The Zul Enigma (13 page)

‘And that’s exactly why
he’ll help us. It’ll be a matter of pride for him to crack this hoax.’

‘Well we haven’t been
able to. Nor has ITU-T. So if he can’t either, what then?’

‘Carlos, the messages
came from somewhere. With all their technology, the Americans will pinpoint it.
I’m certain of it.’

‘I’ve got a bad feeling
about getting them involved. I’m at the Pentagon to discuss about
owner/developer privileges for the Space Elevator. I haven’t seen their
proposal, but I’m sure I won’t like it. That’s not going to make them feel much
like helping us out with the messages.’

Greg chuckled. ‘That’s
exactly why we’ve both been invited to Washington the same day. If you don’t
give the Pentagon what it wants, then Bob will put the screws on me.’

‘But even if they do
agree to investigate, how can we give them the access they need without
compromising our security?’

‘Talk to Hans.’

Carlos sighed. ‘Okay. If
you say so,’ and he took out his iTab to check the time. ‘It’s early Sunday
morning in Vienna.’

‘No time like the
present. Call him now.’

‘Then what?’

‘If Hans gives us the
all clear, I’ll contact the White House first thing tomorrow proposing we ask
Bob to authorise an investigation. If he can prove it’s a hoax, perhaps he can
help us nail the culprits – if not, then the President will find he’s in
the middle of his worst nightmare.’ Greg laughed his booming laugh and slapped Carlos
on the shoulder.

‘Now I’ll pour us a
nightcap, while you get Hans on my secure line.

***

‘
Buenos dîas
.’

Greg looked up from the
latest edition of
The Economist
and peered over the top of his reading
glasses. ‘Morning Carlos. You look like you’re bursting with energy.’ He took
off his spectacles and gestured to the chair on the opposite side of his desk.

‘Have you spoken to the
White House yet?’

‘Yes. The Secretary of
State just called asking for more details.’

Carlos nodded and
glanced at the magazine in Greg’s hand. ‘Anything interesting?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ Greg cleared his
throat. ‘Another scathing article about the UN. How we’re coming up to the
deadline for the Millennium Development Goals and, according to this, dead set
on the road to failure. We don’t need any more bad publicity. I ask you?
They’ve even dragged up the old “Oil for Food” debacle,’ he put his glasses
back on to find the page to show Carlos. ‘That was how many years ago? But they
still harp on about it. Here, see for yourself.’ Greg slid the magazine across
the desk to Carlos who picked it up and flipped through the article.’

‘What are the main
headlines today?’

‘Colombia.’

‘The earthquake? I read
about it on the plane yesterday. 8.2 on the Richter scale.’

‘It’s a terrible mess.
We’re nowhere near finished cleaning up after the volcano in Java and now this.
Our coordinator in Bogota reckons over three thousand dead. Well, you can
probably double that figure… not to mention the missing and homeless. I’m
flying out on Wednesday.’

‘Any more news about
Russia?’

‘That’s the real time
bomb right there. If that turns into a nuclear war, God help us.’

‘It scares me, Greg.
Natural disasters one after another. And now Russia’s threatening to cut off
gas supplies again. How much more trouble can the world take?’

Greg’s big chest heaved
under his grey cashmere cardigan. ‘I don’t know Carlos. It scares me too. Look
at the outbreak of swine flu last year. We contained it, but only because, by a
stroke of good luck, it broke out in two of the richest countries in the world,
and because scientists developed the new vaccine seed strain so quickly. Thanks
to newly developed technologies, laboratories are churning out an unprecedented
amount to be ready for the next flu season but, of course, it’s expensive to make.
So how will the people who really need it, the ones who can’t afford healthcare
when they get sick, afford it? If it gets a hold this year it will spread like
wildfire and we’ll have a global disaster on our hands. This is why we want to
provide the billions of poor people with no jobs and the low-income families
with free vaccine. Of course the richer countries don’t need help to do this,
plus the UN already has some budget available. But it’s not nearly enough, and
right now I’m playing a delicate game of lobbying for contributions to make up
the shortfall, while trying not to panic people by spelling out how dire the
consequences could be if I fail.

‘As head of the UN I
have a responsibility to every person on this planet. It’s my job to drive
initiatives that ensure children and adults everywhere have enough food, fresh
water, basic shelter, sewage systems, free or at least affordable medical care,
basic education and the right to live without fear and persecution. Is that so
unreasonable?’

‘It shouldn’t be.’

‘Then why is it so
bloody difficult?’ his face flushed. ‘Why can’t we just get it done? Why are
constant barriers being dropped to stop us accomplishing what I believe
everyone
should
expect for themselves and their children? A huge
proportion of the world’s population live scarcely better than animals. Where
is our humanity, for God’s sake?’

‘In
his last video, Zul says we, well not just us… our whole galaxy… will evolve to
a new level of what he calls “density” on the 21st December, the end date of
the Mayan calendar. But he says there’s a problem. Well, we’ve certainly got
problems here now and I feel this… this instability… you know what I mean? Like
the whole world’s balanced in the middle of a see-saw, not knowing which end’s
going to come down first – annihilation or survival.’

‘That’s rather a bleak
way of looking at things, isn’t it Carlos?’

‘Perhaps, but maybe we
do have the power to make the right end of the see-saw come down. Maybe that’s
where Zul comes in and why he’s visiting us now.’

‘You sound convinced
he’s real.’

‘Put it this way, I’m
not yet convinced he’s hoax.’

‘Hm,’ Greg sniffed,
‘let’s look at this video.’

When the video finished, Greg leaned back in his chair. ‘Whoever’s behind all
this has put a hell of a lot of effort in.’

‘Now you see why it’s so
disturbing. We don’t know who they are or why they’re doing it. Why go to all
that trouble?’

‘What about Zul’s
physics – is it feasible?’

‘The process he
describes compares to cyclic cosmology, which was pioneered by two men at Cambridge
University in England. They suggest we’re living inside a three-dimensional
brane, remember I mentioned it yesterday?’

‘How could I forget?’
Greg said, his expression making Carlos smile.

‘They believe the
three-dimensional brane collides every few trillion years with another nearby
parallel three-dimensional brane and the “bang” from the collision initiates a
new cosmological cycle. What Zul says dovetails with this concept. The “bang”
they talk about equates to the collapse Zul describes.’

‘And this
three-dimensional brane business is accepted by physicists?’

‘It has its critics and
its supporters, but in my opinion it has potential as a theory.’

‘And what about the part
where he says the planet and the humans on it tried to make the evolutionary
shift twice already, once 50,000 years ago? There weren’t any sophisticated
humans on the planet then.’

‘How about the legends
saying Mu existed 50,000 and Atlantis 25,000 years ago? Imagine if those
stories are true. Perhaps they
were
both destroyed like the legends
claim. Perhaps it
was
because there weren’t enough humans vibrating at
the right level to “lift” the vibration of the planet to help it evolve.’

‘But they’re myths,
Carlos, just myths.’

‘Myths or legends? Some
people believe survivors from Atlantis travelled the world passing on their
knowledge to less advanced settlements of man; that they were like gods to
these primitive people; that this explains the quantum advances in ancient
man’s development.’

‘Really Carlos!’

‘Hey – the stories
must have
some
basis in fact.’

‘I grant you Zul’s
presented a fascinating hypothesis. I’ll give him that… but that all this is
really going to happen.’ Greg shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Carlos. And
the video stops so abruptly. He doesn’t tell you what they want you to do.
Why’s he taking so long to get to the point?’

Carlos shrugged. ‘I
don’t know, Greg. If it’s a hoax, you’d think he’d told us by now.’

‘Exactly. And the longer
he drags it out the more time he gives us to track him down.’

‘Unless he’s so confident
he knows we
can’t
.’

‘The Americans will. You
can be sure of that.’

Greg’s phone rang. When
he hung up he was smiling.

‘We’re on. And the
President’s requested you be present too.’

‘Me? You’re kidding. How
about the Pentagon?’

‘You go as scheduled at
ten and they’ll bring you over to the White House at midday. Then I’ll stay on
after to discuss the rest of my business. Come on, we’d better start talking
strategy.’

***

‘Hey, Drew.’

‘Charlie boy! How’s it
going?’

‘Fantastic.’

‘Where are you?’

‘At Greg’s in Manhattan.
Listen, he just spoke to the White House.’

‘I don’t believe it!
Don’t tell me you’ve got Greg on board.’

‘Not on board exactly
but we’re meeting the President at noon tomorrow. Greg wants to ask him to
authorise an investigation – you know – into where they came from.’

‘Bloody hell! That
sounds risky. Letting them poke around in your computer system.’

‘Hans has it covered.’

‘But you didn’t tell
Greg what you confided in me, did you? You didn’t tell him what you really
think?’

‘Of course I did! That’s
why I’m here.’

‘I mean, you haven’t
laid any of your woo-woo crap on him, have you?’

‘What “woo-woo crap”?’

‘You know exactly what I
mean.’

‘I just explained how
much progress physics has made towards increasing our understanding of the
universe and what some of the possibilities might be with even
greater
insights.’

Drew grunted.
‘Carlos-speak for you woo-wooed him out the wazoo. Listen. I know what an
impulsive bastard you can be. Don’t go overboard. It doesn’t matter a flying
fart what you
really
think about all this. Just make sure you keep it to
yourself. Don’t talk about anything you don’t have proof of. Now you know what
I’m talking about, right?’

‘
Sí
. The ba…’

‘Don’t even mention it.
You’ve got to play the game, mate. Don’t mess up. If you do they’ll have you.
You mark my words. They’ll crucify you when all this turns out to be nothing
but a crock of shit and you discover Mr Z’s some arsehole communications whizz
kid with a major grudge and a fucking personality disorder.’

‘You just don’t understand
what we’re on the edge of here, do you? You conservative small-minded English
moron. Now, I know what I’m doing and I know how to look after myself.’

‘Well, I hope you’re
right.’

‘And what makes you
think you can lecture me, Andrew Roberts, like you’re the king of tact and
discretion? You make me laugh.’

‘Ha ha, sticks and
stones, Carlos, sticks and stones! I’m just doing what friends are meant to do.
I’m looking out for you. So don’t mess up.’

‘Shut up for Christ’s
sake. You sound like a broken record.’

‘Don’t you get on your
high horse with me, Charlie boy. Now, pay attention. I’ll be in DC tomorrow
afternoon, so any chance of a beer tomorrow night? Downtown. I’m staying the
night with a mate in DC.’

‘
Sí
, why not?
I’ll call you when I know what’s going on.’

‘Sounds good. Keep in
touch then.’

‘Okay.’

‘And Carlos?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t fuck up.’

CHAPTER 9

Carlos was whisked out of his meeting at the Pentagon into an official
limousine and, accompanied by General James Schwabe, Director of the National Security
Agency, driven along the slush-lined streets to the White House, aptly named
that snowy day. After courteous but stringent security checks, Amanda, the
President’s secretary, led him to an ante-room where Greg was already waiting.

Five minutes later she
showed them into the Oval Office. Although Carlos had never been there before,
it looked familiar from the many photos and film clips he’d seen over the
years. There was Bob Anderson sitting behind the gigantic wooden Resolute desk
framed by two tall flags, the Stars and Stripes and the flag of the President,
with Anita Goodwin, his Secretary of State, leaning with a conspiratorial air
over his shoulder. It made an imposing tableau. As they both looked up and
smiled in greeting, the scene was so picture perfect Carlos felt sure it was
staged and trotted out for every newcomer.