TVB STARES AT HIS HANDS, TURNS THEM OVER A FEW TIMES. After I’ve asked him the question, I watch his eyes as he takes himself back – to a time, I’m guessing, when life must have seemed pretty damn simple – especially if you’ve been staring at the walls of a cell. He’s wearing the same sleeveless maroon sweater that he had on the last time I saw him. He looks bewildered – and utterly terrified.
‘I was part of a trade mission that went to Russia after the Soviet Union fell. It must have been in ’92. I was interested in experiments that had been conducted under the auspices of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in the area of trauma-induced depression – in particular, a device that had allegedly been developed by an academic called Kalunin to relieve the most radical symptoms. You may have heard of him, Josh. Professor M. M. Kalunin. Revered, even now, long after his death, as the father of modern-day Russian consciousness research.’
I invite him to tell me about Ilitch.
‘Kalunin was ill. He had just months to live. Ilitch was a member of his staff and I barely noticed him.’
‘Was he academic or administrative?’
‘Administrative – something like an accountant.’
‘Go on, Ted.’
‘So, years later – I’m talking six, seven years ago – Ilitch contacted me. He’d become extremely wealthy on the back of medical equipment he’d sold all over the world and had diversified into IT and other areas. He told me that consciousness research remained his abiding passion and, because of my work, wondered if there were opportunities for the two of us to collaborate. To be honest, I was flattered. Ilitch was neither here nor there, but I figured the link could be useful, because of his ties to Kalunin.’
‘I thought you said Kalunin was dead.’
‘He is. But Ilitch had married his daughter and she is – or was – the custodian of his personal papers.’
‘So you and Ilitch co-developed tech that’d lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of depression and, same time, you’d be able to review Kalunin’s archive? That was the deal?’
‘The open-source part of it, yes.’
‘But that wasn’t all …’
He nods. ‘The Soviet military was all over Kalunin’s work.’ His brow furrows. ‘Is that why I’m here?’
Yes and no. Ilitch is a person of interest, I tell him, in an ongoing investigation by the US Secret Service.
‘Which links him to you and the guy they shot in the tower?’
‘Yes. And me to you.’
‘I see.’ He stares at his hands again.
‘Quid pro quo, Ted. How did Ilitch come to invest in your project?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Tell me. Neither of us is going anywhere until you do.’
I am sitting on the bed next to him. Reuben, at least, has been true to his word. TVB’s cell doesn’t have carpets, but it has a bathroom.
‘You’ve got to understand, Josh, in the consciousness field, the Russians are pre-eminent. No, let me correct that. The Soviets were. Iron Curtain scientists developed a set of theories about consciousness – unconventional ones – that would never have seen the light of day over here. Their insights into who we are, what consciousness is, and – most importantly – where it comes from, backed by decades of research and millions of roubles in state funding, are beyond any kind of understanding we developed in the West. Access to that data was – is – highly prized.’
‘What kinds of insights are we talking about?’
‘I have long believed, as you know, that it’s possible to tune our minds through the development of technology to relieve symptoms of distress. But the Russians have been thinking this way for decades. Kalunin was responsible, almost singlehandedly, for a Soviet field of study – a unique area that looked at the integration of mind and machine. The Russians had a name for it: instrumental psychotronics.’
And so do we, I say to myself, as I look away. We call our damn version of it the Grid.
‘This is why I went to Russia,’ Ted continues. ‘I wanted to see if there were areas of research in this field we could bring back to the US. Develop using US know-how. Collaborate on.’
‘Were you successful?’
‘No. He was too ill to do any business. We just talked, academic to academic, and we discussed some of the truly remarkable things he had been funded by the state to do.’
‘Such as?’
‘Many things. But the one area that sticks with me is the point at which the conversation turned to the survival of consciousness post-death.’
‘In English, Ted …’
‘What happens to us when we die.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Like mediumship, spiritualism?’
‘No, Josh. There’s more to it than that.’
Damn right there is.
‘What is it?’ TVB says.
‘The guy they shot in the tower was a psychic, Ted.’
‘Do you think …?’ He hesitates.
‘That you got caught up in something a whole lot bigger than you imagined? Yes.’
‘What do I do, Josh?’
‘Your trip to Moscow in ’92 …’
‘What about it?’
‘You said it was part of a trade delegation.’
He nods.
‘Which carried US government sanction.’
‘Yes.’
‘Who put it together?’
‘The senior Democratic Senator from Wisconsin.’
Abnarth.
‘Susan. Is she aware of what’s happened?’
‘No. She’s on a flight to Nairobi.’
Now I remember: the dig she was preparing for in Kenya.
TVB looks terrified again. ‘Is she going to be arrested too?’
‘No.’
‘What is going to happen to me?’ he asks.
‘You’re going to get out of your arrangement with Ilitch, is what.’
‘That may be easier said than done.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s in Moscow. He’s somewhat of a recluse these days.’
‘Then email him. It doesn’t matter how you do it, Ted, or how much it costs, but find yourself a good lawyer and kill the deal. Then forget any of this ever happened and get on a plane and go to Susan in Kenya – Susan who loves you and whom you love – and maybe, between the two of you, you’ll decide that it’s a good time to retire and live out your lives with the cats and the dogs.’
I call Reuben the moment I step out the elevator.
‘Big problem,’ I tell him. Hetta was right. ‘There is a Russian connection.’
‘Through van Buren?’
‘No. Van Buren is collateral. Completely innocent. We can let him go.’
‘Then who?’
‘Where are you right now?’
‘At Camp David. With the President.’
‘And the DNI, the CIA Director, the other spooks?’
‘They’re either here or on their way. The moment you get here, we’ll assemble at Aspen Lodge. You and Hart can brief them and if that fails to get their attention, we’ll wheel your whistleblower in and see what effect that has.’ He pauses. ‘A Russian connection?’
‘The Grid was part-funded by Ilitch. He’s the son-in-law of the man who headed up the Soviet Union’s research into psychic phenomena.’
‘How can a Russian have funded an ultra-classified US intelligence program?’
‘I think the NSA – or this cabal of intel agencies behind the Grid – has been laundering money through Ilitch to pay for it.’
‘That is just way too un-fucking-believable,’ he says.
‘Think about it. The Grid is totally off the map, and yet it cost billions. Billions that don’t appear on any congressional budget sheet.’
‘But a Russian? Come on.’
‘I know. It doesn’t make sense. But there’s another connection. Computers. Specifically, ultra-high-speed quantum computers. Ted van Buren, my professor, had been working on a project he’s running out of Georgetown that analyzes brain waves in a way they’ve never been analyzed before. He was approached by an investor called Vladimir Ilitch. Ilitch’s photo was one of the three that got removed and swapped in the cabin. There were three things in the cabin they didn’t want us to see: the ballotechnic, the shot of the Canyon and Ilitch. The Grid uses highly sophisticated quantum-computing architecture. I think they used Ilitch’s money to pay for early Grid hardware, tested it – it worked – then they shut down the companies responsible … Do I need to go on?’
There’s a pause.
‘Have you called off Jerusalem?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Thompson won’t allow it.’
‘Make him.’
‘The conference is everything he’s ever worked for, Josh. He won’t.’
‘That thing, Reuben, the spherical device that Gapes drew – the ballotechnic – it’s a trigger for an H-bomb.’
‘A theoretical trigger.’
‘Yes, but a lot of this shit was theoretical and now we’re not so sure.’
‘We are. Christy’s proliferation expert briefed us this morning. If our own nuclear weapons labs can’t build a fourth-generation nuke—’
‘Then we shouldn’t just presume there’s nobody else out there that can.’
I also relay to him what Hetta told me. A traditional H-bomb requires several kilograms of plutonium or uranium to initiate the fusion reaction. A Gen 4 weapon’s nuclear material – pellets of deuterium and tritium – are measured in grams. Less, even. A terrorist could smuggle that in easy. Nobody would be able to detect it. Nobody.
Reuben once made a living on the Hill from his defense-level connections. He understands this stuff better than I do. ‘The heat and pressure required to initiate the deuterium–tritium reaction is so great, the amount of explosive needed is easily detectable,’ he says. ‘Part of Thompson’s insistence the conference goes ahead is based on the fact that we and the Israelis will deploy a phenomenally sensitive security system in and around the city that will make the movement of explosives impossible. And, of course, the conference is still months away. It’s not ideal, I know, but …’
For a moment, it feels as if the line’s gone dead.
‘Reuben?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Your old boss, Abnarth, is up to his neck in this.’
Another silence. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Reel him in, along with all the others. We need to know exactly what he’s up to.’