Following the service and after the parishioners had left the sanctuary, Oliver found Father Pat in his study, still in his vestments.
“Father Pat, thank you.”
The priest smiled broadly and, clasping his hands together in front of his belly, replied, “I’m glad you’re again seeking God through your faith and not your mind. Understanding does not provide the healing that is found in prayer. You know so much about religion, now is the time to begin actually practicing it. You may be surprised how powerful it can be in vanquishing fear and evil.”
Oliver pulled an envelope from his suit pocket and handed it to the priest. “This is a gift to the church in honor of Peter. I consider myself a member of his family.”
“This is not necessary, Oliver,” replied Father Ryan, as he glanced at the rather large sum on the check, “but you bless the church, Peter’s name, and especially yourself with this gesture. I look forward to seeing you heading into my church or even that Methodist church down the block that you frequented a few times in the past years.”
“You can count on it, Father Pat,” said Oliver as he shook the priest’s hand and left his office.
Oliver returned to his apartment and changed into slacks and a sport shirt. He went to the kitchen and prepared a late breakfast of bacon and eggs. The coffee had finished brewing while he was in church and he sipped at a cup while his breakfast cooked.
After breakfast Oliver entered his study and sat at his desk. He sorted through the notebooks he had used on his trip to Texas, and began transferring his notes into his computer. He included all of his observations and then added his thoughts on the possible meanings and interrelations between each of these events. Finishing, he sent it all in an encoded fax to Max, knowing it was now noon and that she was probably not going to see it until tomorrow. To his surprise, while the encoded link was still active, he received a return fax from her that had been on hold until he established the link. He knew this information was highly classified or she would have called him on the somewhat less secure cell phone link.
Her message read, “Oliver, I have just received this information from the Intel. Office. Benton Spencer had other followers: the brothers Milford and Barry Smith, and Forrest’s mother. Apparently Mrs. Pierce was not a part of their meetings at the church in the few months before her death, but had continued to donate money to Spencer through Forrest. We know that Benton Spencer and the two Smith brothers boarded a flight from George Bush Intercontinental to Paris yesterday.
“We also know they transferred to a second flight to Beirut, but their trail was lost after they landed. Milford and Barry Smith left Beirut this morning, Sunday, June 8, for some unknown destination in Central Europe. Spencer is still somewhere in Lebanon. As yet we have no leads on other conspirators but believe that if there is a Father Abraham conspiracy, the other members may also be somewhere in Beirut. A team of agents has been dispatched there to try to locate Spencer and perhaps identify the others.
“Also, Swift’s team in Texas made a thorough search of the old SSC excavation sites around Spencer’s church and discovered a large, armed, explosive charge hidden in the accelerator tunnel at the bottom of a nearby access shaft. Its timer was set do detonate and collapse that section of the tunnel next week. This information must be considered top secret and may not be divulged to anyone who does not have the correct compartmentalized clearance. For now that means you, me, and Director Clark.”
What immediately caught Oliver’s attention was the departure of the two Smith brothers. Could they have been sent to CERN for the next act of terror against the God Particle? He knew Khalil was there at CERN working on a critical test. The accelerator had been shut down after the Higgs Boson discovery in order that it be upgraded and prepared for its next particle search in 2015. According to Khalil, it would be undergoing tests of its superconducting magnets, bringing them up to the higher powers necessary for next year’s run. He called Khalil’s number at Fermilab, hoping David or Elizabeth was there on a Sunday. To his surprise Elizabeth eventually answered the phone, indicating that Kahlil was not in.
“Elizabeth, what are you doing in the lab on a Sunday?”
“Oliver, why’d you think no one would be working here today? We scientists actually work on weekends.”
“Elizabeth, try to get in touch with Khalil at CERN and warn him. I’ve a strong hunch, based on what we learned in Mary Pierce’s letter, two brothers who were part of Forrest Pierce’s conspiracy in Texas are now trying to carry out some kind of attack at CERN. I can’t give you any more detail to pass on to Khalil, but he needs to be on alert for his own safety and that of his colleagues. The CERN security office is being sent descriptions of these two, and hopefully they’ll be caught soon.”
Oliver called Clark and warned him as well. The director thanked him and said he would ask that a security force from the local Swiss Police be added to the CERN security as soon as possible.
Oliver reviewed his notes and the additional information just given him in the fax from Washington. Well, my Sunday’s not shaping up to be a day of rest at all. Is Spencer’s revenge against Peter and Fermilab now being inflicted on CERN? Could he be planning another attack on the scientists themselves? I hope Khalil takes my warning seriously. Oliver was now beginning to fear his Father Abraham conspiracy was in fact a real international plot against the scientific community. The three conspirators that Peter had warned about are at large and may be planning other attacks.
While Oliver struggled with how he would be able to find the three in Beirut or somewhere else in the Middle East, Enoch was flying from Christchurch to McMurdo as a part of the final shipment of medical supplies. This would be the last shipment of any kind to McMurdo until the following spring. The sabotaged food crates had been shipped by Sno-Cat from McMurdo to the Amundsen-Scott Station three months earlier. They had been stored at The Dark Sector Lab for the upcoming winter and would soon be opened; the lack of food would then be discovered, requiring the immediate services of the LC-130 at McMurdo.
After his flight landed, Enoch entered the supply hangar. He made his way through the unloaded pallets, keeping out of sight, until he had reached the one LC-130 available for an emergency flight to the South Pole. Moving a maintenance ladder to the outer port-side engine, he climbed up under the propeller, reached into the intake, and placed a pair of samarium-cobalt magnets on either side of the first compressor blade near its center. The strong magnets would hold in place until the engines were revved to maximum power prior to take-off, at which time they would fly into the inner turbine and disable the engine. Shifting the ladder, he repeated the same sabotage on the inner port engine.
With both port engines disabled, the aircraft would be unable to make the rescue run to save the starving scientists at the South Pole. This phase of his mission completed, he would now return to Christchurch where he would join Joel and continue to monitor the supply dispatches in order to confirm the mission had been successful. The two Haredi fighters would also carry out an attack on the one remaining South Pole LC-130 stationed there at Christchurch if it were called into service to attempt a second rescue of the idol worshippers at the South Pole, Dark Sector Lab.
The attacks at the Dark Sector Lab and at CERN were now in their final stages. Benton Spencer had prepared the Smith brothers for this final part of the attack at CERN by making them each struggle with one another as if one of them was the person monitoring the control computer for the superconducting magnets.
Handing Barry a few zip-ties he said, “Pretend Milford is the controller that you must overcome. Grab him and tie his hands and feet with these ties. Milford, pretend you are the controller and do everything to resist Barry.” The two struggled with one another until Barry finally gave up his attack, giggling. “This is deadly serious.” roared Spencer, handing each brother a large lock-back knife, “If you fail to restrain the person at the computer, you will have to kill him with one of these.”
The two b
rothers now looked at Spencer furtively as they again attempted to restrain one another, their playfulness now replaced with fear. Eventually it was decided that Milford, the slightly larger of the two, would enter the control room to restrain the person there.
After these exercises Spencer prepared the Smith brothers for their trip to Switzerland. “When you arrive in Geneva you will be met by two new participants in the fight against Satan. As I explained to you before, the names of all these fellow soldiers are hidden, but I can attest to their eagerness to help in this noble and sacred fight against evil.”
Once they arrived in Switzerland on Sunday evening, Milford and Barry made contact with the two ISIS agents. The two agents met them at the airport and gave them suitcases with uniforms and false identification badges for CERN. After being taken to a local hotel where the brothers donned their security guard uniforms, they were driven to the CERN facility by one of the agents.
On Monday morning they made their way into the ATLAS section of the Large Hadron Collider dressed as CERN security guards. They prepared to take positions near the control room as they had been instructed.
In this room the ATLAS field magnets were monitored as flux pumps slowly increased the currents in the superconducting field coils to their highest levels since the final runs in 2012. The virus-infected control computer would function properly, but would continue to pump up the super-current until it passed the critical value for the niobium-titanium wires, driving them to their normal electrical conductivity. At this point the normal high resistant wires would be vaporized by the extremely high electric current. The surrounding liquid helium would flash boil and cause a violent explosion of expanding gas that would destroy or disable the massive detector.
The Smith brothers knew nothing of this, except that something was going to blow up soon after their attack. Their mission was to prevent the person sitting at the current monitoring station from overriding the computer when it became obvious that the currents were approaching critical.
At the same time that the Smith brothers were making their way into the ATLAS facility, Khalil was meeting his friend and associate, Steven Nash, in Building 40 of the Meyrin site near the ATLAS detector. Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s text message warning him of a possible attack sat unread in his muted cell phone.
Each time Khalil entered this building with its large circular open floor and looked upward at its splendid dome some ten stories overhead, he was reminded of the most splendid mosques in the world centers of Islam, such as the Blue Mosque in Istanbul or the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount in the heart of Jerusalem. He remembered Oliver’s image of a cathedral upon first seeing Wilson Hall at Fermilab. What are we worshiping here in this place? He knew full well that he was seeking knowledge of the universe that would deepen his understanding of the greatness of Allah; there is no idol worship here.
His thoughts were interrupted by the approach of Steven. With arms outstretched Steven greeted Khalil with a hug and said, “I’m glad you’re here. This test is critical for our run this coming year when perhaps we can begin to detect the sparticles that super symmetry says must be there, or the dark matter that astronomy says must be there. Either way, the coming months are going to be exciting”
“If we fail to find them, we’re all in a theoretical crisis. The accepted model of fundamental particles, as well as the theory of the early universe, may both have to be reinvented.”
“Come down to the ATLAS control center and help me run the magnet test. The coils were cooled to liquid helium temperatures overnight and should be ready to be energized.”
The two colleagues made the trip to the underground cavern that was the ATLAS center. Khalil had been here as many times as he had been in Building 40 and was equally awed by the gigantic size of this particle detector. The detector loomed as large as a five story building within its huge cavern.
The control room, separate from the detector itself, was down a hallway lined with small offices. Steven entered the control room and activated the console, going through the various entry codes needed to obtain access to the central computer. Once activated, it was a simple matter of highlighting the magnetic windings on the screen graphic of the detector, verifying that the temperature was low enough, and entering “energize”. Immediately current levels began to be printed in each of the coils as their flux pumps began slowly building up current.
Steven said to Khalil, “The computer runs up the magnet currents very slowly. Our tests will begin when the fields have reached their final strengths, but that is going to take an hour or more. While we wait we can sit and talk. Run down to the snack bar and bring us back some coffees and breakfast rolls. When you get back you can tell me about Peter. I still can’t believe that we have lost him; he was so important to our work here as well as that at Fermilab.”
“Don’t expect me to return right away; you know how crowded the snack bar can get at this hour on a Monday morning.” Khalil knew that he would not be able to tell his friend about the true nature of Peter’s death and was not looking forward to this discussion. He planned to describe the hospital trip and the funeral, but avoid any mention of the FBI investigation and the hunt for Peter’s murderers.
Milford Smith, who had been watching the hallway during the morning shift of his false guard duty, saw two people go into the control room and start the scheduled magnet test. When one left, saying that he would be awhile at the snack bar, he nodded to his brother Barry, who had taken up a position at the other end of the hall, and approached the control room. While Barry stood watch, Milford entered the control room and closed the door.
Steven looked around and said, “You must be one of the new guards that I saw assembled in Building 40. Why have you come here to this control room?” Since Milford had no reasonable answer, he pulled a long zip-tie from his pocket and lunged at Steven, hoping to subdue him and tie him to his chair. Steven dodged his attempt and the two began a violent struggle. Steven was somewhat smaller than the Smith brother but regularly used the CERN Gym and had good upper-body strength. While the two struggled, neither noticed that the computer virus had taken control and was now rapidly increasing the magnets’ super-current. They continued to fight more desperately, and throw each other onto the floor or against the wall. It soon became apparent to Milford that he was losing the struggle. Steven punched him hard in the face and he staggered back, knocking over Steven’s chair. The blow dazed Milford, and blood began to drip from his nose. He knew that he had to get the upper hand on this operator or he would have failed in this critical mission for the Reverend.
With some difficulty Milford managed to bring the large knife out of his pocket. He hoped that this man would give up the fight now unbalanced in his favor. That way Milford hoped to subdue him and tie him up. However, before he could threaten Steven with the knife, he tripped over the chair, that had fallen on its side in the struggle. He fell to the floor; Steven immediately jumped on top of him in an attempt to grab the knife, but instead fell on its extended point.
The wound was lethal, puncturing his heart. When Steven became motionless, Milford rolled out from under him. Trembling, and in tears, he pulled Steven’s lifeless body up and placed him back into the chair before the control panel. He had not intended to kill this man, just subdue him and tie him up with the zip-ties he had stuffed in his pockets. Now the man was dead! Still trembling and sobbing, Milford carried out the last bit of Reverend Spencer’s instructions. Using the red marker in his pocket he marked a 616 on Steven’s extended right hand.
Now sobbing with fear and grief he ran from the control room, saying to Barry, “I’ve killed him!”
The two brothers, now in a panic, began to run down the hallway, knowing that if they were not clear of the underground tunnels, they might be caught in the explosion and possible cave-in that they had overheard the Reverend describe in Beirut.
A new guard, the result of recent stationing of Swiss police in the facility, saw their suspicious beha
vior and alerted the police in the direction of their retreat. They got as far as the upper level when a general alarm was sounded and they were apprehended. Four armed Swiss Policemen held them at gunpoint in the stairwell. The two brothers had nowhere to run. Sobbing with fear and anxiety, Barry and Milford were led out of the CERN facility and taken to a Swiss Police station where they were held for questioning. The United States Homeland Security Office was immediately informed of the attack and their capture.
Khalil had been waiting to pay for his coffees and snacks when the alarm went off. For a moment he stood holding the tray and listening for any voiced warning of fire or radiation hazard. He then realized that since the only work in that area of CERN was the magnet test, there must be a serious problem with Steven’s test.
He dropped the tray and began running down the hall to the control room. Entering, his first reaction was that Steven had fallen asleep over the control console, but then he looked in horror at the magnet current readings. They had risen above the safe limit and, in fact, were just beyond the critical level.
With one microscopic fluctuation of magnetic field or temperature, the current-carrying wires would be driven normal and the superconducting magnets would explode. Khalil desperately worked at the keyboard in order to conduct a manual override of the computer. One by one he was able to take control of the magnets and began slowly reversing the pumping process to bring the fields down to a safe level.
As he was doing this, praying quietly to himself, other members of the ATLAS team rushed into the room, and gasped as they noticed Steven’s blood beginning to pool on the floor beneath him. Only then did Khalil notice the knife and recoiled in fear and horror. He now realized someone had attacked this facility with the intent of destroying it, and in the process had murdered Steven!
10
The Dark Temple
Three Page 15