The Religion War (8 page)

"Well, that's a nice fairy tale. But I don't believe that that one person exists. Who do you think it is, a politician or celebrity of some sort?"

"It could be anyone," said the Avatar. "The problem is that it's impossible to write a program so sophisticated that it could filter out the noise in the data and find the underlying connections. It simply can't be done."

Mackey's eyes lit up like flares. He hated to be told something couldn't be done. He hated it, hated it, and hated it. Granted, he couldn't immediately see how such a thing could be done, and he didn't believe these lines of influence were all the Avatar said they were, but he sure as hell could write a program to find out if a primary influencer existed, given enough time.

The Avatar stood to leave. "I must be going now," he said. "I appreciate your time."

"That's it?" asked Mackey.

"Yes. I'm done here for now. But I'll be back in a week."

"Back for what?"

The Avatar just looked at Mackey. It was a look that said,
You
knew what I mean, and I know you know.
The Avatar was down the hall, around the corner, and waiting for the elevator when he heard Mackey shouting at the top of his lungs, still in the conference room.

"It's not impossible.You bastard!"

The Avatar allowed a smile as he walked into the elevator. A woman from auditing was the lone occupant. She saw the Avatar's smile and mirrored it. It had been a hideous day for her, capping a hideous week, but suddenly she felt safe and happy. The feeling lasted the entire ride to the lobby, and several hours more, until she saw her first angry frown coming down the hallway in the other direction. She frowned for the rest of the day.

Elector was waiting in his hydrocab. He'd endured a string of taunts from the other hydrocab drivers working in the area. Only suckers waited for a fare to do his business and return. First, it was dead time, and you never knew how long it would be. Sometimes the customer never returned at all. Second, the streets were covered with available hydrocabs, so waiting made no sense at all To the other drivers, this was a sign of someone who either was new to the game or had no backbone. Either way, they found amusement in his idleness.

The Avatar got in the cab and thanked Hector for waiting. Hector just sighed and nodded. "Destination?" he asked in a low mumble.

"Take me to your boss," the Avatar said.

Hector's eyes drilled into the rearview mirror, trying to assess the meaning of this request. The Avatar expected no immediate verbal response. He was looking for confirmation of a pattern he'd seen developing when he first hailed the hydrocab.

"I don't mean your taxi boss," said the Avatar. "You can stop pretending to be Hector the Mexican who only knows how to say'si.' You work for al-Zee. I would like you to take me to him."

Hector—actually Ali—reached under the seat and took out a handgun, making sure the Avatar saw it.

"How do you know this, old man?" Ali asked, no longer hiding an Arabic accent.

"I assume that al-Zee is monitoring the comings and goings at the major military sites, looking for intelligence.The hydrocabs operate outside the security perimeter, and there are so many of them they draw no attention. And most of the drivers are dark-skinned men, so you wouldn't draw attention."

"I mean how did you know that I was the one?" Ali said, miffed that his cover was so easily penetrated.

"You fit the profile—male, mid-thirties, dark skin. And you were the only one who tried to look friendly No hydrocab driver tries to be friendly," said the Avatar.

Ali smiled at his gaffe. It was only obvious after the Avatar said it.

"You guessedjust from that?" asked Ali.

"Well, I should also tell you, in case you plan to stay on this assignment, that even a Mexican who has only been in this country for ten minutes knows how to say 'yes' in English. The 'si senor' business was over the top."

"I did
not
say senor," Ali protested.

"And when you waited for me at GIC, well, that was just plain clumsy terrorism," said the Avatar.

"Okay, okay. I get the picture. Now
you
get the picture," said Ali angrily, pointing his gun at the Avatar. "Tell me who you are and why you were at Cruz's headquarters."

"My name is Avatar. I was revealing al-Zee's war plans to General Cruz."

"How would you know our war plans?" asked Ali, looking around to make sure passersby didn't see his gun.

"In the interest of time, if it's not terribly impolite, would it be okay if we skipped this conversation and you took me directly to your nearest torture center?" asked the Avatar.

"I'm the one with the gun. We'll do what I say we'll do," said Ali.

"That's not exactly true. By now you've figured out that you can't shoot me here. And the best place to kill me, after torturing me, of course, is wherever you normally do that sort of thing. So we'll be leaving for there I would think."

Ali paused to let that sink in, while trying to look menacing. There was a compelling logic to what the old man said. "If you try to get out, I'll shoot you, old man," he said, trying to regain control of the situation.

"Were you listening to any of this conversation?" the Avatar asked with evident amusement.

Ali huffed and put the gun back under the seat. He stared at the Avatar in the mirror and started the engine.

"But first I think you should take me someplace out of sight and put a blindfold on me," said the Avatar.

Ali was fuming. That was exactly what he planned to do, but somehow it ruined the idea to hear it from the Avatar first.

"I think it's in the glove compartment, "said the Avatar helpfully.

Ali shook his head in disgust, then opened the glove compartment, removed the ski cap, and tossed it into the backseat. The Avatar placed the cap on his head and pulled it down over his eyes.

"If I doze off, could you wake me when we're there?" he asked.

"Yes," agreed Ali, completely deflated.

The ski cap blocked the Avatar's vision, but his other senses fed a constant stream of information to his consciousness, where patterns formed, drawing a picture of his surroundings every bit as vivid as if he were viewing them in a book. He knew they were passing through Chinatown, judging from the stop-and-go traffic, the spices in the air, and the chatter on the sidewalk. Their speed picked up, and the road sounds began to reflect back to them, a clear indication they were in a tunnel. When the echoes stopped, the car turned left and accelerated. On the right came sounds of a public park, and beyond that, a tugboat exercised its horn. The air was a few degrees cooler already, a sign they were heading toward the ocean. They continued straight for several minutes, until sounds no longer reflected off nearby buildings on one side. They were at the shore, then turning into a driveway, over a noisy metal grate, and down a narrow alley.

Two large men took the Avatar by either arm and dragged him into a home.When his cap was removed, he was standing in the living room of a modest two-story stucco home. Ali was whispering to around-faced, mustached man, who was clearly in charge of the local operation. The round-faced man listened and stared at the Avatar.The Avatar smiled, and waited his turn to talk.

"You claim to know al-Zee's plans?" the round-faced man asked.

"Yes. But the problem I see here is that
you
don't know his plans, so you have no way of knowing if I'm telling the truth. You wouldn't have any knowledge of the larger plan."

"Who are you?" the cell leader asked, already in a bad mood.

"My name is Avatar. I used to deliver packages."

"Do you think this is funny?" asked the cell leader. "You're looking at two choices today. Either you tell me what I want, and I kill you fast, or you make me hurt you. Which will it be?"

"I'd like the choice where I tell you what you want to know and then Ali drives me to the airport. I need to see al-Zee sometime in the next day or so. I'm hoping you can make that happen."

"Maybe some pain will make you talk some sense," snarled the cell leader.

"I think he
wants
to talk," said Ali, trying to help.

"Maybe your questions aren't good," offered one of the armed guards.

The cell leader swiped the contents of the coffee table onto the floor in a show of anger, making more of a cleaning problem than a point. He stood to look more menacing.

"Okay, old man, tell me what your game is. What were you doing at Cruz's headquarters?"

"I was telling him al-Zee's battle plans," explained the Avatar.

"And how would you know his battle plans? Is that something you learned from delivering packages?" The cell leader sneered.

"In a way," answered the Avatar, walking to a comfortable chair and sitting. "It's a matter of understanding probability." The cell leader wasn't expecting his prisoner to make himself at home. It happened so naturally that the Avatar was already happily seated before anyone could think to stop him. He began. "There are two impulses in every mind. One is the recognition of probability. It's the part of your brain that knows that the risk of dying in a plane crash, for example, is very low. The other impulse is your irrational mind, or your heart if you prefer the poetic label.That's the impulse that makes many people afraid of flying in spite of its relative safety."

"Your point?" growled the cell leader.

"Most people are trained from childhood to favor their irrational impulses when it comes to the most important questions in life. For example, you know how many religions there are in the world and therefore how unlikely it is for any one person, such as yourself, to have chosen the correct one. Yet you choose to ignore the odds. And that learned preference for ignoring statistics frames all of your thinking, sometimes obscuring the obvious."

"Okay, old man.This is fascinating, but now I want you to tell me how you know al-Zee's plans."

"I know al-Zee's plans because I understand the power of probability for explaining reality, whereas you, like most people, choose to ignore it. I assigned a probability to each of al-Zee's alternatives and realized that only one has a good chance of preserving his life and providing victory. Al-Zee is sure to come to the same choice," said the Avatar.

"And what choice is that?" asked the cell leader, visibly angry.

"Each of his cells—and that includes you—has large supplies of biological weapons, smuggled into the country in the past ten years. When Cruz attacks the Middle East, and al-Zee's forces are no match for the Christian Alliance, he will order you to unleash your weapons and annihilate life in all the major metropolitan centers of Cruz's homeland, at the rate of one city per day, maybe mote. Then he will offer a truce to Cruz if he pulls back his forces. Al-Zee believes that Cruz will be persuaded by public opinion in his homeland to accept the peace offer. Al-Zee is mistaken, but nonetheless, that is his plan, because it has the best chance of succeeding, and al-Zee is a skilled tactician. If it doesn't work, al-Zee will stay in his underground fortress until everything aboveground is dead, emerging as the only viable power."

The cell leader stared at the Avatar. He had no way of knowing if the other cells had biological weapons, but the basement of
his
house
was
full of lethal drums. He made a conscious effort to send no con6rming signals with his face.

"Wrong," said the cell leader. "Al-Zee's people have no weapons of mass destruction."

"You operate as a cell, do you not?" asked the Avatar.

"You already know that."

"Cells operate independently, with no knowledge of the others. You have no way of knowing whether the other cells have chemical or biological weapons. If you were telling the truth, you would have personalized your answer. You would have said you didn't know about the other cells.You would have said that
you
certainly don't have any of those weapons in your basement."

"I didn't say anything about the basement."

"Your assistant looked at the basement door when I mentioned biological weapons. That's probably the sort of thing you should discuss at your next staff meeting," said the Avatar, with a grin.

The cell leader, his two guards, and Ali all tried to look straight ahead, to conceal how right the Avatar was.They tried to look angry, which was easy, because they were hopping mad.

"I'll need to see al-Zee soon. Tomorrow would be good for me. Can you arrange that?" asked the Avatar.

"Why would al-Zee want to meet with you?" asked the cell leader.

"Because I know General Cruz's battle plans too," answered the Avatar. "It would take you forty-eight hours to torture the information out of me, or you can get it in twenty-four hours by helping me tell it to al-Zee directly. You think you have choices, but in fact, you have none," he explained.

The Avatar's argument made perfect sense to the cell leader, much to his annoyance. Somehow the round-faced man had completely lost control of this situation, if he ever had it.

On the way to the airport, Ali tried to avoid talking to the Avatar, but eventually the urge won.

"How do you do that?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"Know things," said Ali.

"Oh, that," said the Avatar.

"You knew what I meant before I clarified it, didn't you?" said Ali.

"Yes, but it seemed polite to let you complete the question," said the Avatar.

"So how do you do it?"

"Our ride isn't long enough to explain everything. But I will tell you in a general way, ifyou don't mind."

"Okay," said Ali.

"You see, the universe uses the same patterns over and over. The trick is to recognize the patterns," said the Avatar.

"How do you recognize patterns?"

"Partly by asking yourself questions. If you ask the right questions, the patterns present themselves."

"Can you teach me how to do that?" asked Ali.

"Not in our brief time together, but I will give you an example. Ask yourself this: Why do your leaders have bodyguards around them at all times?"