The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [53]
He accepted the glass without compliment or thanks, palming the bowl of the tulip-shaped crystal and glancing at the big watch under his cuff. He warmed the brandy for a time, never looking at it, waiting for the precise minute, calculated over years of trial and error, at which the cognac would achieve the perfect temperature.
“You look unhappy.”
“I’m figuring out how much that cognac costs by the sip,” Steve Rhodes said. The Sheik understood English but spoke Arabic and the syntax often seemed formal when Rhodes translated inside his head.
“That’s not it.”
“No?”
A recording of the Vienna Philharmonic’s presentation of Bach’s Cantata No. 82 played from invisible speakers. They paused at times to listen, as if Bach were a third participant in the conversation.
“Have I ever told you the story of my ancestor and Johannes Kepler?” the Sheik asked.
“Who’s Johannes Kepler?”
“You possess knowledge that would make a NASA scientist weep with envy, and you’ve never heard of Kepler?”
“Who was he?”
“Maybe I’ll give you the parts that aren’t in his Wikipedia entry.”
“Please.”
“He came close to uncovering something.”
“What?”
“One of the divine teachings. A teaching that has since been revealed by science. It doesn’t matter what. But the tradition was concerned at the time. They sent my ancestor to take care of it.”
“To kill him. When was this?”
“Early seventeenth century.”
“How did he do it?”
“Smallpox.”
“Jesus.” Rhodes paused as he considered that. “We created smallpox.”
“You are not a student of our history, are you, Stephen? We did not create smallpox. My ancestor left a man’s coat at Kepler’s door. A fine coat, infested with the disease. He assumed Kepler would wear it.”
“I suppose the brotherhood was pleased.”
“Not at first. Kepler survived.”
“Maybe I should just let you tell it.”
“His wife took the coat and cut the fabric and made it into a vest for their six-year-old son. Kepler’s wife and child died instead, along with seven of the son’s playmates.”
“Christ.”
“Kepler’s grief set back his research a decade. It was enough to put him off the discovery forever.”
“Someone else discovered it, though.”
“Three centuries later.”
“Because of a father’s grief.”
“Yes.”
“How is that any better than what they are doing now? You call them terrorists.”
“They are putting our secrets at risk when, like us, they should be protecting them. Think how different the world would be if Kepler had made the discovery in the 1600s? How much closer we would be to annihilation.”
Rhodes understood, but he didn’t like it. The Sheik was clever like that, good at climbing inside your head. Of course, he had heard similar stories. His own father had told him about Hippasus, who revealed the existence of irrational numbers to people outside the Semicircle. Some say Pythagoras himself ordered Hippasus’s execution, but Rhodes didn’t know if that was true. He knew much about the Sheik was false. For instance, he was wearing a tailored Western suit, one of a dozen he kept at the casino. They were always waiting for him in his suite, and as soon as he arrived he would trade his robe, embroidered with the colors of his branch of the royal family, for the duration of his visit. When it was time to leave, he would change back into his traditional garb.
“I think I would know if the mathematici were planning something imminent.”
“They didn’t tell you about the airplanes. That’s because they’re suspicious of you. Of our meetings together.”
“You and I have known each other a long time, and you have other friends across the aisle, too. You do business with dozens of mathematici.”
“It doesn