At 11:47 p.m., the lights went out.
For three seconds, the underground command shelter beneath an old Geneva hotel was swallowed by darkness before the emergency lamps blinked on.
Colonel Daniel Reeves stood beside the communications console.
Dr Miriam Vale, an American nuclear physicist, was seated opposite him.
Beside her were Leila Farhadi, an Iranian-American diplomat; Victor Haines, a British intelligence officer; and Professor Elias Stern, an elderly historian of cryptography.
They had been brought together because the war between the United States and Iran had reached a terrifying point.
Missiles, Retaliation, Satellites were being jammed.
Intelligence agencies on both sides believed that someone possessed information capable of either stopping the escalation, or triggering something far worse.
The shelter was absolutely secure from all sides.
Professor Stern sat slumped in his chair – dead.
A silver letter opener protruded from his chest.
Reeves moved towards him.
“Don’t touch him.”
“There’s something wrong.”
Miriam bent closer. The dark stain on Stern’s shirt wasn’t blood.
It was ink.
“There’s no wound.”
Reeves pulled the letter opener free.
A tiny metallic capsule fell from its hollow handle.
Three numbers were engraved on it.
17 — 04 — 39
Leila suddenly went pale.
Miriam noticed.
“You know those numbers.”
“No.”
It came too quickly.
The communications screen flickered.
DO NOT TRUST THE DEAD MAN.
Then the printer began to work.
THE FIRST MISSILE WAS NEVER FIRED.
“What the hell does that mean?”
THE SECOND WAS FIRED BY A MAN WHO DIED TWENTY YEARS AGO.
Leila whispered, “Impossible.”
The printer stopped.
Miriam looked at Stern.
And suddenly she noticed a tiny red light blinking inside his cufflink.
There was a recording device hidden inside.
She pressed the button.
Stern’s voice filled the room.
“If you’re hearing this, I’m already dead.”
“The war you believe you are watching began long before tonight.”
“And one of the five people in this room knows why.”
Victor, Leila, Reeves and Miriam looked at each other.
“Before you accuse one another, remember this. The message you have been waiting for tonight is not from Washington.”
“It is from Tehran.”
“Ask Miriam about the photograph.”
The recording stopped.
“What photograph?” Reeves asked.
Miriam slowly removed a photograph from her handbag – old and yellowed.
Six young scientists stood beside a nuclear reactor.
Five faces were visible.
The sixth had been scratched out violently..
On the back was written:
GENEVA – 1999
Victor looked at Miriam.
“Who is he?”
“Arman Farhadi.”
Leila gasped.
“My father.”
Miriam nodded.
“He taught me everything I know.”
“But my father died in 2006.”
“I know.”
“Then why is his name here?”
“Because he wasn’t the man they said he was.”
The screen flickered again.
PART TWO BEGINS WHERE THE PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN.
Then the lights died. From somewhere behind the concrete wall came three soft knocks.
Leila whispered, “My father used to do that.”
The wall clicked.
A narrow section opened exposing a staircase leading down.
Reeves raised his weapon.
They descended.
At the bottom was a tiny room.
A desk.
An old tape recorder.
And…The same photograph !!!
The sixth man’s face – visible!!!
Arman Farhadi.
A date beneath the photograph…
6 SEPTEMBER 2026.
Victor frowned.
“That’s today.”
Miriam turned the photograph over.
A message…
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, MIRIAM, THEN STERN HAS SUCCEEDED.
She pressed PLAY.
Arman’s soft voice.
“Dear Miriam.”
“You will be told that I died in 2006.”
Leila froze, “That is my father’s voice.”
“I did die,” the recording continued.
“But dying was the easiest part.”
“In 1999, six scientists discovered that a military communication system could do something more dangerous than launch a missile.”
A diagram appeared on the monitor.
Two missiles.
Two countries.
One false signal.
“It could make one side believe the other had attacked first.”
“A war that manufactures itself.” Miriam whispered.
“If this recording is playing, someone has activated the system.”
The monitor lit up.
00:59
Reeves swore.
“Can you stop it?”
Miriam stared at the numbers.
“I think so.”
“How?”
She looked at the capsule.
17 — 04 — 39.
Then at Leila.
“Your father hid the activation key inside a memory.”
“Whose?”
Miriam’s face changed.
“Mine.”
She closed her eyes.
The laboratory.
Arman.
Stern.
The experiment.
And something else.
A little girl standing behind the six scientists.
Leila.
Six years old.
Miriam opened her eyes.
“The final number isn’t in my memory.”
She looked at Leila.
“It’s yours.”
Leila whispered:
“42”
Miriam entered it.
The countdown stopped.
TRANSMISSION CANCELLED.
They rushed back upstairs.
Stern’s chair was empty.
Victor stared at Miriam.
“Who killed him?”
Miriam shook her head.
“Nobody.”
She picked up the letter opener.
“The ink was designed to disappear.”
Reeves stared at her.
“Then Stern staged his own murder?”
Miriam didn’t answer.
On the table lay a final note.
DEAR MIRIAM,
IF YOU HAVE REMEMBERED EVERYTHING, YOU NOW KNOW THE TRUTH.
I WAS NEVER TRYING TO STOP THE WAR.
I WAS TRYING TO FIND OUT WHO WOULD TRY TO STOP ME.
At the bottom was a signature.
ELIAS STERN
Leila looked towards the photograph.
“There were six scientists.”
Miriam nodded.
“Five of us are here.”
Leila slowly turned the photograph over fingers unsteady…
There was a new sentence written underneath.
THERE ARE SIX OF US NOW.
From somewhere deep beneath came three knocks.
Miriam knocked back – Thrice.
She had just broken something Arman Farhadi had taught her in 1999:
Never answer the first three knocks.
PC: AI aided
