The Jericho Deception: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

the amplitude, of the EEG is the key , he realized, and it has to be applied asynchronously to the left and right temporal lobes .
    The idea was like a spark that had smoldered within him and suddenly ignited with a breath of air. As he returned to his computer, he was grateful the headache was keeping itself at bay. His fingers flew across the keys as he rewrote a portion of the code. Then he reran the simulation analysis. He wiped his palms on his khakis while he stared at the three open windows on his laptop. One contained the script of the code he’d been writing, the second a graph showing the electrical impulses the Logos would create in a subject’s brain, and the third a series of ones and zeroes—binary code—that was the computer’s translation of his programming.
    When the analysis was complete, he studied the results. Was the answer to the past five years of research really that simple? He swiveled his chair and stared at the machine. Now all they had to do was to test it.
    He thought back to Liz’s vision. “What do you mean by infinity?” he’d asked her.
    “Words are inadequate, trivial,” she’d said. “It’s something that must be experienced.”
    “Can you try?”
    She’d put a finger to her lips for a moment, shrugged, and said, “God.”

CHAPTER 4
DUBAI
     
    ----
    A s his daughter played in the white sand on the edge of the blue-green Persian Gulf, Mousa sat on a beach lounge chair by the Royal Mirage Hotel. He rewrapped the Ace bandage around his knee, pulling it tighter and crisscrossing the joint to add stability. He didn’t need an MRI to know that the ligament that normally did that job was ruptured. He tugged his linen pants leg down over the wrap. It fit, barely. He’d picked up an elaborately carved cane in the hotel’s gift shop, much fancier than he needed, but it would allow him to walk well enough until he returned to Amman. He thought about which one of his colleagues would do the surgery to repair his ACL. Too bad I can’t operate on myself , he thought.
    Their flight left in four hours, and it was time to head back inside the hotel to clean up, but he decided to give Amira a few more minutes to play. She was chatting to herself as she built a sand castle, miraculously uninjured from the bombing that had killed countless others the previous day.
    Alhamdulillah , Mousa mouthed for the hundredth time that day. Praise Allah . The emergency lights above the ski slope had kicked on a few seconds after the main power went out. Mousa had somehow navigated down the slope on his back, maneuvering past the dead and dying in the bloody and blackened snow, frantic to get Amira out before the entire building ignited in flames. When they reached the metal fire door at the bottom of the slope, he put a hand on his daughter’s bony shoulder to steady his balance as he stood. He hopped on his good leg to the door as Amira clung to his waist. The criesof his fellow skiers called to him to do his duty: to help. He was a doctor, after all. But the groaning sound of metal twisting against its will overpowered the voices. And what use would he be if he couldn’t even steady himself?
    He and Amira had managed to wobble out onto a side street and into the harsh sunlight. He led her away from the exterior of the mall in case the walls failed. In the time it took to reach the intersection with the main street, police and fire trucks screamed up to the building. He’d paused, breathing deeply and resting his leg. People and smoke poured out the main doors to the mall.
    How could this happen? he’d wondered, paralyzed by the shock of the past few minutes. Then an image popped into his head, one that was almost as disturbing as the injured people he’d passed on the ski slope: the other Jordanian he’d seen in the mall, the one with the backpack.
    Mousa surveyed the police cars screeching to a halt in the street around them. He had to get Amira far away. The ambulances were arriving, and he