See No More

by W B Dineen

  My mom announces, “Kate, Jake, you can’t go back to your apartment.”

  “But we have to, Buddy’s there!” There’s no way I’m leaving him behind.

  My dad shakes his head. “No. Call the building manager and tell them you had to leave town unexpectedly. Have them call the pound.”

  “The pound? Dad, you love Buddy! I love Buddy! We can’t send him to the pound.” My dad’s easy acceptance of letting his beloved pet go really drives home the severity of our situation.

  My dad thinks for a moment before turning to ask my mom, “Beth, do you think you can handle this one? I can’t be the one to go because we know for sure they’re after me.”

  My mom smiles, “Of course I can. Whoever is after us is probably convinced we were in the tunnel when it exploded. That should buy me enough time.”

  He gives her a quick hug. “Meet us at Connal’s in Altadena as soon as possible. Take the bus.”

  My mom nods her head and backtracks toward our rental. I have no idea what’s going on and why she suddenly seems like a remarkably competent and fearless person, but that’s the alternate universe I seem to have fallen into.

  CHAPTER 28

  While I’d really like a strong drink, I settle for a soda. After ordering our lunch, my dad recounts his story. “I’ve always loved numbers. I was more at home with them than I ever was with people. Once I started advanced math and learned their true magic, I was hooked. So long as I was working on formulas and theorems, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.”

  Staring intently off into space, he continues, “It’s not only that numbers are dependable, always acting as they should. There’s a beauty to them, a poetry even. Ever since I can remember, I’ve dreamed of them and the patterns they form in my head. They’re the universal language, the communicators of the gods.”

  I’m not sure I’ve ever felt as strongly about anything as this. I’m almost jealous of my dad’s passion. He reminisces, “In 1974, I was in ninth grade. I’d been taking high school math since the fifth grade and had already gone as far as I could at West. I was being tutored in multi-variable calculus and linear algebra by my high school teacher, Mr. Sorenson. Then one day I solved an equation he’d been working on for six years. Mr. Sorenson contacted a colleague at Berkeley, submitted my work, and by the following week my parents and I were discussing the logistics of my moving to California at fifteen years of age.”

  He stops to take a sip of soda. “Neither of my folks were sold on the idea. My dad owned a small hardware store in town, and my mom was a housewife. I was their only child. I pleaded that they should want the best for me and not try to hold me back.” Seemingly lost in his memories, he adds, “In retrospect, I should have bided my time and left for college when the rest of my classmates did.”

  After a couple more bites of his burger, his eyes begin to sparkle as he continues, “Seventy-four was the year Nixon resigned, Patty Hearst was abducted, and girls were officially allowed to play Little League. The Vietnam War was going on and Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union. These were the topics that interested most people. But for me, it was the year the large scale integrated chip made pocket calculators affordable. It was the year Steven Hawking proposed the theory that radiation could escape the pull of a black hole, which was a concept diametrically opposed to Einstein’s theory that nothing could escape the pull of a black hole.” With a deep inhalation, he continues, “Nineteen seventy-four was the year Carl Sagan sent the Arecibo message into deep space letting intelligent life in the universe know about the beings that inhabit the third rock from our sun. The radio signal was sent twenty-five thousand light years into space. That’s the 1974 I knew. It was the year my mind took flight and left our mundane planet in pursuit of greatness. It was the beginning of the end of any security I had.”

  He continues, “My parents adamantly refused to allow me to attend Berkeley unless my mother went along. It was Nikolay Akulov who changed their minds. He assured them I would be living in his guest room and that he’d take personal charge of my safety. My bookish ways comforted them that I’d be spending my free time with my beloved mathematics and not getting drunk and stoned with a ‘bunch of know-it-all hippy war protesters.’”

  Grabbing his hand, I interject, “Dad, I met Nikolay in Albany.”

  He looks at Jake. “Have you spoken to him since my funeral?”

  “Not since we were shot at during the burial. I’ve left messages, but after what happened to us in Roseburg, I think it’s safe to assume they’ve gotten to him.”

  Dad nods his head. “In which case we’ll have to proceed without our safety net.”

  I have no idea what they’re talking about, but I can only assume we’re in for more of a challenge than we would have been otherwise. Before my dad can continue his story, my mom shows up with Buddy.

  She stops in front of us and declares, “The apartment was being watched, but there was so much chaos in the streets with the tunnel exploding, I didn’t have any problem sneaking in and out.” She turns to my dad. “I think we’re probably safe going back to the place you’re using.” Then she notices my shocked expression and says, “Your dad has given me some lessons in staying alive.”

  I wonder when the heck that happened, unless he somehow managed to fit in survival lessons in the last twenty-four hours.

  After she orders food for her and the dog, we catch a bus on the corner of Washington and Allen. We get off at Altadena Drive and follow my dad to a charming Colonial Revival bungalow right across the street.

  The house is situated behind a large oleander hedge and the driveway is gated, giving it a feeling of security that I’m sure is entirely false. As soon as we get inside, I’m determined to get my questions answered. Who is after us, and more importantly, how do they keep finding us?

  CHAPTER 29

  My dad continues to tell us about life at Berkeley. “Nikolay was becoming deeply interested in theoretical weaponry based on the use of antimatter. We spent hours discussing the possibilities.”

  Theo runs his hands through his graying hair. “Scientists want to know everything and discover everything that’s in our power to comprehend. Our dream, or rather my dream, went beyond earning a living. I wanted to know how things worked and to be able to replicate those things without being responsible for the practical applications of them. It’s not that I was without morality, it’s that I had an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and sometimes it had a way of taking over.”

  “Dad,” I interrupt him, “I work in music education. I can speak authoritatively on a slew of things in my arena, none of which involve me ever using the words ‘antimatter’ or ‘theoretical weaponry.’ If you want me to have any idea what you’re talking about, you’re going to need to talk down to me. Pretend the last science class I took was college biology and the last math class I understood was Algebra 1.”

  My dad lifts his eyebrows in amusement. “Okay. Simply put, antimatter is the opposite of matter. It’s composed of the antiparticles that correspond to particles of regular matter.”

  I shake my head. “That’s not simply put. Talk down to me further.”

  Theo smiles. “Have you heard of protons and electrons?”

  I nod. “Barely.”

  “Okay,” he says. “An electron has a negative charge. Its partner in crime in antimatter is called a positron. It has a positive charge. They have the same mass, but opposite charges, although there are differences in their quantum numbers.”

  I roll my eyes. “Can you explain this in terms of fruit or something simple like that?”

  He jumps up from the table we’re sitting at and goes into the kitchen. When he comes back, he’s holding a grapefruit and an orange. He says, “This grapefruit is an electron and has a negative charge. It’s called matter.” Then he lifts up the orange and continues, “The orange is the antimatter version of the grapefruit. It’s the grapefruit’s exact partner, but it has a positive charge.”

>   I nod my head to indicate I’m following him. Holding both pieces of fruit up in the air in front of him, he explains, “When the negative charge matter collides with its positive charged partner in antimatter, boom! They annihilate each other.”

  The “boom!” gets my attention. “So, scientists are trying to figure out how to create a large enough reaction to build a weapon of mass destruction?”

  “Yes, but they’re not trying to do it, they’ve already done it. The powers that be will tell you we don’t have the capabilities to produce large enough quantities of antimatter to make this feasible.”

  I interrupt, “How is antimatter made?”

  “It can be made in several ways, but for the purpose of this conversation, let’s say it’s made in a particle accelerator.”

  My mom interjects, “Like the Hadron Collider in Cern, Switzerland.”

  I give her a look that indicates my head will blow up if she keeps talking like she knows what she’s saying. I have no capacity to absorb the fact that she understands any of this. My mom’s specialty is baking brownies, not antimatter.

  Theo continues, “In 1990, three scientists at Caltech discovered a way to create enormous amounts of antimatter that didn’t require an astronomically large particle accelerator.”

  “Do I want to know how?”

  Jake teases, “I think the question is, would you understand if you were told?”

  “Smart aleck,” I reply.

  My dad shakes his head. “Even if you did understand, I’d never tell you.”

  “What did these scientists do with this information?”

  “Their research was being funded by a black-ops branch of the government, hiding behind NASA’s skirts.”

  Now he’s speaking a language I understand. I’ve seen a ton of movies and TV shows that deal with black ops, so I know they’re covert governmental operations that take place outside the parameters of law and common knowledge. “Did they hand the information over to them?”

  “Yes and no,” he answers. “They handed over some basics of the discovery without submitting everything. Like they didn’t let it be known they’d finished building the weapon they were supposed to be working on.”

  “How much power did the weapon have?”

  He cleared his throat. “It could create enough antimatter to make an entire city block disappear.”

  The blood drains out of my face. “Was it ever used?”

  My dad nods his head. “Yes. It was stolen by one of the three scientists who developed it. Either the scientist himself used it or he sold it.”

  I close my eyes before continuing, “Who would he sell it to?”

  “There are several possibilities,” he answers.

  My body tenses. “How was it used?”

  My mom takes the ball on this one. “It was used in New York City on September eleventh, two thousand one.”

  I stumble over my words, “That can’t be. Terrorists flew airplanes into those buildings. That’s what caused them to fall.” I look at my dad for confirmation. But then out of nowhere I remember some insane conspiracy show I saw hosted by a pro wrestler turned politician. He interviewed a scientist who said the exact same thing, and when she was told to stop talking about her findings, her assistant was murdered.

  My dad paces the length of the room. “Sure, planes flew into the buildings, but that’s not what brought them down.”

  “How do you know?” I demand.

  “Two reasons. The first being that if the planes were the sole cause of destruction, the structures would have fallen in an explosion pattern, sending debris shooting outward and severely damaging the other buildings in the vicinity. But when the buildings fell, they did so in an implosion pattern causing them to crumble inward without grave danger to the other structures surrounding them.”

  I have no scientific background to understand this, so I ask, “And the second reason?”

  “Not enough debris. When the buildings crumbled there should have been three times the amount of physical matter left behind, based on the amount of matter before destruction.”

  I point out, “But debris was blasted throughout the city and even out of the atmosphere. Are you accounting for that?”

  He nods his head. “The whole scene was not what should have been if the planes were the reason for destruction.” He continues, “They acted according to how this weapon works.”

  “Which is?”

  “At least half of the matter or debris, simply vaporized or ceased to exist, even if you include what was shot into space.”

  I barely find my voice and manage, “You were one of these scientists, weren’t you?”

  “I was,” he sighs. “But I wasn’t the one who sold out.”

  CHAPTER 30

  My dad won’t tell me the names of the other scientists. But he does offer to answer any other questions I have. I demand to know, “Why did you change your name?”

  “I went to Berkeley using my own name. But then in 1976, my parents died in a house fire.” He blows out a long breath before adding, “It wasn’t an accident.”

  “What do you mean, it wasn’t an accident?”

  “My neighbor, Barb, lived next door with her family and she was up late that night. She says she saw two men outside my parents’ house but couldn’t make out who they were. She didn’t think anything of it until the house burned down later that night.”

  “What did the police say?”

  “They claim there was no evidence of foul play and that Barb must have been seeing things.”

  “Then why do you think differently?” I demand.

  “Because I’d just gotten an offer to study abroad and I declined it. A day after I passed up the scholarship, I received a strange postcard in the mail. It simply said, ‘You’ll be sorry.’ The next day my parents were dead, and our house destroyed. It seemed too coincidental not to be connected.”

  I gulp. “What did you do?”

  “I told Nikolay. He agreed the circumstances seemed to be related and he started the ball in motion for me to become someone else. I chose the surname Randolph, so I could keep a part of myself.” He explains, “It was my middle name before. Niko arranged for me to transfer to Caltech, leaving Theo Hawks behind.”

  “But why did you use your real name when you moved back to Albany? Why did you even go back?”

  “Because by then, I’d deluded myself into thinking that whoever was looking for me had stopped. It had been over five years since I’d had a scare, and I felt safer than I had in years. More importantly though, I wanted to be in a place where people knew me, and I guess I was willing to risk detection to feel like myself again. Plus,” he added, “I reasoned that the people who were after me might not have known I’d ever been Theodore Hawks, as naïve as that might sound.”

  “If you felt safe, why didn’t you come home to us?”

  My dad smiles sadly. “Because I knew I’d never be safe as Jeffrey Randolph again.”

  “Why didn’t you take us with you?” I cry.

  “Ah, Katie, I could have never put you in that kind of danger.”

  “Then why did you have Jake call me to tell me you were dead? It’s seems I’ve been in nothing but danger since then.”

  “I had Jake call you because I’d been found. For about a month prior, things felt off. I didn’t see anyone following me, but my radar was going nuts. Two days before he contacted you, I realized I’d picked up a tail while I was in Salem doing some shopping. That’s when I knew my instincts were right on the money and it was time to pull the trigger on my demise.” He adds, “By running, I knew it would only take me farther away from you. I thought the least I could do before falling off the face of the earth again, was to give you some answers. I had no idea you and Jake would be targeted.”

  I point my finger at him. “That’s why we couldn’t touch the inheritance for a year, right?”

  “I was going to need some of it to restart my life wherever I wound up.”

&
nbsp; “Dad, where do we go from here?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, Kate. I just know the answers lie somewhere in Pasadena. After all, this is where it all began. It makes sense to think this is where it’s going to end.” Which is exactly what Jake had said.

  I turn to look at my mom, who’s been sitting next to Theo. “It’s your turn. Who are you and what have you done with my mother?”

  My mom sighs. “I’m exactly who you think I am, except for one small detail.” I incline my head to the side to indicate she should keep talking. “I’m not weak.”

  I guess I haven’t successfully kept my opinion to myself all these years, and I suddenly feel very bad about that. “But what about Chuck? What’s that all about?”

  My dad answers for her, “Chuck was about giving you and your sister some stability, a sense of family. He was about hopefully letting you grow up feeling less abandoned.”

  “So, it’s a real marriage?”

  My mom answers, “What would you have had me do, Kate? Your father left to save our lives. My heart was broken, and I mourned him for years. I mourned us for years.”

  Theo continues, “Your mom didn’t hear from me for three years after I ran. I had to make sure no one was going to trace a call or a letter from me, so I could keep you all from harm.”

  “How did you get in touch with her then?”

  “I came back to Pasadena in disguise and I followed her to make sure no one else was. Then I went through her line at the grocery store and slipped her a note to meet me later that night.”

  Bethanie takes over, “I met him at the Huntington Hotel and he told me he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to come home to us.” Her voice is full of emotion and her eyes begin to water at the memory.

  Theo reaches out to hold my mom’s hand. “I begged her to find someone else. I told her I’d love her until the end of time, but our daughters deserved a family.”

  “Did you ever see her after that? I mean before now?”