The Stolen

by T. S. Learner

  ‘Jannick, you’re a genius,’ he announced, slapping the Dane on the back, then started to pack papers into his briefcase.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Jannick demanded. Ignoring him, Matthias grabbed his jacket, swept the glass slides into his pocket, then turned to pick up the statuette, its surface sparkling under the sunlight. As he turned to the window he was distracted by the sight of Latcos waiting by his Chevy outside the laboratory.

  ‘Matthias! Is that statue made of the same material that’s on the slide?’ Jannick’s voice pulled him back into the laboratory.

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe? Then you can’t just walk out with it. It’s incredibly valuable.’

  ‘I know, that’s why I have to find an astrochemist. Have fun,’ he finished, grinning like a madman, then slammed the door behind him, the thump resounding around the laboratory.

  Furious, Jannick ran his gaze across the work table, then noticed the Polaroid photograph. Walking over, he picked it up. It was the standard reportage of an experiment testing superconductivity – the floating magnet over the testing material – but the temperature reading clearly visible on the cooling-unit display – eighteen degrees Celsius – made him gasp out loud. He picked up the telephone and started dialling a number, his fingers shaking with excitement.

  Matthias looked exhausted but elated, and there was a new light to his face that reminded Latcos of his mother’s face when she’d just stepped out of the forest after speaking to the spirits.

  ‘Long night?’ he asked as Matthias handed him the wrapped statuette.

  ‘Night?’ Matthias laughed. ‘It lasted years.’

  ‘I told you she was a woman worth fighting for,’ Latcos said. ‘Did she give up her secrets?’

  ‘Latcos,’ Matthias reached out and grasped the gypsy’s hand so tightly it hurt, ‘you have no idea how powerful she is; she has answered a question I have spent my whole career asking, and if you asked me today whether I believe in fate I would have to say yes.’

  ‘So the stories my grandfather used to tell are true?’

  ‘Those and so much more. For the moment you must hide her and hide her well. Do nothing until I have contacted you and we’ll deal with the other valuables tomorrow. Meantime I have to go see an expert about what I have discovered.’

  Latcos nodded then embraced his brother, slipping a small seashell amulet into his coat pocket as Keja had instructed him to do without Matthias noticing.

  ‘Stay safe, my brother.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Jorges Hatiwais, stroking his grey goatee, looked up from the magnifying glass he held over the fragment. The original hippy, he sported a waist-length thin grey plait, an Inuit walrus-tooth necklace and was notorious for wearing sandals – with socks – even in the Swiss winter. He was also a vegan heavy-metal fan and a fanatical supporter of the HC Davos ice hockey team, but there were many paradoxes about Jorges, one of the things Matthias liked about the man.

  They had first met at a conference on naturally occurring magnetism in iron ores. Jorges was the only meteorite expert in the national department of geological surveying, which mainly consisted of geologists involved in avalanche research. Why a Swiss government department would employ an astrochemist was a mystery to Matthias, but he had no doubt about Jorges’ professionalism. Nevertheless, Matthias had been careful not to tell him very much either about the statuette or the metal itself.

  Firstly he wanted to see what Jorges observed objectively, a cold assessment untainted by Matthias’s own emotions around the possible discovery. He also didn’t want to drag the astrochemist unwittingly into a situation that might prove to be dangerous or contentious in any way.

  ‘C’mon, Matthias, you’ll have to give me more than that. Judging by the smoothness and shape, I’m guessing this has been cut from something made out of meteoritic material.’

  ‘A statuette of an Indian deity, belonging to a Kalderash gypsy family.’

  ‘Which deity?’

  ‘Kali.’

  Jorges placed the fragment back on the specimen plate and muttered a short prayer – in what language Matthias couldn’t tell, but he suspected it could even have been in Sanskrit. Although Jorges was Swiss he prided himself on his encyclopaedic linguistic skills; he’d also lived in India.

  ‘The practice of making holy statues from meteorites is well-documented,’ he said. ‘Many cultures attribute magical or mystical powers to the metal from heaven, which isn’t completely irrational given that some of the elements found within meteorites date from the very beginnings of the universe itself, stardust that the planets, suns and galaxies are all formed from – in fact, we all contain about a teaspoon of the very same elemental stardust ourselves. I’ve seen something like this before, on the shores of the Lonar crater lake in Maharashtra. At the Vishnu temple built on the shores the deity there looks like stone but it is in fact an ore with a high metal content – no doubt “holy” metal – once sourced from the meteorite that made the lake some seven hundred thousand years ago. Even here in Switzerland meteorites were once thought to possess the power of God. A piece of meteorite was worshipped by the ancient Greeks at the Apollo temple at Delphi; the examples are endless. Personally I think the ancients were right – it is holy metal.’

  Matthias stared at the specimen, thinking about the eleventh-century report Helen had discovered. ‘I think it might come from Rajasthan,’ he finally ventured.

  Jorges looked amazed.

  ‘Interesting you should say that.’ He walked over to a map cabinet, pulled out a black-and-white photographic map and laid it flat on the workbench. To Matthias it looked like some kind of X-ray – a lunar-like landscape of geological features obviously taken from space: rugged river beds that ran like cracks, cliff edges that fell away, the folded wrinkles of valleys and plains drained by erosion.

  ‘I got this from NASA, smuggled out by a good friend inside: satellite survey maps. I have six of them, all covering India. Invaluable for hunting for craters. This is Rajasthan, and this…’ He thumped his finger down onto a circle, a fringed eruption that looked as if it had either been made by a blast from inside the planet or from something crashing down onto the Earth. ‘This, my dear friend, is known as the Ramgarh Structure – a circle of raised rock situated about twelve kilometres from Ramgarh village. It hasn’t yet been proven but some believe this is the edge of a massive crater made from a meteorite impact. I am among the believers.’ He turned back to the fragment and scraped at it with a small scalpel. ‘I’ve seen this colouring only once before, at Ramgarh. There is a small temple there in the centre of the crater and natural caves that have been made into temples, which I suspect are even older. You said this statuette was in the possession of a gypsy family?’

  ‘There’s a theory the Roma originated from north-west India, leaving around the third century, and the number of Sanskrit and Hindi words in Romanes indicate that some of the clans would have been from the Punjab and Rajasthan. The statuette was kept by the ancestors of the family and most probably arrived in Europe around the ninth or tenth century.’

  ‘Fascinating. But there is another interesting correlation; Kali is the goddess of both destruction and rebirth. A meteor is exactly that: an impact brings both destruction and eventually a kind of rebirth. You know the theory that the meteorites that impacted early Earth actually seeded it with micro-organisms. Chondrite meteorites contain not only the building blocks of the planets but can also contain small amounts of organic matter.’

  As Matthias tried to mask his excitement, Jorges studied him, stroking his long grey ponytail as if it were a cat – an unconscious but irritating habit.

  ‘What’s the nearest large town?’ Matthias asked, now studying the outline of the rumoured crater.

  ‘Mangrol. The best route is fly to Jaipur if you can, then hire a driver to take you on the road that runs through Tonk, Indergarh and Mangrol – and you can then drive or hike on to Ramgarh. Why?’

  ‘I need
to find the core source.’ Matthias kept his gaze steady, unflinching. He hated lying but to protect Jorges he had no choice. Jorges studied his expression, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. He looked back down at the fragment.

  ‘Do you mind telling me why the urgency? Even if you get there it’s going to be challenging to find remnants of the meteorite – anything left will be underground or underwater.’

  Matthias picked the fragment up and slipped it into his briefcase. ‘If I told you, I’d be putting you in great danger and I’m not prepared to do that.’

  ‘Pity. You absolutely sure you don’t want me with you?’

  ‘Maybe next time.’

  ‘I’ll take you up on that, and, if you have time visit the Saraswati temple in Delhi – the Hindu goddess of knowledge and science. If you’re lucky she’ll give you her blessing.’

  ‘No one saw you coming in?’

  Destin glanced round the small laboratory office. ‘I made sure of it. Just as you instructed,’ he added, deliberately making sure Jannick would feel in control. ‘It sounds like you have something for me at last?’ He sat down at Matthias’s desk and pulled open the centre drawer: a map of East Germany and a leaflet in English about the Indian goddess Kali lay on top of some papers as if they’d been hastily thrown in there. ‘Looks like our man has been busy.’

  ‘Busy? He’s been frenetic since the death of his father. At first I thought he might be having some kind of breakdown – turns out he was on the track of something.’

  ‘You said he’d solved it – superconductivity at room temperature.’

  Jannick locked the door and pulled down the blinds, and the room took on a cave-like quality, lit only by a couple of desk lamps and the glow from the computer screens.

  ‘This is no hoax.’ He placed a slide on the desk in front of Destin. Under the lamp the sample sparkled like tiny fragments of diamond. Fascinated, the Frenchman held it up.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘This is a brand new silicate, the likes of which have never been seen before. The lattice in this material has a spacing that allows electrons to travel without resistance.’ Jannick was almost shrieking in his excitement.

  ‘So it’s a superconductor?’ Destin sat up, alert, the slide still between his fingers.

  ‘At room temperature, the industrial future of the world between your fingertips,’ Jannick concluded dramatically, pleased with himself.

  Destin carefully placed the slide back onto the desk; the tiny particles seemed to dance, tantalising, otherworldly. ‘You know what this means?’ he said slowly. ‘If it’s possible to reverse-engineer the compound and recreate it, the commercial application would be huge. A total game-changer.’

  ‘Exactly. Matthias is sitting on a gold mine. And just to confirm the discovery I found this.’ Jannick placed Matthias’s Polaroid next to the slide. ‘That is a record of the same material you’re looking at behaving as a superconductor at eighteen degrees Celsius – a photograph taken by Matthias this morning. See, the time, date and temperature are on the back. I told you I had something big,’ he said smugly.

  Destin studied the Polaroid. It seemed authentic enough – the small magnet magically suspended over a fragment that even in the grimy photo displayed the same characteristics as the metal particles under the glass slide. Was it possible? ‘So what’s the source?’ he asked softly, carefully. He didn’t want to frighten Lund, not just yet, not until it suited him. Jannick looked away, his hands fidgeting with his tie.

  ‘Matthias has found a source and I think I know what it is – or at least what it looks like. But you’re not going to believe me.’

  Losing patience, Destin stood and took a step towards him. The Dane flinched, an unconscious movement.

  ‘Try me,’ Destin said softly.

  ‘Well, I searched his desk, his workbench, everywhere, for evidence that might indicate that he’d been working on a formula involving silicates. There was none. So I came up with another possibility —’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘There was this small statue sitting on the windowsill when I walked in on him this morning. I think it was of one of the Indian goddesses – you know the one with four arms?’

  ‘Kali?’

  Jannick nodded. ‘Matthias was crouched over an image taken in the diffractometer. It was then that he asked my opinion. I suspect he was looking for someone to verify the discovery. It’s surreal – when you see electrons line up like that at standard room temperature, it’s hard to actually believe it’s the real thing —’

  ‘You were talking about the statue,’ Destin said.

  ‘I noticed the statue because it was made of a metal I’d never seen before, and it was the same strange blue-grey colour.’

  ‘You think that was the source?’

  ‘I’m sure of it. Matthias refused to confirm either way, but he seemed very anxious to leave with it. Another thing – he told me he was going to see an astrochemist and that confirmed it for me. And the way he rushed out, like there was a fire beneath him.’

  ‘You really think the statue is the source or the key to the source?’ Destin asked, keeping his face open and neutral. He was tiring of the Dane faster than he’d envisaged and he’d just noticed a long scarf draped over the back of Matthias’s chair. The knitted silk would be thin but strong, excitingly strong. It was wonderful how circumstances sometimes presented an opportunity.

  ‘Both,’ Jannick replied, nodding.

  ‘I don’t understand. But why an astrochemist?’ Destin asked, calculating the distance between him and the Dane.

  ‘I was reminded of a story my Swedish grandfather used to tell me about his travels up north, of how the Inuits would carve holy objects out of meteorites they found. The statue looked pretty ancient and holy to me.’

  ‘So you think it might have come down in a meteorite?’

  ‘That’s where most naturally occurring silicates are found.’

  ‘Do you know the name of the astrochemist he might have visited?’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy – Jorges Hatiwais. He’s an old friend of Matthias and he’s an expert on craters in India. His name will be in the telephone directory. Hold on a minute…’

  Jannick turned his back to the Frenchman as he reached for the phone book and in that moment Destin pulled the scarf from the back of the chair and with a silent swing looped it round Lund’s neck, tightening it savagely. In seconds Jannick was on his knees, his face turning blue as he struggled to free himself, his hands clutching at both the air and at the scarf. Destin held steady, his knee planted between Jannick’s shoulder blades as he pulled tighter and tighter and then, with a professional twist, broke the physicist’s neck. Lund fell without a sound, Destin catching him neatly before he hit the ground.

  Destin stood there for a minute, holding the leaden weight of the dead man in his arms, his ears straining as he listened for any unusual sounds in the corridor outside. There was nothing. It had been a perfect execution. A wave of exhilaration like a post-coital rush swept through him, as it always did in moments like this. He waited for it to pass, then let the body down carefully to the floor; he hadn’t even had to take his gloves off.

  Destin went to the address book Jannick had opened; Jorges Hatiwais’s name and address were clearly visible halfway down the page. Turning his back on the corpse, he lifted the telephone and calmly dialled the number.

  ‘Herr Professor Hatiwais?’ he asked. ‘Herr Professor von Holindt recommended I contact you. I’m a journalist from La Recherche; you’ve heard of it, naturally? Good… We’re doing a piece on meteorites, focusing on crater sites on the Indian subcontinent and I was wondering if you were available for an interview this afternoon? Short notice I know, but Matthias spoke very highly of you and I believe you’re a man who is normally hard to pin down?’ On the other end of the line Destin could hear the academic’s ego winding up like a clockwork doll. ‘Oh, I have the address, so shall I see you at four? Merci beaucoup, Herr Professor.’


  Matthias stood in his living room, orientating himself; everything seemed so familiar and yet alien, as if the events of the past twenty-four hours had transformed him so much he was a stranger in his own house. Everything appeared to be in acute focus: the edge of the white leather couch where it met the gleaming steel of the leg; even the cat lifting its sleepy head from a chair in the corner was in such sharp detail it seemed to him he could see each individual strand of fur. Rationally he knew it was the effect of complete exhaustion but emotionally it felt as if he were seeing the value of his life and the world he’d constructed for the first time. A great elation and a great sadness filled him, as if he finally understood the inherent transcendence of that world. Just then he heard the door, Liliane returning from school. She appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Without saying a word, he walked over and swept her up in an embrace.