some of the teams wanted to concentrate on the Higgs boson-although at these energy levels, I’d be surprised if they were successful. My own work in p-bar phenomena followed a much more traditional, and less risky, path. It’s the right way to go.”
“Well, I guess we can let the Nobel Committee decide,” Paige Mitchell said in her best peacemaker voice, then brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “Nels is being seriously considered for the Physics Prize this year, as is Dr. Dumenco. We’re very fortunate to have so many world-class scientists working at Fermilab.”
Craig’s interest clicked as Piter nodded.
Piter placed his hands on the railing in front of him, a ruler looking out over his kingdom. He came up to Craig’s chin, and his blond hair looked wild from the quick walk down the tunnel. Unconsciously, he combed it with his fingers.
“You never told us exactly what you worked on at CERN, Dr. Piter,” Craig said.
“Storage of p-bars, Mr. Kreident. Not just tens of thousands of antiparticles at a time, but a new way to hold them in a portable container. Until recently, people have been able to store only minuscule amounts of antimatter in magnetic bottles-Penning traps, they call them. The antimatter is cooled and injected into a long cylinder with specially designed magnets on either end. The particles bounce back and forth between the magnets, but they tend to leak out.”
Paige interrupted. “At CERN Dr. Piter demonstrated a more efficient storage device, the Howe crystal-lattice trap. Unfortunately, we’ve never had access to large enough amounts of antimatter to test the actual limits of his device.”
Piter’s face twisted, as though annoyed Paige had interrupted. “Yes, my design was based on an idea first suggested by a Los Alamos scientist, Larry Campbell. It was then popularized by another Los Alamos scientist, Steve Howe, who thought it might be possible to trap antimatter particles inside the molecular lattices of crystals- simple salt crystals.” He drew himself up. “But it was
“Years ago, the initial experimental team that detected the first particles of antimatter won the Nobel Prize in Physics. My work is just as significant. My crystal-lattice trap stores its p-bars at crystal lattice sites, reinforced through resonances in crossed laser beams. In theory, enormous amounts of p-bars may be stored this way.”
“How much is an ‘enormous amount’?” Goldfarb asked with a faint mischievous grin. “Or would it be too technical for me?”
“The million million p-bars in a Penning trap amounts to mere picograms-my crystal-lattice trap could hold up to tens of
“Enough to power the Starship
Piter ignored Goldfarb’s observation.
Craig looked out at Dumenco’s experimental area. Several small ladders gave access to the main beam pipe above the floor. Three carts of diagnostic equipment were spaced along the tunnel, each loaded with bundles of wire connected to laptop computers.
Craig watched Piter carefully as he mused, “I don’t suppose you and Dr. Dumenco had any rivalry going? A race for the Nobel Prize.”
Piter blinked in astonishment, as if Craig had somehow blasphemed the prestigious award. “One doesn’t
“Just asking, Dr. Piter. I have to probe all possibilities.” Craig was uncomfortable, though, at how the Belgian scientist’s gaze had lighted on Paige when he mentioned his
CHAPTER SIX
Tuesday, 1:47 p.m.
Fermilab,
Beam-Sampling Substation
Working alone now, fully charged with a fresh cup of coffee from the Fermilab cafeteria, Ben Goldfarb went searching for scraps of evidence. He preferred being a field agent, investigating the scene of the crime, trying to uncover something the evidence technicians had missed. Maybe even something Craig Kreident hadn’t noticed.
Since Fermilab was a nonsecured facility, unlike Lawrence Livermore or the Nevada Test Site, Goldfarb could walk around by himself. Having another person looking over his shoulder as he snooped put a crimp in his style. He went around the service road by the huge Tevatron, glancing at the other small concrete substations identical to the one that had been vaporized.
Special Agent Schultz, in charge of investigating the crater, told Goldfarb he was welcome to take a second look, but Schultz assured him that they had already been through each one of the substations with bomb-sniffing dogs and nitrogen detectors. They had found no evidence of explosives, no sabotage-only incomprehensible diagnostics and technical equipment. The blockhouses didn’t look as if they were used too often, and they had little strategic importance, as far as Schultz could see.
All that was well and good, Goldfarb thought, but he wanted to make up his own mind. The glassy crater itself offered no evidence for him, no leads, but he made his way to one of the other beam-sampling substations to see if there might be an overlooked connection with Dr. Dumenco’s accident. Schultz wasn’t even thinking about the deadly radiation exposure.
The unobtrusive concrete structures stood at regular intervals around the raised dirt berm above the Main Particle Accelerator Ring. Tall brown grass filled the middle of the giant circle, dotted by occasional ponds and the dark forms of distant buffalo grazing within the high-tech enclosure.
Goldfarb trudged along the service road, pushing his hands into his jacket pocket; despite the watery sun poking through the clouds, the air retained the chill of late fall. He supposed the substations would be locked, since they contained delicate diagnostics and complex sampling systems. Later, he could always arrange to get a key from Paige Mitchell. For now, he just wanted the look and feel of one of the places, to get into the mindset of someone working inside… or hiding inside, plotting some sort of sabotage.
Since Fermilab paid little attention to security or accountability, they had no records of employee whereabouts during the times of interest. No one had been scheduled in that substation at the time of the blast, but since the energy burst had vaporized everything, they wouldn’t find even a bone fragment if a saboteur had been inside. But no personnel had been reported missing, either.
Too bad the explosion of an empty blockhouse gained all the attention instead of a man dying at the hospital. Perhaps that was for the best, though-the media would go all weak-kneed at the story of Dumenco’s lethal radiation overdose. Even Trish LeCroix’s hardliner group, Physicians Against Radiation, or whatever it was called, would make a circus out of the tragedy. But at least Craig’s former girlfriend was keeping the situation quiet, and he respected her for that.
As he approached the nearest substation, Goldfarb made a mental note to stop in at the gift shop to pick up souvenirs for his two daughters. The only way they forgave him for being gone on FBI business so often was that he brought them tiny keepsakes. The one time he’d forgotten, Megan and Gwendolyn had heaped him with massive guilt unsurpassed even by the efforts of his own Jewish mother. Goldfarb had vowed never to forget again.
Since it was Chicago, he thought he might get something nice for Julene, too. His wife always worried about him when he was on a case, paranoid that he’d get hurt in the line of duty. Last year, during an investigation of a Nevada militia group, he’d been caught in an explosion and suffered a broken pinkie-but Julene had fretted so
