Quantum

51

Cal Mosley brought the rented Taurus to a stop beside Grin’s faded microbus. As he and Bart Cooper stepped out of the car, two overly friendly yellow Labradors ran up to greet them. They heard a loud whistle from the front porch of the farmhouse.

‘Buckley, Babs! Get over here!’

The two dogs bolted toward the porch, coming to rest at the feet of Martin Kilkenny.

‘Thanks,’ Mosley said, then introduced himself and Cooper as they approached the porch. ‘We’re looking for Nolan. He’s expecting us.’

‘Indeed he is. Go in the side door of the barn, there. Take the stairs up to the loft — that’s where you’ll find him.’

Mosley led Cooper into the massive renovated barn and up the spiral staircase to the loft. Nolan and Grin sat amid a field of debris from their all-night assault on Wolff’s encryption algorithm. Neither took notice of the other men’s arrival.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ Mosley called out. ‘I believe we had an appointment.’

‘Morning, Cal,’ Nolan said as he rose stiffly from the floor. ‘I assume this is Bart Cooper.’

‘A pleasure,’ Cooper said as he shook Nolan’s hand.

Nolan then completed the introductions. ‘Can I get you guys something to drink? I’ve got a pot of coffee going or some juice.’

‘Coffee would be fine. Black,’ Cooper replied.

‘Same,’ Mosley added.

‘I could use a reload myself,’ Grin said as he slowly ambled into the kitchen. He filled his mug and the two that Nolan had set on the counter.

‘Judging from those dark circles under your eyes,’ Cooper commented, ‘I’d say you two have been at it awhile. What are you working on?’

‘We’re decrypting Wolff’s notebooks.’

‘You’ve cracked the code?’ Mosley asked, surprised.

‘It’s a lot easier when you have the key,’ Grin replied.

Nolan then explained how he acquired a copy of the ring inscription from the jewelry store.

‘How are you coming with the decoding?’ Mosley asked eagerly.

‘We’re making slow progress. Grin, give the man a demo.’

‘Sure thing, boss.’

Grin walked over to Kilkenny’s computer.

‘Gather ’round,’ Grin said, ‘but fair warning, this is not the prettiest piece of programming ever written. It’s downright crude compared with Wolff’s method, but it does get the job done.’

With Mosley and Cooper watching over his shoulder, Grin enlarged the decryption program window to fill the entire twenty-one-inch monitor on Nolan’s desk. The screen displayed two blank windows placed side by side.

‘I’m going to pick page six out of Wolff’s first notebook. We’ve already decoded the first five.’

The top window filled with a wide column of apparently random symbols and characters. After the encrypted text was loaded, the program highlighted the first row of text and the cursor changed from an arrow into a tumbling hourglass.

‘Wolff deliberately used a column format in recording information in his notebooks because it helped keep the information ordered in his mind. You see, he was using matrices, but in a multidimensional way like nothing I’ve ever seen. I am still floored that this guy could do in his head what Nolan’s top-notch computer is struggling with.’

The decrypted version of the first few characters began appearing in the window on the right side of the screen. The characters came in bunches, with the time between each character’s appearance being randomly shorter or longer.

‘Why is it so jumpy?’ Cooper asked.

‘It’s just the way our program was written,’ Nolan replied with a yawn. ‘The method Wolff devised to encode his notebooks is an offshoot of the mathematics that he invented for his research. How a piece of data is processed by this algorithm is governed by probability.’

‘What? You lost me, Nolan,’ Mosley said.

‘Don’t feel bad. Grin and I went round and round on this one until the fatigue set in and we suddenly caught a glimpse of how this thing really works. Most codes rely on some form of one-for-one substitution — A becomes Q, or Z or fourteen — whatever the method, the readable text gets transformed from one thing into another. It’s a very black-and-white kind of process.’

‘I’m following you so far,’ Mosley said.

‘Quantum reality is shades of gray. A can become Q, Z, and fourteen all at the same time. Effectively, each character has an infinite number of simultaneous possibilities. It then falls to probability to discover the answer you’re looking for.’

‘Thankfully, Wolff devised only a simple quantum algorithm — something he could do in his head,’ Grin added. ‘We were able to cobble together a very crude conventional program to simulate Wolff’s method — a lot like rescoring a Mozart symphony for a washtub bass and a kazoo. If we had a working quantum computer, it would’ve been done with a whole notebook by now.’

‘Why don’t you get one?’ Cooper asked.

‘A quantum computer?’ Nolan replied. ‘They haven’t been invented yet.’

Grin rapped a knuckle against Nolan’s computer. ‘For the time being, this is as good as it gets.’

Mosley and Cooper watched the first few strings of deciphered text emerge in the window on the monitor’s right side. Then he noticed the small stack of printed pages on the desk. ‘This the part you already finished?’

‘Yeah, have a look,’ Nolan offered.

Cooper put on a pair of reading glasses and picked up the loose pages. ‘It’s in German, which makes sense. It was Wolff’s native tongue. Unfortunately, that’s about all I recognize. Science was never one of my strong suits.’

‘I don’t think anyone in this room can truly appreciate Wolff’s work,’ Nolan remarked. ‘We’re all going to need someone to spoon-feed us on this stuff.’

‘Well, this is definitely beyond me,’ Cooper agreed, setting the pages back on the desk.

‘Enough about the notebooks,’ Nolan said. ‘What’s the latest on our kidnappers? Do we know who we’re dealing with yet?’

‘To answer your first question, we don’t have a fix on the hostages. I’ve been in contact with the FBI, and we don’t believe they’ve been taken out of the country. I also think we’ve confirmed that Elli does not have the ring with her.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Nolan asked.

‘The FBI has Elli’s house under watch, and they spotted a couple of guys snooping around. They ran the plates and found that a high-level boss in the Russian Mafiya owns the car. That tells me Orlov is still looking for the ring. Given that, I’m sure Kelsey and Elli are fine — they have to be, or Orlov doesn’t have anything to bargain with.’

‘Who’s Orlov?’ Nolan asked.

‘The man who’s responsible for this whole mess. Let’s have a seat, and Bart and I will walk you through what we’ve come up with.’

Nolan cleared an empty pizza box from his dining table, and the four men took their places around it. Cooper pulled a file from his briefcase and set it on the table.

‘First of all,’ Mosley began, ‘our people confirmed Grin’s trace of that E-mail you forwarded to me. It originated from an Internet server owned by a corporation named VIO FinProm. This corporation is based in Moscow and serves as a holding company for a widely diversified collection of financial and industrial businesses. FinProm is short for finanzava promuchistva, which is Russian for “financial-industrial”.’

‘And the VIO?’ Nolan asked.

‘Those are the initials of the owner of this business empire,’ Cooper replied as he laid a photograph on the table. ‘Victor Ivanovich Orlov.’

Cooper then placed another photograph next to the one of Orlov, this one of an attractive brunette in her mid-forties.

‘The woman is Oksanna Zoshchenko, an assistant director of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Shortly after the body of Johann Wolff was found, Zoshchenko and I both, independently, requested a search for information about Wolff from the old KGB archives at Lubyanka. I found this coincidence odd, until Cal told me about his investigation. A further check on Zoshchenko revealed two very interesting facts. First, she was in Ann Arbor this spring as a guest of the university. Apparently, one of the regents brought her to a MARC board meeting, the one where Ted Sandstrom made a presentation.’

‘So that’s how they found out about Sandstrom,’ Nolan said.

‘She even signed a nondisclosure agreement, not that she kept that promise. The second thing I learned about Zoshchenko is that she’s supplementing her income by providing consultation services to Orlov. This kind of arrangement would be considered a clear conflict of interest here, but it doesn’t appear to be a problem in Moscow.’

Cooper then laid a third photograph on the table. It was an enlarged headshot of a man with blond hair. ‘This guy is Dmitri Leskov. Currently, he’s Orlov’s fixer; he handles the dirty jobs, the wet work. Leskov’s a former captain in the Spetsnaz — Soviet Special Forces.’

‘A real bad-ass, I take it?’ Grin asked.

‘That’s putting it mildly. Leskov is a highly trained and very capable mercenary. You don’t want to underestimate him. My contact in Moscow and I ran some checks on border crossings, and we found arrivals and departures that put Leskov and four other Russian nationals in the U.S. at the time of the attack on Sandstrom’s lab.’

‘Nolan, you ever see this guy before?’ Mosley asked.

‘Yeah.’ Nolan seethed with anger. ‘He led all three attacks.’

‘Of the four other individuals who entered the U.S. with Leskov on that first trip,’ Cooper continued, ‘only one made the trip home.’

‘I took out the other three,’ Nolan offered matter-of-factly, his voice displaying neither pride nor remorse.

‘I gathered as much from the police report,’ Cooper said. ‘None of those bodies have been found, and I don’t expect they ever will be. Interesting thing about one of the men you dispatched’ — Cooper thumbed through the other photographs until he found what he was looking for — ‘this one is Pavel Leskov, Dmitri’s younger brother.’

‘That’s bound to piss off his big brother, Nolan,’ Grin said, looking at the dead man’s photo.

‘Leskov’s reputation says he’s a coolheaded professional. Whether something like this is going to affect how he deals with Kelsey or you is unknown. I just thought I’d let you know in case Leskov has an agenda outside Orlov’s game plan. The rest of these’ — Cooper laid out a series of grainy pictures — ‘came in with Leskov last week. This is the crew that hit the library and snatched Kelsey and Elli. All are Spetsnaz veterans who either served with or were trained by Leskov. It’s a handpicked crew.’

‘Two of these guys are in the morgue, right now,’ Nolan added. ‘What about the man who’s holding Leskov’s leash?’

‘Victor Orlov gets as much press in Russia, both good and bad, as someone like Bill Gates does here. His wealth gives him access to the highest levels of the Russian elite. For every friend, he has a bitter enemy. When communism fell, this guy was a nobody. Now he’s one of the richest men in the world, and the road that got him there is littered with dead bodies.’

‘I take it you are not speaking metaphorically?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘No, I am not. Orlov’s not a sociopath; to him, murder is just another business tool. If putting a bullet in a rival’s head gets him what he wants, that rival ends up dead. Moscow has received a lot of bad press about car bombings and the assassinations of Russian businessmen — most of what you heard is attributable, in some way or another, to Orlov.’

‘Do you think he’ll kill his hostages?’ Nolan asked, respecting Cooper’s experience with such people.

‘Truthfully, Nolan, if he feels that killing them is in his best interests, then that’s what he’ll do. This whole situation is like a chess match for Orlov, and at this point in the game, I don’t see what value killing Kelsey and Elli will bring him. Orlov wants the key to Wolff’s code, and the women are his best means of getting it.’

‘Changing the subject,’ Mosley interjected, ‘we think we’ve ID’d the author of that mysterious E-mail that came out of VIO FinProm.’

‘My contact,’ Cooper continued, ‘says a-v-v is a woman named Lara Avvakum, a physicist with the Russian Academy of Sciences. She’s currently on loan to VIO FinProm for an industrial research project. Orlov and Zoshchenko pulled Avvakum out of a Siberian research facility and set her up in one of Orlov’s buildings in Moscow.’

‘If she works for Orlov, why’d she send the E-mail?’

‘Avvakum’s relationship with Orlov is barely three weeks old. Prior to that, she was so far out of the loop that I doubt she’d ever even heard of him. Zoshchenko is the connection between Avvakum and Orlov; her position in the Russian Academy of Sciences allowed her to locate a bright young underpaid physicist to continue Sandstrom’s work to the point where Orlov could file patents and become father of a new industry.’

‘So Avvakum’s just a means to an end,’ Kilkenny concluded.

‘That’s our take on it. She’s just a specialist hired to do a job. I think she wrote to you because Orlov didn’t tell her where her project research came from. Orlov surely had the files he stole from Sandstrom sanitized, but something must have been missed that allowed Avvakum to identify Sandstrom and you. I think she’s the one person on Orlov’s team that we can trust.’

‘Why?’ Kilkenny asked.

‘She took the job not knowing what kind of man she was working for. According to my contact, I think she now knows. Avvakum appears to be under house arrest in that building where she works. Orlov paid her a visit yesterday and left a big ugly man to keep her company. My guy over there tried to send her an E-mail; it was returned as undeliverable.’

‘Makes sense,’ Nolan said. ‘She’s become a security risk, so they cut her off.’

Grin shook his head. ‘If Avvakum’s a threat, why didn’t Orlov just have her killed?’

‘Simple, Grin,’ Nolan answered. ‘Orlov still needs her. She’s a skill player. If he kills her, he’s got downtime until he can get a replacement. Better to put Avvakum on a short leash and keep her working until he finds a new physicist for the job.’

‘Then she gets whacked,’ Mosley added.

A small window appeared in the corner of Nolan’s monitor, and a voice announced the arrival of a new E-mail message. Nolan got up and walked over to his desk. He didn’t recognize the sender’s E-mail address, which was a string of random letters and numbers. The subject of the message read: Trade two for one, Kilkenny?

Nolan selected the message.

‘It’s a message from Orlov,’ Nolan announced.

Cooper, Mosley, and Grin gathered around the computer.

‘May I?’ Grin asked as he reached over Kilkenny’s shoulder and typed a quick command that displayed all the message’s header information. ‘They covered their tracks really well; this could have come from anywhere.’

‘Pretty straightforward demand,’ Cooper said. ‘Let’s have a look at the video clip.’

Nolan downloaded the attached file. A moment later Kelsey and Elli appeared on the screen. They were seated at an old wooden table in a rustic, wood-paneled room. Both sat rigidly, with their forearms resting on the table. For the first few seconds, neither moved.

‘Hi, Nolan. Elli and I are all right. The people who took us want the engagement ring Johann Wolff gave to Elli.’

The clip ended with the final frame frozen on the screen.

‘Short and sweet,’ Cooper said. ‘Just enough to let us know that they have them.’

‘Actually,’ Nolan said, the tone of his voice revealing his curiosity, ‘I think it might have told us something else.’

‘You spot something, Nolan?’ Mosley asked.

‘Maybe.’

Using his mouse, Nolan enlarged the still image to the screen’s full size. The resolution went from crisp to grainy with the enlargement.

‘There it is,’ he exclaimed.

‘What?’ Cooper asked.

‘Elli’s ring.’

Everyone looked at the older woman’s hands but saw no ring.

‘Elli’s not wearing a ring,’ Grin said.

‘No, she’s not, but Kelsey is. Kelsey doesn’t wear rings. I think the only one she owns is from high school, and she hasn’t worn that since she was eighteen. Look at the ring, it’s a thick gold band. That’s a match for the jeweler’s description of Wolff’s ring. It’s gotta be it.’

‘Gentlemen,’ Mosley said sternly, ‘that piece of information does not leave this room. For those two ladies, it’s a matter of life and death.’

Everyone nodded.

‘We need to respond to this,’ Nolan urged.

‘I’m already working on it,’ Grin announced. ‘I can put together a Trojan horse program that we can imbed in our response. Once they open our message, our Trojan horse will load and contact us over the Net. From there, we can use the Spyder to track ’em down.’

‘That’s not what I had in mind, Grin. They’ll be expecting something like that. Orlov’s feeling secure right now, thinking he’s in control of the situation. We need to shake things up a bit. I say we call him.’

‘Call Orlov?’ Grin said. ‘Nolan, are you nuts?’

Mosley nodded as he thought through Nolan’s suggestion. ‘Actually, it’s not a bad idea. We’ll catch Orlov off guard and can push for terms of our own.’

‘We are going to give him everything he wants — the cipher key, our decoding program, everything — in exchange for Kelsey and Elli.’ A devious smile curled across Nolan’s face.

Mosley caught the glint in Kilkenny’s eye. ‘Nolan, after our little trip to London last year, I know you’re not the type who just rolls over. What are you working on?’

‘A plan, Cal, a plan.’ Nolan turned to Cooper. ‘Do you think that Orlov has any highly placed enemies in the Russian government — people who might enjoy watching him take a fall?’

‘The sense I get from my contact in Moscow is that if Orlov ever made a serious mistake, the wolves would be all over him.’

‘Good, because I think I need to pay a visit to Orlov at his office in Moscow.’

Grin shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re talking crazy, man.’

‘If we’re going to win this fight with Orlov, we can’t just cut a deal with him. We have to take him out completely. To do that, I have to go there — I’m going to be our Trojan horse.’

Over the next hour Nolan proceeded to outline his plan of attack, refining elements as he brainstormed with Mosley, Cooper, and Grin.

‘We’re in agreement then?’ Nolan asked.

The three other men nodded.

‘Done.’ Nolan then handed Cooper the cordless phone. ‘Bart, it’s time to make some calls.’

Cooper flipped through his legal pad until he found the sheet with the list of phone numbers, and dialed the first one.

‘Electronic surveillance. Gardner speaking.’

‘Gardner, this is Bart Cooper.’ He then recited his Agency identification number. ‘I need a flashback trace on this number for all incoming calls, starting from the second I hang up. I have the owner of the line right here, so I don’t need a warrant.’

Cooper could hear Gardner entering his ID number into a computer, running a check on Cooper’s authority to make a flashback request. Cooper smiled; there were few spooks in Langley who carried more clout than he did.

‘It’s all set, Mr Cooper. The NRO will be monitoring your line as soon as you hang up.’

‘Thanks, Gardner.’

Cooper ended the call and then keyed a long string of numbers into the phone.

Nolan pulled Mosley aside so as not to disturb Cooper. ‘Cal, what exactly is a flashback trace?’

‘It’s like a regular phone trace, but a whole lot faster. It can also run down mobile phones and triangulate their location using cell towers or satellites. With it, we can pinpoint a call anywhere in the world, and since we don’t know where the hostages are, that’s exactly what we need.’

Cooper stood in the center of the room with the phone still pressed against his ear.

‘Orlov rezidence,’ a brusque voice answered on the other end of the line.

‘Dóbry viécher. Vy gavárite paanglíyski?’ Cooper said.

‘Da, I speak English,’ the man replied, his accent thick but understandable.

‘Good. My name is Bart Cooper, and I wish to speak with Victor Orlov.’

‘Mr Orlov does not want to be disturbed. This is a private line. How did you get this number?’

‘That’s not important, but what I have to tell Orlov is. I don’t care if you have to pull him off his mistress, you just get him on the phone now. If he asks, tell him that I have the key to Wolff’s notebooks.’

The man mulled all this over. ‘Hold on, I’ll see if he can take your call.’

‘You do that. I’ll wait.’

A moment passed, with Kilkenny and the others wondering what was happening on the other end of the line.

‘Mr Cooper,’ a man’s voice answered with only a hint of a Russian accent. ‘I am Victor Orlov. Do I know you?’

‘No, you don’t, but I’m very well connected. I’m here with Nolan Kilkenny. We received your message regarding the hostages.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Cut the crap, Orlov. This little game is over, and you’ve won. I’m calling to cut a deal so we can put an end to this. We have the key to Wolff’s codes. Kilkenny has successfully decrypted a couple of pages from the notebooks, so we know the key works. If you want it, now’s the time to talk.’

‘Very well, Mr Cooper, but I like to know who I’m dealing with. Who are you?’

‘Let’s just say that I’m someone with powerful enough friends that I can get your home phone number, and that’s all you need to know about me. My primary interest in this is getting those two women back safe and sound. If you deal straight with me, we won’t have any problems.’

‘Very well,’ Orlov replied, intrigued by Cooper. ‘What do you propose?’

‘First, the video clip you sent is worthless. We need a live phone contact to verify that the hostages are still unharmed.’

‘That can be arranged.’

‘Good, because that’s a deal breaker. I’ll expect the call within ten minutes after we hang up. Here’s the number.’ Cooper read the numbers off his list. ‘Now, I assume that the hostages are still nearby. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you where they are. You wouldn’t tell me anyway.’

‘That is correct.’

‘As a measure of security for both sides, I propose we break up the exchange. The hostages are to be released at a very public location of your choosing. When you give the word, your people will simply drop them off and drive away. The women will call to tell us they’ve been released.’

‘How do I get the cipher key?’

‘That part is a little trickier. Nolan Kilkenny and I will travel to Moscow, where we will meet with you at your office on Prospekt Mira.’

‘You seem to know a lot about me, Mr Cooper,’ Orlov said warily.

‘Like I said earlier, I’m very well connected. We’ll fly out of the States later this afternoon, which puts us in Moscow tomorrow afternoon. Let’s say the three of us meet at your office around six o’clock. When we arrive at your office, you will tell your people to let the women go. When the women are free, we will turn over Wolff’s key and Kilkenny’s decoding program.’

‘These terms are unusually generous, Cooper. Why?’

‘Write it off to goodwill. All we care about are the hostages. Kilkenny’s got copies of maybe a dozen pages from Wolff’s notebooks, so the key doesn’t really do his people a lot of good. Like I said earlier, you won. Let’s settle up and call it a day.’

‘Agreed. I look forward to meeting you tomorrow, Mr Cooper.’

‘Likewise.’

Cooper set the phone back in its cradle. ‘I haven’t had to do something like that in a while.’

‘An impressive performance,’ Kilkenny said.

‘Now we just have to wait for the call.’

A moment later the phone rang. Kilkenny quickly snatched it off the table.

‘This is Nolan Kilkenny,’ he answered.

‘Nolan, it’s Kelsey.’

‘How are you and Elli?’ he said loud enough for the others to hear.

‘We’re fine. They haven’t hurt us.’

‘We found Wolff’s key, so they’re just going to hold you both until we can make a trade. It’ll all be over tomorrow, I promise.’

‘I love you, Nolan.’

‘I love you, too, sweetheart.’

The line went dead.

‘They cut her off,’ Kilkenny said as he switched off the phone. ‘She sounded okay, just scared. She said they’re both fine.’

‘They should stay that way until tomorrow,’ Cooper said reassuringly. ‘Now, I have to make my next call.’

Cooper took the phone from Kilkenny and punched in a number.

‘Gardner, it’s Cooper. Did you get a trace on that last call?’

‘Yes, sir. It originated in Arenac County, Michigan, near a town called Standish. I’ve got an address and precise coordinates.’

‘Read them off to me.’

Cooper took notes as Gardner read off the trace results.

‘Gardner, this is a hostage situation with national-security implications. Get in touch with the folks in Research. I want a full package on this property, everything you can get your hands on. And I need it yesterday. I got an E-mail address for you.’

‘I’m ready,’ Gardner replied, his adrenaline up.

Cooper read off Kilkenny’s address carefully. ‘Got that?’

‘I got it, sir. I’ll have something for you in thirty minutes.’

‘Good. Next thing, I need some discreet surveillance of this property. See if you can’t get a little time on one of the satellites to pull some images. Send them to the same address.’

‘Sir, has Kilkenny been cleared for satellite imagery?’

‘Yes, he has, on my authority. If you like, I can have DCI Barnett call you to confirm it.’

‘I can accept your word on it, sir,’ Gardner said meekly.

‘Good.’ Cooper hung up and set the portable phone on the desk.

‘I got the GPS mapping program up,’ Grin announced. ‘I just need the coordinates.’

Cooper read off the precise longitude and latitude figures that Gardner had given him; Grin typed in the coordinates and pressed ENTER. The global positioning satellite program rendered a globe on the screen that began to spin and grow large, as if the viewers were flying toward Earth from space. North America filled the screen, then the mitten shape of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula came into view. Finally, the program zoomed in on the northern shore of Saginaw Bay, where the Rifle River flowed out into the bay.

‘I canoed that river as a Boy Scout,’ Kilkenny said, looking over Grin’s shoulder. ‘Once, we followed the river all the way out to the bay. It’s mostly wetlands and trees in this area, with a few cabins along the shore. A lot of duck hunting up there. I think my friends will be able to handle this.’