“It’s called ‘Entanglement,’” General Grazier said, his expression haggard. He looked as if he’d been short of sleep for too long. “Einstein first observed it and called it ‘spooky action at a distance.’”
I was once again behind my desk at Grantham Barracks; the shock of seeing my empty walls and bookcases was truly unsettling. I wasn’t sure what my status actually was, or whether the intractable Burt Daniels was still in charge.
Grazier sat in the recliner, this time with the footrest down. The general’s body leaned forward, arms braced on his spread knees, fingers laced. He studied me through calculating eyes. Samuel Savage leaned like an insolent tiger against one of the empty bookshelves.
Grazier said, “I got into this when I was placed in charge of ARDA, Advanced Research and Development Activity. ARDA’s official mandate is the development of new technologies with applications for the intelligence community. We monitor and work with R&D groups around the globe, feeding them targeted problems and funding. These are academic institutions, private companies, think tanks, and industries. In essence, we’re giving the best brains on the planet incentives to pursue specific scientific challenges.”
I looked down at the confidentiality and nondisclosure forms I’d just signed. One NDA even stated the penalties I’d face if I disclosed that I’d disclosed signing the nondisclosure forms. In short, it was a new twist on the old, “If we tell you, we’ll have to kill you.”
It’s sobering to sign yourself over to a psychopath like Grazier. But, damn it, I just had to know. And had to keep Raven and Falcon and the rest from being snapped up in Eli’s beartrap.
Grazier continued, “The problem we originally tasked Skientia with was different ways of augmenting what we call quantum encryption. It hinges on creating entangled particles. Currently, battlefield communications rely on electromagnetic radio frequencies, any of which can be jammed or monitored. Skientia was tasked with building an entangled system. One that’s essentially unjammable because, just like in quantum encryption, entangled photons react simultaneously across time and space. It can’t be monitored.”
At my blank look, Grazier continued, “Okay, here’s the layman’s version: Physicists involved in the study of photonics have known for some time that if you simultaneously generate two photons from a single particle and send them down different tracks, what happens to one will instantaneously create the same reaction in the twin. Even across tens of kilometers of space. Think of simultaneously pitching two tennis balls in opposite directions from Denver. One shoots north to Cheyenne, the other south to Pueblo. Meanwhile, you’ve got a fellow in Cheyenne with a tennis racket. He takes aim, and smacks his ball, which now flies off toward the east. At exactly the same time, the ball traveling into Pueblo violently rockets off to the west.” He paused. “But there is no corresponding fellow in Pueblo with a racket. The second ball simultaneously mimics its twin across time and space.”
I nodded. “Okay, I’m with you so far.”
Grazier cocked his head slightly. “Skientia’s research took them far beyond photons. In their Los Alamos lab, they began generating entangled atoms, many of them heavy, including uranium. And then they add a twist. They slow one of the twins in what’s called a Bose-Einstein condensate, or a BEC until it’s essentially frozen. Stopped in time, if you will. Meanwhile, the twin continues to accelerate away. Yet, when they release the frozen twin from the BEC, and essentially whack it with that tennis racket, the distant twin still reacts.”
“Okay, I get it. They’ve made atoms that react across time and space. What does that have to do with Prisoner Alpha and my escaped patients?”
Grazier stared down at his shoes. “Skientia was trying something new. They’d moved from atoms and were experimenting with entangled organic molecules and having some success. The idea was that if you could insert them, say in a secret military compound in China, you could create a real-time ability to monitor that facility. Something undetectable. I can’t explain the process they use to entangle entire molecules, let alone the organic ones they were attempting to manipulate the day Prisoner Alpha popped into their laboratory.”
“Excuse me?”
“Skientia was trying something new, generating a particularly large field.” He took an uncomfortable breath. “In short, I guess you could call it teleportation. They were trying to send organic molecules instantaneously from Los Alamos to the Lawrence Livermore Lab in California.”
“They think they teleported her in?”
“That’s not what I meant! They can barely teleport a molecule, a human is impossible.” He made a face. “Somehow, Alpha got through security and into that room to steal the technology.” He paused, then emphasized, “Somehow.”
I frowned into the ensuing silence. Entangled particles? Teleportation? Scotty, beam me up? Incomprehensible. And then it hit me. I reached into a drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. “What does this remind you of?”
I located two pens. As Grazier and Savage looked on, I made a dot in the center of the paper, then trying to mimic Alpha, sought to draw two lines in opposite directions. Struggling to keep the paper from moving, I produced identical waves.
“That’s what I was trying to describe with the tennis balls,” Grazier said. “That’s how you’d diagram entanglement.”
“Alpha drew that for me the day I gave her the photos of the Egyptian tomb. She told me”—I took a breath—“that that’s what the doohickey did.”
Grazier stretched far enough to grasp the paper, muttering, “Son of a bitch.”
“You can generate entangled pairs from television parts?” I asked.
“We can’t,” Grazier mumbled to himself. “If that’s what she’s really doing.”
“But if she did, it would explain why whoever took her, took her.” Savage had retreated back to lounge against the bookcase. “If, using television parts, did what it takes Skientia an entire lab to do, she and the machine would certainly be valuable.”
I spread my hands. “And how does that tie to this tomb? To the base-twenty mathematics?”
“We don’t know,” Grazier growled. “But here’s the thing: That tomb was located by Skientia. We don’t know how, or why. It’s got the same type of glyphs—or whatever they’re called—that Alpha uses in her notation. And, when problems developed while attempting to remove the artifacts, Skientia called on me to extract their trapped archaeologists and a couple sarcophaguses.”
Savage said, “I got them out, and it took a major firefight to do it. We’re still in a hush-hush game of avoiding an international incident.” He pointed a finger. “But more to the point, my team was ambushed after we landed in DC, and the sarcophagi and archaeologists were snatched right out from under us.”
“Skientia?”
“They’re at the top of the list,” Grazier said.
“Then why not serve them with a warrant and search their premises? You can look for Prisoner Alpha at the same time.”
“Oh, they’ve been most forthcoming.” Grazier waved it away. “My guys—with the right security clearance, of course—have been all through their labs at Los Alamos and Livermore. Skientia claims to be just as anxious as we are to get those archaeologists and sarcophaguses back.”
“Sarcophagi,” Savage corrected.
“Whatever.” Grazier’s eyes narrowed. “I think we’re being played, Tim. I think Skientia has found something, and whatever it is, it’s big enough to tempt them to throw caution to the winds.”
“Then Prisoner Alpha vanishes,” Savage added. “And immediately after she does, your little band of psychos skips right after her.”
I narrowed an eye. “Major, if you refer to those people in that manner again, you and I are going to have a real problem.”
“Get over it!” Grazier snapped. “Both of you! Sam, they’re called patients.” He paused. “Tim, tell me something: Falcon, Swink, Jones, Talavera, and Raven. Just how good are they?”
“Eli, they landed here because they were too brilliant for the normal world.”
“Would you call them dependable?”
Savage made a strangling noise.
I shot him another disdainful glance. “In the right circumstances, yes.”
Savage looked like he was being forced to swallow a knotted sweat sock.
Grazier nodded in accord to some internal thought. “Falcon’s been right too many times in the past. I’m willing to bet he’s right about those base-twenty mathematics as well. Assuming Falcon can ever figure out where they’re coming from—and why whoever’s behind this is using them.”
Savage cried, “Eli, you can’t be going where I think you are!”
“Easy, Sam.” Grazier waved an arm. “What’s not to like? If we end up in the shit, they’re escaped mental patients. Not responsible for their actions.”
“Eli!” I warned, half rising from my desk. “Hanging those people out to dry and take the fall . . .”
Grazier silenced me with a look. “If Skientia is as smart as I think they are, if they waltzed in here and took Prisoner Alpha out from under our noses, if they can monitor our intel the way I think they did to coordinate the kidnapping and theft of two archaeologists and a couple of sarcophaguses on Pennsylvania Avenue, where do I go to find someone even smarter?”
“Don’t forget the two people who tried to kill Alpha the day she arrived here. Is that a third party? Or do you think they worked for Skientia, too?”
Grazier rubbed his jaw. “That just adds another layer of complexity to this whole thing. All the more reason to stack the deck in my favor.”
As I started to object, the cell phone in my pocket began to ring.