Game Changer, page 26
“Which is why we only flash-educate the most creative people possible. You’d be surprised by how many highly educated people really aren’t that bright—or inventive. And also how many brilliant, creative people are uneducated. Some are lazy. Some don’t have the funds or access to quality education. Some come from farming or blue-collar families, where following in their parents’ footsteps is all they know, all they aspire to. Some aren’t able to sit still long enough to learn what they need to know. There is a worldwide high IQ society called Mensa. Some members are accomplished scientists, true, but many are truck drivers. Firefighters. Laborers.”
Rachel nodded appreciatively. “I see. You recruit those with raw ability but without the patience, or money, or ambition for advanced studies. You implant a PhD equivalent in days, and then let them apply their genius.”
“Exactly. We have a program to identify and recruit the most gifted people in Israel, not just using IQ scores, but other measures of inventiveness, of thinking outside the box, of bold vision. Are you familiar with Alan Turing and the group that broke the unbreakable German code in World War II?”
Rachel and Quinn both nodded. Quinn had learned of this effort while in the military. Alan Turing had successfully created a machine at a place called Bletchley Park able to break the German Enigma code, turning the tide of the war and ushering in the computer age.
“Turing also recruited people from all walks of life. Some with no experience in code breaking or mathematics. People no one would ever think of hiring based on any known criteria. The group published a thorny crossword puzzle in the Daily Telegraph and offered a prize to anyone who could solve it. No one knew the British War Office was behind it. Those who were able to solve it were summoned to be interviewed to join Turing’s top-secret team, the biggest surprise of their lives.”
“So you’ve adopted similar methods,” said Quinn.
“More sophisticated and far-reaching, but the same idea. Our success at finding diamonds in the rough has been extraordinary.”
“I see,” said Rachel. “And then you polish up these diamonds in the rough with the greatest buffing machine in history.”
“That’s right. With most of them we didn’t stop at one branch of knowledge, but imparted a few that were adjacent. This has played a huge role as well. The synergy produced by implanting expertise in multiple fields has been far greater than expected. There’s a famous quote we took to heart: ‘To be the master of any branch of knowledge, you must master those which lie next to it.’”
“Oliver Wendell Holmes,” said Rachel.
Regev smiled. “I should have known you’d be familiar.”
“This is all very fascinating,” said Quinn. “But let’s get back to Kovonov. What the hell is going on now?”
“I’m getting there,” said Regev. “And trust me, this background is useful. When the first breakthroughs were made, Kovonov didn’t test this on himself. The government wouldn’t let him take the risk. You make gambits with your pawns and knights, not your queen.”
“So you had others take the shakedown cruise,” said Quinn.
Regev nodded. “After fourteen months with no discernible issues in hundreds of test subjects, and with no discernible behavioral or brain abnormalities, Kovonov insisted he be allowed to use his own invention. And he went hog wild with it,” added Regev. He raised his eyebrows. “Although this may be one of your idioms that isn’t strictly kosher.”
Quinn smiled, but Rachel’s face remained serious. “How hog wild?” she asked.
“He sucked up many times more knowledge than any other subject had before. Other than you, he had already been the world’s leading authority on the scientific principles of Matrix Learning, but he had every other neuroscience discipline flashed into his brain as well. And not just neuroscience. Physics. Computer science. Robotics.”
“Isn’t there a limit to how much knowledge you can shove into a brain?” asked Quinn.
Regev gestured toward Rachel with his head, indicating that she was the right person to answer.
“I’m sure there is,” she replied. “But the limits aren’t precisely clear. With a hundred billion neurons and almost infinite number of possible connections, the brain’s capacity is very, very high. Consider a foreign language. Fluency requires a very broad knowledge of vocabulary, syntax, and so on. Yet a cardinal named Giuseppe Mezzofanti, born in 1774, was known to have spoken thirty-eight languages and forty dialects. John Browning, a governor of Hong Kong in the eighteen hundreds, claimed to speak a hundred languages, although I doubt this is accurate. But you get the point.”
Quinn nodded. He had taken Spanish in college but was horrible at it. He couldn’t imagine being fluent in even two languages, let alone dozens.
“Using this extensive knowledge base,” continued Regev, “and with the help of his team, Kovonov went on to make quite a few advances in neuroscience. Advances that could all be used in scary ways in the wrong hands.” He gestured at Rachel. “The very ways you lecture about.”
The Harvard professor nodded, looking more troubled than ever.
“I must have missed these lectures,” said Quinn. “What scary uses are we talking about?”
“If you truly understand the brain there are all kinds of levers to push on,” said Regev. “Memory implantation, as you know better than anyone. And memory erasure, of course. But addiction, sex drive, rage, depression, and many others—all can be impacted if you know the right place and manner to push.”
“Davinroy mentioned Pandora’s box in the vid-meet,” said Rachel. “But this is the true Pandora’s box.”
“I’m still not sure I’m grasping the possibilities the way you two are,” said Quinn.
“Take sex drive as one example,” said Rachel. “Imagine if you could manipulate this. Ratchet it up to obsessive levels. A woman who wouldn’t think of cheating on her husband becomes insanely hypersexual and seduces a co-worker. You could use this to ruin people. Lie in wait and then blackmail them. Sex has brought down empires. The Trojan War, which many scholars believe is loosely based on actual history, was started over the lust for the beautiful Helen of Troy. Bill Clinton almost lost the presidency because he couldn’t resist oral sex with an intern. And don’t forget the example of the forty-year-old who suddenly became sexually obsessed with children.”
“Okay then,” said Quinn, putting on a disturbed expression. “Thanks. This does paint a vivid picture.”
“Kovonov wanted badly to use these neuroscience advances against Israel’s enemies,” said Regev. “Forgive the language, but in the Mossad, we thought of these capabilities collectively as fucking with people’s minds.”
Quinn had to admit that as inelegant as this phrase was, it got the point across well.
“Kovonov was zealously patriotic about his adopted homeland,” continued Regev. “He argued that Israel shouldn’t hold back against the barbaric hordes devoted to our destruction. If we had the upper hand, we should press our advantage. Kish tended to side with him, while my boss, Avi Wortzman, was adamantly opposed.”
Regev paused. “Wortzman is in a tough business, but he strives to be as ethical as possible. He has Nietzsche’s warning framed in his office, the one about not letting the battle with monsters turn you into one. He argued that the fly drone invention, a direct result of the Matrix Learning program, and other tech that resulted, gave Israel more than enough of an advantage. While he supported using advanced technology to defeat our enemies, he drew the line at fucking with people’s minds. That was beyond the pale.”
Amen to that, thought Quinn.
But while this was his immediate reaction, he could well understand those Israeli factions in favor of using every arrow in the quiver. After more than seventy years of being surrounded by those who had made repeated attempts to destroy them, it would take impressive ethical resolve not to use all the weapons at their disposal. Especially against ruthless groups that wouldn’t hesitate to do the same, with no ethical qualms whatsoever. In 1973, Syria and Egypt joined forces to invade Israel on Yom Kippur, the most holy day of the Jewish year, when Israeli soldiers were fasting and in prayer—something Israel would never consider doing in reverse.
“Wortzman also argued there was a logistical hurdle to overcome,” continued Regev, “before these neuroscience capabilities could be deployed, anyway. Kovonov would need to invent a way to manipulate brains less invasively. Like Rachel mentioned in her lecture. Not requiring them to plug in like Neo, or even like we were doing, but remotely. Wirelessly. Until this was perfected, mind tampering wouldn’t be all that useful. Say you wanted to implant a memory in the leader of Iran. First you’d have to kidnap him, bring him back to our facility, inject implants, and then stick him in a machine. Not very stealthy. You could then make him forget this happened, but still . . . Best case, this would require a lengthy abduction.”
“Given Kevin’s false memories,” said Rachel, “this seems like a hurdle Kovonov was able to overcome. Unless you’re suggesting he captured Kevin and transported him to Israel and back.”
“No. Kovonov must have found a more portable, less invasive solution,” agreed Regev. “But let me go on. We can circle back to this in a few minutes.”
“Okay,” said Rachel. “I believe you were saying that Kish and Wortzman disagreed over the use of some of these advances.”
“Since this disputed tech was used on me,” said Quinn, “the prime minister must have won the day.”
Regev shook his head. “The opposite. Wortzman convinced Kish he was right. Together they made sure the lid to Pandora’s box remained nailed shut.”
Quinn squinted in confusion, but only for a moment. “I see,” he said, as the answer became clear to him. “So Kovonov must have decided to take his toys and leave, refusing to abide by these restrictions. Which means the part of your story about him going rogue was true. But not because he was still loyal to Russia. But because he had lost an argument with Kish and Wortzman.”
Regev sighed. “If only it were that simple,” he said miserably.
42
“We’ve been in place for some time now,” reported the life-sized floating head of Daniel Eisen in Hebrew.
“How goes the recon of our evangelicals?” asked Kovonov.
“Quite well. We’ve surveiled the proceedings on our own and have now set up electronic surveillance in key locations. My confidence is high that this will go off without a hitch.”
“It had better. This is one reason I chose this group, and this venue, from among all the possibilities. They should be ripe for the taking.”
Kovonov told his underling when he planned to arrive and they discussed logistics. “While you’re waiting for me,” he said, “I want you to locate a Middle Eastern Islamic terrorist somewhere in the States. Preferably one long affiliated with ISIS. Make this your highest priority.”
“I don’t understand,” said Eisen. “Do you have intel that one is planning an imminent attack?”
“One is always planning an imminent attack. But no, I have no specific intel.”
“And you aren’t interested in a specific terrorist. Any one will do?”
“That’s correct.”
“Does it matter if they are at large or in custody?”
Kovonov shook his head. “I’d prefer at large, but either way will work. As long as they’re part of ISIS and not an American citizen. A home-grown terrorist is no good to me.”
“I’ll have to pan through US intel for this,” noted Eisen. “Once the Americans become aware of a foreign terrorist within their borders, they usually don’t leave them at large for long.”
“Understood,” said Kovonov, frowning. He had planned to get Azim Jafari to deliver the terrorist they needed, but this was no longer an option. Oh well. Kovonov was smart and had his fingers deep into the US intelligence apparatus. He had no doubt he would find what he needed soon enough.
“Can you tell me why this is such a high priority?” said Eisen. “And your plans once such a man is identified?”
“I can’t tell you that right now. But I’ll make all of my plans clear in due course.”
Eisen stared at Kovonov’s virtual image for several seconds, not happy about being kept in the dark, but finally nodded. “Okay, Dmitri. I’ll get on this right away.”
“Good,” said Kovonov. “I’ll be in touch.”
43
Quinn’s intuition told him everything the Israeli was saying was the truth, although he had to admit he had thought the same before. Intuition might be more perceptive than conscious reasoning at times, but it was far from perfect.
Still, Regev’s answers to questions were quick and well thought out and had an impeccable logical consistency. And how many ways could the explanation of known facts be contorted, tortured, before the truth became the only remaining option with any chance of being believable?
“About two months ago,” said Regev, “two researchers on our Matrix Learning team began behaving erratically. And not because their memories were tampered with. What we told your president about that isn’t true. We thought it was the best way to convince your people that Kevin had been manipulated. So they would be on their guard and so they would let us recruit the two of you.”
Quinn was familiar with the expression wheels within wheels, but what the Israelis had done took this to an entirely new level. Without question lying to achieve specific ends took more brilliance and creativity than telling the truth.
“We monitored these two researchers and came to realize that they had become delusional. Paranoid. Megalomaniacal. There was a lot more to the diagnosis, but I’m not a psychiatrist. Let’s just say that their grip on sanity wasn’t what it used to be. But what was most alarming was that these two were among the first subjects to undergo the Matrix Learning procedure. One had done so two months after the very first test subject, and one three months after. ”
“Uh-oh,” said Rachel grimly.
“Uh-oh is right,” replied Regev. “It would be accurate to say the Mossad was more than just panicked. It threw us into a frenzy. We put considerable resources into analyzing what might have happened, and began careful evaluations of all subjects who had undergone the procedure during the first six months of its use.”
Regev seemed shaken to the core, even from just the recounting of these events. After several seconds of hesitation, he took a deep breath, gathered himself, and continued. “Then, about a month ago, Dmitri Kovonov did exactly what we said he had. He killed four members of the fly drone team, took their inventory, and destroyed the factory.”
“Didn’t you say he waited fourteen months after Matrix Learning came online to try it?” said Rachel.
“Yes.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed in thought. “But he had crammed in ten times as much knowledge as anyone else,” she said, almost as though talking to herself.
“Excellent,” said Regev. “You’ve grasped the situation immediately, of course. Seems the procedure does have one or two problematic . . . side effects . . . after all. As you already deduced, we concluded that Kovonov had gone insane as well, and that his procedure was responsible. Although we didn’t see the possibility of the equation you’re alluding to—even though we should have—until after Kovonov’s actions.”
“What equation?” said Quinn.
“The procedure eventually leads to insanity,” said Regev. “But when this will happen depends on a complex combination of two factors. One, the length of time after first exposure to the procedure. And two, the cumulative amount of information implanted. The very first subject this was used on barely had anything implanted, and is still doing fine. Like Rachel deduced, Kovonov, even though he avoided the procedure for over a year, used it extensively, so was impacted earlier than all but two of the rest.”
“So Kovonov went rogue,” said Quinn, “not because he isn’t loyal to Israel. But because he’s stark raving mad.”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s much better,” snapped Quinn sarcastically.
“This is a disaster of epic proportions,” said Eyal with a fierce scowl. “Dmitri Kovonov was a fine man. He may have argued for more widespread use of his neurotech, but he wasn’t a killer. Quite the opposite. But now, like we told your president, we have a brilliant man wielding a game-changing technology—more than one, but we didn’t tell that to your people—who is off the reservation. Ruthless, driven, and unpredictable. Almost certainly suffering from paranoia and megalomania.”
“Yeah, nothing bad can happen from that combination,” said Quinn in disgust.
“He also managed to recruit a number of our best people when he left. Maybe they were enticed by the prospect of finally pulling out all the stops to destroy Israel’s enemies. Or maybe he used his tech to, um . . . fuck with their brains.” Regev shrugged. “We only know the end result.”
“And you have no idea where they went?” said Quinn.
“We’re working on it, but with little success. In addition to taking a number of sympathizers with him, we believe he left several behind as well, who are helping him elude us. We’ve recently taken to trusting only a few handpicked agents with details of our manhunt.”
“Let me be sure I have this right,” said Quinn. “Kovonov is off somewhere with a group of followers who are brilliant, have more knowledge packed into their skulls than even the most experienced operatives, and are armed with fly drones and numerous other breakthrough technologies. And don’t forget, know all of your agents, your methods, and your secrets.” Quinn raised his eyebrows. “Not to mention many of ours. And you’re nowhere close to finding them.”
“You forget to mention a group led by a man who is now ruthless and willing to do anything to achieve his goals. And also that his followers will begin their own descent into madness over the months and years ahead.”
