by Fritz Galt
He read further that they used cloud chambers, bubble chambers and spark chambers to observe the trails of the resulting subatomic particles. In those magnetically polarized detectors, positive particles curved one direction and negative particles curved the other. From the angle of deflection, physicists determined the velocity of each particle. Physicists also identified subatomic particles by the thickness of their tracks.
By splitting apart the nuclei of atoms, physicists had discovered that the protons and neutrons that comprise the nuclei are actually made up of hundreds of smaller particles.
He raised his eyes. By coincidence, the flight attendant set down her book. Her eyes seemed to beg for his attention.
He examined the color photographs of the condensation trails left in water vapor and the bubbles left in boiling liquid.
The smaller particles that protons and neutrons broke into were given the name “quarks.” There were six known flavors of quarks. He learned that a proton, for example, probably consisted of two “up” quarks and one “down” quark.
Now he heard the flight attendant speaking with a female passenger behind him. Their hushed voices carried lightly over the engines’ drone and conversations in the crowded plane. He took his eyes off her empty seat.
Each quark also exhibited one of six “colors,” namely red, blue, green, anti-red, anti-blue and anti-green, that determined which quarks could join together.
After over an hour, he realized that nothing he was reading had any likely relevance to a Japanese firm seeking a substrate.
He did note with interest a parenthetical remark that particle accelerators could aim so accurately that, for example, compact X-ray synchrotrons could etch microcircuits into semiconductors on a scale one thousand times smaller than before.
He sat back and marveled at how mankind could develop such sophisticated machinery, whether for industry or for the single purpose of exposing the building blocks of the universe.
The captain’s voice came over the speaker. “Cabin crew, please take your seat for our final descent.”
The flight attendant hurried to her seat, her eyes no longer seeking his.
He heard a grinding noise below him as the landing gear deployed.
Out his window, the blades churned through the night like a machinist’s drill boring two holes in the air. The engines left a trail of exhaust in the vast cloud chamber of the sky.
And, as if he needed the reminder, his coat’s transmitter would be leaving a colorful phosphorescent streak across some tracking screen in Saas Fee.
A gust buffeted the plane and sent a wingtip dipping down, even lower than the wheelbase.
He clicked off his reading lamp, stuffed the book in his flight bag and watched the white lights of Maryland accumulate along the Potomac River. Soon broad, brightly lit avenues bisected a grid of sallow streetlights, circled statues and parks and eventually terminated at such national shrines as the U.S. Capitol, the Washington Monument and the White House.
The pilot banked hard right after the Washington Monument, battled an unpredictable breeze above the dark Potomac, skimmed over Fourteenth Street Bridge and dropped with a thud onto the runway of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
As they rolled up to the terminal, he realized that a jet-way was too high to connect the Jetstream to the terminal. So he, the flight attendant, the woman passenger she had befriended and the rest of the passengers stepped outside into the muggy night. The air felt slick and oily, saturated with exhaust fumes. Under glaring lights, they crossed to a terminal entrance.
It was a strange experience not having to stand in line for customs and immigration. He had just made his first domestic flight in years. And there he stood, free to go anywhere, do anything and be anyone he pleased.
However, he ran into a long line at the taxi stand and had to settle for the Metro railway line into town.
Walking toward the elevated train station, he passed a parking lot that was reserved for diplomats and Supreme Court Justices. Something curious caught his eye. Most VIPs seemed to be eternally out of town, their car tires nearly melting into the blacktop. However, that night a black Saab sat in the lot with its engine purring.
It had a two-digit diplomatic code on its plates. Damn, he wished he could remember the codes. He had been out of Washington diplomatic circles too long to remember them.
Just as he passed the Saab, two men suddenly sprang out. They jumped the guardrail and fell in step close behind him.
Smartly dressed men and women streamed toward him, their suitcases following behind them like obedient pets. Bright runway lights illuminated the excitement on their faces. A jet roared overhead, depositing a trail of exhaust that mingled with the hot fumes of passing cars.
If the two men were following him, he needed to lead them as far away from their car as possible before he tried to lose them.
Finally, in a pool of light below the Metro station, he found the right moment. There was a break in the traffic before a new tide of cars rushed up behind him.
He grabbed his wallet from an inner jacket pocket and jumped into the street. He held the wallet open for the first taxi cab to see.
The cabby, approaching quickly, had no choice but to slam on the brakes. The tires screeched to a stop inches shy of hitting Mick.
“Special agent,” Mick shouted. He showed the man his embassy security card as if it were a law enforcement ID.
He pulled the driver’s door open.
“Scoot over.”
The cabby held up his hands and slid across the bench seat.
Dropping into the drivers’ seat, Mick heard several passengers inhale sharply behind him.
Hands pounded against the trunk. The men had caught up.
He jammed the station wagon into gear and peeled off, down the street.
“Who are you pursuing?” the cabby asked in a French-African accent.
Mick adjusted the rear-view mirror.
He turned the question around and asked the cabby, “Who’s pursuing us?”
The cabby looked back. Headlights slanted down into their back window.
The men had a second vehicle, a white van.
The van zigzagged left and right. Mick blocked it at every turn. The station wagon felt loose in his grip. It responded slowly to his instructions.
“Let me see that ID again,” the cabby said.
“Buckle your seat belt,” Mick said. “You too, back there.”
Heavy breathing had condensed moisture inside the windshield. He rolled down his window.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, he noticed that the breeze was whipping the passengers’ hair into wild, bushy tangles. They were women.
A streetlight caught a pair of large, alarmed eyes. It was the blonde flight attendant. Her mouth was wide with fright.
He veered sharply to the right onto Memorial Bridge. He honked at merging cars, that swerved out of his way.
Ahead, at the far end of the bridge, sat the elevated white memorial to Abraham Lincoln, its illuminated, boxy structure etched sharply against the night sky. As he steered down the center lane, swerving only to pass the occasional automobile, he was rapidly forced to make a decision. Should he turn left or right?
The white van rammed into his rear bumper, and he felt a momentary loss of control.
When his steering wheel responded again, he accelerated toward the marble pillared monument that loomed ever closer.
“You must turn,” the cabby said.
“Which way?”
The cabby squeezed his eyes shut.
Mick waited until the last possible instant. Then he waited a second longer. Finally he pumped the brakes. He pumped them a second time and spun the wheel hard right.
The cab fishtailed onto a narrow exit ramp. Pressed against his door, he aimed the car down toward the Potomac River.
He checked his mirror briefly and saw the van crash and burst into a blaze of light at the base of the Lincoln Memorial.
“I hope that wasn’t a friend of yours,” the cabby said, squinting out his window.
Mick took the curving ramp down to Rock Creek Parkway.
The dark road ground its way up through forests and followed Rock Creek into Northwest DC.
He wove between motorists like they were traffic cones. Behind him, the passengers’ mouths were grim lines of lipstick.
He had a moment to relax and plan his next move. He could disappear in the city.
At the Calvert Street cutoff, he forked right and continued up the parkway.
They entered a tunnel that sucked up the car and popped his ears.
He spurted out the tunnel and found himself alongside the back fence of the National Zoo.
Just ahead on the left, he would find a parking lot, no doubt closed for the night.
In oncoming traffic, a garbage truck lumbered toward him with a man hanging off the rear to catch the breeze.
Mick turned into the truck’s path and skidded off the road toward the zoo. The truck’s driver honked angrily as he barreled past.
The brakes on the old station wagon were nearly shot. It felt like wrestling a bull to the ground. Wheels screeching, the car finally came to a halt, its hood dipping low, then snapping back just inches from a parking barricade.
Mick shut off the engine and took a deep breath.
“Thanks for the lift.”
Then he jumped out.
“You know, carjacking is a Federal offense,” the cabby reminded him coldly.
Mick pulled several tens out of his wallet and let them flutter through the driver’s window.
Then he remembered the panicked flight attendant in the back seat.
Back there, her moist, young eyes looked both afraid and impressed.
“Take me with you,” she whispered.
He felt the constant, slight attraction that had been there throughout the flight.
Unfortunately, it was only the weak force.
“Sorry, I don’t take hostages,” he said.
He skipped around the gate and sprinted across the dark grounds toward the sea lion exhibit where he remembered there was a public phone.
Everett was enjoying a quiet dinner with his wife and son around their dining room table when the telephone rang.
As most calls were for Estrella, she rose to answer it.
Everett was just back in her good graces after being discovered with his face buried in the ambassador’s wife’s belly at the beach and after Estrella captured Suzy’s murderer. He leaned over his son’s plate and sliced a few more pieces of ham for him.
“Ev,” her voice resonated angrily from the kitchen. “It’s for you.”
“Me, or Ev Junior?” he said brightly.
“You.”
He dropped his napkin and loped obediently into the kitchen.
There, he was met with a fierce gaze. She held the phone up for him, but he had to pry it from her grip.
Suddenly he was struck by a terrifying thought. Was it another woman?
Covering the mouthpiece, he whispered, “Who is it?”
Estrella frowned even deeper. “It’s Tobias. I told him never to interrupt us at dinner again.”
“Okay. Thanks, Chica.”
He watched her stomp out of the kitchen, before he spoke over the phone.
“Did you come up with something?” he asked.
The inspector coughed, clearly made uncomfortable by Estrella’s cold reception.
“What is it?”
“Can we talk in private?”
“I have no time for private. It’s dinnertime. I don’t even take phone calls.”
“Ja, okay,” Tobias relented. “But we tapped the subject’s phone.”
“Great. And?”
“I shouldn’t be discussing this over the phone.”
“It’s now or never. We’re running out of time. Just tell me.”
Tobias seemed to mull that over. “Both voices were encrypted,” he finally said. “Very sophisticated equipment. I can’t even tell if they were male or female.”
“Encrypted? You mean scrambled voices?”
“Ja. We recorded the conversations anyway.”
“Excellent, and thank you. We can have the Agency decode it.”
“No, we have the capability. It might take us a week or so, but we can do it.”
“We don’t have a week,” Everett said, aware that his voice was rising. “We have three days left. At least get me a copy of the tape, and I’ll have our technicians unscramble it overnight.”
“I’m afraid we can’t allow that,” Tobias said, vexation finally showing in his deep voice. “I understand the importance of this tape, both to Switzerland and to America, and I pledge we will decode it as fast as we can.”
After a long day and overtime, Dwight Goode entered his boss’s office with a confused look on his face.
Eli Shaw looked up at his young assistant. “What did you find out?”
“Well, I interviewed Jeremy Watts’ team leader in DI and asked him if Jeremy had any connection with CERN. The answer was affirmative.”
“Great. We found a connection.”
“The team leader was vaguely aware that Jeremy handled liaison with a team of scientists performing experiments at CERN.”
“You see?” Eli said, rising triumphantly to his feet. “You just have to ask the right questions.”
Dwight went on. “Jeremy represented a direct link between the CIA and CERN. His job was to keep an eye on their research.”
“And do what with the information?”
“That’s the puzzling part, sir. Jeremy got the information, but what he did with it is a mystery. It appears that all of his communication on the subject must have been handled outside of the internal communications systems we have here: phone calls, office mail, e-mails, all that.”
“What are you telling me? Do you mean to say that Jeremy Watts took classified reports about CERN out of this building and went to some bar or public telephone to pass the information on?”
“That seems to be the case, sir.”
Eli stared at the carpet. “That looks bad. Very bad.” Counterintelligence lay under his purview. He would have to open up a new case.
Then he straightened up.
“Okay, so what was the research all about?”
“That’s also puzzling,” his assistant went on. “It’s sponsored by DoD and DoE. I called over there, and they couldn’t tell me anything about the experiments. I just hit a blank wall.”
“They didn’t know, or they wouldn’t say?”
“Nobody I talked with knew exactly what the scientists were doing there.”
“Then who’s responsible for the scientists? Who’s funding their research?”
“Beats me, sir. For all I know, it could be SATO.”
Eli sat down with a thump. “SATO infiltrated the CIA. You don’t suppose they’ve extended their tentacles into the Departments of Defense and Energy as well.”
Just then the telephone rang.
He picked it up. “Yeah?”
The voice on the other end was breathing hard. Exotic birds cried in the background. He heard water splashing and a terrible sound, like a muffled dog barking.
“It’s me. Mick.”
Chapter 42
At daybreak in Settat, Khalid knocked on Natalie’s door.
“Are you ready?” he called coldly.
“Hold on.” By the dim light of the bedside lamp, she patted a newly purchased travel bag to make sure it contained her newly purchased leather. “Another suitcase, another hall,” she said with a sigh, and hummed the tune from Evita.
The official mourning period for Khalid’s friend was over and Khalid had informed her that they would leave Settat. For where, she didn’t know. All Khalid had said was that he had business to transact. He was going to sell something that was once very valuable to him.
She stuffed the last two tangerines from the fruit bowl into her pocket.
; “That’s all, folks,” she said to the room, certain that she would never see the place again.
Wiping sleep from his eyes, the house’s gardien pried the steel gate open.
“Where are you going today?” the guard asked in French.
“Casa,” Khalid said abruptly, and tossed Natalie’s luggage into the trunk of the Peugeot.
She jumped in beside him. “You’re traveling light,” she said.
He shook his head. “I’ll get my suitcase back eventually.”
He backed out the garden drive and pulled forward into the cold, dewy morning.
Daylight seeped into a cloudless sky from behind the shanty town that looked over Settat. No traffic or traffic lights impeded the car’s progress into town.
There was an endless row of holes dug alongside the street. “What are those for?” Natalie asked Khalid.
“One of our King’s pet projects,” he said with irony. “Reforest the desert. Keep the people busy.”
He braked at what she recognized as the Casablanca-Marrakesh road. Then, unexpectedly, he turned to the south.
“Aren’t we going back north to Casa?” she asked.
“No. It’s Marrakesh instead.”
“Okay. So then it’s Marrakesh,” she said.
The road cut through the center of town. There were early signs of what would become a beehive of activity. Before the scorching sun burned off the crispness in the air, farmers hurried their goods to the Saturday market. Tiny fronds atop the street’s palm trees would offer little protection during the day.
Further into town, they encountered several police vans advancing in silent formation. Perhaps there was a policeman’s wedding or similar gathering that day.
Khalid steered the Peugeot past Settat’s central mosque with its single, tall tower. A square balcony faced in all directions from the top. There, five times a day, the muezzin’s amplified voice called people to prayer.
While waiting at a stoplight, Natalie had a chance to examine an intricate, symmetrical mosaic on the mosque’s fountain, where people washed before prayer. Already she was beginning to see order in the complex life of Morocco.