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  The Griffin’s Heart

  By Ron Schwartz

  Morley, Michigan

  Copyright © 2003 Ron Schwartz

  All rights reserved.

  For my late father, Melvin B. Schwartz

  The Morning Sun

  I've searched near and far; I've followed a star

  En route to the Morning Sun.

  And you, too, my friend, had searched for an end;

  Our journeys had just begun.

  I searched the sky high; I yelled and I cried.

  I looked for a heart of gold.

  But you had the song I’d looked for so long:

  A ransom of treasures untold.

  Of fire and light, a dream in the night,

  A search for a love that is true.

  An angel, a sign, a very fine wine;

  I thanked God the day I met you.

  With dreams made of gold and stories untold,

  With speed and with sail unfurled.

  A river so strong, a midnight song;

  I pulled from the sea my pearl.

  We laughed, we cried, we reached for the sky;

  I built a world with my friend

  Of castles and dreams, of romantic things,

  And of heroes who win in the end.

  My love is a rose, just like the poem goes,

  And I’m but the water, you see.

  I must be consumed for the blossom to bloom;

  So part of its beauty I’ll be.

  Prologue

  U.S. Persian Gulf Carrier Battle Group

  One hundred sixty-seven miles off the Iraqi coast

  Moving silently through the cool night mist, the aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt made its way across the Persian Gulf. Frothy waves beat against its torpedo-proof hull. The city of steel was the flagship of the Battle Group, surrounded by an armada of supporting ships including a half-dozen frigates and destroyers.

  With the build-up of Iraqi armor near the American forces in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia the United States chose to brandish its sword by reinforcing the fleet. The battle group inched its way closer to Iraqi shores than any other American ships had ventured since Desert Storm, steaming quietly forward under a blanket of complete darkness.

  Captain Neil Rainey stood on the bridge of the lead ship, Brittany Bay. This was his first command, but he felt right at home. Everything about it seemed to resemble him. Like his ship, he had a short compact frame. Even his light gray eyes seemed to match the color. He caressed the smooth surface of the metallic console, feeling the familiar vibrations of the huge gas turbine engines that propelled his ship. He knew every jostle and creak that emanated from its steel frame.

  “Come on, girl,” he whispered. “Tell me what we’re after.”

  “Con? This is sonar! I’ve got contact bearing three ten degrees at twenty thousand yards.”

  That’s what he’d been waiting to hear. Rainey wheeled about to face his first officer, Dana Pitney. “You’ve got the bridge!”

  It took only a moment for him to cover the few yards separating the bridge from Ops and approach the sonar operator’s station. “Let’s have it, Mr. Macmillan. “What are we seeing out there?”

  Macmillan didn’t acknowledge the captain when he arrived. He sat motionless with one hand over the right ear of his head set. Though silent, his intensity spoke volumes. The sounds he listened to were echoing from miles away under water, sounds that only the most sophisticated microphones ever developed by humanity could hear.

  Finally, Macmillan shook his head. “Sir, I’ve checked this signal three times, and I still don’t know what’s wrong!”

  “What do you mean? Let’s have it!”

  Macmillan held his earpiece again as if hearing something new, and then turned to the printer just as it began to print. After reading it, he turned back to the captain. “It’s confirmed, sir. The sub is a 1950’s vintage North Korean fast-attack submarine... diesel-powered! It’s submerged and making for Iraq under full power.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “That’s affirmative, sir. Its signature has been on record for over twenty years.”

  “What’s an antique Korean submarine doing here, twelve thousand miles from home?”

  “I couldn’t begin to guess, sir.”

  The captain turned away and looked toward a large map of the region on a sheet of plexi-glass. Almost twenty miles ahead of them was an outdated submarine half the world away from home. What interest could North Korea possibly have in the waters of the Persian Gulf? This development was certainly too significant to be ignored.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here, and I don’t like it. All the same, let’s make the Roosevelt aware of this.”

  The Ministry of Foreign Intelligence

  London, Great Britain

  As Jonathan Logan sat with the British and American agents in a windowless building at the center of London, he could not help being surprised at how the atmosphere of the meeting did not reflect the imminent danger the Iraqi buildup presented. The room they sat in was cramped, too small for the large round table they sat around. Moreover, the room’s ventilation was completely inadequate.

  Smoke poured from the four British agents, filling the room. Disgustedly fanning the acrid smoke, the three agents from the American delegation seemed more interested in arguing over whether to allow smoking during the meeting than in discussing the statistical information that Logan had to show them.

  After four long hours, Logan closed his folder. “We must conclude that an Iraqi aggression against Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is imminent. The United States and its allies should reinforce their divisions above their current level of readiness.”

  The head American agent didn’t even seem to be aware of the fact that the presentation had ended. He was busily locked in a staredown with an overweight British agent who was puffing on an equally oversized cigar.

  Logan glanced around the room and cleared his throat.

  “Yes, yes.” The American agent rolled his eyes. “We’ve seen most of this information already, and our analysts have reviewed the data. You haven’t told us much that we don’t already know.”

  Logan studied this balding man in his early forties. He had come to trust his intuition about people, and this man displayed the same overconfidence he had become used to seeing in the American military. The kind that makes a military overestimate its forces.

  The American agent looked at Logan as if he were a math teacher trying to explain a simple problem to a dense student. “Look, over the past year, the United States has reinforced its presence by placing leading elements of the First and Second Armor Divisions in Saudi Arabia and a Marine Expeditionary Force in Kuwait. Saddam doesn’t have the guts to go head to head with us again. In addition, as to your intelligence information that Iraq is again producing SCUD missiles in northern Iraq... Well, I just don’t feel this information is conclusive.”

  Then the overweight British agent leaned forward. “Your information concerning Iraqi acquisition of military equipment is undoubtedly quite accurate, but I agree with my American colleague. I should think the Iraqi military does not have the resolve to go against us again. But just to show our determination, we have positioned a British Expeditionary Force in Saudi Arabia to reinforce the U.S. Armor Divisions.”

  Logan looked down at his cold cup of coffee. Just like everything and everybody else in this building, he thought to himself. Inadequate. “Let me say this, then. We, the nation of Israel, will not allow the balance of power to fall into the hands of a madman.”

  “Now don’t start those threats again! Israel will take no, let me repeat, no aggressive act
ion outside of its own borders!” The American agent slammed his fist onto the table.

  “The United States has only oil to be concerned about. Israel, on the other hand, is faced with its very survival. You can start making demands on us when the United States is in the same shoes we’re in.”

  “That’s a very old threat, and it’s not going to cut it with us. Now we’re telling you not to worry. We’ve got it covered, okay?” The American agent paused, then cocked his head and smiled. “If you had your way, what would you suggest we do?”

  Logan looked around the table. Everyone was watching him closely. “The current UN resolution would allow for the United States to move its military up into Iraqi territory for security reasons.”

  Audible groans and head shaking appeared almost simultaneously around the table.

  “Why do you insist on making a mountain out of a molehill? Our joint chiefs are convinced that nothing more is necessary.”

  Logan remained silent. They just didn’t get it.

  “Look, we don’t feel that any more action on our part is warranted at the present time. Now, is there anything else, or can we conclude this meeting?”

  Logan looked down at his briefcase and hesitated for a moment. Then he reached down into it and pulled out a piece of paper covered with rows of numbers. “Our agents lifted this from an Iraqi courier.”

  “What is it?”

  “It appears to be a code key.”

  The British agent grabbed the paper, studied it briefly, and then waved it in the air. “Just where did your agents come across this?”

  Since Israeli covert operations were forbidden by the British government from taking place inside their borders, Logan had to lie. “In Damascus.”

  “So it is a copy of the original?”

  Logan lied again. “Yes.”

  Actually, the courier had died in a rather questionable traffic accident with another undercover Israeli agent that very morning. The car in which the courier died exploded into flames, destroying everything but a briefcase. The contents of briefcase had been given to Logan to return to Israel with him the next day.

  “Have you tested it yet to see if it’s a fake?”

  “No, but...”

  The Brit slammed the paper down onto the table. “Then all you actually have is a sheet of numbers which, in fact, could be the answer sheet for a student’s math homework.”

  “No, I can assure...”

  "What do you propose to do with it?"

  "We believe...” Logan paused to observe the faces in the room. He had their attention. Now he had to try to get a buy-in to his plan. “I believe that the U.S. and Britain have operatives in Iraq.”

  “For the sake of argument, let’s say you’re right. Then what?”

  “Your people could use these keys to check Iraqi military status and plans.”

  The British agent tapped his fingers on the table. “It’s a damn silly thing to do... If we had operatives in the Iraqi military, do you expect us to expose them on your whim?”

  The American agent was no longer friendly either. “You want our countries to tie up our computer resources for weeks trying to verify your key? For all we know, the Iraqis have been feeding you false information through that key. Maybe that’s how you came up with such a completely different strategic picture.”

  Logan groaned inwardly and tossed the paper back into his briefcase. This was a mistake, he told himself. And a waste of time. His arguments were falling on deaf ears. He’d been foolish to believe they would listen to anything contradictive to their own intelligence assessments.

  Before he had a chance to say anything more, the American and British agents were leaving the room. The meeting was over, and once again the cold hand of bureaucracy had triumphed. He packed away his files and prepared to leave. His one consoling thought was that tomorrow he would be on his way home aboard the Concorde.

  Day One

  Lecture: “Gray Matter”

  Oxford University, Great Britain

  Rob Anderson looked over the skeptical crowd sitting in front of him. The gathering of European professors at Oxford University had been anything but cordial. Rob was a brilliant technologist whose theories about the solving complex problems had shaken the accepted concepts of higher learning and the teachings of current scholars. His theories had caused an unending debate among scholars because their understanding of problem solving was threatened with obsolescence. He was not surprised that he was met with suspicion. He had faced similar groups before who sought not to understand his theories but to disprove them.

  A handsome man in his mid-thirties, he was not used to speaking before crowds. He grew up on a small country farm in southern Michigan and became a building contractor like his father. Nevertheless, in the changing course of his life, he decided to educate himself by getting a college degree. By the time he was thirty, he was programming computers. However, his construction background left him in excellent physical shape as well.

  His creative nature, along with a passion for problem solving, led him to his remarkable theory. He was in constant demand to explain the concepts. Even so, he couldn’t help but feel inferior to the men gathered in this room. He was more than a little intimidated. He had not had the luxury of attending the most prestigious schools or the finest universities. He was the son of a humble carpenter and, like his father, had worked hard to provide for his family.

  He looked at the clock on the wall. He had been there for three hours, and because of the constant barrage of questions, he had still not finished his presentation.

  “It’s getting late, gentlemen, so, to conclude, I’m going to sum up what I’ve already covered. The treatise I presented to Stanford University is called Gray Matter. I call it that because the set of theories put forth in that paper provides the principles that may someday help computers to simulate the reasoning capabilities of the human mind. The theories present ideas about how the human mind solves complex problems.”

  He turned to the chalkboard and started writing. “Here is a list of my theories.”

  Natural Progression

  Abstract Logic

  Insequential Evaluation

  Defractional Logic

  Principle Randomization

  Differential Paradigming

  Uniform Integrity

  Subtle Recursion

  Iterative Development

  Transposition of Type

  Evaluated Linear Simplification

  He turned back to the group. “My purpose is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the brain’s logical and intuitive nature. In essence, the human brain has the ability to solve problems that seem unsolvable by intuition. What do I mean when I say ‘unsolvable complex problems’? I’m describing a problem that is in its simplest form, one that can’t be broken down into smaller parts. I’m describing a problem that is so complex that it cannot be solved by conventional means. I’m describing a problem comparable to a complex number in math: a number that cannot be plotted precisely as a dot on a number line. It can only be observed as an equation. My ideas describe how to breakdown these problems into many -- and frankly, quite possibly a substantial number of -- unrelated solutions.

  So, of what benefit is all this? I’ll try to explain this in layman’s terms. Take, for example, a virus like AIDS. The AIDS DNA is incredibly complex, but if we had computers that understood how humans go about solving the dilemma of attacking this virus we could find a cure for it in minutes instead of decades! On the other hand, projects like developing sophisticated space travel could be accomplished in days. The list of practical applications goes on and on.”

  One of the younger men in the crowd stood. “How do you see your Gray Matter model fitting into the world of processors we use today?”

  “It doesn’t. Current processors function sequentially. Data enters at this point and exit at this point.” He motioned with his hands from top to bottom. “Now, imagine a processor that makes use of my theories. I
magine an object with thousands of sides. Information can be absorbed from many different sides, and each side examines it differently. Imagine an operating system that is nothing more than a virus which completely consumes all resources. Information isn’t just processed, it’s consumed.”

  “Have you worked out any of the details for the system you are describing?”

  “I’m currently working with several companies to take advantage of my theories.”

  He was about to continue when an old professor, who had until then remained silent, stood to his feet. Something about this man’s demeanor demanded his attention. He yielded the floor to the man.