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the perks that the political appointees he reported to valued so much. His job was to ensure his country’s security, not his own.
    “Right now”—he raised his voice—“I’ve got the White House, the DNI, and that bozo in Homeland Security riding my ass.”
    “Dubai?”
    “That bombing could change the dynamics of the region.”
    “How were we to know about a target that doesn’t even pertain to us?”
    “The NSA claims they’ve been warning the Intelligence Directorate for months about increased chatter. But there’s always chatter. Damn it, I need to show that we’re doing something now.”
    Over the previous few years, the various Islamic terrorist groups had been relatively quiet as they nursed their wounds from a decade of pressure from the US military. That had changed two days ago with the bombing in Dubai. Now that the UAE, one of the most stable, and certainly most capitalistic, of the Arab countries had been hit, the Agency was picking up rumblings in Turkey. None of the secular Muslim states were considered safe from attack anymore.
    Since the end of the Cold War, the CIA had struggled with its mission and its methods. He knew firsthand that combating Islamic extremism was not as easy as the talking heads on TV thought it was. Failures had occurred on many levels prior to 9/11: lack of focus, too high a reliance on technology rather than HUMINT, marginalizing the few analysts who warned of the dangers. The US had become complacent with being the sole surviving superpower for having won the Cold War. Human intelligence was more difficult when one’s adversary was driven not by politics but by religion. As a motivating force, religion was more powerful than lust, greed, or ego. Men were not just willing to die for their religion, they were enthusiastic about becoming martyrs.
    “I told you in the beginning I needed more leeway with Jericho,” the man on the phone said.
    Richards usually wouldn’t have tolerated such insubordination, but the man was an off-the-books subcontractor, not an official employee. He had also devised the most creative plan to combat the difficulties they faced that Richards had ever heard.
    “This isn’t the 1960s anymore.”
    “Unfortunate indeed.”
    “Look, I spoke with the director this morning. You have the go-ahead to ramp up Jericho. Just bring me some results.”
    Richards’s oversight of Project Jericho, one of the boldest and potentially most explosive—if, God forbid, it was ever made public—covert operations undertaken in the post-Cold War era, was the key reason he’d been tapped for the role of Deputy Director. His career, not to mention the potential for peace in the Middle East, hinged on the success of the project this man had first pitched to him several years ago. Prior to 9/11, the man never would have gotten a meeting with Richards. The sort of operation he was proposing hadn’t been attempted in almost four decades, which was exactly why Richards thought it just might work.
    “I may have a surprise for you too.”
    Richards cringed. Surprises were rarely a good thing in intelligence.
    “We may have a new technique that will revolutionize our work.”
    “Tell me.”
    “It’s better if you don’t know all of the details now.”
    Knowing the man’s checkered reputation and questionable ethics, he could only imagine what he had planned. Richards had reviewed the file of the experiments the man had overseen early in his career. Even as a CIA covert-ops veteran, he’d been shocked by some of what he’d seen. But if anything, the man was a patriot.
    Anyways, all aspects of Jericho took place far away from American soil, with no discoverable links to the American government or the CIA.
    Richards didn’t ask for elaboration.

CHAPTER 7
SSS , YALE UNIVERSITY
     
    ----
    “H ow do we know what is reality?”
    Ethan gazed at his students from behind the podium on the stage of Lecture Hall 114, two floors below his lab. The auditorium reminded