At first, nothing seemed to happen. Kevin was peering at the CRT display while Ward looked at the test chamber. Suddenly, Kevin was yelling “Shut down! Shut down! Overload!” and a bright flash blanked out the screen. When it cleared, a piece of apparatus on the far side of the room was burning and smoke billowed to the ceiling. Ward frantically flipped switches on the emergency shutoff panel, while Kevin raced across the room, yanked a fire extinguisher from the wall, and blasted the fire until it was out.
The next ten minutes were spent trying to ascertain what went wrong with the equipment. Kevin again fast forwarded through it, then hit PLAY.
“I think this is where I turned off the camera. I had a class to get to.”
Almost as he said it, the on-camera Kevin glanced at the camcorder and said, “Oh yeah.” He walked toward the camera and the screen returned to static. The two of them watched the static for a few moments, and then Kevin stopped the tape.
“This isn’t going to help very much,” said Erica. “Why would Ward hide it with the notebook?”
“He must have just wanted a record of the events leading up to the discovery. Maybe he wanted it as evidence. I don’t know.”
Footsteps approached from behind. They turned to see Phil.
“Well, what do you think? Does it have everything you wanted?”
“No,” said Kevin. “It’s not what we were hoping for.”
* * *
As they dejectedly walked back to the car through the mall to avoid the heat outside, Kevin tentatively reached for Erica’s hand.
“We’ll get out of this somehow,” he said.
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” she said confidently.
“I’m glad one of us does, because I was just saying that. As far as I can tell, we’re screwed.”
They passed a window display at Helzberg’s Diamonds and Erica stopped. A neat row of diamond rings and pendants rested on the velvet shelves. A picture of an enormous blue diamond hung above the display. In big letters at the top, it said, “Why not get her the next best thing?” In smaller letters at the bottom, the caption read, “The Hope diamond. At 49.5 carats, it’s the world’s largest blue diamond.”
“It’s hard to believe,” she said, “that people would kill for something that makes rocks.”
“No it’s not. Look at how much some of these stones are going for.” He pointed at a 1 carat diamond ring on sale for $2499. “Besides, they’re more than rocks. Think of what the car companies alone would pay for windows not just coated with diamond, but actually made of diamond. Windows that never break, never scratch. Not to mention tools that never wear out, unbreakable dishware, faster computers. Any one of those things would make somebody rich. But together? That person would have more money than God.”
“Then why didn’t Ward just keep it for himself?”
“I’ve been wondering about that, and I think I know why. There was no way he could use it and make any money.”
“What do you mean?”
“The way I see it, there are only two methods for making money off of this. One, you could make the diamonds yourself. But to make them in any substantial quantity, he’d have to have his own manufacturing plant, distribution sources, patent attorneys. In other words, he had to have money to begin with. I don’t think there was any way he’d be able to convince the patent office that he’d come up with the process independent of the university. And if he had used university property to do the research, South Texas would own the patent. Ward would get his name on the patent, but the university would make all the money.”
“And if he made diamonds on the sly with the university equipment,” Erica said, “he couldn’t make them too big or he wouldn’t be able to sell them. And how do you sell a lot of small diamonds?”
“Right. After a while, he’d probably get caught. The only way he was able to work on it as long as he did was to fire me and get me out of the lab. By the end of summer, he would have had to hire new students. It would have been suspicious if he didn’t. And there’s no way he could take all of that specialized equipment. It would have been missed. Which leads to the second way of making money. Sell the process. That way, he could make millions all at once, and the university would never know it came from him.”
“But whoever he sold it to didn’t want anyone else to know.”
“Including Ward,” Kevin said. “They didn’t want to take the chance he’d talk. Now we’re the ones who these guys are hunting down, and the police won’t believe us.” He threw his hands up in exasperation.
Erica pointed at the ad in the window. “I bet if we strolled in with something as big as the Hope diamond they’d believe us.”
“Yeah, they’d probably…” Then Kevin stopped abruptly. That was it! Why not?
“Come on,” he said, yanking on Erica’s hand. She struggled to keep up with him.
“Where are we going?” she said.
“To find a telephone.”
CHAPTER 19
“Hello, this is the operator. May I speak to Ted Ishio?”
“That’s me.”
“I have a collect person-to-person call from Kevin Hamilton. Will you accept?”
“Sure I will! Kevin?”
“One moment, please.”
The line clicked.
“Ted, it’s Kevin!”
“Hey, I was just thinking about you. I sent an email to you Friday.”
“I know. I read it.”
“What’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m in Houston.”
“Forget to pay the phone bill?”
“No. Listen, Ted, I wouldn’t call you like this, but we are in a hell of a lot of trouble.”
“Who’s we?”
“Erica Jensen. A friend. She’s with me now. We’re at Sharpstown mall.”
Ted laughed. “Kevin, if your car is broken down again, AAA is probably the place to call.”
“I’m serious, Ted. This is life and death. We need your help.”
There was a pause and then the tone in Ted’s voice sobered. “What can I do?” There was nothing more Kevin needed to do to convince him. Their relationship had been like that for the last three years, providing help whenever it was needed, no questions asked.
Still, Kevin held his breath before continuing, hoping Ted would have faith in him.
“Some men are trying to kill us.”
“What?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. We have something they want.”
“Have you gone to the police?”
“We’ve tried, but they aren’t going to help us. Ted, listen. Believe me when I tell you that the less you know the better. You might not believe it anyway. We need a favor.”
“Name it. Anything.”
“I want to use your lab for a few days.”
The other end of the line was silent. Kevin waited. Finally, he couldn’t stand it.
“Ted? Are you still there?”
“Kevin, I don’t know. I’m just an assistant professor, for God’s sake. I’ve only been here two months…”
“I know it’s a lot to ask, Ted, but this is our only shot. If you don’t help us, we are going to die.”
There were another few seconds of hesitation. Erica gave Kevin a questioning look and he shrugged.
“When can you get here?”
Kevin sighed with relief. “Tomorrow. We’re in Erica’s car.”
Ted gave Kevin directions to his house, and Kevin relayed them to Erica so she could write them down. “What kind of equipment do you need?” Ted said when he was finished with the directions.
From memory, Kevin went down the list of items he’d need. “An infrared spectrometer, a turbo-molecular pump, a blue-light laser, a liquid nitrogen cryostat….” He named a dozen other items.
“There’s a problem. The lab has everything you just named except one. We had a catastrophic failure in our laser last month. It’s totally shot.”
“What’s wrong with it? Can it be fixed?”
“No way. We’re getting a new one, but there’s a buying freeze for the next two weeks.”
Kevin’s heart sank. “You couldn’t bend the rules and get it any sooner, could you?”
“Kevin, I just started working here. I’m going out on a limb letting you use the lab in the first place. I’ll try to get it sooner, but there are no guarantees.”
“That’s all I ask.”
“Don’t worry, man. You can hang low here until we get the laser. In the meantime, it’ll be just like last year.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Ted. You’re a lifesaver. Literally.”
“Just make sure you get here tomorrow. We leave at 6:00 Wednesday morning for Minneapolis.”
“Right, the conference. Don’t worry. We’ll be there.”
“Drive safely.”
Kevin hung up.
“It sounded like he was willing to help us,” Erica said.
Someone was waiting for the phone so they began walking toward the car.
“He is. He’ll let me run the process in his lab.”
“You don’t look too happy about it.”
“Their laser is broken, and they won’t be able to replace it for at least two weeks. Without it, we can’t make any diamonds.”
“Two weeks! They might find us by then.”
“I know. But what other choice do we have? He’s the only person I know who could and would do this for us.”
“What if you had this laser? How long would it take to make enough diamond?”
“Probably three days, depending on how much we want.”
“Do you know where we could get one?”
“I think so, but it doesn’t matter. Those lasers cost about $10,000.”
“And we could buy one ourselves?”
“Buy one ourselves?” Kevin asked incredulously. “I just told you they are ten thousand dollars.”
“I heard you. Just tell me if we could buy one ourselves today if we had the money.”
“Probably. There’s a warehouse in Dallas. I ordered one from there last year. The only problem was, it took three weeks to get what I ordered.”
“Then we’ll have to go there in person,” Erica said. “Can you find it or should we call first?”
“What are you talking about? I don’t think they’ll let us put a $10,000 laser on a credit card.”
Erica steered Kevin to a bench in the middle of the mall. She sat, and Kevin followed suit. She had an earnest look on her face, and Kevin had no idea what to expect. He waited while she searched for words.
“Remember when I told you that I missed the party Friday because of some personal business?” she finally said.
Kevin nodded, looking into her eyes. They seemed tortured somehow.
She hesitated again.
“This is harder than I thought it would be. I haven’t told anyone this in…”—she looked up, thinking—”four years, I guess.”
Kevin kept silent, not wanting to interrupt what was obviously difficult for her to say.
“About ten years ago, when I was a senior in high school, I was on the varsity diving team. I was pretty good, enough that I won some of the meets, and my parents were big fans. They would come to almost every meet, even if it was 20 miles away like some of them were.
“The last meet of the year was at Jefferson high school 15 miles outside of Kansas City. It was a big meet because Jefferson was one of the best teams, and if we beat them, we were going to the district championships. I rode the bus with the other girls, but I saw my parents in the audience just before I went up for my first dive. They were sitting in the front row like they always were, clapping and yelling as my name was read off.
“We ended up beating Jefferson that night. I don’t remember what the score was, but it was very close, and we didn’t know until the last dive who would win. Naturally we were ecstatic, screaming that teenage girl squeal, jumping around like lunatics. My parents wanted to take me out to celebrate, but I was so excited I wanted to ride the bus with the other girls and get pizza with them.
“They understood, and I still remember watching them as the bus pulled away. My dad was still wearing his gray suit pants and white dress shirt from work, but he had on the baseball cap that I’d given him two years earlier which had our team name, the Brookside High Blazers. And my mom usually wore something that matched the red and white school colors. That night it was a red blouse with white slacks. My mom was waving a school banner, and my dad gave me a thumbs up as we left. We must have been a sight, sticking our heads out of the bus windows, yelling, waving our arms. Everyone else was already talking about the district meet, but the only thing I was thinking at that moment was how proud I was that they had been there to see me. Of course, five seconds later I was screaming again with the other girls.”
Erica smiled as she said it, but her eyes began to glisten with tears.
“It was a Friday, and of course we stayed out late partying. My friend Amy didn’t drop me off at home until two in the morning, way past my curfew. I tiptoed straight to my room, hoping I wouldn’t wake my parents.
“About an hour later, I heard a banging at the front door. It went on for a while, and I started to wonder why my father wasn’t answering it. I got up and looked in my parents room, but nobody was there. The bed hadn’t even been slept in. Then I heard my name being called, and I ran downstairs thinking that my parents had locked themselves out somehow. I was so sleepy that it didn’t occur to me to wonder why they were still out at that hour.
“When I opened the door, I was surprised to see a sheriff’s deputy standing on the porch. He told me that my parents had been in an accident and that I should put some clothes on so that we could go to the hospital. I asked if they were all right. The deputy said they’d be OK, but I knew he was lying. He kept telling me to hurry, and when I tried to call my grandparents, he said there wasn’t enough time.
“A doctor at the hospital told me everything. As my parents were on their way home from the meet, a drunk in a pickup ran a stop sign and broadsided their car at 60 miles an hour. My mother and the drunk driver were killed instantly, but my dad revived enough at the hospital to tell them to come find me. He died fifteen minutes before I got there.
“The next three days were a blur. My dad’s brother, Uncle Rick, took care of the funeral arrangements. A bunch of my cousins and aunts and uncles were there, but I still felt alone. I wasn’t very close to any of them, since none of them lived in Kansas City. Then I found out about the insurance. My dad had a policy worth about a million dollars. That’s why we can buy a $10,000 laser. All I have to do is call my broker and transfer the money.”
When Erica had gotten to the part about the accident, Kevin’s expression was a mixture of sadness and understanding. But when she mentioned the money, his jaw dropped in amazement.
When he realized how he looked, he tried to explain.
“I’m sorry. I just…I mean, I guess I know why you didn’t tell me, but I had no idea you had that much money. Your clothes and townhouse are a lot nicer than the other med students’, but I just assumed your parents were paying for them.”
“In a way, they are.”
Something tugged at the back of Kevin’s mind. “But on Saturday, you said you missed the party because of money problems. I thought you missed a car payment or something.”
“I did miss the party because of money problems. I was speaking to my lawyer for about two hours. You know good old Uncle Rick? He was made executor of the trust that the insurance money was put into. I found out this year that he’s been siphoning money from it ever since.”
“How much?”
“Close to three hundred thousand dollars.”
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah, I was totally oblivious until I told my broker that I wanted to start getting the monthly statements myself. Up to that point, Uncle Rick was getting the statements and telling me how I was doing. Last
summer, I attended a seminar for med students called “Managing your money: A doctor’s guide to investment,” and I decided I should start understanding how my finances worked. I didn’t think to tell my uncle, since I was just going to monitor the statements. After I saw some weird withdrawals from the account, withdrawals that I didn’t make, I asked for a total accounting of the finances for the last seven years. That’s when it all came out. I’ve been involved in litigation with him ever since.”
“I don’t know what to say. That’s a lot to take in.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my parents before.”
“I understand,” Kevin said, patting her hand. He hesitated, trying to decide whether to tell her about his father and the problem with the school loans. No, this wasn’t the right time. It might seem like he was asking for money. Once this was over he’d tell her. “Are you sure it’s okay to use your money for the laser?”
“Do you want to wait two weeks to get another one?”
“I’m not the waiting type.”
* * *
They headed back to the pay phones and Kevin called information for the 800 number of LuminOptics in Dallas. He didn’t bother writing it down and dialed. Kevin explained to the sales representative what he needed. After five minutes of listening to Kevin trying to convince him that he was not joking, Erica was worried that they wouldn’t be able to get one, but apparently Kevin finally won him over. He haggled with the sales rep over the price and then hung up.
“Well?” she said.
“I talked him into selling me their last laser in stock if we came to pick it up today, with a fair markup for the sales rep’s trouble of course. I don’t think I totally convinced him, though. He said it had already been promised to another customer, and if we don’t buy it today, it’ll be on the first UPS truck tomorrow morning. We have to be there by six o’clock to get it.”
“That should give us plenty of time.” Erica looked at her watch. “It’s only about ten thirty now. We can get to Dallas in about four hours or so.”
“Yeah, but the warehouse is on the other side of Dallas. That’s another hour. As long as we don’t get stuck in rush hour, we’ll be okay.”
The Adamas Blueprint Page 14