Craig moved a pawn. “I don’t suppose the hospital’s game chest has anything like that.”
Years ago, he had played with his father, more as an excuse to spend time together than through any passion for the game. Craig had never been terribly good at small talk, and the two had needed a catalyst for conversation-especially since Robert Kreident’s life revolved around the football, baseball, and hockey teams in the Bay Area. Craig’s interests in science and technology had diverged from his father’s interest in sports, but they could chat about chess moves and occasionally other things as they played.
Now, though, Craig focused his attention on the Ukrainian’s rambling speech, moving only defensively to counter Dumenco’s pieces.
“What kind of strategy do you call this?” the physicist said, watching Craig move a bishop to a seemingly pointless position.
“I told you I didn’t play often,” he answered. He looked at the chess pieces, then at his notes. “Explain to me why you were running experiments on a Sunday, and after dark.”
Dumenco glanced at the large round clock on the wall. “The hour of day makes no difference underground,” he said. “During an experimental run, the accelerator operates round the clock. Computers record the collisions, sample the daughter particles, and sort out anything worthwhile.” He shook his head. “Maybe I can reach some valuable conclusions before time grows too short… if Ms. Mitchell ever gets here with my results.”
“But you’re dying,” Craig said bluntly; Dumenco didn’t seem to mind. “Do you want to be looking at technical readouts during your last days?”
“I must!” He said with such vehemence that his reddened hand clenched into a fist. He winced at the pain, then lowered his voice. “My results, my theories are what I leave behind. My family is…” he paused uncomfortably, “… not with me, so my work is my legacy. I have cracked open the door to God’s mysteries, and I must make sense of my results to prop open that door, prepare it for the next person. If I die with my work unresolved, the door will slam shut again. All my thoughts-all my life-will be worthless.”
Craig tried to be soothing. “If you’re already up for the Nobel Prize, you’ve done plenty in your life. Your work will be carried on by others.”
“Consider it this way, sir,” Dumenco said. “If you were to leave this case, another agent could pick up the clues and perhaps solve my murder. Forgive my arrogance, but if I die now it will be many years before someone grasps this esoteric subset of particle physics to synthesize what I have done and take it to the next step.”
He moved his rook into position and scanned the board. Craig moved another piece, and Dumenco countered rapidly. “Check,” he said simply.
With sudden embarrassed alarm, Craig studied the board. He moved to counter the Ukrainian’s ploy.
“Are you a scientist, Agent Kreident?” Dumenco said.
“I have some training,” Craig said. It had been a long time since putting himself through Stanford, working for Elliot Lang’s PI agency… “I’ve got a physics undergraduate degree, and I went into patent law after law school-I thought that was where the money was, but it was boring.”
Dumenco moved his queen, calmly said, “Checkmate,” then leaned back into his pillow as if exhausted. He closed his eyes as Craig scrutinized the little magnetic chess pieces, trying to understand what the Ukrainian had done. He could find no last-ditch way out.
“Have you heard of the mathematician Fermat?” Dumenco asked.
Craig frowned. “Of course.”
The old man’s lips were swollen, and he spoke in a quiet whisper. “After his death, someone discovered a handwritten notation in one of his texts-Fermat claimed to have found an ‘elegant proof’ for one of the great mathematical mysteries. But he didn’t write down that proof, and mathematicians wracked their brains for centuries to rediscover it. Until just recently, Fermat’s Last Theorem remained unproven.” Dumenco finally opened his eyes again to look at Craig. “I don’t want to be the high-energy physics equivalent of Fermat.”
Craig swallowed a lump in his throat.
“Maybe this will help.” They both turned to see Paige Mitchell standing at the door to the intensive care room, a folder full of papers in her hand. But Trish LeCroix bustled up to block the way.
“You can’t go in there.” Trish looked sourly down at the sheaf of printouts. “Dr. Dumenco needs to rest and gather his energy. If you give him those papers, he won’t sleep a minute.”
Paige held the folder so tightly her knuckles whitened. “He was quite insistent about having them. Let me guess-you must be Trish?”
“It’s Patrice.” The room temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees.
Craig interrupted. “This is Paige Mitchell, from Fermilab, on Dr. Dumenco’s request. It was the only way he would agree to go back to his hospital room.” He looked intently at Trish’s sepia eyes behind her delicate eyeglasses. “Let him have the papers,” he said, lowering his voice. “Those experimental results mean more to Dumenco than anything right now. Maybe he loses a little sleep, but he’ll die a lot happier.”
Trish’s eyes flashed, but she backed away, gesturing Paige inside.
Dumenco sat up in his hospital bed with an expression of such extreme delight that Craig knew he had made the right decision. The scientist swept the chessboard off the small table, knocking magnetic pieces in all directions. “Bring them here-thank you, thank you. You’re very kind.”
“It’s the least I could do,” she said. “Dr. Piter also asked me to pass along that he is at your disposal if you require anything else.”
Dumenco rolled his eyes. “That man has been a thorn in my side for years, just because some of my work contradicts his old CERN papers. I’m glad he is at least pretending to have a change of heart.”
As the scientist pawed through the papers, Craig knew he would have to look elsewhere for clues. Georg Dumenco was otherwise occupied.
Maybe Goldfarb had found something.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Tuesday, 2:37 p.m.
Fermilab,
Beam-Sampling Substation
Breathing hard, Nicholas Bretti paused to take a closer look at the man he had just shot, even as he tried to scramble out of the isolated blockhouse.
Everything had happened so fast, so unexpectedly. He hadn’t meant to do it. But, shit-
The federal agent looked like a dark-suited Pillsbury doughboy on the floor. He didn’t move, didn’t appear to breathe. Dark liquid oozed from the wounds in his chest.
Bretti looked to the heavy door, the harsh glare of sunlight outside. No one ran into the blockhouse to see what was the matter, no one raced to investigate the gunshots. Should he call for help? Get an ambulance?
Or was there a chance he might be able to get away? Nobody knew he was here-he was supposed to be gone, days’ deep into his annual fishing trip in the wilds of West Virginia.
Bretti slapped his hands together, stepped toward the shot FBI agent, then turned toward the door.
Bretti had never hurt anyone before, certainly never killed anyone-hell, he’d never broken the law, never cheated on a college exam… though if he had, maybe it wouldn’t have taken him seven years as a grad student and still no hope of seeing a Ph.D. anytime soon. This should have been his ticket to a better life. Antimatter. A simple, invisible embezzlement of atomic particles, bled off from the main beam.
No one should have noticed, except maybe that damned Dumenco. But then, nothing in Bretti’s life had ever turned out the way it should. Though it sure seemed possible when that Indian, Chandrawalia, had first
