Now, with nothing to capture the surplus antimatter, the Fermilab researchers would suddenly find a dramatic increase in “events.” He expected they would find it quite baffling, and no doubt work to concoct a harebrained theory of physics to explain it all.
Bretti glanced at the clock set above the row of computer screens. It was just after 5 a.m. Time to grab the device and get moving. He had a plane to catch that afternoon.
A few moments later he pushed a lab stool under the joint in the main beam channel that ran to the experimental target area. The thick pipe that made up the channel ran down the upper part of the concrete tunnel. Diagnostic wires, vacuum piping, and metal struts extended from the conduit, accompanied by a faint chugging of the pumps that maintained vacuum. Dim light, thrown out from bulbs screwed into protective cans, illuminated the tunnel with yellow light.
Bretti grunted as he reached up to disengage the antimatter trap from the experimental canister, which had been designed for quick and easy access by the researchers. Hundreds of such canisters hung in the main beam path, and so Bretti’s addition had drawn no special attention.
He carefully pulled the crystal-lattice trap away from the interlocking mechanism and held the device by two bulky protrusions, the base for the solid-state diode lasers that trapped the p-bars in potential wells between the sodium and chloride atoms.
The crystal-lattice trap was much more efficient than the crude Penning trap he had transported to India earlier in the week. He was aware of the danger of carrying such a large quantity of antimatter-the glassy crater from the substation explosion provided clear proof of that-but the diode lasers seemed stable.
He stepped down from the stool while holding the trap, careful not to bump it against anything. The device was designed to be rugged, but he couldn’t afford to be sloppy. If he knocked the lasers out of alignment, this cache of antimatter would be enough to wipe out several city blocks.
Bretti eased the small, cube-like container onto its side, then stepped back up on the stool to close the experimental container above. The whole apparatus weighed no more than a few pounds. Electrical wires ran from the container down to the antimatter trap. He would attach the battery and clean up the area.
In less than ten hours he’d be out of the country. And a million dollars richer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Friday, 6:17 a.m.
Aurora, Illinois
Jackson snatched up his cellular phone on the car seat after the first shrill ring. The traffic in small, residential Batavia was almost nonexistent at this hour. It beat the hell out of putting up with the idiots driving in downtown Chicago, and for an assignment away from the Oakland area, it wasn’t bad-except for the fact that Ben Goldfarb was lying in Intensive Care.
“ Jackson here,” he said, keeping one hand on the steering wheel as he drove toward the medical center. Time was running out, not only for Goldfarb, but for Dumenco as well.
“This is Craig. Where are you right now?”
“Ten minutes from the hospital. I volunteered to watch Dumenco this morning, since the Board will still be investigating yesterday’s shooting. Agent Schultz is banged up and won’t be back on duty for a while, so I offered to help out the troops from the main Chicago office.”
“I’ll take that duty,” Craig said. “I’m trying to make some… arrangements for Dumenco in downtown Chicago, and then I have to go to a gift shop Paige told me about.”
“A gift shop?” Jackson said.
“Don’t ask,” Craig said. “It’s important. But I was planning to go through the experimental area early this morning, without Dr. Piter present, to get a fresh view on Dumenco’s accident. Can you cover that for me instead? You might see something I missed the first time.”
“That’ll be the day! Okay, I’ll grab Frank Chang, the grad student who showed me around Bretti’s cubicle.” Jackson signaled with his right blinker as Craig spoke, looking for a place to turn around. “Anything special I should be looking for?”
“Get him to take you along Dr. Dumenco’s path the day he received his lethal exposure. See if you can figure out what it would take for someone to disengage the safety interlocks. Could our hospital assassin have done it, or did it have to be an inside job, as Dumenco insists? I’m still not convinced that just anybody could work the beam controls.”
Jackson pulled onto the shoulder and slowed to a stop, preparing to turn toward the Fermilab site. A single cow stood by a barbed-wire fence, watching Jackson ’s car. “Craig,” he said, “just check up on Ben for me this morning, would you?”
“Mr. Chang, I want to go over the safety interlocks in addition to seeing the experimental target area where Dumenco’s accident occurred.”
Chang tossed his long hair over his shoulder, grinning with self-importance to be the FBI agent’s chosen escort. “You’re in luck, since we just brought the accelerator down. P-bar production suddenly shot off the scale at about five this morning, which is pretty incredible. The increase is exactly what Dr. Dumenco predicted. Something screwy is happening in the accelerator, and until the theorists come up with a good explanation, we’ll play it safe.”
Chang gestured for Jackson to follow him, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Dr. Piter’s going to have a fit when he finds out the accelerator is down again, especially because of increased p-bar production. Sometimes it seems he doesn’t want to see anything that would verify Dumenco’s work. Piter’s a… sore loser, I guess you’d say. He’s got his heart set on that Nobel.”
“What about all the construction work on this extension ring-the Main Injector. Doesn’t that interfere with your work? Lots of shutdowns?‘’
Chang shrugged. “Some of their heavy machinery screws up our delicate beam balance, but we just have to deal with it.”
Jackson followed the young man down the tunnels. He smelled ozone, lubricants, cool concrete, metal shavings. “So what’s it like working for a person up for the Nobel Prize?‘’ he asked in a forced conversational tone. ”Must be exciting.“
Chang squinted up at him. “You mean Dr. Piter? I don’t really work directly for him, he just holds the purse strings. But the man’s a slave driver, a real nano-manager, looking at administrative details down to the billionth part.” The grad student shook his head, flashing his goofy grin again. “He’s lucky to keep any grad students around.”
“So why don’t you leave, go somewhere else?” Jackson towered over the young graduate student.
Chang looked appalled. “Hey, I’ve got a chance to be in on the discovery of the century. If this p-bar enhancement really works, then we’ll be in an energy range close enough to go for the Higgs boson.” He looked at Jackson as if he expected the lean agent to share the excitement, but Jackson didn’t even know what he was talking about. “When the Main Injector comes on line next year, the whole accelerator will work in this new energy range, and we just might have a chance to detect it. Wouldn’t that be something?” Jackson blinked, but Chang’s enthusiasm was infectious.
They passed through a chain-link gate to the main beam tunnel and walked briskly down concrete steps into the long experimental target area. Their footsteps echoed against the bare walls. Industrial lights burned at intervals down the tunnel.
“Dr. Dumenco was down here during the emergency beam dump,” Chang said. “He never should have been in the area, not with the beam on. It’s a safety hazard.”
“Yes, he sure proved that.” As they walked, Jackson continued asking questions. “So what exactly happened to the guy? Some sort of an accident dumped the beam in here?”
“It does that automatically,” Chang said. “If the beam fluctuates too much, or if it’s contaminated, the system shuts down and the beam crashes down here. Dr. Dumenco happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Jackson craned his neck. The tunnel was deserted and silent, except for a low, throbbing hum.
Chang nodded to the left. “I can unlock the systems from the control room
just around the corner.” He pushed away black hair that had fallen into his eyes. “Then you can look around wherever you want. There’s nothing dangerous down here anyway.” He hurried down the tunnel, disappearing into the shadows.
Alone now, Jackson looked around the huge underground facility, built to re-create conditions that had existed during the earliest seconds of the universe. But with all the concern now about social ills and poverty, Jackson seriously doubted the public would ever go for building anything so massive again-unless the benefits could somehow be more clearly explained… and scientists weren’t terribly good at things like that. He thought of the expensive Superconducting Supercollider that was supposed to have been constructed in Texas.
For now, though, the big science didn’t matter at all to Jackson -he was more interested in finding Ben Goldfarb’s assailant. Damn, he hoped his friend would come through all this.
The sound of someone shuffling across the concrete floor drew his attention, coming from farther down the curved tunnel, labored breaths, heavy footsteps, as if someone was carrying a heavy load. It was early in the morning, and few people were around. Frank Chang had gone in the other direction.
“Mr. Chang?” Jackson called out. He looked around. Nothing. He saw only the series of lights that disappeared in the distance, darkness and a cold silence like a held breath. He took a step forward, his brow furrowed. “Who’s there?” He felt his weapon in its pancake holster at his hip. “This is the FBI-stop and identify yourself.”
Without warning he heard the sound of feet slapping against the concrete floor-someone turning around and running away through the darkness.
Jackson set off after the footsteps. “Stop!” Why would someone be skulking around in the tunnels where Dumenco had been zapped, so long before work hours?
As he ran, the tunnel gently curved ahead of him, and Jackson never quite seemed to reach a place where he could see his fugitive. He heard panting breaths over the background hum of the machinery. “Hey!”
Somewhere ahead the shadowy figure stopped. He heard a key scraping against metal followed by the unmistakable creaking of a heavy door swinging out. He saw a young, disheveled man with flushed skin, sweat-plastered dark hair, and a scruffy goatee-and he recognized the face of Dumenco’s grad student Nicholas Bretti, the man who was supposedly on a vacation fishing trip, but who had been impossible to locate. Bretti was here-at Fermilab, in hiding! The young man vanished ahead, running in full panic.
“Nicholas Bretti! FBI-I know you! Stop right now!” Jackson sprinted into the uneven light. He still couldn’t see Bretti. He almost ran past a dark shadow at the side of the tunnel until he recognized an opening.
Breathing hard, Jackson cautiously placed a hand on the metal door to a diagnostics alcove and tried to peer through the darkness into the side chamber. Nothing. No sound, no light. Where’s the light switch?
He tightened his fingers and wondered if he should draw his weapon-but other than the sound of someone running away, there had been no indication that this situation threatened his life.
Ever since Ruby Ridge, FBI guidelines had been crystal clear about the use of deadly force, and this instance certainly didn’t qualify. Especially after shooting Dumenco’s would-be assassin yesterday, Jackson couldn’t take any chances.
But then somebody-maybe even more than one person-had tried to kill Georg Dumenco. And someone had shot Goldfarb, someone had attacked him and Craig with poison gas. Perhaps it had been Bretti.
Jackson took a cautious step into the darkened room. “This is the FBI. Special Agent Jackson-come out and identify yourself.” He heard breathing, skittered footsteps-and his own heart pounding.
Jackson felt cold sweat form at his brow. Man, I wish I had a backup right now. In his mind’s eye he saw Goldfarb being shot all over again… except this time it was him.
He cautiously reached out with his right hand to pat the alcove wall for a light switch. Again, nothing. He swept his arm in a half circle against the wall and finally found a control box. Fumbling, he switched it on, at the same time drawing his weapon and crouching, ready for the worst.
A row of overhead fluorescent lights flicked on, dim at first, but throwing enough light to show equipment jumbled across the floor. A dozen gray metal carts held oscilloscopes, computers, users’ manuals, and instruments. A large-diameter pipe ran through the room about ten feet off the floor, one of the conduits for the high-energy beam from the giant accelerator. He heard a low-frequency throbbing, seemingly from the large conduit. The beam channel? Was the accelerator running again?
“Identify yourself.” Remaining in a low crouch, Jackson swept his outstretched gun hand around in a semicircle. Inside the room he heard no sound of movement. He had been tricked, somehow. Bretti wasn’t there.
Jackson purposely tried to slow his breathing-but his body was kicking into high gear, dumping adrenaline into his system. His heart pounded as he inched into the alcove. The place looked like a high-tech junkyard, a cross between a futuristic lab and a storage facility for computer nerds. Red and green lights glowed from every panel-taking data?
Jackson spotted an emergency phone on the wall to his right. He edged over, keeping his eyes on the equipment in the alcove, wondering where Bretti could have gone. He wouldn’t allow himself to get in the same situation as Goldfarb without a backup.
He glanced at the digits while punching in the numbers for Craig’s cellular phone. He looked up but could see no movement. Three cheerful tones played, then a metallic voice: “I’m sorry, the number you have dialed is not valid. Please dial eight to access numbers outside the laboratory.”
Jackson swung his attention back to the phone-
The lights clicked off, plunging the alcove into darkness. He heard someone moving, gasping deep breaths, then the heavy metal door slammed, sealing Jackson inside.
Stumbling forward, holding his handgun in front of him, Jackson made his way toward the door. He tried to keep low, not sure if anyone remained in the room. He couldn’t be more than ten feet from the door, but it seemed a mile away.
His knee struck something hard-one of the metal carts. A sharp edge cut his leg. Finally, he crashed into the door, found the handle. Pushed-
Nothing. Some kind of locking mechanism had fallen into place, and he was trapped.
Then he heard the low frequency thrumming grow louder in the conduit running across the room. Had the accelerator powered up again? Icy sweat bristled on his brow as he pounded on the sealed door.
His situation must be just like Dumenco’s, just before he had received his lethal exposure.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Friday, 8:43 a.m.
Fox RiverMedicalCenter,
Intensive Care Unit
Despite intensive searching, the FBI computer files had no match for the fingerprints found on the bleached-blond assassin Jackson had shot in the hospital. Craig looked down at the faxed notice he had just received from FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, and frowned.
He hoped June Atwood wasn’t holding out on him again this time.
He crumpled the fax and turned to Trish who stood next to him in Dumenco’s room. From her mannerisms, her extreme attentiveness, she seemed more like a grieving friend than a concerned doctor. Even after all of her ministrations, the dying man had entered his final stages and she could do little to help him.
Less than a week ago he had been a driven, intelligent physicist on the verge of winning a Nobel Prize. Day by day, he had disintegrated.
Trish looked at Craig for support, but he found it hard to credit her grief for what it was. Once, she’d been the most intimate friend Craig had ever had. Even before their breakup, though, Trish had spent so much time with her impassioned causes, her intense medical studies, her outspoken work with the victims of Chernobyl… he wasn’t even sure he knew who she was anymore.
Dumenco tried to sit up, coughing. Fluids had leaked into his lungs, and each breath was labored. Trish had muttered som
ething about him developing ARDS- adult respiratory distress syndrome-secondary to his sepsis. His words were now heavily accented and difficult to understand.
“I feel… detached, Dr. LeCroix,” he said. “My body is fighting off a thousand infections, as if I’m rejecting my own internal organs.”
Trish bent closer to him. “That’s a good way of describing it.”
“Having trouble thinking, too. Connections aren’t fitting together right in my thoughts, leading to nonsense.” He coughed out a small laugh. “Maybe now I’ll be able to understand quantization…”
It seemed important for Dumenco to give Trish all the data he could, describing his symptoms in excruciating detail day by day as he degenerated. He meant to leave one last legacy to science. Looking pained, Trish wrote down the notes he dictated.
Craig could hardly bear to watch. Awkwardly, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out the gift he had bought at a strip mall. He stepped forward, placing the flat, squarish box on the table beside the hospital bed, weighing down the sheafs of experimental papers.
“I brought you something, Dr. Dumenco,” he said. As the scientist turned his attention, Craig opened the ends of the deceptively heavy cardboard box. Moving gingerly, he slid out a small but beautifully polished chessboard made of alternating squares of onyx and jade; two smaller boxes in his jacket pockets held the tissue-wrapped chessmen.
“I remember our first conversation, Doctor. You’re right, you should have a chance to play one last game on a fine chess set. My gift to you.”
The Ukrainian’s eyes, hideously damaged and barely able to see, filled again with tears. He reached a swollen hand toward the polished chess king. His fingers looked like pieces of meat that had begun to rot.
Dumenco spoke, having trouble forming each word, as if the thoughts kept eluding him before he could manage to get them out. “I’m afraid… I would not be a worthy opponent for you, Agent Kreident. A good investigator like you, sharp-witted… more than a match for me.”
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