‘Well, aren’t you one in the know. How did you learn about that name for the local home brew? I hope you’re not imbibing it. That stuff can kill you,’ Gregg warned.
‘Don’t worry, you won’t find me with any Splo. I’ve seen it in the dorm, but no thank you.’ I shivered at the thought of that stuff. ‘Seriously, Gregg, would you be willing to help me get to the bottom of Irene’s murder?’
Gregg chewed on his lower lip. ‘The cautious side of me tells me to run as far from you as I can. But my inquisitive nature abhors questions without answers. I don’t know how I could walk away from this, Libby. But I think the two of us will not be enough. We need a gathering of minds, pulling in data and applying logic to find the answers. I think this is a job for the Walking Molecules.’
I squinted at him, not sure if I’d heard him correctly. ‘The Walking Molecules?’
‘Yeah, it’s a pretty silly name, I admit. But it’s a group of us from the Alpha lab and the Beta lab who get together once a week to talk about scientific problems and solutions. We look at theoretical issues more than anything.’
‘But, the Walking Molecules?’
‘Yes, well, we walk, we’re comprised of molecules and the night we came up with it, someone had unveiled their secret stash of scotch.’
‘You get drunk and talk science?’
‘Only occasionally,’ Gregg said with a laugh. ‘Usually, we wet our whistles with some weak Barbarosa beer in a back room at Joe’s. Can’t hardly get drunk on that barely improved water.’
‘So what do you talk about?’
‘A lot of the time, we discuss what we think will be discovered and developed once the war is over and we’re not all focused on defeating the enemy. We start with the direction science was headed before Pearl Harbor and the path it will take when the world is at peace again. Sometimes, though, we veer into what was happening in Germany before the wall of silence came down as well as the hints we picked up in journals before the war about the experiements at the University of Chicago, Berkeley, Stanford and Princeton. We talk about what they were doing and, hypothetically, where it might have led.’
‘Could be dangerous territory.’
‘We’re careful not to talk about our work here – after all, we are from two different labs and we can’t know what the other lab is doing. One of the group brought along a new textbook one night: Applied Nuclear Physics. We’ve all read it and everything was pretty clear to all of us then. We all know it – we just don’t verbalize it. Lately, we’ve been getting a little philosophical and, in all likelihood, a bit too close to our reality here. We try to check ourselves but in the heat of discussion, it’s often difficult to find the brakes.’
‘Aren’t you concerned that your conversations will be reported to security?’
‘Of course, we worry about that but we try to minimize that probability. We know spies have been recruited in all the labs – probably all over the place – some of us have been approached. We’ve tried to identify and exclude those people, no matter how much we like them or respect them as scientists. We tried to form a group whose commitment to scientific exploration and aversion to absolute authority and regimentation is strong.
‘We all take an oath to keep everything said in the group within the group. I’ve told you more than I have ever told anyone on the outside. No matter how this goes, I need you to keep it all to yourself.’
‘I have no problem with that, Gregg.’
‘I can’t guarantee we don’t have any stoolies but the odds are good. Where our discussions have gone lately with the lull in real work has been a bit too near the edge, to my way of thinking. I think it would be good if we all focused on a question that could divert us for a while. Irene’s murder might well be the perfect answer.’
‘No problem, Gregg. What happens now? Do I just show up at your next meeting?’
‘No. You need to be nominated by someone in the group first. I’ll do that at the next meeting.’
‘When is that?’
‘Wednesday night.’
‘And what? You just vote on me?’
Gregg hung his head and red spots appeared on his cheeks. ‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Are you embarrassed?’
‘Yes, this is the goofy part.’
‘Goofy?’
‘Actually, I never considered it goofy until just now. It’s one of those ritual things that closed organizations tend to adopt.’
‘You mean like an induction ritual?’
‘More like seeing if you measure up.’
‘I can understand that, Gregg. What makes it goofy?’
‘Sitting here explaining it to a woman.’
‘Really …’ I objected.
‘Well, I have two sisters, one younger and one older. They both gang up on me sometimes about the inadequacy of men.’
My lips twitched as I suppressed a laugh. ‘And …?’
‘I can hear my older sister Isabelle now. If I told her about this, she’d say: “For the life of me, I cannot understand why men get to run the world when you act like boys so much of the time.”’
‘She does have a point …’
‘I can’t argue against it. I just tell her, “Please, take over. See how well you handle it.” And she says, “We’re trying, little brother.”’
‘So, tell me, what is this ritual? Even if I think it is ridiculous, I’ll have to do it, right?’
‘Yes, otherwise you won’t be seen as a proper member of the group if we make an exception for you. I’ll propose you and if the majority agrees to allow you to take the test, we’ll do it. Probably next Sunday.’
‘What would I have to do, Gregg?’
‘You have to go into Dossett Tunnel, the railroad tunnel up in the hills.’
‘Is that all?’
‘It’s not as easy as it sounds.’
‘And I’m a lot tougher than I look.’
‘Look, maybe I could get them to make an exception.’
‘Don’t you dare! If I want their help, I need to prove myself. Don’t even suggest anything less. Is that clear?’
‘I don’t think you know what you’re getting into, Libby, but you sure sound a lot like my older sister.’
‘As you said, Gregg, I have to do what I have to do or I will never be considered an equal in the group. I’ve been fighting for respect since I left the comfort of an all-female university and I’m not going to stop now.’
‘OK. Thursday at work, I’ll let you know what happens at the next meeting.’
For the next couple of days, I tensed whenever I saw anyone looking in my direction. I had that continuous, uncomfortable feeling that someone was always looking over my shoulder, following me down the street. Was it all in my imagination or was I under official scrutiny on a day-to-day basis? In an environment of hyper-security, it was hard to separate normal observation from special treatment.
Thursday morning, I held my breath as Gregg walked across the lab. ‘We’re on,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t easy. Some objected to a woman in the group on general principle. A couple of us shamed them out of their backward, nineteenth-century attitude. But I need to warn you: there are those who are hoping you’ll chicken out or fail.’
‘I can handle that,’ I asserted, my chin involuntarily thrusting upward. I’d faced bigger challenges growing up on the farm that anything these men could possibly offer.
‘OK, then. We’ll all meet up at the Elza gate at 0800 Sunday morning and hike through the woods to the tunnel.’
‘I’ll be there.’
Gregg looked down at my pair of navy pumps. ‘I hope you have something better than those to wear on the hike.’
‘I was raised a farm girl. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a pair of Chippewa ranger shoes – they don’t get much sturdier than that. So, don’t you worry about me keeping up, Gregg.’
‘I hope I don’t regret this.’
‘Gregg, I promise, I will not embarrass you.’
&n
bsp; ‘That’s not my worry, Libby. I know you won’t act like a girl, oh man, I mean …’
I laughed at his distress. ‘That’s all right, Gregg. I know what you mean.’
‘Sorry. But it’s your safety I’m worried about, Libby.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Can’t help myself. The first time I saw the Dossett Tunnel, I wanted to run away as fast as I could.’
TWENTY-SIX
No one had exaggerated in their descriptions of the Dossett Tunnel – more than a mile long and a fearsome sight to behold. Huge piles of blasted black rock funneled into a dark, forbidding hole. Would it look less menacing in spring with the green leaves of kudzu cascading over its face? Probably. In the dead of winter, though, the bright growth was gone. All that remained was a skeleton of brown vines gripping the rocks in a stranglehold.
I stepped onto the tracks and walked closer, stepping on one railroad tie then the next. When I reached the maw of darkness, I could see a faraway, small shape of light. The light at the end of the tunnel; I’d heard that phrase many times but the reality of it was never as visceral as it was now, a tiny bead of hope at the end of an ominous emptiness.
My whole body felt peculiar – weary from the hike to the tunnel, invigorated by the fresh air, jittery with excited anticipation, nauseous from the surge of adrenaline. I heard the others breathing. Which of them hoped I’d simply take a look and walk away? Which of them imagined me bursting into tears? Did any of them really believe that I would succeed?
But I had to do it. I needed their help. To get it, I had to prove that I was just as good, just as brave, as they were. I sucked in a deep breath, inhaling the first traces of the acrid smoke that bellowed from the trains, lingered in the confines of the rock and drifted out into the trees. I sucked in another breath as if it would imbue me with courage. ‘I guess this is it,’ I said and took another step closer.
‘You gotta go halfway or it doesn’t count,’ Tom said. With his thick hank of bright red hair, a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and a nearly perpetual sneer, he looked like a schoolyard bully. Although he didn’t utter the playground challenge of ‘double dog dare you’, I felt the words hanging in the air. He had to have been one of the men who objected to the addition of a female.
Teddy, one of the scientists from the Alpha lab, handed me a flashlight. ‘Good luck,’ he said. With his dark, curly hair and sparkling blue eyes, he could easily be quite a charmer over dinner or on the dance floor.
Gregg reached out and touched my forearm. ‘Just halfway, then turn around and come back.’ His pupils floated in liquid fear. Was he more afraid than I was?
I forced a brave smile, then stepped into the tunnel. The stench of burnt coal tasted harsh in my mouth and felt tight in my lungs. I walked until the light from the entryway faded, the inkiness felt like a physical substance brushing against my skin, before I turned on the flashlight. The rock was so black it seemed to absorb the light, pulling it from the bulb and swallowing it whole.
I kept moving forward one step at a time. The flashlight shook in my hand. I successfully banished the fear of the approaching train only to have it replaced by a more intense terror at the thought of being crushed to death by the collapse of this manmade passageway. A slight shift in the earth and one boulder after another could tumble down, crushing my bones. First, I’d be pinned to the ground. Then, one by one, every bone in my body would break, my lungs would collapse, I’d be dead. Would they bother trying to dig out my body? Or would they all – like scared little boys – scurry back to town, vowing one another to secrecy, pricking their fingers, mingling their blood with an oath that was eternal.
My foot faltered as I slipped on a slick tie. I pulled in my gut to support my back and regain a sense of balance. I shook my head to drive out the morbid products of my imagination, filling the void with a recitation of the periodic table – Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen – one element for each step. Then I heard shouting.
‘That’s far enough.’
‘You made it.’
‘Come back.’
‘Turn around’
‘Come back now.’
I heard them yell but kept moving forward. To succeed in a male-dominated world, I couldn’t just be as good as them, I had to be better. I’d make it to Iron, the symbol of strength, before turning back. Oxygen, Flourine, Neon, Sodium, Magnesium, Aluminum, Silicon, Phosphorous …
Their shouts grew more frenzied, a pleading tone echoed in the tunnel. Still I walked forward – one element, one step. Sulfur, Chlorine, Argon, Potassium, Calcium, Scandium, Titanium, Vanadium, Chromium, Manganese, Iron …
I paused, raised my arms in the air and pirouetted to face the path I’d traveled. Fear clutched my throat; the entrance looked so far away, the window of light too small. I started walking back, still reciting the periodic table to keep my terrors at bay. I shuddered when the element Arsenic passed my lips. Was there someone in the group aligned with the perpetrator of Irene’s murder or with those who wanted to cover up the crime? If so, did he now pray to an evil God for the arrival of a train – a rushing, relentless monster of metal that would obliterate my life as if it had never been?
Maybe the whole group was being used by outside forces to silence me permanently. It would look like nothing more than a tragic accident. Once I was dead, the tunnel would become officially off-limits. Maybe they’d even post a guard.
Red lights flashed danger inside my head. The surging fight-or-flight response screamed at me to run but I refused to listen. I had to maintain my dignity to really pass the test and besides, the possibility of twisting an ankle on the ties or tripping and falling on the uneven surface was great.
Then, I felt the vibrations under my feet. Dread and disbelief exploded and raced through my limbs. My fingers went numb. I moved faster now, taking more risks. I heard renewed, even louder, shouting.
‘Hurry!’
‘Run!’
‘Get out of there!’
I walked as quickly as I could, afraid if I broke into a run, I was sure to fall. I heard a roar echoing through the tunnel. I looked over my shoulder. I could no longer see the exit – just one round light piercing the gloom, moving closer. It was gaining on me, I had to move faster. I broke into a stumbling run. I was a few yards away from the end when a hand grabbed and pulled me faster.
When my feet tangled up, an arm encircled my waist, holding me up, propelling me forward. We broke into open air and kept moving, past the barrier of solid rock, tumbling to the side, into the dirt. A hand pushed down on my back. I lay flat, turning to look at who came to my aid. Teddy; he’d introduced himselfto me on the hike up to the tunnel and he made it clear that he didn’t resent my infiltration. I mimicked his actions – pursing my mouth tight, squeezing my eyes shut, putting my hands over my ears.
Still the noise was overwhelming; it vibrated in my teeth, rang in my ears. A rush of hot, vile air spewed out as if from the throat of a demonic dragon. It washed over me, filling my airways. Gravel pinged on my face. I pressed my nose into the ground and felt tiny, stinging attacks on the top of my head. For a moment, I did not believe I would survive.
Then it was over, as suddenly as a nightmare. I looked up, amazed. I pushed up on all fours and rose to my feet, my wobbling knees barely able to hold my weight. On the opposite side of the track, the others straggled towards us. No one spoke. Teddy’s hand grabbed mine again, jerking my arm upward.
‘The champion!’ he screamed.
Across the tracks, the others erupted in a raucous cheer. I knew that some barriers still remained but I had taken a step closer to being one of them. Or, perhaps Teddy’s act of bravery was nothing more than a smokescreen. A false front designed to trip me up, to put me in his debt, to be a stumbling block in my search for answers. As I looked at Teddy, though, a grin split his face, not a trace of duplicity marred his features. But if he were clever enough to come to my rescue with a dark purpose in
mind, wouldn’t he be sharp enough to craft an impenetrable mask?
I set aside those dark thoughts and reveled in the newfound camaraderie with my fellow chemists. I couldn’t stop grinning as they patted me on the back and commented on my gutsiness – ‘pretty damn tough for a girl’, ‘Ought sic her on Adolph’, ‘Let her spit in the eye of the kamikaze’. The high spirits and banter continued all the way down the hill and into town, ending only when the men entered the Benton Hall and I continued on to my little flattop home.
After a shower and a bowl of soup, I went straight into bed. I was physically exhausted and emotionally drained; still, questions about the risk of trusting this strange little group of Walking Molecules kept me awake for more than an hour. When I finally drifted off to sleep, their faces haunted my dreams.
TWENTY-SEVEN
A special meeting of the Walking Molecules was called for Monday night to discuss my problem, propose theories and outline action steps. I was nervous. Sure I’d impressed them with my bravado on Sunday but could I dazzle them with logic in a calmer setting? I opted to eliminate emotion and focus on hard facts; a scientific explanation as if addressing a symposium.
‘Before Libby starts, let’s go around the table and give our names to refresh our newest member’s memory. As you know, I am Gregg and this is Libby.’
The redhead next to Gregg said, ‘Tom.’
He was followed by the sandy-haired bespectacled Joe; my rescuer from Dossett Tunnel, Teddy; the chubby, buck-toothed Gary; then Stephen, with the whitest complexion I’d ever seen.
‘Rudy,’ said a brown-haired, brown-eyed man who never seemed to put out a cigarette until he had another one lit. Next to him was Dennis, a tall, rangy guy with a face that looked like a stereotypical westerner. Finally, the man with a large, bulbous nose and a prominent Adam’s apple said, ‘Marvin.’
I summarized the problem first: my discovery of the body, its disappearance and the official version of events. I postulated theories to explain the sequence of events including the actions of a single person, the cover-up by police and administration and a conspiracy by the military. I concluded with a risk assessment.
Scandal in the Secret City Page 17