Three (2 page)

As Maxine turned to leave his
office, Oliver said, “Maxine, I’ll be going back to Chicago tomorrow.  Could you
keep your eyes and ears open for any hint of trouble here and in the Middle
East that might be linked to this strange network?” 

“I’ll try, but this is your
project Dr. Saxon, and since Director Clark has not staffed me into it, I am
not supposed to know who assigned it to you, what you are supposed to find, or why.” 

“Just keep an eye on our
Father Abraham conspiracy for me,” said Oliver as she left his office.  He
watched her as she walked back to her desk to pick up her things.  Despite her
volatile and somewhat hostile attitude, he felt himself drawn to her emotionally
as well as intellectually.  She was the first woman that he found himself
attracted to since his heart was broken by his high school sweetheart as he
departed for college.  In many ways Maxine appeared to be hiding a gentle
charm, but at present it was obvious she wore her feelings on her sleeve.  She
was not at all hesitant to exhibit resentment at having to work in this job of
academic drudgery.

What he did not say or even
imply by his expression was that, although she was the field agent and he was
the professor, he would board a Southwest Airlines jet for Dallas/Fort Worth in
two hours on his way to Waxahachie, Texas, where it appeared the United States
source of these mysterious communications had its origin.  He had mentioned the
Father Abraham conspiracy in part to humor Maxine and to lead her away from his
assigned mission with a “red herring”.  Oliver knew Maxine would be even more
upset than she already was if she found out he would be in the field on
assignment for the CIA, rather than she. 

Oliver had been given some
information from Director Clark about Maxine’s encounter with an ISIS sniper
near Mosul and was hesitant to mention he would be hunting for a possible ISIS
cell in Waxahachie.  Clark had suggested she may have been romantically attached
to Tom Carson, the young officer killed by the sniper, and had expressed
concern that Maxine might not be ready psychologically for another encounter
with ISIS.  She had refused to work with the counselors provided by Central
Intelligence, insisting she was strong enough to handle the trauma of her
battlefield experiences.

The director had requested
that Oliver keep an eye on her for any signs of PTSD and keep him informed. 
“Use your skills counseling your college students.  Maybe you can help her with
her adjustments to this non-combat environment here at I&A.”  As Maxine
left her office and walked down the hall to the exit, Oliver thought to
himself,
Maxine, what is the woman like who hides behind your tough,
‘full-body armor’?

Without sending Maxine on
this mission into a possible ISIS stronghold, but leaving her at her desk, the
director had shielded her from possible emotional harm.  Oliver knew she could research
this connection between these three ideologies.  She could participate in a way
that would be useful in his search and keep her out of possible trouble.   Operations
had strongly suggested he would be the best pair of eyes there in North Texas,
but made it clear he was not to put himself in danger or in any way reveal the
purpose of his visit.  While in Waxahachie he was not to make contact with any
possible source or even inquire about the various religious organizations that
might be involved.  He was to be a professor on a fact finding trip to one of
the more ornate Victorian towns in the Southwest.

Oliver shut down his
computer, and left his office, now darkened by the Washington, D. C.
nightfall.  Walking out into the parking lot to the sound of distant thunder,
he began feeling the growing dread of having to wend his way through the
beltway traffic to Washington National.  As he reached his car, an older model
two-door, his cell phone rang. 

The call was from Alice
Newbury, the daughter of his best friend and colleague, Dr. Peter Newbury. 
Oliver had no family members nearby other than his students whom he often
thought of as his children but kept at a distance appropriate for a university
professor.  On the other hand Alice had become not only a dear friend, but he
thought of her as his daughter.  He was, after all, her Godfather.  She would
often confide in him her joys and tears when her famous mathematician father
was off to an international conference on string theory or super-symmetry.

“Alice, how’s my best girl?”
he asked, and was immediately answered by bitter sobbing as she attempted to
relate to him the tragic news: her father, and his friend of nearly 25 years,
had just died an hour ago after collapsing in his office of an apparent heart
attack.  She was obviously in great need of his presence and without waiting for
her request, although he was overcome with shock and sorrow he said, “I’m on my
way to the airport.  I’ll be boarding a plane for Chicago and will be there in
a few hours.” He was still in shock as he dialed the number that allowed him to
make a scrambled call to Bob Clark, his director at I&A. 

The phone rang only once
before Clark responded. “Saxon, are you on your way to catch your flight to
Texas?” 

“I’m on my way to the airport
but I’ve just received some tragic news.  My close friend, Peter Newbury, died
suddenly in Chicago this evening, and I’ve got to delay my Texas trip to help
his daughter with arrangements.  She’s taken this very hard, and as her Godfather,
I need to be with her for a few days.” 

“Do you mean Dr. Peter
Newbury, the famous mathematician at Fermilab!?” 

“Yes; I’ve lost my best
friend. The world has lost a great intellect.”

“Oliver, I’m so sorry for
your loss; go to Chicago and let me know as soon as you feel you can break away
for a few days.  This I&A mission to Waxahachie is extremely important.  I’ll
need you there on the ground as soon as possible.”

“Thank you.  I’m sure I can
be ready for my I&A mission in a few days.  Right now I’m in shock.”

“His death will be a shock
for everyone.   The series ‘The Theory of Everything’ that he ran on Public
Television was my young son’s favorite for the past year.   He watched every
episode.  Newbury did a brilliant job of describing the new discoveries at
CERN, Fermilab, and that radio observatory at the South Pole.  In the words of the
press, ‘Doctor Newbury was on the threshold of finding the elusive God
Particle.’”

As Bob Clark signed off he
thought to himself,
I’m going to have to open an investigation of Professor
Newbury’s death.  It happened at the National Laboratory for High Energy
Physics run by DOE and all such deaths, regardless of their causes, must be
examined by Homeland Security.  While Oliver’s in Chicago, I’ll clear Maxine
Phillips for Saxon’s project and put her to work researching this communication
network between Damascus, Jerusalem, and Waxahachie.  The instructors in her
small-arms and martial arts sessions say she’s become more focused of late,
even though she’s still aggressive.  She may not be ready, but I need her now. 
I’ll staff her into Oliver’s project today and keep an eye on her this week.

Oliver drove out of the
parking lot behind his office and into the Washington night as a light rain
began to fall.  Lost in his thoughts, he was barely aware of the drive through
the streets of the Capitol and on to the beltway, but was keenly aware of the
heartbeat-like thump-thump of the windshield wipers.  He felt this throbbing
deep within himself.  The suddenness of this tragedy, the loss of his closest
friend, brought not only a sense of grief but also an overwhelming feeling of
fear, as though something had taken this healthy, active friend well before his
time.  His mind told him that fear and denial almost always accompany grief
after such a loss, but his heart was in no way soothed.

He parked his car in Washington
National’s parking garage and removed the carry-on he had packed the night
before for his Texas trip.  The terminal was alive with men and women, the
constant coming and going of human influence that represents the inner being of
Washington, D. C.  It mattered not the time of day or night, or the day of the
week, this human input-output system of the U.S. government flowed as
relentlessly as the blood now coursing through Oliver’s veins and causing his
head to throb. 

At the ticket counter his
change of flight was direct and uncomplicated.  Standby was almost always
possible on Washington National to O’Hare flights, due to the large number of
them.  He had just enough time to pick up a hot snack in the concourse as he
pulled his carry-on to the assigned gate.  Presenting his boarding pass, he entered
and found a window seat near the rear of the cabin.

The flight lifted off from
Washington National, reached cruising altitude, descended, and bumped down on
the O’Hare runway before Oliver had had a chance to become aware of the slow
traverse of lighted cities and towns across the upper Potomac, the Allegheny
Mountains, and the farmland of the Ohio River basin between the East Coast and
Chicago. Although he had been watching its relentless passing out his window, his
thoughts had been making another journey altogether: a journey that began 25
years earlier when he and Peter had met as undergraduates at Princeton and had
become close friends.

Oliver had entered Princeton
on an academic scholarship and had settled on a major in Humanities.  He had
been assigned to a room in Mathey College, Blair Hall.  All of the colleges at
Princeton, but particularly Mathey, were beautiful stone buildings nestled
around their own green quadrangle.  These residences were designed to look like
any one of a number of colleges at Cambridge or Oxford.  Because of this
architectural contrast to his home and schooling in Northern California, he
felt as though he were attending college overseas, just like some of his more
affluent friends who had grown up in Eureka. 

The residence rooms were
modest but warm, and within each hall were sanctuary-like commons for study or
discussions with other students and resident faculty.  The library and most of
the classrooms to which Oliver would walk for lectures were just a short
distance east of this residence.  As he was arranging his belongings following
his arrival, a friendly voice, accompanied with the thumping of dropped
luggage, greeted him.

“You must be Oliver Saxon. 
I’m Peter Newbury.  Looks like we’re roomies,” said this energetic fellow freshman
who held out his hand in a greeting.

“I’m Oliver,” was about all
Oliver was able to say before Peter continued the greeting.  He had a shock of
blond hair that tended to stick up like he was electrically charged.  This
appearance was well matched to his personality which was also electrically
charged. 

He immediately asked Oliver,
“What’s your major?” and then, “Do you like to jog ‘cause I just heard of a
great trail down by the lake?” 

Oliver could hardly get a
word in edgewise.  Oliver did manage to learn during this energized “conversation”
that Peter was a Math and Physics major who liked to go jogging in the
afternoons following class, but mainly liked to join in lively conversation and
sometimes debate about any and all subjects.

During the next four years
they continued to share the room in the hall, study together, and jog along the
lake following class.  Oliver would walk down Washington Road from his last
class in McCosh to meet Peter in front of Jadwin Hall.  The two would then head
for the Gym where they would suit up for jogging outside, or around the inside
track if the winter weather was too harsh.  Peter even liked to carry on in
breathless conversation as they jogged, something that Oliver found both
physically and intellectually challenging.  In the evenings they would share
dreams and ideas while they studied together in the Mathey commons room or in the
nearby library.   They were each working through their respective course loads
toward their degrees: one in Math and Physics, the other in Humanities.  
Despite their different fields, they found they had much in common and freely
shared their ideas.

 One evening Oliver found
Peter in the commons, sitting at a table filled with geometric solid shapes
that he immediately recognized.

“Those are Platonic solids.  We’ve
been discussing them in class as they relate to the philosophical ideas of
Plato and Aristotle.”

“You’re right,” replied
Peter, “their forms were mathematically defined by a contemporary of Aristotle
named Theaetetus, and later by Euclid.  I’ve been looking at Euclid’s mathematical
proof of Plato’s assertion that there can be no other polyhedra that satisfy
the symmetries found in the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and
the Icosahedron.  But look here: If I take any two sides of one of these forms
and stick them together to form a two-sided sandwich with no volume, these new
forms also satisfy Euclid’s formula.  It doesn’t matter whether I use a pair of
triangles, squares, or pentagons.”

“You mean Plato and Aristotle
were wrong about there being only five pure solids!?” replied Oliver with mock
alarm.

“Oliver, with Euclid’s help,
I just blew your favorite philosophers out of the water,” responded Peter, as
the two of them laughed at the idea that an undergraduate could find such a
flaw in Euclid’s proof, or Plato’s assertion.

One evening, near the end of
their junior year, Peter came into their shared room carrying a stack of
reference books.  Some were obviously books on mathematics, but three were
coffee table sized collections of paintings.  “Here Oliver,” said Peter as he
dropped the art books on Oliver’s bed, “help me with my math assignment, you
know more about art history than I do.”