Pandora's Ark

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Leonid Sakharov had always been afraid of flying, which was actually an excuse to imbibe a few shots before boarding his flight to take away the edge. He also knew it would be the last time he’d be allowed to partake.

By mid-afternoon he boarded an Aeroflot Russian Airliner. And though he found the economy class cramped with the hanging odors of unwashed passengers sitting around him, he at least found marginal comfort knowing it was a straight route to Tehran.

With his meal tray down, Sakharov had his notes out, little pieces of paper with drawing representations of molecular buckyballs and corresponding formulas. From his memory he had mined the information he created mentally while serving in Vladimir Central, the sketches derived strictly from recall as he doodled spherical molecular formations of the Buckminsterfullerene, the Carbon 60 molecule necessary for the structure of the nanobot.

Buckminsterfullerene is the smallest fullerene molecule in which no two pentagons share an edge. The structure of C₆₀ is a truncated icosahedron, which resembles a soccer ball made of twenty hexagons and twelve pentagons with a carbon atom at the vertices of each polygon and a bond along each of its edge. This special molecule was discovered in 1985 at Rice University and deemed very adaptable, smart, and able to contemplate its own existence. A year later, Leonid Sakharov embarked on his scientific journey thousands of miles away by programming a chain of commands into the structure, the molecule then carrying the codes over to replicated molecules until the commands became a collective whole. And though the commands worked in previous testing, the matter to slow the process to duplicate itself exponentially had fatal consequences. And this was the problem — to somehow give it a smaller lifespan half the length of the original, and then a half-life for every subsequent molecule thereafter until it fades itself out completely.

He examined his notes carefully, then made additional sketches and drew formulas with numerical designs that looked more like Greek lettering.

And he did this all the way to Tehran.

Once the plane touched down, Sakharov disembarked with the aid of airline personnel, who wheeled him across the terminal in a wheelchair, and released him to al-Ghazi, who was waiting by the terminal doors.

Al-Ghazi, as always, was impeccably dressed from top to bottom. “And how was your trip, Doctor? I assume it was a pleasant journey.”

“Pleasant? It smelled like ass all the way over,” he said.

As crotchety as ever, al-Ghazi thought.

Once the doors opened, a plume of heat blasted into the doorway.

“It’s hot as hell out there,” said Sakharov.

“But it’s a dry heat.”

“I’ll make sure to tell that to the ambulance driver as he’s loading me into the back of the van. I’ll just say to him: ‘No rush. It’s just a dry heat, so don’t worry about the oncoming heat stroke.’”

Al-Ghazi rolled his eyes. Working with Sakharov was going to be difficult, he could tell.

Moments later they were in the back of a limousine cruising away from the airport. Sakharov had his full attention set to the passing landscape, marveling at the architecture.

Al-Ghazi smiled, intuiting the old man’s thoughts. “It’s not the mud huts and stone structures you thought it would be, is it?”

The old man looked out the window, noting the complexity and wide arrangements of design and culture taken into consideration of their planning. The buildings were stunning, elegant. But such praise of amazement was beyond Sakharov’s makeup.

He waved his hand dismissively and sat back. “I’ve seen better,” he finally answered. And then: “So now what?”

“Now, you will go to a safe house and rest. Tomorrow you will be taken to a facility in the Alborz Mountain Range, courtesy of President Ahmadinejad.”

“Ahmadinejad? What the hell does he have to do with this?”

“He’s providing a safe haven that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan can provide at the moment,” he told him. “You will always be safe, Doctor. And you’ll be able to work knowing that you will not be disturbed.”

“That’s good,” he said. “Those are conditions I can work with.”

“But, Doctor, you will not be alone, either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you will have three aides of my choosing to help you with your research.”

“Aides! I don’t need any aides! There was never any discussion of assistants.”

“The choice is not yours to make.”

Sakharov nodded, “I see. Now that you have me where you want me, I’m now at your mercy. Is that it?”

“Doctor, I’m providing you with the best equipment, the best of everything, so that you can simply provide me with the best results. You will be pampered beyond your wildest dreams. And believe me, this lab will be something you’ve never seen before and something Russia could never duplicate. It’ll be your playground. And these aides are there only to be at the mercy of your beck and whim, nothing more.”

“Nothing more, huh? Well, I don’t want any rookies, you hear me? I want somebody who knows their way around the lab and to do things without me watching over their shoulder every waking minute.”

“Your three assistants, Doctor, are tops in their field of nanotechnology. Two were educated at the most prestigious schools in the United States, the other in the United Kingdom.”

“Americans and a Brit?”

“Hardly,” he answered with a hint of venom. “They are like me. They are Arab.”

“You mean they’re al-Qaeda?”

“Not particularly. No,” he returned. “Let’s say that they had no choice in the matter since their family members are at the mercy of my organization.”

“I see,” said the old man. “Recruitment by intimidation, is that it?”

“Ultimately in the end, the decision is theirs to make.”

“And if their answer is ‘no,’ then a good ol’ fashion beheading is in order for their family members. Am I right?”

Al-Ghazi held his hands out in surrender. “What can I say,” he said. “Business is business.”

The old man looked out the window noting that the landscape was getting visibly downgraded as if war torn, the buildings old and in disrepair. “Obviously you’re not taking me to a five-star hotel.”

“Where I’m taking you, Doctor, is still better than that rat-infested apartment I took you out of.”

“There were no rats in that apartment,” he insisted harshly. Then in a more subdued tone, “They were just big-ass mice.”

The vehicle turned onto a dust-laden driveway between buildings that were cramped with just enough space for single-lane driving, until they came to a lot in front of a two-story rise with barred windows.

“This is it, Doctor.”

Sakharov remained silent, but just for a brief moment. “Are you kidding me?” he finally said. “A bunch of fleas wouldn’t live here. I think I’m entitled to a little luxury for what I’m about to do for you, don’t you think? I want to stay in one of those fancy hotels we passed a while back with caviar and an all-you-can-drink bar. That’s what I want.”

“What you want is of no concern to me, Doctor. This is just a place to lay your hat for a moment while I’m in Islamabad finishing up business. And then off to greater comforts come the day after tomorrow.”

Sakharov could do nothing but relinquish his bull-headed stance.

“Why does everything in this country smell like ass?” said the old man.

Al-Ghazi clenched his jaw, fighting for calm. The old man continued to test his patience.

The moment the old man opened the door he clearly noted that the room was small with horrible ventilation, the air so hot and stale that it hung like a pall. On the floor was a thin mattress with a blanket that had seen better days, its edges tattered like the ends of a flag that had waved itself ragged with the course of an unyielding wind. And the walls were cracked enough to reveal the mud bricks underneath. Even the roof bowed downward in threatening manner.

“You do take me to the nicest places,” Sakharov commented, shaking his head disapprovingly.

Al-Ghazi dropped Sakharov’s bag to the floor with a loud bang. Apparently he’d had enough of the old man’s ravings of discontent.

“Regardless, Doctor,” his tone held an edge of its own to it, “here you will stay and here you will rest. Come tomorrow and everyday thereafter, there will be no time for leisure. This is it.”

The old man chortled. “I had better accommodations in Vladimir Central.”

Al-Ghazi closed his eyes and clenched his jaw once again; the muscles in the back working like cords. And then calm overtook him, his facial semblance taking on the features of gentle repose.

“I see it’ll take patience to deal with you,” he told him.

“Whatever.” The old man shuffled his way across the floor and to the window, looking through the bars at a dirt lot. Children played with sticks and a ball, kicking up dust in their wake. And the old man now had regrets. What have I done?

“Doctor Sakharov?”

The voice sounded thin and tinny, as if spoken from a great distance.

“Doctor?”

“What.”

“Perhaps you could go over your notes to better acquaint yourself with the technology you have been away from for so long.”

“The science is up here,” he said, tapping the tip of his forefinger against his temple. “It never went away. It never goes away.”

“Then you can replicate your findings of what you did in Russia in the Alborz?”

Sakharov turned on al-Ghazi. “I can do this with my eyes shut,” he answered. “From the first day I started my sentence in Vladimir to the day you showed up at my apartment, I have thought nothing other than nanotechnology or how I could make it better.” He took an awkward gait closer to the Arab. “All those years you reached me in Vladimir Central with letters and messages kept my hopes alive that someday I would be granted the opportunity to ply my trade once again. And for that I thank you. But don’t you ever question or interpret the validity of my skills as a nanotechnologist again. Duplicate it I will, as promised for my early release.”

Al-Ghazi nodded, somewhat taken aback by the old man’s power to intimidate. “You do realize that we will be time restricted.”

“If you say you have the equipment as you claim, then time won’t be an issue. I simply need to achieve the methods to program the fullerene molecules to nullify their lifespan by half upon every replication, until they fade out of existence completely.”

Al-Ghazi didn’t have a clue as to what Sakharov was talking about.

“Yeah, well — I can tell by the stupid look on your face that you don’t know what I’m talking about,” said the old man.

If Sakharov had a skill, thought al-Ghazi, it was getting under a man’s skin.

“Rest,” he finally told him. “Food will come momentarily.”

“Food? We ain’t talking baboon eyes or anything like that, are we? No monkey nuts or something that’ll make my stomach crawl.”

Al-Ghazi, for the moment, really had to wonder if it was worth keeping this man alive. As much as he wanted to say “no” and pass a sharp blade across Sakharov’s throat, he had no alternative but keep the old man upright. If nothing else, he considered, keeping him alive was imperative.