The God Particle

by Tom Avitabile

  She mulled over everything she had read. Had he already decided to give up his command for her? Could she accept that? Worse, would it fester, rearing its ugly head when the thin times came? Her head stopped spinning when she realized the take-away was, He loves me, he wants me as much as I want him, and the options are all open for us to find a way to be together, yet still be true to ourselves.

  That thought caused her to squeal and kick her feet on the footrest.

  ∞§∞

  Quietly and unnoticed, Raffey had loaded the many routines he had developed at home into his workstation in the collider’s main control room. He masked it as a prototype routine, one of many he was paid to develop, although this one had the ability to end his dilemma in one bright flash.

  XXIII. SQUARE PEG

  As she walked down Fifth Avenue, a plan was forming: when Mush came back, she’d sell the New York place and they both could move down to D.C. She could probably find work there as a consultant or security analyst.

  Brooke had often thought about moving permanently to Washington D.C. after Quarterback had taken her on, but she had a real good deal on her third-story walkup on Forty-Ninth Street, only a few blocks from her old office on Fifty-Seventh Street and Eleventh Avenue. Even though she got to New York only on rare weekends, she had never wanted to give the place up — until now.

  Thirty-five more days and he’s home. She’d get to Hawaii a few days before, get a little color, and learn her way around a little. At Forty-Seventh Street, she turned west and walked down the street, navigating around the shoppers and gawkers at the windows. Then out of the corner of her eye she saw it: a FedEx truck, one of hundreds in Manhattan on a typical workday. But something red caught her eye, right there by the driver’s door. She was torn; the cop in her wanted to see what the substance was, but she also had lunch plans at one o’clock with some agents she used to work with over on West Fifty-Seventh, and she wanted to squeeze in a visit to a jewelry store to see if they still made the kind of ring she had admired on her brother for years. Mush might like a ring like that. Of course, the fact that she turned on to Forty-Seventh Street’s Diamond District, with the largest concentration of engagement rings on the planet, never entered into her decision.

  Her police instincts took over and she found herself walking toward the truck. She bent down and touched the red; its stickiness and viscosity between her fingers told her it was blood. She casually walked in front of the truck to look through the windshield. No one was inside. She looked over and saw one of the dozen plainclothes security men who add an extra layer of protection for the diamond merchants as they shuffle from one building to another, sometimes with millions in diamonds in little envelopes in their breast pockets. Not used to being addressed, other than for directions, the man didn’t immediately warm to Brooke’s take charge attitude. “Get the beat cop, now. Tell him to meet me by the truck.”

  “I’m sorry, what is the problem you are having?”

  Brooke recognized the Israeli accent. “Regular Army, IDF? Or Mossad?”

  The man was a little taken aback, but the cold steel of her eyes told him not to trifle with her. “IDF. My uncle owns a shop here.”

  “Brooke Burrell, FBI. Former.”

  “ID?”

  As she fished it out of her bag, he noticed a small-caliber gun in her purse. He was about to ask her if she had a permit when she produced her FBI card with the word, RETIRED stamped through in little holes. “See former. Now get the cop. I think something is going down with the FedEx truck and it could be happening right now.”

  “That truck?”

  “Yes.”

  “The driver went in here.” He pointed over his shoulder to the building behind him.

  “When you get the cops, have them search the truck. Tell ’em I am in the building and tell them what I am wearing. I don’t want to get shot.” Brooke disappeared into the building, and the man went off down Forty-Seventh looking for the beat cop.

  She approached the building’s desk where the guard had everyone sign in. “Do you have the FedEx guys sign in?”

  “Everybody signs, lady.” The guard said.

  “Do you usually see the same guys every day?”

  “Yeah, what’s this about?”

  “Was he the usual guy?”

  “No…”

  “Where was he going when he signed in?”

  “I can’t…”

  “Look,” she read the name from his badge, “Mr. Jackson, in about two minutes the cops are coming.” She pulled out her ID again. “What floor, which company?”

  “Twelve, Abramowitz and Abramowitz.”

  She entered the elevator and pressed the twelfth-floor button. On the way up she negotiated with herself: I am just going to get a handle on the situation; I am not going to get involved. Just surveillance.

  As the door opened, she looked both ways and saw a metal door with a small square window. The sign next to it simply said Abramowitz & Abramowitz. Above the doorframe was a small surveillance camera. She reached into her bag and pulled out a dark scarf. She draped it over her head like a kerchief and approached the door. She looked through the glass square. Immediately behind that door was another door with a slightly larger window and a similar electric lock with an anti-jimmy plate. The two remotely locked doors created a holding cell of sorts. Someone inside needed to ring a person in or out twice. So a potential bad guy could be trapped in the small prison created between the two. Through the window, she saw a woman get slapped hard and Brooke recognized the grey arm of a FedEx uniform as the woman reeled from the impact. The arm swung and she could see the other arm brandishing a gun in a sweeping motion.

  Brooke rang the intercom buzzer. No answer. When she rang it again, she could see the sudden freeze in the inner office. She saw the arm of the FedEx guy gesturing with the gun and then a voice came over the box. “We’re closed.”

  “What means, closed? It’s Rachel. I got the Goldfarb diamonds for Moishe and I am doubled parked so let me in. I don’t want to get a ticket.” Brooke did her best Delancy Street fabric-storeowner impersonation. There was no response. She pressed again. “Look, David sent me in with the diamonds in a rush and I got to get back to Brooklyn. Didn’t he call Moishe?”

  ∞§∞

  Inside the wholesale jewelry company, Nick Foust was trying to figure out what to do next. He had been planning this robbery for a month. He learned the FedEx schedule. He knew the truck route. He knew that the normally suspicious diamond merchants seldom pay attention to the FedEx guy. He had jacked the truck on west Forty-Third Street. The stupid driver had put up a fight so he had to shoot him right there in the driver’s seat. He had thrown the body on the floor, taken his hand scanner thing and badge. He had already lifted the FedEx uniform from a drycleaners, where he had gotten the whole idea when he saw a driver drop it off for cleaning last month.

  Now this chick was at the door with more diamonds. If he ignored her she could start trouble, but if he brought her in he’d have more diamonds. Goldfarb diamonds! Whatever the hell they were. He waved with the gun to the counter clerk in the small diamond showroom, a woman who was shaking as if she were freezing. “You. Ring her in.”

  ∞§∞

  Brooke saw part of the gesture through the bulletproof glass; then the buzzer sounded. She pushed the door and was in the vestibule. The door closed behind her, then the door to the showroom buzzed. She walked in. “Thanks. I got to get back to my car, I am double parked.” She reached into her bag, “Tell Moishe, I got the diamonds from Goldfarb — who are you?”

  “Shut the fuck up, give me the bag.” Nick ripped the bag away from Brooke’s hand. She already had a grip on her gun and just jutted it into his forehead.

  “Don’t breathe or I’ll blow your brains out. Drop the gun. Do it!” She punctuated the command with a jab over his eyebrow.

  Nick was caught off guard. Brooke had turned her body edgeways to him with her arm extended right to his head. “Don’t flin
ch or I’ll splatter your brains all over the counter.”

  Nick said, “Okay. Okay.”

  “You’re not dropping the gun! Drop it. Drop it now or you’ll never walk out of here.”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  “Fuck the ‘okay.’ Drop the fucking gun, asshole, or I’ll cap your ass!”

  That last bit of street lingo registered as the sound of the gun hitting the floor released Brooke’s squeeze on the trigger she was a millisecond away from pulling.

  “Kick it away, then get face down on the floor. Down!”

  Nick looked around, saw he had no options, and one knee at a time got down and then extended his hands and lay down. Immediately, he felt the weight of Brooke’s foot on his neck.

  “Somebody call the cops and get me something to tie this jerk up with.”

  As Brooke waited, she noticed something odd. The employees started removing the gems from the display cases and sliding the trays into a huge safe. In thirty seconds, they had all the cases empty and the jewels in the safe. Then the oldest guy there came over to pick up the bag that Nick had been holding.

  “Leave those. They’re evidence and part of a crime scene,” she ordered, standing with one foot on the perp’s neck and her gun pointed at his head.

  The man looked up at her and obediently nodded as he went back around to his desk in the back room. Brooke had to ask, “Why did you all lock up the stones?”

  The old man came back out. “There will be police and others here and sometimes they take souvenirs.” He could see the look on Brooke’s face as he added with a shrug of his shoulder, “What can I tell you, it happens!”

  Twenty minutes later, major case squad detectives and beat cops were crowded into the small showroom with the multi-million-dollar inventory. Detective Crenshaw was trying to understand what had gone down.

  “Okay, so you gain entry and he goes for the bag, presumably for the diamonds, and you got a gun and you get the drop on him? Who are you, Annie Oakley?”

  “FBI, Special Agent Brooke Burrell, retired.”

  “No shit! At what? Half pay?” Pay rates and benefits was the currency of cop talk.

  Brooke was no different. “Yeah, took the package at twenty-two years in, plus special rate last two years, attached to — a special unit.” Brooke almost said, ‘attached to the White House.’

  “Sweet. Yeah, I was going to pull a federal job, but the wife had the first kid, so moving out of my parents’ old paid-for place in Queens and paying D.C. rent wasn’t in the cards.”

  “I hear ya,” Brooke said.

  “So, you ever see this skell before?”

  “No. Like I told the scene commander, I saw the blood on the door of the truck, followed the guy up here, and then kind of improvised from there.”

  “Look, as a professional courtesy, if you want to come down to the squad later, I’ll take your statement.”

  “Thanks, Detective, cause I was on my way to find a ring for my b — my friend. That was weird; is Mush my boyfriend?

  “Did you say ring?” Mr. Abramowitz came from the back. “What kind ring?”

  “Well, it’s a Navy anchor with diamonds.” Brooke made a whirly motion around her finger.

  “How about an engagement ring?” Abramowitz said as if he were dangling it in front of his favorite niece.

  “That could happen.”

  “You saved my business and who knows, maybe a life or two. When you get engaged, the ring is on me!”

  “Really, that’s such a nice thing to do.”

  “What, like stopping a robbery is chopped liver? You’ll pick a big beautiful stone, and I’ll get my best designer to make a setting you’ll plotz from.”

  “I am ready to plotz then, Mr. Abramowitz.”

  Detective Crenshaw smiled at Brooke, “Cool!”

  ∞§∞

  Even in Paris, a passerby can easily catch the headlines from the New York Post, especially at the Embassy. The paper is on the desktops of several people who receive the tabloid as one of thirty different U.S. newspapers the ambassador ordered his staff to read every day in order to not lose touch with the tone in America. So Joey was stopped in his tracks when he saw on the cover of the three-day old paper a picture of Brooke next to the headline, ‘Familiar Ring’ Midtown Jewel Heist Foiled by Alert Ex-FBI Agent. Joey had the paper in Bill’s hands in twenty seconds.

  “I guess you can’t keep a good cop down, Joey.”

  “I am going to call her later.”

  “Tell her I said, ‘good job.’ Now about the Interpol…”

  Joey interrupted, “Bill, I was thinking of saying more than that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, right now, her Navy boy is somewhere under the North Pole for a few months and obviously she’s bored,” he tapped the paper in Bill’s hand, “so I figured we give the bad guys in New York a break and get her back here on temporary assignment.”

  “And what would that assignment be, temporarily?”

  “I could use Brooke in Geneva with me. Together we could do the whole job and keep it contained — away from the locals and Interpol.”

  “So Brooke gives us operational security without having to be spread too thin? But what if she’s already picking out the china patterns?”

  “I bet they have great tableware in Switzerland!”

  “It’s worth a shot; make the call,” Bill said. Then he couldn’t help but turn to the sports section to read the hometown view on the Giants’ prospects this year.

  XXIV. .00000000000000000000000000000001

  Raffey had not heard from the kidnappers in three days, although he always felt he was being watched. He knew his phones were monitored, and his house was probably under the eye of the monsters. He never knew when he was being followed. He had simply stood next to someone on a tram and almost caused Kirsi to lose her eyes. But here in the lab on his workstation, he was free to upload the files he had prepared to stop the madmen in their insane plan. He opened the Unix-compiled roulette program and when it loaded he typed the word ‘Simulation’ at the password prompt. Although the graphics were rudimentary, the collider and the rings were schematically displayed. Like a marble in a roulette wheel, a small dot started spinning around the collider rings on the screen. At the lower right was a time sample number that incremented in powers of ten. That number rose as the speed of the dot orbiting the ring accelerated. The faster the particle went, the higher the sample rate, or as Raffey thought of it, the slice of time narrowed, so that the speed of the dot on the screen remained somewhat the same because the time sample was getting smaller and smaller as the particle accelerated. When the number reached thirty-two, the dot seemed to almost freeze, as it now took only a fraction of a pico-second for the dot to make the seventeen-mile journey; one revolution took only 10-32 of a second. Written as a numeral, that’s thirty-one zeros after a decimal point before you get to a one. At 10-32, Raffey’s narrow slice of time displayed something akin to a slow-motion replay of an event happening at 99.9999 percent of the speed of light.

  Only nothing was really happening. The program fooled the giant multi-million dollar, million-ton machine into believing that a sub-atomic particle was actually in its ring. All the ninety-three hundred magnets, sensors, and beam-benders believed this was a real experiment. Only Raffey knew this nuclear gun was loaded with a blank.

  ∞§∞

  Fame is an interesting thing. Brooke recieved a call from her old office. They wanted her to come down and get her mail. She ignored the first call, figuring she’d stop by in a few days and get it. But the next call came from the facilities manager of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; she “needed to remove the mail now.”

  When Brooke arrived at the office she received the usual razzing any cop who gets a little ink suffers from the rank and file. “Hey, Ring-o!” “Gun Slinger,” “Wonder Woman” and more were all respectfully thrown at her as she made her way to the facilities manager’s office. On a f
olding table in the office across from the man’s desk was a pile of mail in forty stacks.

  Brooke was dumbstruck, “What the…?”

  “It started showing up yesterday, all addressed to you,” Walter Helfer said.

  Brooke started picking up the rubber-banded stacks and flicking the edges with her thumb flipping through the return addresses. Most were from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, some from as far away as Ohio. One caught her eye; it was from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She pulled it from the stack and sat in the chair opposite Helfer’s desk. She took his letter opener from his desk to open the handwritten letter. The English was poor but the emotion was clear. It was from the mother of a man who was killed. She was desperate and reached out to the ‘hero woman policeman of America.’ The authorities in her country gave her no information, no solace and no comfort in the death of her beloved son, Abrim. Her heartbreak was that they accused her son of being less than virtuous and having died in sin. Brooke immediately felt much sympathy for this poor mother who, it seemed, was fighting the Royal Family and government in an effort to resurrect her son’s name in the eyes of the followers of Allah. Brooke sighed audibly.

  “Tough one?” Helfer asked.

  “Saudi Arabia! How shitty must things be over there that his poor woman reaches out to me?”

  “How shitty are things here in the U.S. that all these people reached out to you, period!”

  Brooke looked at the stacks of envelopes. “Good point! Mind if I go through some of these here?”