The anomaly, p.9
The Anomaly, page 9
“Outside Fine Hall? You know where I am?”
“Of course, Professor Miller. You’re geolocated to within three meters. Once you’re on the way, we’ll call you back to put you in contact with the operations center.”
“Adrian?” Meredith shrieks from the Turing Room. “You’re a pain in the arse, Adrian, you’re a real pain in the arse.”
Adrian runs to the door, Meredith hasn’t moved, she’s rooted to her chair, her hair awry and her expression furious.
“I’m so sorry, Meredith. This is very important, I…I’ll explain.”
Adrian goes down the stairs four at a time, Meredith screams something involving blood-soaked statisticians and a journey he’s invited to make to hell, but he’s already in the lobby.
* * *
—
TO UNDERSTAND why Adrian Miller must answer the bulletproof charcoal-gray smartphone on this June 24, 2021, we must rewind to September 10, 2001, the day when, as the youngest postdoctoral researcher on Professor Robert Pozzi’s probabilities team, he was celebrating his twentieth birthday at MIT. The following day a case of mad cow disease would be reported in Japan; political declarations would be made in the wake of the suicide bombing targeting Massoud, perpetrated by two Tunisian members of al-Qaida; and Michael Jordan’s return to the Washington Wizards would be announced. But more significantly, it would be Ben Sliney’s first day of work. He’d just taken up the post of director of operations at the Federal Aviation Administration. Two hours after the coffee and doughnuts of his welcoming do, he grounded four thousand two hundred airplanes, an isolated and unprecedented decision. Some days are just like that.
On September 11, at 8:14 am, an air traffic controller in Boston was concerned when he noticed the transponder on American Airlines 11 cut out. Six minutes later, an attendant on board the flight dialed the only number she could, in the event the American Airlines reservations line. She informed them of a change of course and several murders in the cabin. By the time her identity had been checked it was 8:25, and a supervisor tipped off air traffic control. It was then that Ben Sliney and the air traffic control team saw on their radars that the AA11 was heading due south, to New York. In the event of a diversion—but let’s forget the textbook that instructs the pilot, who in this instance had been stabbed, to enter code 7500 into the transponder—the regulations require an alert to be sent to civil aviation HQ. At the HQ a “special rerouting coordinator” then has to contact a department at the Pentagon, who must refer the incident to the office of the secretary of defense, who informs the president, whose decision has to be passed all the way back down the same chain. Only then can the supervisors at the National Center for Military Command order fighter jets to take off and intercept the plane. And because the number of air bases in a position to respond had dropped from twenty-six to just seven after the Cold War ended, the only two remaining bases on the East Coast were in Otis, near Boston, and Langley, the CIA headquarters near Washington.
This all takes such a long time that on September 11, 2001, it was the supervisor in Boston himself who called Otis military base as an emergency. As it was not his role to do this, Otis insisted that he speak to the military commanders for the northeast region, in Rome, New York. He called them, and was told once again that he wasn’t respecting procedure. Nevertheless, convinced by the call and himself acting without authorization from the Department of Defense, Colonel Robert Marr asked the Otis base to prepare to launch fighter jets.
Long before the official conclusion of the 9/11 Commission, the Pentagon knew that on that particular day, every aspect of the chain of command malfunctioned. It set up an internal working group tasked with suggesting a different protocol for emergency situations. And that group subcontracted everything to do with formalization to the Department of Applied Mathematics at MIT. This is where Adrian Miller’s name crops up.
At the time, Adrian was a young probabilities expert on the team run by Pozzi, head of “App Math” at MIT. Adrian, then aged twenty, had just defended a dissertation dealing with Markov chains, Kendall notations…to make a long story short, he was interested in the statistics of waiting in line. He was especially fond of Little’s law, which states that the average number of units in a stable system is equal to their average arrival frequency multiplied by the time they spend in the system. But moving on.
Because everyone at the lab was very busy, and Pozzi always found any contact with the Department of Defense profoundly irritating, it was Adrian who, as part of his hazing, was entrusted with modeling the blockages and finding how to reduce the number of phases and the time taken at each stage. Adrian enlisted the help of Tina Wang, Pozzi’s highly intelligent PhD student, for the graph theory element, which was somewhat beyond his capabilities. They worked late, ate terrible food at terrible speed, slept little, aired all their negative views of the Department of Defense, and when they couldn’t handle any more, they took Adrian’s old Honda and went out bowling at Lucky Strike Boston, which never closed. One night, after an argument about the ergodic hypothesis and stationary distributions, they had a surprise incident that was more sexual than erotic. A good memory, nonetheless.
First and foremost, Adrian and Tina inventoried all the variables that could affect air traffic, and attributed them statistical values. They specified anything that could cause a catastrophe—even simply upsetting traffic flow—and surpassed the Pentagon’s expectations. Their model took into account absolutely everything: chains of events, means of communication, language barriers, different units (feet or meters?), pilot error, mechanical failure, technical problems, weather, sabotage, diversions, software piracy, faulty signaling, shortcomings in maintenance, and so much more…The two researchers identified thirty-seven basic protocols, with, in each case, between seven and twenty contingent pathways, in other words nearly five hundred basic situations, and as many responses. When, in December ’01, Richard Reid managed to get through security checks with explosives hidden in the soles of his shoes, that was a variant of protocol 12A; the Birmingham–Málaga accident, when the windshield of the cockpit exploded, was an example of 7K; the Airbus that skidded off the landing runway at Halifax because of snow, a 4F; the Icelandic volcano spewing ash and grounding all flights, a 13E; and the depressive German Wings pilot hurling his plane into a mountain, a 25D.
After five months of work, they recorded their recommendations in a top-secret memorandum running to some one thousand five hundred pages under an uninspired title: Civilian air traffic: diagnoses of crises, optimizing the chain of decisions, and protocols for responses/security. “T. Wang & A. Miller & alii, Department of Applied Mathematics, Graph Theory Department, Probabilities Department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” In Wang & Miller & alii, Alii is the name of the lab’s hamster. Total kids.
They left nothing out; if the Pentagon had asked them to present all the possible outcomes of heads or tails, they would have come up with three: heads, tails and the rare incidence of the coin deciding to balance vertically on its edge. But in April 2002, ten days after the report was submitted, the DoD sent it back with a question written in red felt pen: “What if we’re confronted with a case that fits none of the situations covered?”
Tina rolled her eyes: How about the hypothesis where the flipped coin stays suspended in the air?
Over the course of five days, they added one final protocol for this “case that fits none of the situations covered.” Whereas in all the other eventualities Tina and Adrian recommended there should be a single supervisor—whether civilian or military—to oversee the protocol, Tina decided that “due to the irrational nature of events that would justify such a protocol,” this final instance should be entrusted to a brace of scientists. And she wrote down her name and Adrian Miller’s. She recommended providing them with bulletproof cellphones dedicated to this protocol, phones that they should keep with them at all times and never turn off. And because Adrian Miller worshipped Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, along with its big question about “life, the universe and everything,” to which, after seven and a half million years of calculation, Deep Thought, the second most powerful computer of all time, replies simply “42,” this protocol would be number 42.
To look serious or for fun, or because he found being serious fun, Adrian added a word sequence as an initialization code:
Operator: Toto, I don’t think…
Supervisor:…we’re in Kansas anymore.
WHEN ADRIAN EMERGES from the building, a police car is already waiting for him, just beside the barbecue where the sausages are sizzling happily. The officer salutes him as if he were a four-star general, and all eyes of the teaching staff turn to Adrian. He responds to the officer with an awkward, sketchy salute, and climbs into the back, not without knocking his head on the roof frame. The car sets off with its sirens blaring and lights flashing. Adrian is driven far away from sex with Meredith and toward the unknown.
So. Someone somewhere in the galaxy has tossed a coin, and it really has stayed suspended in the air.
THE JOKE
EAST COAST OF THE UNITED STATES, INTERNATIONAL WATERS,
N 41°25’27”, W 65°49’23”
MARKLE CHECKS his mic, but it’s gone dead.
Kennedy has cut off the communication. There’s a cracking sound on the line, another very long silence, and then a different, deeper voice comes on.
“Air France 006 Mayday, my name is Luther Davis, commander of special operations for the Federal Aviation Administration. Could you identify yourself again please? Enter squawk code 1234.”
Markle makes a face while Gid types in the code. It’s not every day that you talk to a commander of special operations at the FAA…The line cuts out again. Then the voice comes back.
“Thank you, this is Luther Davis of the FAA. Could you give me your date and place of birth, Commander Markle?”
Markle sighs and provides the information.
“January 12, 1973, Peoria, Illinois.”
“Could you give me the first and last names of every crew member on board the flight?”
“Kennedy, I don’t know if you know this but I’m trying to land a damaged 787…”
Another long silence, the line is cut off again, and another voice, a woman’s, comes on.
“Air France 006? Kathryn Bloomfield from NORAD. Can you hear me?”
NORAD—aerospace defense. Really? Markle frowns.
“Air France 006 here, what can I do for you, NORAD?”
“For security reasons you need to disconnect your onboard Wi-Fi.”
Markle doesn’t argue and does as he’s told.
“Thank you,” the voice says. “Now please ask all your passengers to turn off their cellphones and all other electronic devices.”
“We did that a long time ago, NORAD, we hit turbulence and we—”
“Perfect. First Officer Favereaux, in the next few minutes you and the cabin crew will proceed with collecting all, and I mean all, devices that enable communication outside the plane: tablets, phones, medical beepers, game consoles, laptops, et cetera. Don’t forget augmented reality glasses and smart watches. No exceptions. Commander Markle, we’re facing an extremely serious threat of external hacking targeting the navigation system, and any electronic devices could be relaying information…In fact, you can pass on all that information to your passengers, if you feel you need to in order to ensure their cooperation.”
“But that will get them worrying…”
“Too bad. Make it clear that all devices will be returned in an hour, when you’ve landed in New York. Officer Favereaux, if you meet any resistance, emphasize the point about the plane’s security and the danger of interference with the plane’s instruments. You have full authority to collect all electronic devices. We’re following a very specific protocol.”
“But…all these devices…where are we going to put them?” Favereaux asks anxiously. “All cellphones look alike, how will we identify them?”
“Use sick bags, write the seat numbers in felt pen, deal with it. Reassure the passengers that they’ll get them back on landing.”
The copilot gives another vague, strangulated “yes” and gets to his feet. He heads off to pass on the orders to the stewards, while Markle explains the instructions in their entirety over the cabin mic. The copilot expects a wave of protests in the cabin, but—could it be retrospective terror about the turbulence, the threat that’s just been announced of electronic hacking, or the indisputable authority of the captain’s voice?—the overwhelming majority of passengers comply with his request. The few objectors even find themselves forced by those around them to follow the instructions. It could have been a tricky operation, but amazingly it takes only a few minutes. Once she has confirmation that all communications devices are being held in the cockpit, the NORAD officer picks up where she left off.
“This precautionary measure applies equally to all staff on board. And to you too. Your cellphones and laptops. You have full authority on that plane, Commander Markle. Your orders are to—”
“I’m the captain on this flight, Mrs. NORAD lady!” Markle snaps. “Of course I have full authority on this plane but you’re the one who—”
“Commander Markle, we’re dealing with a question of national security. We will work through Protocol 42 together.”
Markle is lost for words. He’s never heard of a Protocol 42.
“Air France 006, your new destination is McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. I repeat, McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey.”
Fort McGuire…it was there that in 1937 the German airship the Hindenburg caught fire as it attempted to dock with its mooring mast and was completely destroyed. Markle carries out a slow southeasterly turn and resigns himself to announcing to the cabin that, Sorry, folks, but due to major damage, the flight has been redirected to New Jersey. This time a lot of passenger protest; some start booing, particularly as—and this is the ultimate provocation—Manhattan’s gleaming skyscrapers are taunting them to the west. Markle could distract them by telling them the story of the Hindenburg, but he knows intuitively now’s not the time.
New York comes back over the intercom.
“Kennedy Approach again. Commander Markle, I’m putting you in contact with the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon.”
Markle doesn’t have time to reply before there’s another voice, a man’s, on the line. His accent is nasal, drawling, very Yankee, very New Hampshire.
“Commander Markle, General Patrick Silveria, National Military Command Center. I’m talking to you under the authority of the secretary of defense. In about three minutes you will be joined by two Navy fighter jets. They’ve just taken off from the USS Harry S. Truman and will escort you into national waters. In the event of an attempt to escape or of any noncompliance with their instructions, they have orders to destroy your aircraft.” This time it’s gone too far. Markle bursts out laughing. He finally gets it.
“Commander Markle? This is General Silveria of the NMCC. Are you there?”
Markle can’t stop laughing now, to the point of crying. Well, what a huge joke. Holy crap, what a bunch of fuckwit air traffic controllers at JFK, what a pack of moronic aluminum-pushers, he came real close to swallowing the whole thing, NORAD, Protocol 42, and now the Pentagon…he picks up the intercom again.
“Howdy there, so-called General Silveria! Is that the best you could do? To be honest, I believed it, but what you said about taking the plane down, that was too much. Do you really think now’s the time, after the storm we just came through? And anyway, you messed up, my last flight’s the day after tomorrow, not today. But I gotta hand it to you, it’s a better parting gift than some lousy carrot cake.”
“Air France 006? This is General Silveria from the Pentagon. I’m putting you on the line to the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.”
“Yes, and I’m Captain Speaking! Is that you, Frankie? What a shitty fucking Yankee accent…you really are…thanks to your bullshit, we went ahead and gathered up all the devices from the cabin. Did you want us to be lynched by the passengers, was that the plan?” Another voice comes over the intercom, higher pitched and with a Texan accent this time.
“Air France 006? This is admiral John Butler of the USS Harry S. Truman.”
Markle still has a wry smile on his face.
“Hi, John Butler, the Mickey Mouse admiral. It’s okay, Frankie, you can stop your little accent show now. It’s not even funny anymore.”
“Commander Markle? Admiral Butler still. You’re currently under the protection of two of our F/A-18 Hornets. One is just behind your aircraft poised to intercept and the other…would you look to starboard, please.” Markle rolls his eyes but turns his head. A few meters from the tip of his right wing is a Hornet armed with air-to-air missiles. The pilot waves to him from the cockpit. “Now, please follow all my instructions.”
ANDRÉ
SUNDAY, JUNE 27, 2021
MUMBAI, INDIA
FOTOGRAFEI VOCÊ NA MINHA ROLLEIFLEX…” the syrupy bossa nova by Stan Getz, Jobim, and João Gilberto wafts softly around the huge reception lobby of the Grand Hyatt Mumbai. The song is the same age as the man emerging from the elevator, short of breath and with shoulders drooping. When the mirror in the elevator reflected his sixty years back at him under harsh fluorescent light, he looked away.
André Vannier hasn’t slept. Not adjusting to the time difference, feeling sad, too many dark thoughts. Before leaving his room, he wrote Lucie a very long email, which he managed to refrain from sending. It was nothing other than a ridiculous message in a bottle, after she’d culled him with a sleepy-voiced “I’ve moved on,” down the line from Paris, where it was still nighttime. He wrote her knowing it was pointless and, more significantly, shall we say, counterproductive. But when the remote-control batteries are dead, we just keep pushing harder. It’s only human.
