‘Hard to tell but the Chinese can be just as stubborn as the West and I can’t see any movement on the human rights front. They execute you over there at the drop of a hat, although,’ Curtis reflected, ‘if this starts to affect the success of the Games, the Chinese may shift ground. Nothing’s going to get in the way of them getting “the best Games ever” tag; it will be a matter of saving face. What do you make of the alpha and 137?’
‘Not sure about the next warning and the alpha rotating for the first time,’ Kate responded, ‘but the prime number 137 is an interesting one. The fine-structure constant of the universe is very close to 1 over 137.’
Alpha, the universe’s fine-structure constant had been puzzling some of the finest minds in the world of physics for nearly a hundred years. It had been introduced in 1916 by the German physicist Arnold Sommerfield as a constant that characterised the strength of electromagnetic reaction. Several formulae had been developed, the simplest of which was: where ‘e’ was the charge on the electron, ‘c’ was the speed of light, h-bar was Planck’s constant and the epsilon represented the permittivity or effect of an electric field on free space.
‘Arguably the most important number in physics,’ Curtis agreed. ‘If it varied in the minutest amount life on this planet wouldn’t exist. I wonder if that’s what Kadeer is saying to us.’
‘That life will no longer be possible,’ Kate wondered, ‘or is it related to the number itself? If you rotate the alpha you get 137, and if we’re talking about an attack that is even more deadly and more explosive than what Kadeer’s just carried out in Sydney, he might be threatening a dirty bomb.’
‘The radioactive isotopes,’ Curtis offered, following Kate’s logic with intense interest.
‘Exactly. The isotopes having two elements with mass numbers of 137 are barium and caesium, and if either of those elements were rotated into their radioactive form Kadeer would have the ingredients for a dirty bomb,’ said Kate.
‘I hope you’re wrong but we’ll need to follow this up. The consequences of a radioactive dirty bomb in a crowded city would be horrific,’ Curtis said thoughtfully.
‘Now that you and I are flying back to the States out of Melbourne, I’d better see if I can organise something to get us down there,’ said Kate.
Nearly an hour later, Kate leaned back from one of the computer screens and stretched her neck wearily as she received confirmation of the online booking. ‘We’re on the XPT to Melbourne,’ she said to Curtis, ‘but I feel really bad about leaving these guys.’
‘We’d only be in the way,’ Curtis assured her. ‘You’re far more valuable back at Halliwell. What time does the train leave?’
‘8.40 p.m.’
‘Single or double beds?’ Curtis asked, eyes dancing. Even in the middle of a crisis he hadn’t lost his sense of humour.
‘First Class, but they’re seats. We don’t run to an Orient Express here,’ Kate said with a smile.
‘Pity, I was looking forward to a nightcap,’ Curtis replied, winking at her.
The Vice President, Secretary of Defense and Dan Esposito accompanied the President up to the Oval Office. The Secretary of State had not been invited.
‘It might be a good idea if you were to pay a flying visit to Australia, Mr President, to show the Australian people that we’re grateful for their support,’ Dan Esposito offered, moving the focus away from Kadeer’s video threats.
‘For fuck’s sake, Dan, the Australians have only got three men and a dog in Iraq and Australia’s at the bottom of the bloody world. Even if the President only stays there for 24 hours, it’s a three day round trip at least,’ the Defense Secretary added pointedly.
‘It’s not how many they’ve got there, Mr President,’ Esposito responded, giving the Defense Secretary a steely glare, ‘it’s the fact that there’s another flag on the coalition flagpole. Right now this coalition of ours is shaky and the Australian Prime Minister is looking pretty rattled. He’s stubborn and he’ll ignore any protests but on his past form, if he thinks something’s going to cost him an election, he’ll do a U-turn. We can’t afford for the Australians to cut and run like the bloody Spanish or Italians. That would look pretty bad in the run up to the next election,’ Dan Esposito concluded, pushing the meaning of ‘hypocrisy’ to new heights.
‘I think Dan’s right, Mr President,’ Vice President Bolton said in a rare display of support for the President’s advisor. ‘They need to stay with us and if that means a little arm-twisting, now’s the time.’
CHAPTER 73
B eijing might have been designed in accordance with an ancient feng shui grid, but to al-Falid’s disgust the city pulsed like any other decadent city in the West. Twenty floors below his room in the five-star hotel on Wangfujing Avenue, not far from QianHai Lake, Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, Beijing’s equivalent of Fifth Avenue and the Champs Elysees throbbed with the heartbeat of a capital that was keen to match the avarice of the West. As the city’s nightlife gathered pace, the bars and restaurants with their or sanpei xiaojie, the ‘ladies of the three accompaniments’ began to fill up.
Tomorrow al-Falid would travel east to Shandong Province and the Qingdao bear farm where he would brief his team leaders on what was required for the final solution, but later tonight he would go online to receive reports on the arrangements that were in hand for the second and third warnings. al-Falid couldn’t understand why Kadeer didn’t move straight to the final solution, release the deadly virus and eliminate the Chinese and Western infidels, but he went along with Kadeer’s warning approach out of a grudging respect for the Islamic philosopher. Kadeer might be going soft, he thought as he went over the arrangements he’d put in place. The success of the second warning attack would depend on al-Falid having cells in sites close to where the alpha rotated if the opportunity arose. It was an opportunity that didn’t arise very often. al-Falid had chosen locations in five countries to maximise the chances of being able to take advantage of it if it did.
The British al-Qaeda cell had rented an apartment close to where the infidel had been on 18 November 2003, but that had been the first time the infidel had been there since 1982, so the chances of it happening again any time soon were probably remote.
The Frankfurt am Main cell, al-Falid knew, had overcome their earlier problems with the Rhein-Main military base. That was now closed, which left Schonefeld as a possibility and the cell members had rented an apartment with good coverage of the area.
For the Moscow cell Sheremetyevo was unlikely; when they were there in November 2006 both infidels had preferred Vnukovo.
The Chaoyang District cell was also ready, but again the sightings had been a long way apart. The first had been on 21 February 1972, and at the time it had caused headlines around the world. The last one had occurred exactly thirty years later on 21 February 2002, which left the fifth cell.
The small cell in Australia, al-Falid knew, was reconnoitering the final attack locations but again, the chances of a successful attack there were slim. The infidel had visited just three times in the country’s entire history: on 23 October 1966, on 19 November 1996, and again very briefly on 23 October 2003, exactly thirty-seven years after the first visit. On the last occasion the local residents had been left holding a $30 million bill for damages. al-Falid and the leader of the Australian cell, Ahmad Rahman, a solidly built young man with a neatly trimmed beard, were of like mind. The chances might be slim but if Allah wished it, they would surely get another opportunity. Al-Falid smiled. ‘When the alpha rotates for the first time.’ Kadeer’s coding had been exquisite.