"Politics." Godin sighed heavily. "That word disgusts me, Mr. McCaskell. Men like you have soiled it. Your idea of government is a whorehouse. A sleazy flea market where the ideals of our forefathers are sold for trifles."

McCaskell peered at the old man as he might at a street preacher screaming condemnation at passersby. He was about to speak again when the men at the table behind him gasped.

On the main plasma display, four lines of blue text had appeared.

I have a message for the President of the United States. Later, I will have a message for the people of the world. Do not attempt to interfere with my operations. Interference will be instantly punished. Do not test me.

"Holy God," Skow breathed. "It's real. He did it. We did it."

"Yes, you did," said Ewan McCaskell. "You arrogant son of a bitch. And you may be hanged for it."

"Look," said Ravi Nara. "There's more."

The first message scrolled down the screen, and new words appeared.

I will accept as valid only data from the White House Situation Room and from the command post at White Sands. Communications should he addressed to Internet Protocol Address 105.674.234.64.

"It knows we're here," said Ravi, glancing around the room for security cameras.

"Of course it does," said Skow. "It's Godin. And Levin will have briefed him on everything that's hap¬pened up to this point."

"Look," said McCaskell.

A new message had flashed onto the screen.

“Is Peter Godin still alive?

"Who's going to talk to this thing?" asked General Bauer.

"Answer him," said McCaskell.

The general signaled one of the technicians sitting at a console. "Answer in the affirmative, Corporal. Begin a dialogue with the machine."

"Yes, sir."

There was a clicking of keys as the response was typed in. A new message flashed up almost instanta¬neously.

I wish to speak to Godin.

"Type what I say," said McCaskell.

General Bauer nodded to his tech.

"This is Ewan McCaskell, the chief of staff of the president of the United States."

The soldier typed in McCaskell's message. The response was immediate.

I know who you are.

"I don't know who you are," McCaskell said. "Will you identify yourself, please?"

The huge screen went dark for a moment. Then two words flashed up and glowed steadily.

I am.

"My God," Ravi murmured.

"Type this," said McCaskell. "Answer not under¬stood. Please identify yourself. Are you Peter Godin?"

I was.

"Who are you now?"

I AM.

The men at the table looked at each other, but no one said a word. The letters on the screen continued to glow softly, as though the machine understood that it would take time for humans to comprehend them. Ravi felt a fear unlike any he'd ever known, and he saw that fear reflected in the eyes of the others. Only Peter Godin's face was free of it. The old man's blue eyes were wide and fixed on the screen, his wrinkled countenance relaxed into a childlike gaze of wonder.

CHAPTER 38

The sun shone white and clear outside the plane as we raced westward over the continental United States. Our El Al 747 had been left behind in New York. The corpo¬rate Gulfstream the Israelis had transferred us to was tiny by comparison, but far more luxurious. Rachel had been sleeping on a bed in the back since we'd left JFK. I wasn't so lucky. General Kinski had kept me up front, answering endless questions from the Israeli scientists. I badly needed rest, but since the Mossad chief could order the pilot to return to New York at any time, I had little choice but to cooperate.

Somewhere over Arkansas, Kinski finally realized I'd endured all I could. I visited the toilet, then walked to the rear of the plane to join Rachel. She was no longer sleeping, but staring out a window at the endless carpet of cumulus clouds below us.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

She looked up at me, her eyes circled in shadow. "I thought they'd never let you go."

I sat beside her. My throat was sore from talking, and my neck ached as though I'd been watching a film from the first row of a theater.

She slipped her hand into mine and leaned on my shoulder. "We haven't really talked since you came out of the coma."

"I know."

"Are we going to?"

"If you like. But you're not going to like what you hear."

"Did you dream?"

"Yes and no. It wasn't like my old dreams. Not like movies. It was like being deaf for a lifetime and then hearing Bach. An indescribable feeling of revelation. And now… I know things."

"That sounds like an acid trip. What kinds of things do you know?"

I thought about it. "The kinds of things that five-year-olds want to know. Who are we? Where did we come from? Does God exist?"

Rachel sat up, and I could tell she was slipping into her professional persona. "Tell me about it."

"I will. But you have to drop all your preconceptions. This is Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus stuff."

She chuckled softly, her eyes knowing. "You think I expected something else?"

Part of me wanted to remain silent. The things I'd shared with Rachel in the past had stretched her willing¬ness to believe, yet compared to the revelations of my coma, they were conventional. The safest way to begin was with something familiar.

"Do you remember my very first dream? The recurring one?"

"The paralyzed man sitting in the dark room?"

"Yes. He can't see or hear or remember anything. Do you remember what he asks himself?"

"'Who am I? Where did I come from?'"

"Right. You said the man in that dream was me. Remember?"

She brushed a dark strand of hair out of her eyes. "You still don't think he was?"

"No."

"Who was he, then?"

"God."

The muscles tensed beneath the oval plane of her face. "I should have guessed."

"Don't panic. I'm using that word as a kind of short¬hand, because we don't have a word to communicate what I experienced. God is nothing like we imagine him to be. He's not male or female. He's not even a spirit. I say 'he' only as a conversational convenience."

"That's good to know." A wry laugh. "You're telling me God is a paralyzed man with no memory sitting in a pitch-black room?"

"In the beginning, yes."

"Is he powerless?"

"Not completely. But he thinks he is."

"I don't understand."

"To understand the beginning, you have to under¬stand the end. When we get to the end, you'll see it all."

She looked far from convinced.

"Remember the dream? The man in the room becomes obsessed with his questions, so obsessed that he becomes the questions. "Who am I? Where did I come from? Was I always here?' Then he sees a black ball floating in space ahead of him. Darker than the other darkness."

Rachel nodded. "Do you know what the ball is now?"

"Yes. A singularity. A point of infinite density and temperature and pressure."

"A black hole? Like what existed before the Big Bang?"

"Exactly. Do you know what existed before that?"

She shrugged. "No one does."

"I do."

"What?"

"The desire of God to know."

Curiosity filled her eyes. "To know what?"

"His identity."

Rachel took my hand in hers and began messaging my palm with her thumb. "The black ball exploded in your dream, right? Like a hydrogen bomb, you said."

"Yes. It devoured the darkness at a fantastic rate. Yet the man in the dream always remained outside the explosion."

"How do you interpret that image? God watching the birth of the universe?"

"Yes, but I don't interpret it. I've seen it. I've seen what God saw."

Her thumb stopped moving. She could not hide the sadness in her eyes.

"I know what you're thinking," I said.

"David, you can't read my mind."