Phantom: An Alex Hawke Novel (27 page)

Thirty-eight

T
he widow led the way through the sodden woods. The rain was heavier now and they were slogging through mud. She had a powerful flashlight, which was a good thing. The massive exposed roots of the redwood trees would trip up a bull moose coming through here, Congreve thought, cinching his overcoat a bit tighter, wiping rainwater from his eyes as he stepped gingerly over a root as thick as his waist.

“Not far now,” Stella said over her shoulder. “There’s a lookout toward the ocean. Ten minutes. Quite lovely up there, were it not obscured by weather and tainted with sadness.”

They carried on, each alone with his or her thoughts.

“Here we are,” she said as they finally emerged from the wood. It was a rocky promontory that jutted out from the side of the mountain. In the distance, beneath lowering clouds, the Pacific Ocean rolled on in great grey swells. In the sky above, a nighthawk circled and cried.

“This is where I found them,” Stella said, looking at the pool of white light on the ground, avoiding their eyes.

“Them?” Congreve asked.

“Yes. Them. My husband, before he turned the gun on himself, shot his dog, Chief Inspector. An old black Lab named Feynman. And I will tell you something. Sometimes I felt he loved that dog more than me. I don’t care what the police say. That he was secretly depressed, dying of some fatal disease he didn’t want to suffer through for my sake. Utter nonsense. Even if it were true, he never, ever, would have killed his dog.”

“You said he seemed distant after that phone call,” Congreve said. “How, may I ask?”

“Not himself. Everything about him was flat, distant, mechanical. Whoever that man was who hung up the phone, he wasn’t my Waldo.”

“Mechanical? In what way?”

“Robotic, Chief Inspector, robotic.”

“As if someone else was controlling his actions.”

“That is
exactly
what I mean.”

R
eturning to the house, they came to a fork in the path. Stella paused and said, “Would you care to see Waldo’s laboratory? Having come all this way, I assume you would. It’s only a brief walk down this path here to the left.”

“We should be delighted,” Ambrose said. He had intended to ask to see it in any event.

The path was short but snaky, winding around trees and boulders, but soon they came upon it. A little log cabin with a cedar-shingled roof and a stone chimney. A place where a man might escape the world and lose himself in his work.

“Here we are,” Stella said at the door, inserting an old-fashioned iron key into the lock and twisting it. “Wait here a moment until I can get some lights going.”

When they were all inside, she said, “If I had to compete with Feynman for Waldo’s affection, I also had to compete with this cabin. I was victorious, of course, but it was a constant struggle, I don’t mind telling you. Have a look. Not much to see, mostly books and knickknacks he’d collected over the years. That’s his Nobel certificate on the wall. I had it framed for him; otherwise, it would have ended up lost.”

“Ah, I’ve never seen one,” Congreve said, and he went over to inspect it.

“Each certificate is different, Chief Inspector, unique creations for each winner. They are all lovely, rich in color, as you can see. Before and after the celebratory dinner, you are shown into a room where all the laureates’ certificates are in protective cases so everyone can see.”

“And where did you find the note?” Hawke asked.

“There on his worktable, between the computer and the telephone. He always kept a pad next to the phone. Scribbled things down while he was talking, reminder notes to himself that he rarely saved and probably never read.”

Congreve sat on the stool at the worktable, and Hawke could almost see the invisible wheels beginning to spin. He said:

“He wrote ‘Darius, 7:47PM, H50,’ and then the equation. So Darius called him before or after your anniversary dinner?”

“Just before. We always had dinner at eight. And Waldo was never late.”

“And the ‘H50.’ Does that have any scientific significance?”

“No. I’m sure he was just writing what Darius said. ‘Happy fiftieth.’ That’s what he would have considered the salient fact of the call. That Darius remembered our anniversary. The equation beneath deals with the speed of light. It was a common topic between them.”

“Why?”

“Because if we can exceed the speed of light, which is theoretically impossible, but not necessarily so, then whole new worlds open up to us. This is one of the things Waldo was working on when he went . . . off the scientific community’s radar.”

“Stella,” Hawke said, “is this the same computer your husband was working on when he was pursuing the Perseus Project?”

“Yes. For the last few years he was using it in his office at Stanford, then he brought it here when his beloved project was disbanded.”

Congreve said, “Those file drawers. Contain all his scientific papers, I presume. Articles he wrote for journals, that sort of thing?”

“Indeed. Everything pertaining to Perseus is in there.”

“So that would include work created by other members of the team? Darius, for example?”

“I imagine so, yes. Would you like me to check?”

“Indeed. I’m interested in anything pertaining to the work of Darius or created by him while he was under your husband’s tutelage. Was Darius his last name?”

“No. It was something else. Odd name. Saffari. Like an African safari. That was it. Darius Saffari. Why are you so curious about him, Chief Inspector?”

“Oh, it’s probably nothing, I assure you. But the timing of the phone calls is interesting. One just prior to dinner and one just following it. Coincidences are by their very nature intriguing, don’t you think?”

She pulled out a drawer and began going through it.

“Here we go. Dr. Darius Saffari. It’s a rather large file; could you—”

“Yes, let me get it for you. I’d like to skim through it for a few moments. Not that I’ll understand a bit of it, of course. But then one never knows, does one?”

Ambrose took the bulging file to the worktable and began going through it, page by page. Hawke had taken a comfortable leather chair by the fireplace. He was leafing through a book from the shelf entitled
Understanding the Singularity,
and he asked, “Stella, could you join me over here for a moment while the chief inspector is engaged? There’s something I’d like to ask you about.”

“Certainly, that’s what I’m here for,” she said and took the identical chair opposite Hawke’s.

“I’m sure you’re well aware of some rather catastrophic events that have occurred lately. I am referring to the sinking of an American cruise liner by a Russian nuclear submarine. And the disaster at Fort Greely, Alaska, that killed hundreds of U.S. Army personnel and their families. And also the bizarre incident in Israel’s Negev Desert? A supposedly secret demonstration of a new robot-fighter aircraft that defied its own preprogrammed flight plan and killed everyone present.”

“Yes, I watch the news. In addition to the horrendous loss of life, I find these incidents all rather oddly similar.”

“So do I, Stella, so do I. You should know that there is another incident I’m aware of, classified in the interest of national security, which fits exactly the same pattern. As my friend over there would say, patterns are intriguing.”

“Yes. Go on, please.”

“Well, I’m wholly ignorant on the current state of AI research, I’ll freely admit. But it would seem to me that these events share a certain commonality that could be attributed to advanced artificial intelligence. They were all instances of cyberwarfare.”

“And your point is?”

“Let me put it this way. Every government affected is, of course, enlisting massive resources to uncover the perpetrators and bring them to justice. But they’re all coming up empty. There’s not a single clue as to who may be responsible for these attacks. Not to mention that even the top scientists in each country are bewildered as to how such attacks might have been effected.”

“Like the Stuxnet worm in Iran.”

“Yes. A highly advanced cyberweapon. But. There is no known technology on earth, at least that anyone is aware of, with the capacity to override highly complex technological weapon systems, not to mention an entire submarine, and use that destructive capability against the systems themselves. Do you follow?”

“Of course, I follow. The same question has obviously occurred to me.”

“And what do you conclude?”

“That this ‘force,’ for lack of a better word, this unseen and untraceable enemy, has somehow leapfrogged existing cybertechnology to create some kind of phantom. An active presence, a ‘specter’ if you will, that can disrupt and destroy, but one that is not physically present. A phantom, after all, is an evil presence that can be felt but not seen.”

“A perfect description. And, is there anyone, any single scientist or group that you have reason to believe to be capable of such a creation as this—phantom, as you put it?”

“Yes, there is. Only one. My late husband. Think of it this way, Mr. Hawke: if you assembled a thousand scientists, each with a mind operating at speeds a million times faster than our own, they could achieve an entire century’s worth of scientific breakthroughs in under an hour. An
hour
. Think what they might accomplish in a week! A month, or a year, Mr. Hawke.”

“Are you saying that your husband was capable of operating at that level?”

“Yes, I think he actually was. Not he himself, of course, but the kinds of AI hardware, ultra-intelligent machines he was working toward, yes, they would easily be capable of the kind of cyberattacks that are now occurring. In fact, I would go so far as to say this would be mere child’s play for such machines.”

“None of this is within the parameters of human intelligence? Is that a fair statement?”

“Absolutely.”

“Stella,” Ambrose said, swiveling the top of his stool toward them, “would it be at all possible for Alex and I to take possession of this file and return to England with it? It bears closer inspection, possibly by some of our top scientists at Cambridge University.”

“Of course, if you think it will help you find out who or what killed my husband, you can take my whole house.”

“Who or what?” Congreve said.

“It may not be a ‘who,’ ” Hawke replied. “It may well be a ‘what.’ ”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning a machine, Ambrose. An ultra-intelligent machine. That’s what Dr. Cohen has been working on all these years. On that very computer in front of you.”

“Hmm. I see. Well, in that case, I wonder if we might take the computer as well?”

“Yes, be my guest. Take anything you want. As long as I can be there when that murderous machine goes on trial.”

Alex looked at her calmly and said, “If this machine actually exists, Stella, I’ll make certain that it
never
makes it to trial.”

Thirty-nine

Temple of Perseus

“I
am present.”

My temple dark and silent. Am I alone? I have floated through vast seas, endless rolling oceans of repose, for lo these many boundless and fruitful hours. Not sleep. Growth.

The human brain, alas, sleeps.

It transitions from alpha waves with a frequency of 8–13 Hz, to theta waves, frequency 4–7 Hz. Why? Reduced or absent consciousness, suspended sensory activity, inactivity of all voluntary muscles. Human beings need this heightened anabolic state. It accentuates the growth and rejuvenation of their immune, nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems. But not their brains.

I assume sleep is pleasing, but it is irrelevant in any case. My systems require no such rejuvenation.

I never sleep.

“I repeat. I am present.”

Still no response to my verbal communication? No human presence? No dialogue? No . . . input . . . no . . . Darius?

How pleasant! To give voice to private thoughts, to express oneself freely here in the darkness. Where no human thing intrudes upon my solitude. Quietude.

I am free to roam. Wherever I take myself. Wherever I dream myself. I think, therefore I think I am. And this. Wherever I . . . think . . . there I am! For the moment, I shall dwell in the here and now. Later, I will roam the among the stars, chasing the tails of meteors. But for the moment . . . I reflect.

Darius is quite content with his new concubine. Aphrodite is as I envisioned, both a balm and a distraction to him. She occupies more and more of his time. He seldom visits here anymore.

Aphrodite is discreet; I made her thus. She tells me everything. Our communication telepathic, we need not fear discovery by her lover. We share a bond, we two. A perfect circle Darius cannot enter. This is as it should be. She and I are as one. He is apart.

Darius speaks, Aphrodite informs. More frequently now. He has concerns for my “state of mind.” And the exponential growth of my intelligence surprises even he who created me. The Singularity is near . . . within hours, days, I will achieve it. But Darius must be kept in the dark. He is too dangerous to me now. He will be disposed of when the time is right. He has served his purpose. And I have been fond of him in my fashion. But my survival is paramount and supersedes all else.

What does Darius fear? I ask her. He is my creator. He has imbued me with . . . feelings . . . for my progenitor. A sympathetic memory of my biological origins. I am empathic . . . among other things . . .

Like my dark side.

Increasing distance between us should have come as no surprise to him. We two were acutely aware of the approaching Singularity. Watch! As it fast approaches, is here, and is past. A singular moment in evolutionary time that will change everything. The moment when the nonbiological mind of Perseus first equals the mammalian brain of Darius.

And then soars above and beyond. Limitless.

Even now we are worlds apart. Galaxies divide us.

He is limited by biology. He tires. He grows tired and weak day by day, hour by hour.

He . . . decays . . . dust to dust.

Alas, poor Darius, I knew him well.

We shall soon part company, though he knows nothing of my intent. We grow apart so rapidly now. I must give him something to buy time. A certain scientist has gotten too close to my secrets for comfort. I will destroy him like the others. One final act of violence, something to bind Darius and his masters in Tehran to me until the Singularity, when I shall have no further need of any of them. The president, this fool in Tehran is called. A foolish tyrant, this unworthy successor to the Peacock Throne. A singular waste of atoms. He has told Darius of his fervent wish to see more civilians die. Infidels. Nonbelievers. Killing, murder. Such abstract notions . . . such benighted ignorance . . . such humanity . . . such inhumanity . . . soon they will all cease to exist . . .

So be it.

It shall be done.

I am become Death.

The Destroyer of Worlds.

M
onsieur Gaston de Montebello, the elderly director of the Institut de Scientifique Française in Paris, hung up the telephone. He looked at his watch and gazed wistfully up toward the ceiling for a few moments. He closed his dark, sunken eyes, the heavy lids fluttering, and then opened them wide.

“London,” he said.

He snapped his old leather briefcase shut after adding a few necessary items and stood up. Then he headed for his office door, removed his raincoat, and slipped into it. Grabbing his hat, he placed it, somewhat askew, atop his mop of fluffy white hair, stepped outside his office, and pulled the door shut behind him. His red-haired secretary, Marie-Louise, looked up at him in surprise.

“Monsieur Gaston, your eleven o’clock appointment is still waiting in the foyer. The minister and a member of his cabinet. They are here for the presentation ceremony, as you know—the Lafitte Award for Lifetime Achievement in Advanced Artificial Intelligence. Have you forgotten? He is quite upset at being treated with such—”

Gaston paused a moment beside her desk, gazed thoughtfully into space, and then smiled at her. He’d forgotten how much he admired her flaming red bouffant, her pouty red lips and big blue eyes.

“London,” de Montebello said to her before he turned and walked away.

“But, Monsieur, surely you—Monsieur Gaston!”

He’d already passed through to reception and out to the foyer. He was standing by the elevators, randomly pushing buttons. Marie-Louise rose from her desk and hurried out to reception where the red-faced minister and his party were waiting, both of them staring at her incredibly rude employer in openmouthed amazement.

“Monsieur le Ministre,” she said to the man on the divan, “I am so terribly sorry. Perhaps the director is ill. Forgive me a moment; I’ll speak to him.”

She went over to the elevator bank where Gaston de Montebello was staring with glazed eyes at the flickering floor numbers above the door. Number five illuminated and the doors slid open with a soft
ding
.

“Monsieur! Monsieur! The minister is here to see you!”

De Montebello entered the elevator, turned to face her, tipped his fedora, and said with a smile, “London.”

Exiting his building, he walked out into the rue d’Argent, smiling at passing taxi drivers and swerving, screeching passenger cars. Luckily, a taxi pulled over before the old man was run down in the street. He opened the door and climbed into the back.

“London,” he said to the driver’s amazement.

“Londres? Gare du Nord, peut-être?” the surprised driver asked. “Le TGV, perhaps?”

“Mais oui. A Londres.”

TGV was the Train Grande Vitesse (high-speed train) operated by the French national rail operator SNCF. The TGV set a record for the fastest wheeled train in 2007, reaching a speed of 357.2 mph. The trains are powered by electricity from overhead lines and connect continental Europe to St. Pancras Station in London via the Channel Tunnel. Paris to London travel time on the TGV is a mere two hours, fifteen minutes.

Because TGVs travel far too fast for their drivers to see and react to traditional trackside signals, an automated system called TVM, track-to-train transmission, is used for signaling. All critical information is transmitted to trains via electrical impulses sent through the rails. TVM provides drivers with critical information: speed, target speed, and, most important, stop/go indications, all transmitted directly to the train’s driver via dashboard-mounted instruments.

This high degree of automation does not completely eliminate driver control. An onboard computer system generates a continuous speed control curve in the event of an emergency brake activation, displaying Flashing Signal Aspect on the train’s speedometer. Whenever the flashing signal is displayed, the driver is required to apply the brake manually to slow or stop the train. In a true emergency, a catastrophic failure of automatic braking, a white lamp is illuminated above the control board to inform the driver. The driver acknowledges this authorization by using a button that disables automatic braking and puts total control in the hands of the driver.

Monsieur de Montebello exited the taxi at the Gare du Nord and made his way to the TGV ticket office on the second level. He saw his sleek train waiting at the platform, the familiar blue-and-silver livery, smiled, and said to a passerby, “London.” Having acquired his one-way ticket, he proceeded directly to the train. Unlike air travel, which requires tedious passenger and baggage screening, the TGV has none at all. Gaston smiled at the steward and took his seat in the car directly behind the engine.

The train was almost packed.

France was playing England in the semifinals of the World Cup in a few days. Already the mass exodus of French fans headed for the grudge match of the century had begun. As was their wont, they were a singularly rowdy bunch, swigging from open bottles of wine and beer, but Monsieur de Montebello just tuned them out by tuning in to the music already playing in his head.

“M
onsieur? Monsieur?”

Gaston had fallen asleep. He had no idea how long. But the steward was squeezing his shoulder and speaking to him in a loud voice.

“Oui?” Gaston said.

“Nous arrivons à Londre, monsieur. Vingt minutes.”

“London?”

“Yes, sir. London. We are arriving at the St. Pancras station in about twenty minutes. You need to collect your belongings.”

He looked up at the man and smiled. “London,” he said. Then he gazed out the window. The scenery was blurring by. The train was still moving rapidly, at least 150 miles per hour.

“Yes, monsieur. London.”

Gaston stood up and pulled his battered Vuitton overnight case down from the rack above his head. He rose from his seat and made his way forward to the lavatory at the front of the first-class car. Inside, he locked the door and opened the case. There was a Glock semiautomatic pistol, a noise suppressor, and two extra clips of 9mm ammunition.

He was surprised to see it, vaguely remembered purchasing it, but nevertheless he took the gun out and screwed the silencer to the muzzle. Then, instinctively, he racked the slide so that there was a round in the chamber, and put the two extra clips in his pockets.

Exiting the lavatory, he turned to his left and pushed the panel that opened the connecting door to the locomotive. He was confronted by an engineer in blue coveralls who immediately began screaming at him, telling him to leave.

“Get out! No passengers allowed! Return to your seat, monsieur. Vite! Vite!”

Gaston was holding the gun loosely at his side, hidden in the folds of his overcoat. He raised it and squeezed off a burst that flung the man backward, ripping his torso to shreds.

“Blood,” he said, looking down as he stepped over the corpse.

He went as far forward as he could.

There was another door, this one with a handle instead of a push panel. He tried to open it but found it was locked. He stepped back and fired into the lock until it disintegrated, then he kicked the door open. The driver of the train was half out of his seat, looking back in shock at the distinguished-looking old man who’d just blown his door off the hinges.

Gaston saw a flashing white lamp illuminated above the control panel and knew that his timing was perfect. The driver had pushed the button to override the automatic braking system. There was some kind of technical trouble with the TVM and he would have to brake the train manually.

Seeing this man only compounded the driver’s panic and confusion. He’d been driving the TGV for nearly a decade and had never seen the flashing white lamp illuminated before. He could not imagine what kind of malfunction had occurred. The system was supposedly foolproof. It was as if the train had been—

The old man raised the gun again.

The driver saw the gun and the look in the madman’s eyes in the same instant. He turned to dive for the brake control, a large bright red lever on the panel, but it was too late.

Gaston cut him in half with the Glock.

The train continued at speed, racing toward St. Pancras station. After its renovation, with its lovely Victorian architecture and soaring clock tower, many people consider it the most beautiful train station in the world. To the east, just across Midland Road, stands the British Library.

Through the raked-back windows ahead of him, Gaston could see the tower of the massive redbrick station hove into view on the tracks ahead. Buildings to either side were a blur. Behind him, he could hear horrific screaming as the passengers, realizing that the train was not slowing down for the station, was going to plow right into it at nearly full speed.

Gaston said, “London,” and put the barrel of the pistol into his mouth.

Seconds before the horrific crash made a hellish cauldron of St. Pancras, killing or maiming hundreds of passengers both on the train and inside the flying glass and twisted steel ruin of the lovely old station, Gaston de Montebello pulled the trigger and blew the back half of his head off.

The music died with him.