by Unknown
The calibration took twice the time as expected and the two frequently looked over their shoulders in case anyone else came in. Claire had a story prepared that would convince anyone associated with the other projects but would, she conceded, be awkward if any WIMP people arrived.
“What about Simone?”
“Especially awkward,” she said, keeping her eyes on the computer screen.
“It’s hard for me not to see a connection here. Simone is working in this area too I suppose.”
“Yes, he is.”
“And he’s communicating with a group of Grail hunters who are willing to kill for it.”
She sighed deeply and painfully. “Yes.”
“Then these people might have reason to believe that the Grail has something to do with dark matter,” he said.
“I simply don’t know the answer. I admit it’s hard to believe this is only a coincidence.”
Finally, she was ready.
She needed the Grail.
Arthur unboxed it and placed it gently on the lab bench. The first thing she did surprised him. She reached for a horseshoe magnet.
“About six percent of meteorites contain iron and iron-nickel alloys. I don’t know what percentage of the bowl is ordinary matter versus dark matter but if there’s iron it will create some problems with the detectors. I can correct for it, I hope.”
She waved the magnet over the bowl and declared it iron free.
“Now … the tough part.”
He saw what she was about to do and urged her to be very gentle.
“I need such a tiny amount of material. I think from the base, no?”
He agreed and sat beside her at the bench. She donned surgical gloves, opened a new petri dish from its plastic and had Arthur hold the bowl over it. Then she switched on a Dremel tool with the smallest cutting wheel and delicately skimmed the flat undersurface of the bowl, a task made difficult by its halo. She had to do it by touch and sound and when she thought she’d made contact she switched the tool off.
She slipped a black-covered notebook under the petri dish and they both inspected it. There were tiny flecks of opacity—minihalos—against the black background.
“Good, I think we have some,” she said. “Now we’re ready.”
She pulled out an electronic module from an instrument attached to the large copper cryogenic tank. It was a bolometer, she told him, germanium crystals combined with an ultrasensitive thermometer, linked to a microprocessor. She placed the petri dish on the germanium plate, pushed the module back in and manned the workstation.
The screen came alive with dense plots of red and green dots.
“What do you see?” he asked.
She didn’t look up. “Nothing yet! I need to do more calibrations.”
“Sorry …”
Her fingers ran over the keyboard. Screen after screen of data zoomed by until all at once she clicked her mouse and leaned back.
She had frozen the screen on one plot. To Arthur it didn’t look much different from the others but this was transfixing her.
“What?”
She put her finger on the screen over a mass of red dots. “Jesus, Arthur. This is it—an enormous spike of thermal and scintillation activity. At the lowest possible calibration, it’s still almost off the charts. It’s at 9.4 GeV. It’s the neutralino, Arthur. It’s dark matter.”
He put his hand on her shoulder.
“And here, these green dots in the corner of the plot,” she pointed. “These are neutrinos at 2.2 eV—a lot of them. It all fits.”
She turned and buried her face in his shirt.
Arthur could only stand by idly while Claire raced to print out some key screenshots, clean the detectors, restore the default settings, and power-down the instruments before anyone arrived.
It took another half hour but they were done.
She switched lights off as they went along until only the engineering room was illuminated. As she walked into the light, she turned to tell Arthur she needed to sign out at the admin—
An arm shot out, grabbing her around the neck.
Arthur would never forget the look of fear on her face.
Hengst backed her up, showing himself in the yellow fluorescence. He had a pistol in his free hand and he pointed it at Arthur.
“Give it to me,” he said.
Arthur’s saliva tasted coppery. His skin prickled. He recognized him from somewhere.
Hengst moved the gun to her head. “Five seconds. That’s all the time she’s got.”
“Arthur,” she begged through her compressed larynx.
“Okay, I’m giving it to you.”
“Slide it over.”
Arthur put the bag on the floor and crouched to push it.
As it left Arthur’s fingers Claire made a sudden move. With her right hand she reached behind her and grabbed Hengst’s crotch, getting a tight grip.
He let out a primal grunt and let go of her neck long enough to deliver a roundhouse to her jaw.
As she fell to the floor Arthur charged forward, tackling the larger man at the thighs, binding him up then lifting and throwing him to the concrete floor. The black pistol hit and clattered away.
Hengst fought back, trying to buck Arthur off, slamming him with heavy fists. Arthur tasted blood but didn’t let go, maintaining a hold while inching up, trying to bind the man’s arms.
Hengst landed a blow to his temple, hurting him. Then Arthur took a knee to the groin. He groaned and broke his clench, felt the man wriggling free.
Through the fog of pain he heard his name and saw Claire slide a large wrench across the floor. It came to rest against his leg. He grabbed it. As Hengst moved to his left to retrieve his gun, Arthur rose to his knees and swung it, hard.
The tool caught Hengst on the back of his head and showered the floor with a spray of scalp blood. He collapsed on his face, his body suddenly still.
“We have to leave!” Claire shouted. “Now!”
Arthur kicked the gun under a workbench and fled with Claire, forgoing the urge to check on the man. He tried to remember where he’d seen him before and when he and Claire limped into the fume-filled tunnel it came to him.
The security man at the estate in Suffolk.
Jeremy Harp’s man.
33
Claire was shaking too hard to drive so Arthur took the keys. When there was a large enough gap in the tunnel traffic he gunned the car out of the turnout.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Are you?”
He ignored the question. He hurt all over and suspected she did too. “We can’t go back to your place.”
“Do you think he’s dead?” she asked, her body shuddering.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I should have helped him.”
“He was going to kill us.”
He checked the mirrors. No one was following. “How did he get into the lab, Claire?”
“He must have had an access key. There’s no other way.”
“Where would he have gotten that?”
“Maybe he stole it. Maybe …”
“Simone?”
She began to cry.
“We’ve been followed,” Arthur said. “Every step of the way. Stoneleigh. Montserrat. Barcelona. Here.”
“What should we do? Where should we go?”
He tried to organize his thoughts but his mind was tumbling them around. “You checked into the lab, so the authorities will know you were there when he’s found. So they’ll be looking for you. Did you put down the license plate of the rental car?”
“No.”
“Okay, there’s that. Claire, there’s something I need to tell you. I recognized him.”
She looked shocked. “Who was he?”
“I don’t remember his name but he worked as a security guard for Jeremy Harp. I told you about him.”
“From your company. The man who had you dismissed for making him look bad.”
“Yes. The dinner I had with Harp t
he night before I found the treasure. He wanted to talk about the Grail. He’d said he’d read in our company newsletter that I was interested in it. He was very knowledgeable. It surprised me. We talked about Andrew Holmes and Montserrat. He’s a physicist too, like Simone. Jesus, Claire, Jeremy Harp wants the Grail.”
There was a sign ahead in the tunnel: Bardonecchia 3 km.
In a flagging voice he said, “I suppose we’re going to Italy.”
#
Arthur and Claire drove the next hour mostly in silence. Driving aimlessly around Turin, he made the spontaneous decision to pull into the parking lot of a hillside hotel. He told Claire they needed to rest, to think, to come up with a plan and she wearily agreed. They checked into the Hotel Parco Europa. Passports were required. Reluctantly, they had to use their real names.
Their room overlooked a garden. Claire wanted a bath. He lay down weighing their options, the Grail under the bed.
He heard her phone ringing from the bathroom. She answered it. Alarmed, he opened the door. She was in the tub, holding the phone to her ear, half floating, skin pink from the hot water. She looked small and beautiful, like a water nymph.
She pressed the Mute button and told him, “It’s okay. It’s just my mother.”
He left her alone and turned on the TV, looking for a news report about Modane but there was none.
She came out in a hotel bathrobe drying her hair.
“Is your neck okay, your head?” he asked.
“Yes, they’re okay. What about your head. Let me see the bump.”
“It’s only a bruise.”
“I’ll find an ice machine.”
“Don’t bother, come here.”
She lay beside him, both of them staring at the ceiling. She started trembling and he held her.
“Any change? With your father?”
“No, but my mother is making me crazy. It’s too much, on top of all this. It’s too much.”
“I wish you hadn’t gotten involved with me,” he said sadly.
“Stop it. I love you.”
#
They slept for an hour and when they awoke Arthur called down for coffee. They sat on the small balcony overlooking the garden.
“I know what I want to do,” he said.
“Tell me.”
“I want to go back to Spain. I’ll call a newspaper, have them arrange a news conference. I’ll talk about everything. The Thomas Malory papers, the sword, Montserrat, Gaudí, Sagrada Família. I’ll come clean, give the Grail back. I’ll surrender to the police for whatever crimes I committed in Spain. The Spanish can decide what happens to the Grail. It’s theirs, not mine. I found it, now I’m done with it. Once everything’s out they’ll be no reason to have me killed. I’ll have to figure out how to expose Harp’s role in this but I’ll leave that for another day.”
“But there’s more to the story than finding it!” Claire blurted out, suddenly animated. “It’s more than a sacred relic. It’s made of dark matter! Its scientific value may be even more important than its religious and cultural value. We can’t just give it to some people who won’t know anything about its properties. I need to be able to say what I know too.”
“It’s too dangerous. I don’t want you to stay with me. We need to split up. You should go to Toulouse, be with your family. Get a lawyer, go to the police; tell them about being attacked in the lab by a stranger. Don’t say anything about the Grail. It’s the only way.”
She was composed now, her old self.
“No, I’m sorry, but there’s another way, a better way for both of us. We should stay together. I should be at your side at this news conference. I should explain what I know too, as a physicist. Maybe I’ll be fired from my position for unauthorized use of the facility but it doesn’t matter, it’s too important. And I’ll feel safer coming out into the public too. The Grail will be returned, both of our roles will be known, why would anyone try to hurt me then?”
He sipped his coffee and stared down at the rows of geometrically trimmed shrubs in the garden.
“Okay. We’ll do it together.”
“But we shouldn’t do it yet,” she said emphatically.
He put his cup down and stared at her. Her lips were firm and determined.
“Why not?”
“There’s something you’re not considering. You believe this is the true Grail. I believe it’s the Grail. But why should anyone else believe it? It’s circumstantial. Maybe King Arthur believed the Grail had been found but how did he know for sure? Maybe Gaudí believed he found the Grail but how did he know? They wanted to believe. We want to believe. But there’s nothing, absolutely nothing connecting this bowl to Christ. We simply don’t know it’s the actual chalice that Christ used at the Last Supper, do we?”
“We don’t, of course. It’s conjecture. We’ll lay out what we do know. Experts can go to town with it.”
“Yes, conjecture. But we know with a degree of scientific certainty that it’s composed of dark matter and that it emits neutrinos. What if we can combine the science with the biblical evidence?”
“How?”
“When I was at CERN in Geneva doing my postdoc, my professor and mentor was an Israeli particle physicist, Neti Pick. She’s really brilliant and charismatic and, you know, as a woman, she was an inspiration to me. I mention her because of her interests outside of physics. She was an amateur archaeologist, very interested in biblical studies and bringing science together with the archaeological and biblical records. One of her real passions was the Shroud of Turin which we could even see today if we had the luxury of being tourists. She’s one of the people who think the shroud is authentic.”
“Really?”
“Yes. She served on a scientific commission organized by the Vatican and wasn’t deterred at all by the carbon dating that suggested it was medieval. I don’t remember the details of her argument but she believed the image on the shroud could have been formed by a neutrino burst at the moment of resurrection. It was all very hypothetical and she was dismissed as a crazy physicist but Arthur, with this object we believe is the Grail, we have a neutrino engine.”
He leaned forward in his chair. “What are you proposing?”
“Let me call her. Let’s go see her. She’s at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem now. I want to show her the Grail, talk with her about the data, see if she can help us close the circle. We could take some instruments to the possible tombs of Jesus. Collect air samples, maybe some limestone samples to check for the lingering presence of neutralinos and neutrinos. If we’re successful, it would connect the bowl to Jesus in the most definitive way possible. We’d prove it was the true Grail. No one could dispute it. It would be the most amazing announcement. All the ends tied into a beautiful bow. What do you think?”
“I don’t know, Claire. I hear you but I think we should cut bait. Put a stop to the danger. I’d never forgive myself if you got hurt.”
She frowned and nodded. “Whatever you say, Arthur, but I’m willing to take the risk.”
They fell into a long silence. He studied her face. She seemed brave and determined. He could tell she wasn’t ready to end the quest short of her notion of a finish line. He felt his resolve softening.
“Can you trust her to keep this secret?”
She smiled brightly. “Absolutely. She’s like a second mother.”
#
Jeremy Harp stood in the arrivals hall of Terminal 5 at Heathrow waiting for the passengers on the BA flight from Los Angeles to clear customs.
Stanley Engel finally emerged looking fed up, pushing his trolley.
“Stanley, welcome,” Harp said. “How was your flight?”
“Long. This wasn’t such a convenient time for me to be away from the university.”
Harp waved over his driver, who took control of the luggage. The two physicists followed along to the car park.
“Everyone is either here or on the way. You didn’t really have a choice, did you?” Harp said.
; “Is it real? Is it found?”
“I believe so. We need absolute confirmation but I truly think we are at that moment in time.”
“Give me the status.”
“There’s been a complication. Hengst followed them to Modane. Simone gave him an access card. Hengst waited until Pontier finished her analysis but when he tried to take possession of it there was a fight. Hengst was injured. Quite badly. We can’t take Malory for granted. Simone found Hengst and took him to a hospital where he had emergency brain surgery. He probably won’t survive, which is good since it will remove the complication.”
“Okay, okay. I don’t care about your security guy. What happened to Malory and the girl? What happened to the Grail?”
“They got away with it.”
“Both of them?”
“Both of them.”
“And?”
“Simone went back to the lab. He accessed the backup data on the EDELWEISS instruments. It’s composed of neutralinos, Stanley. Neutralinos!”
“My God, just as we hypothesized. Were there neutrinos too?”
“There were. In abundance.”
Engel pumped his fist. “Jackpot.”
“Yes, jackpot.”
“Now what? Do we know where they are?”
“Don’t worry about that. We’ll have the Grail, then it will be on to the next step. Come, I’ve rented a house not far from here. Everyone’s assembling. My jet’s standing by. When it’s time, we’ll travel as a group and accept our destiny together.”
#
At Milan’s Malpensa Airport, Arthur ditched the rental car in a long-stay parking lot. He had come to his decision walking alone in the garden, gazing at jagged mountains against a magnificently blue sky.
He’d spent the afternoon planning things out. An online search pointed him to a prominent journalist at the Barcelona newspaper, El Periódico de Catalunya, who specialized in religious themes. She’d be the one he would contact from Jerusalem. He would invite all the Loons to the event. He’d dedicate it to Andrew and Tony.