'Take my hand, Geli. Please.'
His eyes pleaded with her. She gave him her free hand, and he squeezed it like a child.
'I can let go now. I can let this body die.'
Another burst of gunfire echoed across the com¬pound. Geli gritted her teeth and fought the urge to pull her hand away.
CHAPTER 37
EL AL FLIGHT 462.,
FIVE MILES OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN Major General Kinski of the Mossad had reserved the entire upper deck of an El Al 747 for our trip back to the United States. Passengers and flight attendants were barred from ascending the staircase by a Mossad agent. When the airliner reached New York, Rachel and I were to be transferred to a private jet that would fly us to Albuquerque, New Mexico. From there, a chartered heli¬copter would ferry us to the gates of the White Sands Proving Ground.
To pay for these arrangements, I'd spent the past three hours sitting on a stool up front, briefing five Israeli sci¬entists on Project Trinity. A video camera recorded my words, but most of the scientists took their own notes. General Kinski seemed amazed that I would discuss such a sensitive project so freely, but he had failed to grasp the essential reality of Trinity. The existence of a single Trin¬ity computer had negated the old paradigms of national security. For mankind, there was no security.
Rachel sat two rows behind the scientists in an aisle seat. As I spoke, her expressive eyes betrayed a host of emotions: anxiety, sadness, disbelief, anger. I wanted to walk her to the back of the plane and reassure her, but the Israelis had other ideas.
General Kinski periodically walked to the rear of the upper deck to take satellite phone calls. From his reports I learned that my e-mail from the Strudel Bar had cre¬ated the chaos I'd sought to cause. The theories behind Project Trinity had quickly been validated by the world's top computer scientists. In an attempt to put the story in perspective, many media commentators were comparing the story to the cloning controversy of 1998. But the implications of Trinity made the idea of cloning almost passe. The sixth time General Kinski returned from the rear of the plane, he touched me on the shoulder, his face taut with concern.
'What is it?' asked a scientist from the Chaim Weizmann Institute. 'What's happened now?'
The Mossad chief rubbed his tanned chin. 'Various computer experts around the world have started to notice something happening on the Internet.'
'What something?'
'An unknown entity has been systematically moving through every major computer network and database in the world. Corporations, banks, government offices, mil¬itary bases, remote defense installations. Existing secu¬rity such as firewalls barely slows it down. People are publicly speculating that it's the Trinity computer.'
'Perhaps it's only a talented hacker,' suggested another man. 'Or a group. Is this entity destroying files?'
'No. It's simply viewing everything. Almost as if it's creating a map of the computer world. Some amateurs- hackers-claim to have traced the source of these probes to New Mexico.'
'Then I think we have to assume that it is Trinity,' said the Weizmann scientist. 'What I don't understand is why somebody hasn't simply shut off the power to this machine.'
I shook my head. 'Godin's been planning this for a long time. I suspect that turning off that machine would have catastrophic consequences.'
General Kinski was clearly ahead of the scientists. 'We've talked a lot about the design and capabilities of this computer. We haven't discussed what its intent might be.'
'Your best chance at understanding that is to under¬stand Peter Godin,' I said. 'If a model has been successfully loaded, it's Godin's.'
'You knew the man for two years. What can you tell us?'
'He's brilliant.'
'Obviously.'
'He has strong opinions about politics.'
'Such as?'
'He once said that the principle of one man, one vote, had made America great, and that the same principle would ultimately destroy her.'
Kinski barked a laugh. 'What else?'
'Godin has read deeply in history and political the¬ory, and he has a knowledge of philosophy. He's not reli¬gious.'
'I assume that like all very successful men, he has a strong ego?'
I nodded.
'I know this much history,' said the Mossad chief.
'Give a brilliant man unlimited power, and you've got big problems.'
The scientists nodded soberly, but the general's gift for stating the obvious made me smile.
'Tell me something, Doctor,' Kinski said. 'Why do you want so desperately to get to White Sands?'
'To stop him. To stop Godin.'
'How do you propose to do that?'
'By talking to him.'
'You think you can stop him by talking to him?'
'I'm the only one who can.'
Kinski shook his head. 'How do you know that?'
'You don't want to know.'
He looked at me as he might at a deranged man in the street. 'But I do.'
'I misspoke, General. I should have said Godin is the only one who can do it. He'll have to stop himself.'
'The American president may have different ideas about that. Not to mention his generals.'
'That's what I'm afraid of.' I rubbed my face with both hands. 'I'd like to rest now, if I may.'
Kinski patted me on the shoulder. 'Soon, Doctor. A few more questions first. Gentlemen?'
I glanced at Rachel. She shook her head, then got up and walked down the aisle to the back of the plane.
WHITE SANDS
Ravi Nara watched in amazement as troops from Fort Huachuca constructed a state-of-the-art command post around him in an unused area of the Administration hangar. Skow hadn't bothered to introduce General Bauer, but Ravi had picked up a lot just by listening.
Military Intelligence had long ago created a portable Situation Room that could be set up anywhere in the world. Centered around a large oval table were huge plasma display screens fed by racks of computers and communications terminals. Satellite dishes outside con¬nected the Situation Room to every American intelli¬gence agency and surveillance satellite on or orbiting planet Earth.
When Skow asked General Bauer how he had known to bring the specialized equipment, Bauer had chuckled bitterly.
'Dr. Tennant's statement was pretty specific about the abilities of this computer. And I know Peter Godin. He'd never voluntarily relinquish that much power. That's Nietzschean reality.' The general gave Skow a look of disdain. 'I can't believe you thought for one minute that Containment was really isolated from the rest of the world.'
'But that was the whole point in building it,' Skow said.
Bauer snorted. 'What the hell were you doing in North Carolina? Playing golf? Godin's engineers had the run of this reservation for months. He flew cargo planes in and out. They could have done anything in here. If you believe that computer isn't connected to anything, I've got some oceanfront land by Fort Huachuca I'd like to sell you.'
Ten minutes later, the general's signals experts discov¬ered a pipeline running deep beneath the sand around
