Lethal Exposure

The tracks on the film corresponded to fundamental types of matter, most of them known and well-characterized from years of research. But everyone searched for an unknown track, spirals with the wrong curvature, the wrong direction-a new elementary particle.

But that task was now automated. Every second, millions of collisions took place in the counter-rotating beams, and the tracks were sca

All of which allowed Bretti to move with confidence through the deserted complex, knowing that no one would be around to confront him. He couldn’t afford another disastrous situation like when he had unexpectedly encountered the FBI agent.

Bretti opened one more locked door to where a bank of computer terminals showed displays of each of the experimental target areas. Here, he’d have access to the main lattice trap he’d planted.

A thick bundle of fiberoptic cables ran into the room, taped to the floor before ru

Bretti checked the status of the Main Ring and the Tevatron. Dumenco’s gamma-ray laser had been up and ru

Bretti allowed a smile to form at the edges of his mouth. No one had discovered that he was bleeding off p-bars, and old Dumenco wasn’t in any condition to point the finger at him.

He debated leaving another collector in place, perhaps coming back in several months-by which time he might even have a gram of antimatter available! But that would be far too risky-he shouldn’t be loitering here even now. No, the Indians didn’t deserve any more, and he wanted to be long gone. Cut his losses, eliminate further risks.

Gaining entrance, he quickly typed in a command sequence. He raced past the menu of options and posted warnings that scrolled up on the screen, then waited until the computer confirmed that the crystal-lattice trap had been pulled from the beam.

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 cha

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 Pe

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 ru

“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 pla

“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, gri

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.”