Apocalypse Page 25
‘We need to stop him,’ Ethan said, ‘and we need your help to do it.’
‘You are already helping to stop it,’ Purcell replied.
‘By changing the future that you saw?’ Lopez asked.
‘No,’ Purcell smiled, ‘by fulfilling it. Joaquin Abell has the ability to see into the future, but just as he does not know the true scope of what he has achieved, so he does not know of its limitations.’
‘What limitations?’ Ethan asked, frustrated. Time was running out.
‘His device can only capture light,’ Purcell explained. ‘There is no sound to accompany what he sees on these cameras. Therefore, the images can be taken out of context.’
Purcell explained how the cameras viewed the rolling news feeds capturing not only footage of future events but also the anchors as they narrated at their desks.
‘He must rely on the scrolling text banners as much as the speaking anchors,’ Lopez guessed.
‘Exactly,’ Purcell agreed. ‘He always employs somebody on his team who can lip-read, which gets him some extra information from the reports; but often the image quality means he must rely purely on the pictures.’
‘He still has the advantage,’ Ethan said.
‘Only to a certain extent,’ Purcell replied. ‘There’s something else about light that Joaquin does not know, and it could tip the balance in your favor, if only for a while.’
‘We’re listening,’ Lopez said impatiently.
‘It’s called the Observer Effect,’ Purcell said, ‘one of the deepest mysteries of quantum theory. Put in the simplest terms, the world around us reacts to the act of us looking upon it.’
‘It does what?’ Lopez uttered.
‘It reacts to us observing it,’ Purcell repeated. ‘A stream of photons of light fired through a single opening onto a screen that are not observed produce multiple patterns on the screen instead of a single dot, as though they had passed through several openings and not one.’
‘Does the stream spread or something?’ Ethan asked. ‘Like a shotgun cartridge?’
‘In a sense,’ Purcell agreed. ‘It happens because the quantum duality of photons allows light to act as both a particle and a wave at the same time, just one of many bizarre properties found at quantum scales. But as soon as the photons are observed they act as you would expect through common sense – they form an orderly line and produce a single spot of light on the screen.’
Lopez blinked. ‘I don’t get it.’
‘Nor do most people, but it is an aspect of quantum physics experimentally verified by a team at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Electrons perform in exactly the same manner, and the resulting pattern is known as interference. What it means is that particles can act as either particles or waves depending on whether or not they’re being observed.’
‘So reality literally reacts to us being here,’ Lopez surmised.
‘It reacts to any observation, not just human,’ Purcell said. ‘Even a camera observing the experiment will cause interference.’
Ethan made a connection.
‘So the future that Joaquin Abell has seen may be affected by the fact that it has already been observed by that camera?’
‘Yes,’ Purcell said. ‘Finding me is not Joaquin’s priority. It’s this camera that he wants. It alone has seen the electrons and photons of reality streamed into its lens for months to come, whereas Joaquin only has a small part of the picture. To put it simply, his limited view of the future through news broadcasts might allow him to win the battle, but this camera will tell him if he’s going to win the war.’
‘It’s only fixed for him once he observes what happens himself?’ Ethan said, gradually piecing together the bizarre links that joined reality with what Joaquin Abell and Charles Purcell had witnessed.
Purcell nodded, apparently pleased with their progress.
‘There is a similar phenomenon known as quantum entanglement. If particles are split into pairs and separated, then when one is observed and its wave function collapses, the same effect will occur in the other particle even if it is on the other side of the universe.’
Lopez’s expression brightened.
‘The future for any individual can only be fixed once it has been observed,’ she said. ‘Until then, it’s just . . .’
‘Just a wave,’ Purcell finished the sentence for her. ‘It’s vague and unmeasured, nebulous and unclear, constantly being shaped by events in the present. Electrons behave in this way – it’s called the uncertainty principle, because you can locate an electron but then you can’t measure its energy state. Likewise, you can measure its energy state but then you can’t precisely fix its position. Reality has a way of preventing us from knowing absolutely everything.’
Ethan looked at the camera that Purcell held, and he finally got it.
‘Only you have seen the future that awaits you personally,’ he said to Purcell. ‘As long as Joaquin can’t see what’s on that camera, your future will be one that sees him pay for his crimes, because that’s what you saw.’
‘Precisely,’ Purcell confirmed. ‘When I realized what Joaquin intended to do I lied to him, telling him that the future could only be seen a certain distance ahead because of a property of black holes known as the Schwarzschild Radius. I said that the cameras would be fried if left too close to the event horizon for too long, which is true, in some respects. Part of my job was to place and retrieve each of these cameras once every forty-eight hours or so. I altered this one by enclosing it in a Faraday cage to protect it from electrical forces within the black-hole chamber, and then left it in place for several weeks and used a spare camera instead to cover for it. Joaquin never knew what I’d done until I was forced to flee when I looked at the future as seen by this camera, and saw what would happen to me and my family.’
‘Joaquin realized what you’d done,’ Ethan put the pieces together, ‘and sent his people to try to silence you. They headed for your family home first in case you were there . . .’
Purcell nodded, tears welling in his eyes as he struggled to keep his emotions in check.
‘I couldn’t get to them in time,’ he uttered.
Lopez clenched her raised fist as she spoke.
‘Well, now’s your chance for payback. I’d say we’ve got IRIS by the balls. Let’s get out of here and find out what happens.’
Ethan saw Purcell’s smile fade.
‘You’ve seen the camera’s images, though,’ he said to Purcell.
‘I’ve seen everything right up to tonight. The future can never be seen in its entirety because it is always in motion, affected by events in the present. The only future we can see is the one viewed from our own perspective.’
‘Tell us,’ Lopez urged. ‘We can help you.’
‘No, you can’t,’ Purcell replied. ‘I’ve already seen what will happen. I’ve caused the interference myself by viewing the future, and in doing so I’ve fixed it into place. My destiny cannot now be changed.’
‘Yes it can,’ Lopez insisted. ‘You can get out of here right now and into protective custody. We know you didn’t murder your family, Charles. You’re innocent.’
‘Yes I am,’ Purcell said as tears formed at the corners of his eyes and his voice choked, ‘and Joaquin Abell is guilty. But for him to be brought to justice . . .’
‘You have to die,’ Ethan said, ‘because you saw it happen, didn’t you? If you don’t fulfill your own role within it, then you think that the future might change and Joaquin Abell might get away with what he did.’
Purcell’s jaw quivered as he fought back indescribable fear, weighed down by the burden of a moral dilemma greater than anything Ethan could imagine.
‘I saw my own death,’ he whispered, as the tears now ran freely down his face. ‘But I saw more than that, and I cannot tell you any of it. While it was alongside the event horizon of Joaquin’s black hole this camera saw a future that included both my death and the fall of IRIS. It doesn’t matter where it
goes now, whether or not it’s turned on or off or who possesses it. Its own future is recorded here, on its hard drive memory. And in order for it to be fulfilled, I must play my part. You must journey onward alone now, for my time has come to an end.’
‘No way,’ Lopez said, taking a step forward, ‘you’re out of here.’
Purcell raised a desperate hand and waved her back, swiping the tears from his face on the back of his sleeve.
‘No! Please, do this for my wife, for my daughter. Let me go, because if you don’t, then their killer will never be found.’
‘What makes you so damned sure that they’ll be found if you’re dead?’ Lopez snapped.
Purcell looked again at his watch, then turned and pointed to a large tree some twenty yards to his right. He spoke quickly, as though to hesitate any further would make him lose his resolve.
‘The bullet that you’ll find in that tree will lead you to my killer,’ he said. ‘Retrieve it and look for traces of Rubidium-82.’
‘We found that compound on the bullets that killed your wife and daughter,’ Ethan said.
‘And you’ll find it on all ammunition used by personnel at IRIS,’ Purcell said. ‘I took the liberty of dousing all of their weapons and ammunition in the armory before I fled.’
‘What armory? And how do we find the black hole that IRIS is using?’ Lopez asked.
‘Wait for the earthquake,’ Purcell said, ‘at precisely sixteen-seventeen hundred hours and twelve seconds this afternoon, off the coast of the Dominican Republic. Search for electromagnetic anomalies in the Bermuda Triangle at the same time. You’ll find IRIS there.’
‘There must be another way,’ Ethan pleaded. ‘Some other path that will still ensure justice for your family.’
‘That’s not a chance I’m willing to take,’ Purcell said. ‘Katherine Abell is innocent of any crime. She may be able to help you bring him to justice, if you can prove to her that he is behind all that has happened, and that it is better to oppose him than stand with him.’
‘She’s devoted to him, it’s no use,’ Lopez replied. ‘We need you, Charles.’
Purcell checked his watch again and then suddenly stood up straight and lifted his chin. He wiped the rest of the tears from his face. There was a terminal determination in his eyes.
‘Good luck, both of you,’ he said. ‘Find the man who killed my family.’
Lopez shook her head and leapt forward. ‘No!’
Ethan opened his mouth to speak but a sharp crack split the air around him.
Lopez slammed into Purcell, the pair of them spinning sideways in a gruesome pirouette. As if in slow motion, Purcell shuddered as a bullet slammed into his side and a fine mist of crimson spray exploded from his shirt as the projectile smashed through his chest cavity and exited from between his ribs. The scientist’s body went limp as it fell, Lopez rolling with him through the air as they plunged down onto the soft sand.
Ethan saw the tree that Purcell had indicated shudder as a spray of bark fell from its trunk and the bullet buried itself in the wood. He leapt forward, hurling himself down on the sand alongside Purcell as Lopez grabbed his face in desperation, her other hand pressed against the exit wound spilling bright blood across his white shirt.
‘Stay with me, Charles!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t goddamn quit now! Where are those documents?’
Purcell looked at her as Ethan watched, his eyes hooded and his expression sagging as he whispered. ‘My father took his secrets to the grave, as shall I,’ he murmured. ‘Time will tell, Nicola.’
Ethan felt his heart sink as Purcell gasped, and then the life in his eyes was extinguished like a distant dying star.
A burst of automatic fire raked the bushes around them, and Ethan grabbed Lopez by the arm.
‘He’s gone!’ he shouted. ‘Fall back!’
42
Ethan hit the ground and rolled into a dense thicket of reeds as a lethal hail of automatic fire blasted the edge of the forest. He saw Lopez hurl herself down behind a tree trunk, covering her face as chips of bark showered down across the foliage around her.
The shooting stopped, the Everglades silent in the heat again as leaves and bark chips dislodged by bullets drifted down around Ethan. He squinted through the reeds and saw Purcell lying on the sand, the side of his chest a bloody mess, and he felt a crushing melancholy for the man’s tragic sacrifice. Then he saw the camera pinned beneath the scientist’s body.
‘We’ve got to get that camera!’ Ethan whispered to Lopez.
‘Where the hell’s Bryson?’ she asked in reply.
Ethan aimed his rifle through the reeds, searching for muzzle flash or signs of movement. He was expecting another broadside of gunfire, not the pair of grenades that thumped down onto the sand barely ten feet from where he lay.
‘Grenades!’
Ethan leapt to his feet with Lopez and they both sprinted away from the spit of land as another hail of automatic fire swept the forest around them. Ethan hurled himself down into the bushes alongside Lopez and threw one arm over his head and the other over her as he waited for the grenades to explode.
Two feeble pops crackled on the hot air around them, and Ethan turned to see thick clouds of smoke billowing out through the dense undergrowth, as bullets whipped through the forest around them.
‘They’re coming ashore!’ Lopez shouted.
Ethan cursed as he heard the sound of another airboat engine somewhere in front of them beyond the billowing wall of smoke. He could see no more than Lopez, and their attacker was so close that he could not shoot for fear of hitting the precious camera. More bullets flew past, mostly above their heads, and he realized that whoever had come ashore was firing only to keep their heads down.
‘Damn it, we need to cut them off. Where the hell is Bryson?’
The choking smoke curled around them, stinging Ethan’s eyes as he tried to see through the gloom. Another rattling volley of gunfire zipped and popped through the branches above their heads, and then Ethan heard the sound of the airboat’s engine roar and glimpsed through the trees to his right the craft thunder past, the tall man with blond hair at the wheel.
Ethan leapt to his feet. ‘Let’s move!’
Lopez followed him at a run as they leapt fallen trees and pools of stagnant water until they burst out of the forest to see the airboat accelerating away. Ethan dropped down onto one knee and raised the M-16, selected single-shot and using the telescopic sight to aim not for the helmsman but for the much larger target of the engine. Ethan squeezed the trigger and the rifle jolted into his shoulder. Five shots cracked out as he fired one after the other and was rewarded with a puff of white smoke that spiraled from somewhere within the engine block.
A second airboat soared into view, swerving around the corner of the island and racing toward them. Ethan could see Bryson at the wheel as he guided the airboat in alongside the shore.
‘The hell happened to you?’ Lopez shouted at him.
Bryson’s face was flushed with a mixture of anger and embarrassment as he looked at her.
‘He snuck up on me, God knows how.’
Ethan scowled at Bryson. ‘I thought you were a professional!’
‘And I thought you told me Purcell was alone,’ Bryson shot back.
Ethan cursed and looked over his shoulder at the spit of land where Charles Purcell had died. The camera had vanished.
‘We can still get the bullet Purcell mentioned,’ Lopez suggested.
Ethan leapt off the shore and onto the airboat as he looked back at her.
‘We can come back for them!’ He turned to Bryson and pointed down the river. ‘Drive, damn it!’
Bryson gunned the engine as Lopez jumped aboard and the airboat span on the spot before accelerating out into open water in pursuit of the camera. As the deck heaved, Ethan saw a broken bottle of Jack Daniels rolling about near the stern. Lopez spotted the bottle and glared up at Bryson.
‘You were supposed to be covering our backs!’
‘What, lucky that you were drunk?’ Ethan challenged. ‘How the hell did you ever get into the SEALs?’
Bryson glared at Ethan but said nothing.
‘He’s out of sight,’ Lopez complained. ‘We won’t catch him now.’
Ethan scanned the broad horizon of reed beds and water ahead. He raised his hands and used his fingers to make a box shape, focusing on one small area at a time just as he had in Miami. A few moments later he spotted a fine haze of translucent blue smoke hanging on the listless air a hundred yards ahead, the trail weaving between towering walls of reeds and sawgrass islands.
‘There!’ he shouted, pointing between the islands. ‘He went through there.’
Bryson guided the airboat into a steep turn, white water spraying in glistening clouds from beneath the hull as they plunged into the narrow corridor. The smell of burning oil tainted the air, a tantalizing hint that Ethan’s shot had fatally damaged the airboat’s engine. The dense reed banks flashed past on either side of the airboat as it raced between them toward a gap that opened out onto a broader flood plain ahead.
Ethan pulled the M-16 into his shoulder and crouched down on one knee at the bow as he scanned the narrow horizon ahead for any sign of the other airboat. Lopez moved alongside him, her own rifle at the ready as the opening ahead loomed up on them.