Dante's Equation Part 58

He had to break in, having lost his keys long ago. Inside, he did a quick reconnaissance, but the place was empty. He closed the blinds, locked the door, shoved a chair against it, and turned on the light. He spent a while searching the place for bugs and cameras, but it was halfhearted, satisfying a vague paranoia.

There were no bugs. The doors and windows locked tight. For a moment he marveled at the privacy these things implied. In here as in the streets and airports, Calder Farris was invisible.

The apartment was chilly, spa.r.s.ely furnished. It was familiar but seemed detached from himself. It stirred nothing inside him.

At length, a box attracted his attention. It was white cardboard and he knew it held the past. He opened it and found pictures-mostly colored, some black-and-white. They were images of Calder Farris, of childhood, his father, high school, a few from Desert Storm and other military experiences. There were not many of them, considering the span of such a life. Farris had not liked being photographed. He stood alone in almost all of them and he always looked the same, staring at the camera with gla.s.ses disguising his eyes.

In a muddy, unruly flood, the whole of his previous life came back to him, was.h.i.+ng away the bits and pieces of recollection and becoming a solid knowing. He saw it all, not objectively-he was far from objective-but with the rawness of someone who'd had tremendous hope for a thing . . . and was terribly disappointed.

All the way here from Poland he had hoped and had not even known he was hoping-for something warm in this life, for something he could not even define. Maybe he had hoped that for Calder Farris there would be . . . what? A woman, a mate, friends at least-some shelter, somemeaning , some bright end to all the pain, a haven, a home. And there was nothing.

Dr. Talcott had tried to explain to him about the gateway and how it chose where they went. He had pretended not to believe. But he'd always known that somehow, in Centalia, he had entered the darkest part of his own mind, that Centalia was a nightmare only he could dream. And maybe that had been part of the madness.

This empty apartment was Calder Farris also. His life had been dedicated to his job and only that, to the government, the United States military. He had believed in it with an angry, brutal faith.

The state rewards service. Long live the state.

"It was a false alarm, sir."

Calder Farris sat at a conference table across from Gen. Franklin Deall. Also in the meeting was Dr. Alan Rickman, the director of the DSO. The two of them were looking at him with incredulity and anger.

"A false alarm?"General Deall managed to berate him with that single phrase. "You call an XL3, spend a fortune in Seattle, drag a team of men toPoland to chase down this Dr. Talcott, then disappear from all contact for nine days, and now you say it was afalse alarm ? You'd better explain yourself, Lieutenant. And I mean now."

Dr. Rickman was allowing General Deall to run the show, but he was watching with tight-lipped enjoyment. Farris recalled that Rickman had always been a little afraid of him. Rickman had never liked the seedier part of weapon procurement.

"The explosion on the University of Was.h.i.+ngton campus was due to a faulty furnace," Calder said.

"Weknow that. We have the ever-lovingreport ! And at that point Dr. Rickman tried to pull you back and you insisted this was something major."

"That was my judgment call at the time, sir. I was just starting to interrogate Dr. Talcott when she escaped from the hospital. Her escape looked highly suspicious. I thought it was prudent to go after her."

"I have yet to be convinced that anything about this wasprudent ," Deall commented with disgust.

"What happened in Poland?" Dr. Rickman leaned in, his elbows on the table. "The other agents said you were ahead of them in the woods, chasing Dr. Talcott and the others. But they lost them-and you."

"I got ahead of my men without realizing it. I was trying not to lose the quarry. When I reached them they had doubled back toward the concentration camp and a dirt road. They were about to take off in a jeep. I jumped onto the back of it in order to stick with them. That's when I lost my men."

General Deall flipped through the report in front of him. "The other agents made no mention of a vehicle. They said the pursuit took place in deep woods."

"Part of it, yes, but the woods edged the grounds of Auschwitz. I was close enough to the quarry that I managed to stay with them when they doubled back. The other agents must have missed it."

"Why didn't you radio them?"

"I tried at one point, but I was running too fast. And once I was on the jeep I couldn't get to my radio." "There'salways time for radio contact, Farris. My G.o.d!" "Yes, sir." "There was a bright light, according to your men," Rickman interrupted. "An enormous flash. What was that?"

Farris shook his head slowly, face bewildered. "No . . . the suspects had flashlights. Or maybe they saw the headlights on the jeep." Deall and Rickman exchanged a look. "Well? What happened once you were on the jeep?" "It had a hard-sh.e.l.l top and I didn't think they'd seen me. I stood on the back b.u.mper, hanging on to the sides. It took both hands and I couldn't get to my radio. My plan was to wait until we'd reached our destination, then arrest them. I had my gun and I didn't think they were armed. But we drove for miles. It was freezing. My hands grew numb and I was thrown off the jeep on a sharp curve. I struck my head."

Farris recited this stiffly and to the point. He raised his hand to a bandage on his head, where a months-old scar had been carefully reopened that morning.

"I don't remember a lot after that. I walked in the woods for a long time. I finally managed to find a town."

Deall and Rickman were both observing him with suspicion. "Why didn't you use your radio after you were thrown from the jeep?" Deall demanded. "I don't know. I don't even think I had it on me. It must have been lost when I was thrown." "Why didn't you call when you reached a phone?" Rickman asked. "I think had a concussion. For a while there . . . I wasn't sure who I was or where." "Have you seen a staff doctor since you've been back?" "Not yet, sir." "Well, you'd better!" Deall ordered. "Go directly after this meeting, and have them send me a report." "Yes, sir." "You certainly look like you've been through the wringer," Rickman pointed out. He did not say it sympathetically. It was just an observation of fact. Farris had dyed his hair that morning back to something approximating the color of his roots, but it was still shorter than he'd once worn it. His eyebrows had not completely grown back. His face was haggard. There was nothing he could do about the minor surgery he'd done to slant his eyes.

"What I don't understand is why you now believe this case has nothing of interest when a little more than a week ago you were insisting it was a matter of vital importance to national security."

"I reviewed the case while making my way back here and again last night preparing to make my report. I can see now that I was . . . overzealous. I don't believe Dr. Talcott was working on anything of interest to us. In fact, I believe she is simply . . . a flake, sir."

Ricker raised a patronizing eyebrow. "You might have figured that out earlier, Lieutenant, if you had showed what you were working on to our people. I had several physicists look over the scanty material you'd procured and they were unimpressed. Dr. Everett said that without seeing Dr. Talcott's so-called equation he could only surmise that the simulator results had been rigged and that her brief notes about a 'universal wave' were either delusions of grandeur or an attempt to perpetuate a hoax."

"I don't see how you could be so taken in, Lieutenant. You were trained better than that," Deall said, disappointed.

"I have no excuse except that I'd allowed myself to get too obsessed with my work. It had been a long time since I'd taken a vacation. If you decide to allow me to continue my job, a short leave of absence would probably be in order."

Deall huffed. "Allow you to continue? Do you know how much alarm you caused? Let me tell you, Lieutenant . . . "

The rest of the meeting they lectured him. Farris took it, shoulders straight, hands clasped in front of him on the table. He didn't think they were serious about rea.s.signing him. Calder Farris had not been liked, but he had without doubt been useful over the years. A great emphasis would be put on the results of the doctor's examination, but Farris was not concerned. He knew he could convince a physician, given the very real b.u.mp on his skull, that he had met with a mind-altering accident recently.

Deall left the office first, still p.i.s.sed off. Rickman was slower to gather his things, kept eyeing him. Farris sat, back straight, looking out the window at the sun.

Rickman suddenly leaned forward over the table, staring. That old feeling of being different, of being found out, a.s.saulted Farris. He kept his face impa.s.sive.

"Look at me," Rickman said.

Farris did. Rickman gazed at him searchingly from behind John Lennon spectacles.

"My G.o.d, Farris, what happened to your eyes?"

Farris clenched his teeth. "I had a little cosmetic surgery. I did it months ago."

The scars were there, behind the ears, should anyone ask him to prove it. It was a strange thing to do, strange enough to go on his record as questionable, but not strange enough to get him committed.

Rickman looked puzzled, his gaze going back and forth between Farris's eyes.

"Did you? Whatever for? But . . . no, that's not it." Rickman's face cleared. "I see. You're wearing colored contacts. They're quite an improvement, if you don't mind my saying so. Make you look more . . . approachable." Rickman flushed, as if embarra.s.sed to have brought up the subject. "Well, good luck with the doctor."

"Thank you, sir."

Before reporting to Medical, Calder stopped at the men's room. A man with a p.e.n.i.s remarkably like his own was using the urinal. He finished and left, hardly giving Farris a glance. When he was alone, Calder studied his face in the mirror.

Rickman was right. He wasn't sure when it had happened, but his white-blue eyes, the eyes that had always spooked others, had darkened. They were now a shade resembling the blue of sunlit skies.

Between the two sides of these divided strands [the white and black faces of G.o.d] is the pathway of initiation, the middle path, the path of opposites in harmony. There, all is reconciled and understood. There, only good triumphs and evil is no longer. This pathway is that of supreme balance and is called the last judgment of G.o.d.

-Eliphas Levi,The Book of Splendours, 1894 When matter and antimatter collide, they neutralize each other and release enormous energy.

-Michio Kaku,Beyond Einstein, 1987 On the morning of his first day back at Aish HaTorah, Aharon arrived early. The hallways and office were quiet as he went to work. He gathered up his binder of code printouts and then Binyamin's. He ripped off the binder covers and threw them in the trash. He took the two-foot stack of printouts that remained and carried them down the hall to the school office, where he set the papers on the floor and began to shred them. Feeding them to the machine was like feeding one's own children to a dragon. But when it was over a huge burden had been lifted. He gathered up the heaps of shredded waste and went back down the hall.

Binyamin was inside his office. He was standing over the trash can holding the torn binder covers and wearing a look of sheer panic. His jaw dropped farther when he saw the confetti in Aharon's arms-and Aharon's bare face.

"Come!" Aharon said. "And bring the matches."

They went down to the back alley. There, to the consternation of the pa.s.sersby, Aharon lit the paper sc.r.a.ps. They went up quickly, making a frightening fire against the cobblestones before it faltered into ash.

"I don't get it," Binyamin said, picking at the scraggly hairs on his chin.

"Listen. . . ." Aharon put a hand on the boy's shoulder. Lord, he had missed even Binyamin! The smell, no; the spirit, yes. "Do you know what I think?"

"No."

"I think that it just might be possible that some of G.o.d's secrets, Binyamin, some of them aresupposed to remain secret."

Binyamin stared at him suspiciously.

Aharon clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Swear to me one thing. Swear not to say the name Kobinski to anyone, not ever."

Binyamin hesitated, then looked at Aharon's beardless chin, at the ashes swirling around on the stones. "If you say so, Rabbi. I swear."

"Good! Now I believe I will attend to some very neglected students, if I even have any left."

When they came for him that afternoon, Aharon went willingly. He was escorted to the office of s.h.i.+mon Norowitz, a place he had never been invited to before. The man who belonged in that office was a Norowitz he had never seen before, either-hard and angry, an enemy.

Norowitz wanted to know where he had been, what he had found out about Dr. Jill Talcott, and what had happened in Auschwitz.

"Dr. Talcott is an old friend," Aharon said, pretending surprise that Norowitz was interested in his actions. "I heard on the news that she was in trouble, so naturally, I had to go see if I could help."

Norowitz's eyes were like ice. "And you just happened to help that old friend escape the FBI and then, coincidentally, you took her to visit Kobinski's closest follower in Auschwitz."

"No. I had contacted the old man earlier. I wanted to interview him about Kobinski. So when Dr. Talcott needed to get away for a while I decided to kill two birds with one stone and take her with me. It was no big deal."

" 'No big deal'?" Norowitz shouted. He took a deep breath, calming himself down. "I want to know what happened, Rabbi. You shaved. Why?"

Aharon rubbed his cheek. "A bad rash. It happens. Look, about Anatoli, the old man had a terrible memory. It was a wasted trip."

Norowitz's lips were pinched so tight they made a white, bloodless line. "You went to see Talcott because she's in the Kobinski arrays. She's working on something close to Kobinski's research."

"Jill Talcott? In the arrays?" Aharon pretended astonishment. "You know," he shook his head sadly, "I'm beginning to think you can findany thing in the code."

Norowitz got up and went to the window, looking out. His hands were fists on the window ledge. Aharon could almost feel sorry for him.

"I can't believe you're going to do this to me," he said, without turning around. "You're going to leave me high and dry.You, Rabbi, who came tome ."

"Look, I can't speak for you, but for me, I think it's time I let Kobinski go. There's only so long a grown man can look for meaning where there is none."

"Ha!" Norowitz turned, eyes blazing. "You won't let go. Oh, no. And I-I won't, either."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Aharon gazed into Norowitz's eyes, for a moment letting his own determination s.h.i.+ne through. "The sages say, 'Don't ask a lion to talk. You might not like what he has to say.' "

"Don't patronize me, Rabbi. You know I could have you arrested."

"Nu?Well, I can't stop you from wasting your time."

Aharon got up to leave. "I should probably tell you, I may not be staying in Jerusalem. My wife has wanted to move back to New York for some time. To be honest, I think that might not be such a bad idea."

"You won't get away from me like that."

"I wouldn't dream of trying." Aharon paused. ". . . Have you ever considered the possibility that Kobinski was simply a great kabbalist sage, and nothing the state of Israel needs to worry about?" Norowitz shook his head slowly. "Not on your life." "Let's hope that it never comes to that, s.h.i.+mon Norowitz. For you or any of us. Shalom." *** Rabbi Schwartz was standing when Denton was ushered into his office in upstate New York. His fingertips were on his desk, his face deeply disapproving.

"Mr. Wyle. Your message this morning took me by surprise. I must say, you have a lot of nerve showing your face here again."

"True, but I thank you for seeing me anyway."

Denton sat in a chair and waited for Schwartz to do likewise. For a moment he hesitated, as though

his disdain were much better shown on his feet, but gravity won over and he sat. "So?" "I wanted to apologize for that break-in. I guess I had built up some fantasy in my head that we were enemies and that I had a right to use any means at my disposal. I didn't. I'm sorry."

Schwartz made a gesture of disinterest. "You can't get out of this with an apology, Mr. Wyle. I intend to prosecute." "That's up to you. I just came to drop something off." Denton pulled a doc.u.ment from his bag. It was a reproduction, 200 pages thick, bound neatly in a blue report cover. He put it on Schwartz's desk.

Schwartz picked it up. He leafed through it once, then again more carefully. The tension in the room

changed; Schwartz's entire body language changed. He finally put it down, neatly lining it up with the edge of his desk, his fingers bronze, with long, scholarly nails. "Where did you get it?" "It's not important. But it'sThe Book of Torment , in its entirety." Schwartz picked the ma.n.u.script back up and turned a few pages. "It's been doctored." "All of the math has been removed. And a few other things, here and there. But the majority of it, Kobinski's philosophy, is there."

"Why?"

"Why what? Why was it doctored or why have I given it to you?"

Schwartz pressed his lips together for a long moment, then shook his head. "Never mind. The one