerously close to creating a machine capable of achieving the Singularity. And well beyond in other classified areas, to be perfectly honest.”
“Dangerously close?” Congreve said.
“Yes. He stopped short, well shy of the algorithmic finish line. And I’d be less than honest if I said anyone but Cohen was capable of reaching that line.”
Hawke thought a moment and said, “Dr. Partridge, you used the word dangerously. Do you believe Dr. Cohen’s work was, in some way or other, dangerous?”
“I certainly do. No one on earth has any idea what will happen when we actually achieve the Singularity. Superintelligent machines, like the men who create them, will be capable of good. Or evil. But in ways we can’t even begin to imagine. Or control.”
“Runaway technology?” Congreve said.
“Exactly so. Technology that, in the wrong hands, could have a catastrophic effect on the entire world. My greatest fear is a bioengineered disease created by machines that mankind is incapable of stopping. That’s why Project Perseus was shut down. And why Cohen never revealed his progress to a soul—not willingly at least.”
“Meaning what?” Congreve said.
“Meaning the chaps up at Leeds discovered that Dr. Cohen’s computer had been hacked before you got your hands on it. Hacked and gnawed on like a bone.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“Yes. The quantum computer made short work of backtracking and identifying the hacker, you can be sure.”
“Wrong hands or right hands, Professor?” Hawke asked.
“I have no idea,” he said, handing the large manila file that was on his desk to Congreve. “Cohen’s work is now in the hands of the man whose work at Stanford resides inside this folder provided by Cohen’s widow.”
“Darius,” Hawke said.
“Indeed. Darius Saffari. We had quantum run his name. Last known address was Boston when he was a student at MIT. After that he disappears. Nothing out there, I’m afraid.”
“And before Stanford?” Congreve asked.
“Nothing at all. No birth record, prior education, driver’s license, social security, medical records. Odd, isn’t it?”
“It’s not his real name. He entered the United States and enrolled at Stanford using false identification papers,” Congreve said.
“I would advise you gentlemen to find this Saffari as quickly as humanly possible. Because if he has taken Cohen’s work and proceeded toward the Singularity with any success, then he is already without a doubt the most dangerous man on the planet.”
Hawke and Congreve sat back and regarded Partridge, letting his words of warning sink in.
“And why is that?” Hawke finally asked.
“Because he entered America illegally to steal Cohen’s secrets. Because he succeeded. Because he’s erased all traces of his existence. That makes him foe, not friend. A foe who will, or perhaps already does, wield a power that could alter life on this planet. And, believe me, it will not be for the better.”
“A question, if I may?” Ambrose said.
“Certainly.”
“Have you lost a good many AI colleagues in the last year or so?”
“Why, yes, I suppose I have, now that you mention it. Montebello, for instance, was an old and dear friend.”
“An unusually high number, then?”
“Yes, perhaps, I’m not sure, really. The top guys are all getting on, you know. We’re all too old to be boy wonders, believe me. But there have been a number of younger scientists, even students who—Why do you ask?”
“It’s part of an ongoing murder investigation I’m heading up for the Yard. Perhaps you can be of help. Poke about a bit in the AI community, see if you come up with anything that resembles a pattern. If you do, here’s my card.”
“Should I be afraid for my own life, Chief Inspector?”
“I would urge you to be extremely cautious. Keep your eyes open at all times. Do not accept any telephone calls from persons unknown to you. If something sounds even remotely odd, ring off immediately.”
“How extraordinary! I received a crank call just this morning. My secretary took it. Some kind of eerie music, she said.”
Hawke and Congreve looked at each other with knowing glances.
“Professor, you should instruct your secretary to hang up immediately should she receive a call like that in the future. And you should do the same, here at your office or at home. Someone, or something, is using the telephone as a hypnotic murder weapon. Targeting scientists in the field of artificial intelligence. This is the investigation I mentioned earlier.”
“Good Lord.”
“Professor Partridge,” Hawke said, getting to his feet. “You’ve been enormously helpful. On behalf of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and Scotland Yard, Chief Inspector Congreve and I express our deep appreciation for your service to your country. We thank you for your time.”
Partridge regarded him thoughtfully.
“Time? What is time, really? The Swiss manufacture it. The French hoard it. Italians want it. Americans say it’s money. Hindus say it does not exist. Do you know what I say? I say time is a crook.”
“Could not agree more,” Congreve said heartily. “Brilliantly put, Professor.”
As they closed the door behind them, Hawke whispered, “Could you possibly have been any more obsequious back there?”
“What? Me?”
“No. The other chap in the rather hectic lemon-yellow tweed shooting jacket.”
Forty-one
Portofino, Italy
The fisherman slipped his long oars into the black water as smoothly and silently as his long fillet knife sliced into the silver bellies of his livelihood. Then he heaved back on the oars’ rough wooden handles, and the small fishing boat’s prow slid forward, making barely a ripple. He wasn’t being paid two months’ wages in one night to make haste; he was being paid to make himself and his boat invisible, or at least go unnoticed.
The three men who were his passengers kept their heads below the gunnels. Two were stretched out full length, heads in the bow, one to port and the other to starboard. The third was the lookout, raising his head just enough to check their progress every five minutes or so. He didn’t know much Italian, but it was enough for Giancarlo Brunello to understand which way he wanted the boat pointed.
“Diretto, diretto,” the man whispered, just loud enough to be heard. “Straight ahead.”
“Si, comprendo, signore.”
It was a dark night. No moon, no stars. His boat, Maria, named for his wife, had very little freeboard. And she was painted a dark blue. It was just what they wanted, they’d told him at the dock late that afternoon: a dark boat with a low profile. He was to meet them on the docks at this exact location at midnight. For that much money, he said, he’d meet them anywhere, anytime. They were going scuba diving, they said, to dive on a wreck about three or four miles at sea, out beyond the mouth of Portofino’s famously picturesque harbor. They planned to do some nighttime marine photography, the guy told him, for some magazine in Milano that Giancarlo had never heard of.
And sure enough all three had arrived wearing black wet suits, carrying their fins, tanks, regulators, and black waterproof satchels with their equipment hung over their shoulders. Cameras and lights, the lead guy said, stepping carefully down into the boat.
Giancarlo thought it was strange that they had to do this photo shoot in such secrecy, but he kept those thoughts to himself. These guys wer
e nothing like the typical fashion photographers from Rome who descended on Portofino to shoot the beautiful models from all over the world. He worked the shoots sometimes, renting Maria as a prop for five hundred lire per hour and sometimes even modeling himself, rowing these gorgeous babes in skimpy bathing suits around the harbor and getting paid for it!
But tonight paid even better, and he and Maria, with a baby on the way, could certainly use the extra money.
“Okay,” the lookout guy whispered, “we’re getting close. You see that big yacht anchored out there? The one farthest out? About half a mile.”
“Hard to miss it, signore. That’s Red Star. She belongs to the Russian oil billionaire, Khodorkovsky. All the tourists want to come out and see her, but the security is very discouraging about people getting too close.”
The thing was enormous. It practically blotted out the sky. It had to be over three hundred feet long and it dwarfed the other megayachts anchored nearby.
“We’re almost over the wreck. I think the best place for us to go down is behind that yacht there, the nearest one to our right. Duck in behind her and heave your anchor. We’ll be down on the wreck for about half an hour. If you want your money, you’ll be here when we return. If you manage not to attract any attention, I’ll pay you a bonus.”
“I’ll be here, signore, do not worry yourself.”
In a matter of minutes the three divers had slipped over the side and disappeared. Giancarlo had no idea what they were up to, but he was pretty damn sure it wasn’t fashion photography. There was something sinister about them, not that he gave a damn—money was money. He made himself comfortable, lit a cigarette, and pulled the cork on his wine bottle with his teeth. Giancarlo Brunello was a happy man.
The three divers swam toward the huge megayacht at a depth of fifty feet. They were wearing German-made Dräger rebreathers. The machines recirculated the spent oxygen so there were no telltale bubbles on the surface to mark their progress toward Red Star.