The God Particle (24 page)

On the short journey to the laboratory, Tom gave Jed a
potted version of the events leading up to their arrival.

‘Sounds like a right nutter, this Deiter,’ Jed commented
when Tom had finished.

‘That’s putting it mildly,’ Tom replied.

‘So, let me get this straight. You think by using the RHIC
as a bloody big magnet we can pull the Earth’s electromagnetic field back into
line?’

‘Succinctly put, as ever, Jed,’ replied Tom. ‘But no, I
don’t think we’ll achieve equilibrium, just a slowing down of the Polar
reversal.’

‘And if ya cockamamie theory doesn’t work?’

Tom shook his head slowly. ‘Best case scenario: we ride out
the effects of the reversal. Worst case: we bring on another Ice Age.’

Jed gave a low whistle. ‘Let’s feckin hope it works, then.’

***

They arrived at the security entrance to the complex just as
dusk was descending. The purple mist of nightfall enshrouded the definable
shapes of the buildings around them. It was cold; the sun setting in a
cloudless sky belied the crispness of the evening air. Jed handed over his pass
to the gatekeeper, whose breath fogged as he gave it a cursory inspection
before giving it back. Tom and Serena presented their passports. The guard
checked their ID against the visitors’ log and ticked off their names. The
barrier rose, allowing them through.

Like CERN’s sprawling campus, the site of the RHIC covered
the area of a small town, having been built on a former US Army base. It had
its own police station, fire department and postal code. Funded primarily by
the US Department of Energy, Brookhaven National Laboratory was designed as a
multipurpose research institution covering a number of scientific disciplines
from physics to medicine. Over three thousand scientists, engineers and support
staff made Brookhaven one of the largest scientific establishments in the
world.

As they drove down the main arterial road, Tom’s memories of
the halcyon days of his youth came flooding back. He had lived onsite, where
there was a real sense of community connected by a shared purpose: to unravel
the mysteries of the Universe, from the Nano to the cosmic scale. Anything was
possible and he was going to be the one that pioneered it. As he looked out of
the passenger window at the silhouettes of the trees lining the road sweeping
by, it saddened him to think that age and, with it, so-called wisdom, had
tempered the intrepid explorer within him. He needed to rewind the clock and
tap into that indomitable spirit now if he were going to succeed.

They pulled up outside the main building and made their way
to the reception area for visitors. There, they had to re-present their
passports before being issued with badges that would allow them to proceed
through the sliding doors and into the inner sanctum.

Jed led them down a long corridor, flanked on either side by
the closed doors of darkened offices, towards a room at the far end, where they
could see light seeping out from under the bottom. It was identified by the
brass nameplate screwed onto the wall as the Research Director’s. Jed knocked
resoundingly and, without waiting for a response, opened the door and showed
his two charges in.

A well-groomed, stately gentleman was just leveraging
himself out of his high-backed leather chair when Tom and Serena entered. He
continued with the movement, but accompanied it with a broad smile as he
recognised one of the newcomers.

‘Tom, good to see you again,’ he exclaimed, covering the
distance between them in a few strides.

The two men shook hands warmly. Tom noticed that the
preceding years hadn’t been too kind to Charles. He remembered him as a
stalwart man with the vitality and vigour of someone half his age. The weak,
almost effeminate, handshake was that of a fragile old man, whose features were
gaunt, his eyes dulled and sunken by age. The hairline had receded to his crown
and deep furrows ploughed across his forehead, linking the liver spots at his
temples. Despite the ravages of time, it was obvious that he still cared about
his appearance. The dark blue suit was perfectly tailored to his frame, not
something that could easily be achieved off-the-peg. The silk tie with its
geometric pattern and pale blue shirt complemented the made-to-measure apparel,
perfectly.

‘Charles,’ said Tom, ‘I’d like to introduce you to Serena
Mayer.’

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, my dear.’ The elderly
gentleman’s bony fingers reached out to take her hand. ‘Come, please sit down.
You must be exhausted after your long journey.’ He led her to one of the two
chairs opposite his and beckoned for Tom to take the other.

Jed, who was still standing in the doorway, shouted across
the room. ‘If you don’t need me anymore boss, I’ll get cracking on firing up
the beast.’ With that, he left without waiting for an answer.

‘Damned fine physicist, bloody awful employee,’ Charles
remarked as his office door slammed shut. ‘So, why don’t you start at the
beginning and tell me what all this is about,’ he said, turning his attention
back to his guests.

For over an hour Tom told him everything – everything that
was, apart from Shiva’s role in trying to stop the Collider discovering the God
Particle. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he felt protective over the
organisation, as though he’d been let into a confidence that he couldn’t
betray. He concluded by summarising what he hoped to achieve by firing up the
RHIC.

Charles listened intently, without interruption, his fingers
steepled contemplatively underneath his chin. Once Tom had finished, Charles
leant back in his chair, as if to digest the information. After what seemed
like an eternity, he broke the silence.

‘When you phoned me on your way here, I took the liberty of
contacting some colleagues in NASA and pulled in a couple of favours. You know
they have a facility here, don’t you?’

Tom did. ‘Yes, the NASA Space Radiation Lab.’

Charles addressed Serena, who was looking blank. ‘We have a
programme running that can identify the possible risks to astronauts associated
with prolonged space travel. To study the effects of space radiation we use
beams that can simulate cosmic rays.’

‘Sounds dangerous,’ she replied. ‘Remind me not to volunteer
as a guinea pig.’

‘Quite,’ Charles turned back to Tom. ‘I asked them to run a
simple algorithm to track magnetic north against true north, over time. As
you’re aware, they’re not the same point – magnetic north tends to move around
a bit.’ He adjusted the angle of the laptop on his desk so they could see the
image. It showed a global map of the earth dissected by a straight red line
with various points marked on it. ‘In 2001, magnetic north was determined by
the Geological Survey of Canada to lie near Ellesmere Island in northern
Canada. In 2009, whilst still within the Canadian Arctic territory, it was
moving toward Russia at between thirty-four and thirty-seven miles per year.
Last year, the pole moved just beyond the Canadian Arctic territorial claim.’

He pressed a button on the keyboard and the image changed to
a similar map but, on this one, the red line had dog-legged. ‘This is in real
time. As of now, magnetic north is hovering somewhere over Greenland,
travelling south at a rate of seventeen miles an
hour
. That means that,
within the next thirty days, it will reach the South Pole.’

Tom and Serena stared at the screen, aghast. It was obvious
to them that the directional change could only have been caused by the
collider. In the bottom left quadrant of the display was a scrolling table with
three columns. Tom read the headings: Time, Speed, Acceleration. The first
column measured second intervals, the next, the actual speed of the field,
while the third had a series of red numbers in it.

‘Does that indicate that the field is accelerating?’ Tom
pointed to the last column on the screen.

‘Unfortunately, yes. They change to green if the field
decelerates. Since I’ve been monitoring it they’ve always been red. When I said
that within the next thirty days the field will have reached the South Pole, I
should have pointed out that that was at its current speed. If it carries on
accelerating the way it has been, there’s no telling how long it will take.’

‘Can’t they extrapolate the data?’ Serena queried.

‘Yes, but the acceleration isn’t constant,’ replied Charles.
‘It varies by the second. The only thing we can say for certain is that the
speed of the magnetic field is increasing, but by how much is anybody’s guess.’

The phone rang on Charles’s desk. ‘Excuse me,’ he said,
apologising to Tom for the interruption, and picked up the receiver. He
listened to the voice on the other and then responded. ‘Good, send him straight
in,’ he said, before putting the phone back in its cradle. ‘There’s somebody
I’d like you to meet.’

Tom and Serena turned in their chairs to see the door
opening and the menacing figure of Deiter strolling in.

Tom’s jaw dropped, his face a picture of incredulity as a
thousand questions flooded his brain.

‘But… but how did you know we were here?’ was all he could
say.

Deiter strode across the room and positioned himself behind
Tom and Serena, casually resting his hands on the back of each of their chairs.
Serena cowered in her seat at the close proximity of the man who had tried to
kill her. Tom was more defiant; he made to stand up, but was forced back down
by a firm grip on his shoulder.

‘I wouldn’t do anything stupid.’ Deiter inclined his head in
the direction of Charles, who had retrieved a handgun from the top drawer of
his desk and was now levelling it in their direction, his hand trembling
slightly as he aimed it from one to the other.

‘To answer your question,’ continued Deiter, ‘I followed you
to the airfield and checked your flight plan. You didn’t need to be a genius to
work out why you were heading to MacArthur Airport. It’s not exactly a main
tourist destination. So I simply commandeered the other jet, and here I am. I
phoned Charles when I’d landed, who confirmed that you were on your way.’

Tom’s face was ashen. He turned to his old mentor. ‘I don’t
understand, Charles. Why are you doing this? I explained what happened at CERN.
You should be pointing that gun at him, not us.’

‘Deiter said that you’d try to blame him,’ replied Charles.
‘So I checked with the Swiss police, who confirmed you’re suspects in a murder
enquiry, as well as being wanted for industrial sabotage. Did you really think
you could just waltz in here and blow our collider up as well? If it wasn’t for
Deiter and the fact that I knew you as a student, I’d have called the police
and had you arrested at the gate. But he pleaded with me to give you a chance
to explain yourselves. You owe him a debt of gratitude that you’re not in
police custody right now, being deported back to Switzerland to face charges –
which, if there isn’t a rational explanation for your actions, is exactly where
you will be going.’

Tom’s mind was working overtime. He knew he would only have
the one chance to convince Charles of their innocence, and it was obvious that
Deiter had the upper hand with regards to the incidents at CERN. He scanned the
room for inspiration.

‘You have five seconds, then I’m calling the police,’ Charles
warned.

Tom’s eyes rested on a solid brass statuette of an Indian
deity on the bookshelf and took a gamble. ‘Deiter’s telling the truth,’ he
began. ‘I planted the explosives at CERN, but you have to believe me when I say
it was a regrettable accident that those people got killed. They were just in
the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘Tom, what are you saying?’

He turned to Serena. Seeing the shocked expression on her
face, he tried to sooth her by telling her that they could trust Charles with
the truth, but it didn’t appease her agitation.

‘And why would you want to destroy the collider?’ Charles
enquired, his mood softening.

‘Not destroy, just to stop it from discovering the God
Particle.’

‘Why would you want to do that?’

‘For the same reasons you do… I also work for SHIVA.’

Charles lowered the gun, placing it on the desk in front of
him. ‘How did you know?’

‘Two things, really,’ replied Tom. ‘Something Frederick
Volker said to me when we first met. He said that you sent me your regards, so
I presumed you were either discussing my suitability for the position at CERN
or my role in SHIVA. The ornament confirmed the latter.’ He indicated to the
bookshelf on which sat a statue of Shiva in mid-dance.

‘I always was a bit of a sentimentalist,’ said Charles. ‘I picked
it up whilst on vacation in India. How is the old dog, by the way?’

‘I think Deiter was the last to see him. Why don’t you ask
him?’

All eyes turned to Deiter, who stood impassively staring at
the gun on Charles’s desk. With no answer forthcoming, Tom went on to explain
how they had only recently discovered that the collider was responsible for
instigating a shift in the Earth’s polarity, reiterating that the only way to
alter such a paradigm shift was by creating an opposing force using the RHIC, hence
the reason for their trip. At no point did Tom make any reference to Deiter’s
involvement in the whole scenario.

Charles looked from Tom to Serena as if trying to make up
his mind. ‘Well, you’ll have to make your peace with the Swiss authorities,’ he
said. ‘But, as far as the other matter is concerned, it doesn’t look as though
we’ve got a second to waste. I’ll call Professor Campbell to see if he’s ready
for us.’ He picked up the phone and dialled Jed’s extension.

With the agility of a gazelle leaping from the jaws of a
lion, Deiter sprang forward and snatched up the gun, pointing it at Charles.
‘Put the phone down,’ he ordered.

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ Charles remonstrated.

Without missing a beat, Deiter shot the Director through the
forehead. His body toppled forward, his head hit the desk and a pool of blood
formed that expanded across its surface. The fingers of his left hand twitched
and then were still, while his other hand held the phone in a death grip.

Serena shrieked and instinctively recoiled from the gruesome
sight.

Tom watched Deiter as he made his way around to Charles’s
side of the desk, the gun levelled directly at his head. Deiter pried the phone
out of the dead man’s hand and replaced it in the receiver. Then he picked it
up again and dialled zero for the reception.

‘Sir, are you alright?’ The voice on the other end of the
line sounded agitated. ‘We thought we heard a gunshot.’

‘This is Dr Weiss. Quickly, call the police!’ He
disconnected the call and threw the phone down on the desk. ‘I would estimate
we’ve got about five minutes before the boys in blue come to the rescue.’

‘Why did you have to shoot him?’ Tom found his voice.

‘He’d served his purpose. I just wanted him to keep you
talking until I arrived. Besides, he’s more useful to me dead than alive.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Let me tell you how this is going to play out,’ replied
Deiter, smiling. ‘You escape from the police in Switzerland and make your way
here. I follow you, intending to alert the authorities of your final
destination, but by the time I’ve landed you’ve already cleared customs.
Realising that you’re probably going to Brookhaven, in an attempt to destroy
the RHIC, as you did the collider at CERN, I phoned Charles to warn him. My
call to him will be logged at the switchboard, for verification purposes. When
I arrive, I find that you’ve managed to relieve Charles of his own weapon and
are holding him hostage. Charles makes a lunge for the gun and you shoot him
dead. I manage to make a call to alert the authorities before you have time to
stop me. You then make your way over to the door to lock it.’

Deiter acted out the plot, making his way across the room to
turn the key in the lock, the gun never wavering from its two targets. ‘Seeing
an opportunity, I grab Serena and use her as a human shield. You take a shot,
but miss.’ He raised his hand and discharged the weapon, the bullet embedding
itself in the wall to the left of the window behind Charles’s desk. ‘You fire
again but, unfortunately, this time you hit Serena, fatally wounding her.
Distracted by your aberration, I charge towards you. You manage to shoot
another round, missing me by a whisper.’ Deiter raised the gun again and put a
shot through the window. Glass exploded into the room, showering Charles’s
lifeless body with shards. ‘I throw myself on you and we struggle. The gun goes
off again, but this time it is you that is killed. Then the police arrive.’ He
nodded to himself. ‘Perfect.’ A self-satisfied grin broke across his face as he
assimilated the details of his game plan. ‘Okay everybody, let’s get into
position.’

Tom and Serena sat deathly still, transfixed by the depth of
insanity to which this person had sunk.

‘I said move!’ Deiter bellowed.

Both flinched, but neither complied. It was like asking a
condemned man to put his own noose around his neck. Deiter marched over to
Serena and dragged her out of her seat, the gun pressed firmly to her temple.
He stood her behind the slumped body of Charles and between the two bullet
holes he’d just made. He checked the angle to the door. Satisfied, he went back
for Tom.

‘I’m not going along with your absurd plan,’ Tom said
obstinately, planting himself firmly in his seat. ‘You’re going to kill us
anyway, so why should I help you?’

‘Fine, I’ll kill you where you sit. It makes no difference
to me.’ Deiter pointed the barrel at Tom’s head.

‘Won’t that screw up your well-rehearsed pantomime?’

Deiter thought about it for a moment. ‘You’re right.’ He
turned the gun around and brought the butt of it crashing down onto Tom’s head,
opening up a two-inch gash at his hairline.

Serena screamed and made to go to his aid, but Deiter held
her back.

Blood gushed out of the wound on Tom’s head, streamed into
his eye and ran down the side of his face.

‘I’ll think of a way of incorporating
that
into my
scenario, when you’ve gone,’ he said, hauling Tom’s dazed frame out of the
chair and depositing him on the floor by the entrance to the room.

Deiter backed up to the door to inspect the crime scene and
to ensure that all his players were in position. Happy with the result, he
aimed the gun at Serena’s face and pulled the trigger. Her head jerked to one
side, blood splattered against the wall and she hit the floor like a sack of
potatoes. Tom’s outcry at seeing the motionless body on the floor was drowned
out by the sound of the blast echoing around the room.