The following novel-in-progress was begun by faculty member Robert Bitler during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in 2013. He has been adding installments faithfully and hopes to have a finished novel for us to enjoy by the end of 2014. He describes the book as a “physics thriller.” Thanks for inspiring us, Mr. Bitler!
MIRACLES
Chapter One – Illumined
He was only in his fifties, but he was feeling old. His joints hurt – no doubt from the heady pickup football game he’d played earlier with his boisterous and hard-hitting nephews; his tightened and unstretched muscles caused him to walk with a slight limp. He knew he was already in the second half of the grand play of life, and he wondered if he would accomplish even a quarter of the things he had set out to do as a young man. He thought of the quantum illuminator inside, and smiled: But still – maybe – the Nobel Prize I always dreamed of! He laughed at his own hubris, and grinned broadly – thinking about how a Nobel – if won – might play out with all his friends and associates from over the years. Some would be desperately envious (and he pitied those), but his true friends, of which he had a great many, would be genuinely happy for him. And if it happened, they would all laugh and party and dance until the wee hours in the back streets of Oslo and get drunk – happy drunk – and his wife would smile and laugh and tell her father that she had chosen well after all. But still he knew, deep down in his bones, that there were things far more important and far more real than some prize and the concomitant adulation of the world. He had already lived several lifetimes – and done many, many things; there was not much left that could excite him – either about humanity or about the world – or so he thought…
The university parking lot was deserted, and there was no sign of security. He crossed it , and looked up to see the powerful outline of the Rocky Mountains in the distance; it felt good to breathe in the cooler evening air. He fumbled with his keys, and opened up the door to the physics building. Once inside, he turned on the stairway lights, and headed downward to his lab, a full three stories below ground level. He opened the door to the sub-sub basement with another key, and flicked on the lights. But nothing happened. They did not work. He looked around behind him, and saw that the stairway lights were now off as well. He swore, and fumbled around in the darkness, trying to locate the main lab counter which he knew stretched out to the left in front of him. He touched it, and used the edge of the counter to guide him toward the far side of the lab, where the illuminator apparatus lay. He had forgotten his notepad, with its never-ending list of all the things he was supposed to be working on – and had come to retrieve it. He reached the end of the counter, and came to the open space in front of the illuminator table – which itself stretched across the back of the lab. He was making his way along that second table, when he heard it, a slight hum from the illuminator. Startled, he took in a sharp breath. His pulse quickened in anger. It’s not supposed to be hooked up to the grid yet; we had an agreement… Still, none of the running lights or instruments were lit. Maybe it’s connected but not turned on. Why would they do that? We had an agreement! At the end of the table he found and grabbed his notepad, and then began to make his way back. The slight hum of the illuminator disturbed him. He paused, and raised his hand to its side. He caressed the sleek metallic shell of the illuminator’s containment unit, and as his eyes had adjusted more to the dark, he thought he could just make out the outline of the giant blue cube which they’d affixed to the top of the machine. When they finally turned it on, the light from that cube would give them their first inkling of whether or not they had made a fundamental breakthrough in the understanding of the universe. His hand was rising toward the cube on top when the hum suddenly increased in pitch and volume, and then, the cube lit up with such a blaze of deep iridescent blue light that for a moment, he could see everything in the lab. Stunned – he fell backward onto the floor; he heard himself yell out, and then all was dark…
He opened his eyes to see a flashlight shining into his eyes. Behind the light, he could just make out the profile of Jimmy Sage, physics building security guard.
“You took a mean one, Pete… That bump on your head’s gonna need an whole icebox full of ice…”
Peter Schönbaum tried to lift his head, but as he did, a wave a nausea rippled through his middle.
Jimmy laughed. “Here, Sir, let me help you up. Try not to move your head too much.”
Peter’s head throbbed, where he had apparently hit, hard. He tried not to puke. “The light,” Jimmy, “was the light on when you came in!?”
“There’s no light in here, Mr. Schönbaum . The whole university’s gone dark. No electricity anywhere – all the way to Cheyenne, they’re sayin’…”
Pete put his arm around Jimmy’s shoulders and started to limp out of the lab… “But that’s impossible, Jimmy, that’s impossible.”
Jimmy laughed again. “Well – nuthin’ in this world is truly impossible, Mr. Schönbaum , now is it…?”
Chapter Two – Sweet, Sweet Love
The two of them ran up over the crest of a small forested hillock, sweating, both seriously out-of-breath, as they had raced each other at top speed from the car down at the beginning of the trail, over a mile back. They stopped and gulped down lungfuls of warm air. Jason was bent over with his hands on his hurting sides – but still had his eyes on the incredible view. For before them stretched a vista that had captivated both Native and newcomer Americans alike throughout all of American history. In the distance, the Grand Tetons rose up ahead of them, like towering behemoths gathering their strength for a fight, and just in front of them, down the other side of the hillock, a vigorous steel blue river washed down from the hills to their right into a thin but sparkling crystally lake, spreading toward the horizon on the left. Ahead lay a wooden bridge. They smiled and laughed, and then raced down the other side of the hillock and over the bridge, as they prepared to tackle the steep uprise in the trail, and the looming mountain which lay before them. But once across, they turned momentarily and looked back at the river and the huge amounts of glistening cold water pouring down from the mountains. Jason put his hands around his girlfriend’s waist, and kissed her on the nape of her sweaty neck. Jenny didn’t move, but smiled, enjoying her boyfriend’s attentions. She turned and pressed her lips into his, passionately, and for a moment, it was unclear whether they would even continue onward along the trail. But she broke away, laughing, and he ran after her, and together they started the climb up toward the meadows along the sides of the foothills of Grand Teton itself, the tallest of all the Tetons. They climbed steadily during the day, stopping only to have lunch along another, but lighter opal blue, mountain stream. They drank copiously from the creek, unworried about contamination, in all their bountiful and youthful infallibility. In the afternoon, they slowed down a bit, until late in the day, when tired, they came to their intended destination – a small shelter built along the slope, in a meadow above an aqua blue glacial lake.
To their disappointment, a man was camping there with his two sons. – He waved, and they waved back. He offered them dinner, but they politely declined. And so they hiked sideways along the slope of the lake, off the trail, and came to a flatter area along the slope, around the bend, and with a stunning view of the lake and of the forests of Wyoming, stretching out to the horizon. Lights in towns had just started coming on, and the moon was already low in the sky. A lone bright star, which they knew to be Venus, had befriended the moon, and hovered there close. They spread out their blankets, one to lie on and one to cover them with. But it was still hot, and a delicious cool zephyr had just come up from around the bend of the mountain slope – so they threw off the top blanket. And there, nature took its way, and they laughed and kissed, and cast off their clothes, and made wild, carefree love in the midst of the evening meadow. Out-of-breath, and sated, they held each other tightly into the nightfall. Jenny pointed out some of the constellations to Jason, and Jason talked about what other civilizations around other stars might be doing. They laughed and let their imaginations run wild – and then the talk turned to their dreams and aspirations. Jenny spoke about becoming a world class journalist, and Jason talked about becoming a renowned physics professor – and maybe even one with a Nobel prize in his back pocket – thanks to his collaboration with Peter Schönbaum. The world seemed expectant with possibilities and hope…
They made love once more – more relaxed this time – and eventually pulled the second blanket over them, falling into a deep and heavenly sleep. And for both of them, in that magnificent moment in a magnificent summer, all in the world seemed impossibly good and right…
Chapter Three – Inauguration
It was Independence Day weekend, and they had all put aside their barbecues and their families and their weekends away to gather together for the dénouement of two and a half years of incredibly hard scientific and engineering work. Peter Schönbaum looked around. The whole team but one was there in the lab: Jason stood by his side, his theoretical physics collaborator and the project coordinator, along with his girlfriend Jenny; there was also Nina Zherabova, their shy and reclusive Russian quantum mathematician mastermind, and Lucas Drimich, Serbian computer and techno guru. Abuluwayo Fandwaré, their master engineer, was in France, designing a second illuminator with one of their precious and way-too-expensive quantum kernels, preparing for their upcoming global physics conference in Paris – where they hoped to bedazzle the world with their revolutionary new discoveries. Peter wished Abu could have been here instead, but their schedules and the team’s plans had not worked out well. As they rarely ever do…
The stress. So much toil and effort, and it all comes down to this one defining moment. Succeed or fail – that is the way of life. Peter put his arm around his wife, Marisako, who had come in to lend him moral and emotional support. He tickled her playfully on the waist, just to let her know how much he appreciated her presence. She wiggled and smiled – and turned and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Go get ‘em, Tiger!” she whispered in his ear.
Dismayingly, Sheldon Franks, the chairman of the physics department had shown up, completely uninvited, to get his irrepressibly unctuous nose into what was going on. And finally, their way-too-earnest but extremely loyal physics freshman, their lab boy Arnie-from-Wyoming, whom they affectionately called Dip, was helping them with all the gruntwork.
Peter laughed contentedly to himself. A religious man he was, and he had learnt a long, long time ago not to bank on human endeavors (including most especially his own), but rather to align himself in the divine way of things and to abide and have faith in the promise of that. He wanted the project to succeed of course, but he could sense and appreciate the profound Godly striving of it all – regardless of outcome – that inimitable quest for that which is greater than the mundane daily activities and concerns of life – and that which is above and beyond and more beautiful and magnificent than that to which our ordinary and self-centered human desires lead. And indeed, in his life, a great many of the good and unselfish things he had ever prayed for had somehow come to pass, in ways he could never have remotely imagined, and as was his wont, he said a short and silent prayer as they began to hook up the machine. Whatever is best, whatever is truly best…”
He and Marisako had arrived only minutes before, and he tried to take everything in and get his mind organized. Nina was tucked away in the far corner, her eyes wide – just staring. He knew how horribly hard it was for her to be here, as she was almost pathologically introverted. Up in her lair – as he liked to call it – her penthouse office on the top floor of the math tower – surrounded by books and computers and a view she almost never looked at – she had managed to parse the incredibly difficult imaginary number Fourierenesque transforms in infinite-dimensional vector Hilbert space necessary to the successful design of the kernel. Peter’s own math skills were strong – but he had been amazed at the several leaps in understanding which seemed to come so easily to her – and indeed, he still did not (and perhaps would never) understand part of what she had managed to do. Lucas had come, surprisingly by himself, without his usual floosy one-week girl at his elbow. He will likely be a playboy all his life, thought Peter. Sad. He could see that Jason had already completed the connections to the kernel circuitry, and they were waiting for the rest of the illuminator to warm up and establish connections with the kernel. Of course, though, it wasn’t really warming up. It was inducing a larger than normal reservoir of uncollapsed and interfering quantum wave functions – the possibility waves that, every physics major knew, seek out all possible futures in the universe. Schrödinger’s cat – still half dead and half alive, down there in the kernel! And there was much more to the kernel – the heart of the device as it were – for the illuminator kernel could, without direct measurements (which would of course collapse the wave functions), make a determination, through an incredibly complex statistical and electronic quantum application of Bell’s theorem, of whether or not there were ‘unlikely’ disturbances in the distribution of all wave functions out to a distance of about ten miles (they had calculated) in every direction. And it could locate and record those disturbances. THIS was a physics first. To get an idea, indirect though it were, of the statistical nature of quantum possibility wave functions themselves, before their collapse into the reality we all see around us. We are making scientific and physics history. We are finding out much, much more about the true nature of what is behind reality – before it even becomes reality. What might we discover? Peter himself had wondered for a very, very long time – ever since he was a young buck physics student and learned about the strange and hard-to-believe quantum underpinnings of the universe…
He and Marisako had brought a fine bottle of champagne, a gift from a Spanish friend who had once visited the castles along the Loire Valley, and he helped his wife hand out plastic glasses and pour champagne into each one. Dip was only nineteen, but they gave him a glass anyway. Dip grinned, and Peter winked at him. Dip had enthusiastically wrangled his way into the project by annoying Peter in his university office every single day until he had finally given in.
Lights on the control panels were lit, and Jason and Lucas signaled him that the kernel was indeed operational and properly interfaced with the illuminator.
Peter stepped forward, pushing past the department chair, a man for whom he had almost no respect, and gently brought Marisako by the elbow with him. They stood in front of the massive illuminator apparatus, with the others standing in various positions around the fortified lab table on which it sat.
He raised his glass: “Well, ladies and gentlemen of this august group, this fellowship of the illuminator – we have come a long way since Jason and I put forward this new theory, and Nina figured out the solutions to the equations we proposed, and Lucas and Abu built this incredible machine. We are exploring new territory in mankind’s understanding of the universe – and perhaps extraordinarily deep new territory. If successful, we do not know where it will lead. I hope fervently, as I know you all do, that whatever we discover be used in the future for the good and for the right, and not for the bad and the evil and that which corrupts and destroys, and that we embark here on a new era in our ability to understand the magnificence and complexity of the universe into which we were born and out of which we developed. I would like to thank all of you, from the bottom of my heart, for your patience and endurance, for your forebearance, given all my own many personal shortcomings and failings. And I would like to especially thank my dear wife, Marisako, who has stood by me for decades through good times and ill, and who took the immense risk of living life joined with me. She is truly my better half.” And he looked around at each of them, and raised his glass even higher up. “To forge unafraid and unabashed into the unknown!” And they raised and clinked their glasses, and downed the champagne, and with the resulting incipient buzz creeping into in their minds, Peter signaled Dip, for the first time ever, to throw the illuminator switch and to turn the quantum device on…
Chapter Four – Asian Devil
Dip the lab boy flipped the switch and turned on the illuminator for the first time. Or is it the first time? Peter queried himself. What the hell happened that night I banged my head in the lab? Did I imagine that?
The illuminator began to hum. Lucas yelled for someone to turn off the lights in the lab – and Sheldon Franks actually got up from his chair and went over to do that. They all stood transfixed in the darkness in front of the giant blue cube on top of the machine. Their eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. A very very dim black/blue glow started to emanate from the cube. Am I seeing things? His wife took his hand. He squeezed hers. And then little evanescent sparkling pinpoints of bright blue light – tinged with other colors – started to dot the interior of the cube. The whole cube took on a muted deep blue glow. Here and there a little swirl of light – electronic tadpoles – swam in the cube. A huge cheer broke out in the lab. It’s working! Everyone in the lab started talking excitedly.
“Turn the lights back on!,” Peter shouted. “Let’s make sure we’re recording – and let’s adjust the bandwidth and up the power a bit…”
And the lights came on.
And then – shock! …. There was a frightened moment of disbelief – and a muted gasp went up from everyone in the room…
For standing in front of the machine, out in front of Peter and his wife, was a man holding a gun.
Peter yelled: “Get down!”
Everyone dropped. He pulled Marisako all the way to the floor and tried to shield her with his body, as they were but a few feet in front of the gunman. Peter could feel his heart thumping in his chest. He glanced up – his whole mind and body on high alert. The man was Asian – but not – he thought, Chinese. Was he Japanese? He had a toned, well-defined body, straight and muscular – he looked limber. Maybe around 24 or 25 years old. Peter could see from his stance that he had balance. He was obviously comfortable holding the gun. What was it? A Glock. It’s a Glock 39, just like mine… Damn! The stupid university is a gun-free zone. The PC types think they’re smart by making themselves defenseless… Damn it to hell! To keep his job, he had always been forced to leave his own gun in the glove box of his car.
The man aggressively waved the gun in a broad sweep down and toward them all, and away from the machine. He looked down at Peter, and from the floor, Peter locked eyes with him. Peter was startled to see that he had bright, almost unnaturally limpid sky blue eyes. The eyes made him seem – different – unusual…
“Nobody move,” said the man. “Move and I will take you down.” The man spoke in almost perfect English, but had a trace of a strange accent; it was difficult to place…
Straight ahead of Peter were the man’s feet. He thought: I could sweep his feet aside, and he would fall. He started to tense his right arm, but Marisako put her hand on it. He twitched it, so she would know to let go. She looked at him. “Wait,” her eyes said.
Without warning, the man spun around 180 degrees and shot a bullet into the heart of the illuminator.
Damn! thought Peter.
A few sparkles were still visible in the cube, even with the lights on. The man shot again into the machine – then turned around. “Where is the kernel?” he demanded.
“Go to hell, you lunatic!” It was Jenny, Jason’s girlfriend; she was standing up. No, Jenny, don’t! thought Peter. Don’t do the crazy thing right now…
The man turned around and fired a shot, which just missed Jenny’s arm. Jason jumped up in front of her to protect his girlfriend.
The man said to Jason, “Take her back down. Now!”
Jason said to Jenny, his voice ultra tense: “You need to get down. He will kill us.” And he started to pull her to the floor.
But she resisted, in her temper, pulling free from Jason’s grasp. “You have no right to do this!” she shouted. “What’s wrong with you?!”
The man walked closer to the two of them. Jason grabbed Jenny around her waist and put a great deal of force on her, bringing her to her knees.
The man pointed the gun at them, and Peter could feel Marisako tense.
But then – thankfully – the gunman hesitated, concentrating. A faraway look came over him. “Do not worry,” he said abruptly. “I will not harm the baby.”
Jenny’s face contorted in alarm; Jason thought: What baby?!?
Looking at Jenny, the gunman said: “But I will disable your boyfriend if necessary – with a bullet. If you care about him, you will get down onto the floor – now!!!” And he shouted the last word with such preternatural vehemence and force and such an imposition of will that Jenny fell to the floor, with Jason putting his arms around her and holding her down tight with his body. Peter could hear Jenny starting to cry…
The gunman turned again and shot more bullets into the illuminator. He ejected the ammo cartridge and replaced it with one from his belt, with almost blinding speed.
Peter moved his eyes to look at his wife again – his other half of over twenty-seven years. She looked into his eyes. Both knew he had to address the gunman. If he intended to kill them, they would have to act first – and they did not know what his intentions were. Marisako was not the kind to be afraid, and she also knew with no doubt that her husband would not easily let someone take their lives – and that he had the courage and will to act. She had seen Peter do things in her life – tough and dangerous things – and she knew what he was capable of if pushed. She looked at him, and silently mouthed the words – for the second time that day: “Go get ‘em, Tiger…”
Peter nodded, and then spoke out in a soft and gentle and comforting tone: “I will show you where the kernel is, if you let me up.”
The man looked down at him.
Peter had already moved into what he called acting mode. He would first try to convince the gunman that he was older and more frail than he actually was.
He slowly, with his hands in the air, pulled his legs up under himself, and haltingly stood up. He groaned a little, as if his legs hurt. He didn’t stand all the way, but stooped his back just a bit. His heart was racing, and he could feel the mind-clearing and body-tensing effects of the adrenaline pumping through his arteries. The hormone caused time to slow down, and while portraying himself to be a feeble old man, he was readying himself to pounce. I must choose my moment perfectly; I will only have one chance. A long, long time ago, in another life, he had once been trained – over and over, and over and over – on how to disarm an opponent, as well as how to cripple or kill a man. He had not forgotten anything – but he knew also that he was long out of practice.
“The kernel is directly underneath the center of the cube,” he said truthfully and softly – not wanting a massacre if the man found out he’d been lied to – and he pointed to a spot on the illuminator casing.
The man turned to fire a close-range shot right there, where Peter had pointed, and as he was about to shoot the bullet, Peter’s right arm shot forward and grabbed the man’s gun hand, swinging it toward the left part of the device. He dug his thumb into the front part of the membrane that runs from the index finger back to the thumb. He knew the man would be experiencing intense pain, and he expected the man to drop the gun, but – he did not. The man pushed his hand back to the same position as the spot Peter had indicated, so rapidly and with such a great amount of force as to catch Peter by surprise, and blasted another hole in the illuminator. The sparkles in the cube immediately disappeared.
Peter, who was now behind him, brought up his right foot and slammed it with all his force into the man’s knee joint from behind. As the man’s leg crumpled, and with all the strength he could muster, Peter banged the man’s hand into the side of the illuminator. The gun dropped. Both men reached downward to retrieve it. Peter, knowing it would drop, caught it in mid air. But as he was securing his grip on it, the man leapt like a frog up onto the counters and started to run across them. Peter brought the gun up to bear. His deep Christian thought process limited his action; I am no longer acting in self-defense; I cannot kill him. Reflexively, he brought the gun down just a trifle, and aiming through the two small open sights on top, shot into the man’s leg, just as he was across the second lab table. Blood spurted out of the man’s thigh and sprayed across the tables. The man yelped and leapt onto the floor and right through the open door to the stairwell. Peter was right behind him – also now up on the tables, with the gun. The man started to race up the stairwell, as Peter leapt across the tables. A few moments later, Peter hit the stairwell, and pumped right up the stairs taking four steps at a time. His foot slipped once on the bloody stairs, and he banged the edge of his left hand hard into the edge of a stair; he thought he heard bones crack and he winced.
At the top of the stairs, he saw the man running across the parking lot toward the woods. His heart was hammering, and he was already out-of-breath from the stairs, but he took off after the man with everything he had.
The man was lithe, and even with blood running down his leg, and with a bullet in it, and with a pronounced limp, the man ran gracefully and fast. Peter couldn’t believe it. He leveled the gun and shot again; he heard the man cry out, but did not know where or whether he’d hit him. Whatever happened, it didn’t slow him down much. An middle-aged man vs. a shot man – who will win this?
The man took the downslope, toward the river that ran along the back edge of the campus and into the woods. He was now far enough away that Peter knew he would not have a good shot – especially since his body was heaving from heavy breathing. The man was bounding over rocks and logs and branches, with Peter maybe fifty yards behind him. When the man came to the vertical embankment above the rushing water, he jumped in, and disappeared under it. The current was moving swiftly, and Peter immediately changed course before the water’s edge to try to run along with the flow. Damn it! Damn it! He could be holding himself under the water, he could be swimming across or staying on this side to hide himself under the bank. But he can’t stay down long; he must have been breathing very, very hard. Peter loped along the bank of the river – trying to catch his breath a little, and wiping sweat from his eyes – scanning up and down and up and down – but there was nothing. Had he died? Peter didn’t think so. Someone shouted behind him. It was Jason, who’d run after the two of them.
“I’ll go twice as far downstream as you Peter,” and Jason took off ahead of him – also scanning the waters.
And then they saw him. He burst up out of the water on the other side, just downstream a bit from where they were. Peter fired another couple of shots – at his legs – but apparently missed. The man loped into the forest on the other side, and toward the steep incline rising up from the edge of the university property.
Peter ordered Jason: “Go back and make sure everyone’s safe. Call the police immediately. Tell them to bring the hounds…”
And with that, Peter dove into the waters. He broke into a trudgeon crawl, a free style stroke with a scissors kick – the very fastest way he knew how to swim. But holding the gun impaired his speed, since he could not pull at the water with one hand – and his other hand hurt like hell. He was across the water in a minute or two, and he came out very close to where the man had. There were splashes of fresh blood along the side of the river. He followed them. His anger and his outrage powered him. I’ve got you now, you motherfucker… I will get you. You are going to bleed out like a deer. The blood trail moved in curious directions, zigzagging first to the right and then to the left. What is he trying to do? It then curved toward the steep slope that went up toward the summit of the little mountain that bordered the university. He started the climb, looking both forward, and downward at the blood trail.
The brush became somewhat thicker, and the man had apparently crawled through it, judging from the crushed greenery. He did the same – but constantly looking ahead – always wary of an ambush. In one place, there was a little pool of blood. He thought: Good, you are losing force…
He came out of the brush, and looked up the steep slope, through the trees. To his amazement, he caught a glimpse of the man – up to his right along the incline. Peter still held the gun. He tried to fire another shot – but there were no more bullets in the cartridge. He threw the gun back behind him, and purposefully hyperventilating, started the steeper climb. He was pouring out sweat, and his heart and lungs were laboring.
He could see the man also climbing now, but he was slowing. It’s about time; I will get you. The man disappeared behind a giant clump of mountain laurel – forest rhododendrons.
A minute later, Peter was at the clump – but he could not see the man. The blood trail went into the side of the giant clump of laurel. So – it comes to this. He eyed his possibilities. Going around would be better, he thought – for he would know whether the man was in the clump or not. He was not going to follow him in. He started circling the clump, and an arm shot out from beneath it, pulling his legs out from under him.
Peter crashed to the ground, and the man was on top of him in a flash – like a crazed monkey – and slammed his fist into Peter’s face. Peter’s head hit the ground, and he felt the blow rattle his head. He thrust his right hand into the man’s neck, and then pushed further with all his might. It IS self-defense now, you bastard… No holds barred.
The man’s head snapped back, and Peter mashed his thumb into the man’s trachea. The man’s head flipped backward in pain. But before Peter could crush his windpipe, the man brought his knee up into Peter’s crotch – like a sledgehammer. Peter involuntarily let go, as his body curled sideways in an atomic explosion of intense, unremitting pain. He could see stars around his head – a sign, he knew – that he was about to lose consciousness. He groaned. The man put his face down near Peter’s face. Just before Peter blacked out, he thought he heard the man rasp: “You are a decent man, Peter Schönbaum – but you do not know what you are doing.” And the man’s face pulled away, and he thought he could hear him trudging off into the forest.
And then Peter Schönbaum, for the second time in a month, but this time with his body wracked in almost unbearable agony, fell into unconsciousness.
Chapter Five – The African Connection
Abuluwayo Fandwaré – or Abu – as everyone insisted on calling him – had stopped for a moment in the dusk, and stared down at the waters of the River Seine, from above on a stone bridge that connected downtown Paris to the Quartier Saint-Germain-des-Prés. A tourist boat, full of Americans and Japanese (and now Chinese, he corrected himself), with all their cameras and cell phones, and binoculars and Ipads and Ifads, slid noisily beneath him. To his left, half way to the horizon, he could see the magnificent spires of Notre Dame rise up from the otherwise height-regulated appartements and ateliers of one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
He looked down at his phone, and read the cryptic message from Marisako once more:
Abu – We have been attacked by a foreign agent. The primary illuminator was working! – but was destroyed by the agent. Peter is injured in the hospital – but will be OK. You must take your kernel and flee to a secret and safe destination at once. Do not hesitate. Tell no one. Contact us when you can. Go! Much love, Marisako
Alarmed, surprised and confused – he had messaged back for clarifications, but Marisako had not responded. He had called other members of the team, but apparently, all their phones were off. A security precaution no doubt…
He’d been laughing and hitting it off in a bar with a Swedish woman he’d recently met, but had had to excuse himself and break the date short when the message came through. She was a beauty, and quite properly upset at his abrupt leaving, and the thought of abandoning his evening plans and angering his date had made him especially grumpy. But as he had half-jogged, half-run back to his apartment, he’d become more and more distressed. Someone is trying to destroy the illuminator project. It’s no secret that I’m here with one of the kernels.
Once back at his apartment, he’d packed a light bag, with one change of clothes, his toothbrush, his razor, and all his microelectronics. He’d removed the kernel from its case, carefully – knowing its worth – and put it into a backpack he used for traveling. He’d left the apartment in a rush, but in a bout of habit, had checked his mailbox in the main hallway. He ‘d been surprised when there was no mail. That was extremely unusual. Had someone else gotten it? He’d decided right at that moment to really hustle.
He’d gone out through the back door, across the street, and straight through the next building, before he exited one street over. He’d immediately taken a taxi into another quartier of the city, and had carefully watched to make sure he was not being followed. Once let off – he’d turned and walked in the general direction of the Gare du Nord – Paris’ most famous train station. He had already ruled out the airports – because their computers were easy to hack and monitor by outside agencies, he knew – and everyone’s name was put into their computer systems. He’d suspected the train registries could be easily hacked as well. Which meant, he decided, that he would have to take out some cash at an ATM – not near the train station – and use it to buy his train ticket – anonymously. He’d known where he would go. He’d stopped in an internet bar to use the web, rather than his phone, which he had also now turned off, and checked on train tickets to Marseilles. There would not be a train until 2am in the morning – which meant now that had five hours to kill. He would not wait at the train station – just in case…
And so now he was standing – with his precious backpack and his little bag – on a bridge overlooking the River Seine. He wondered who was behind the attack in Colorado. Crazed scientific competitors – a corporation that feels threatened – or something national and big – like the Chinese… or the Russians…? He had to think. Who the hell would be interested in destroying the illuminator? He noticed a man in a dark shirt hovering near the embankment; the man looked up at him.
It is time to go; to disappear.
Chapter Six – The Women
Jenny sat in a chair, and Marisako hovered over Peter, who was in a hospitable bed, still knocked out, following a double operation for broken bones in his wrist and his face. Marisako surveyed the damage to her husband. She asked Jenny to turn away, and then lifted the bed sheet to replace the salve-soaked bandages to her husband’s bruised and swollen private area. She was furious beyond belief. But she was intensely analytical, and she knew it was extremely significant that the terrorist – as she called him – had not killed anyone. He could have killed us all. But he did not. And Peter Schönbaum, she knew very, very well, was not a man to be trifled with – yet she also sensed that the gunman could probably have easily murdered her husband. A shiver went down her spine. The terrorist was no ordinary man. Who hired him? Where did he come from? How did he even know about the illuminator project?
She looked over at Jenny, who sat slumped in her chair.
“Thank you for coming in, Jenny,” she said. “You’re very sweet.”
Jenny nodded. “I’m glad Peter’s doing better,” she said. “Jason’s helping the police scour the lab for clues, and he’s trying to see if the illuminator can be salvaged. Thank God there’s an extra…”
Marisako nodded. Two extra, actually… She looked at Jenny, who looked extremely forlorn. “You’re pregnant,” Marisako said softly.
Jenny looked up in alarm. “How do you know? I can’t be showing.”
Marisako smiled. “Most all women can tell. There’s something that changes – with your complexion and your color and your face. There’s a ‘glow.’ Some men can tell as well – but not so many at this stage… It seems like that foreign devil knew.”
Jenny cried out: “I don’t know how it happened, Marisako! I’ve been on the pill for ages!”
Marisako frowned. “The pill is an unnatural dose of extremely potent artificial hormones – meant to override and hijack the normal functioning of your reproductive system. It can do bad things to your body – and it does not always work.”
Jenny stood up and walked over to Marisako. She gently took Marisako’s hand. “I know this is particularly painful for you, Marisako, with all your history – but I might as well tell you: I’m not having this baby.”
Marisako’s face fell with sadness. “Why not?” she asked softly.
Jenny hesitated – for several moments – struggling for composure. “Jason does not want kids; he never did.”
“But you love each other, right – and want to spend your lives together?” asked Marisako.
“We do – but he does not want children. He’s made that clear to me ever since we started – you know…”
“But the child is the fruit of your love,” said Marisako – “a gift.”
Jenny’s eyes teared. “If I have the child, I will lose Jason,” she whispered.
Marisako put her arm around Jenny, and did not say anything more. Lose the boyfriend and the father or lose your child. How cruel.
Jenny tried to change the subject: “Did they catch the agent?”
Marisako nodded her head. “Yes. They chased him with hounds until he dropped. He had a ten mile head start. He went twenty-five miles before he fell. He is in the hospital by the university – then he’ll be tried.”
Jenny clenched her mouth. “I’m going to meet him,” she said with resolve. “I want to be journalist one day, and this is the biggest story I’ve ever been involved with. – It’s already in all the newspapers. I’m going to see if I can get an exclusive with the Denver Post. I think I can get it. I was there…”
Marisako looked discomfited. “He is a very dangerous and very strong man. And you must be extremely careful to not reveal to him anything at all about the other kernels. Nothing at all…”
Jenny nodded, sensing that Marisako did not have complete confidence in her. She wanted to earn Marisako’s trust – and indeed – Marisako was the sort of woman Jenny hoped one day to become: feminine, ladylike, a good and loyal wife to Peter – yet strong and smart and able in her own womanly way.
They heard a groan. Peter was waking up… He opened his eyes, and saw the two women standing there over him. There were bandages on the right side of his face, and down his arm and over his wrist. He felt pain in his face, in his wrist and in his groin.
His mind was still clouded from the anesthesia, and his mouth was parched. “Did they catch him?” he croaked.
Marisako nodded in the affirmative. “How are you doing?”
“We need to find out who he works for.”
“We’re going to,” said Jenny.
Peter tried to swallow, but there was no saliva in his mouth. “In the meantime,” he whispered hoarsely, “we need to stay safe. We need to be very careful. I don’t think we can stay here.”
Marisako nodded again. “The cabin in Canada?” she asked.
Peter tried to smile. “Exactly. It’s far and it’s isolated – and almost no one knows it exists.”
And then suddenly Peter’s eyes rolled up and he nodded back off into artificial anesthesia dreamland.
Marisako caressed her husband’s forehead. “Let’s get ‘em, Tiger…”
Chapter Seven – The Asian Agent
The Asian agent was bent over, wracked in pain. He’d taken two shots to his leg, and the operation had involved an artificial tendon graft. He could barely move the leg, and when he did, the discomfort was overwhelming; they had not provided him any painkillers. He was in a jail cell now, behind the police building next to the university. There was a sink and a toilet and a bed – and a tiny barred window out to the back of the building. It was morning; he had slept through the night.
Still, he was content. He had done what was asked of him. He had set into motion things which needed to be set into motion. Of course – he did not fully understand what all of those things were. But he was smart enough – and he was very smart – to understand the general gist of why such needed to be so. He regretted that he had harmed Peter Schönbaum. He had not suspected the man’s skills or incredible endurance and tenacity.
The Asian turned away from the little window and sat down on his bed. He winced as he moved and straightened out his leg. He knew he had to exercise it. He steeled himself mentally for the second part of his objective. He could already hear Jenny speaking to the policeman at the desk around the corner in the hallway. He tried to clear his mind, to remember carefully what it was he had to do. Then – he would be free – free to escape this cell and to return to his former – and completely different – way of life…
He watched as she and two policemen walked down the hall. One drew his gun, and told him to stay where he was. The door was unlocked, and Jenny allowed to step in with a folding chair. The first policeman locked the door behind her, keeping his gun out, and both stood just outside the cell. It was against police policy to allow a citizen to sit with a dangerous criminal – but both the Denver Post and this woman had insisted upon it. She had willingly signed papers absolving the police of any responsibility. She wanted to get the story, and that meant getting up close and personal with this cretin.
Jenny unfolded the chair and sat down.
“You know who I am?”
The Asian man nodded. “I remember you.”
“I’m just going to take a few minutes of your time. If you cooperate, such will be noted on your pre-trial record.”
The Asian man’s lips turned upward into a craggly smile; she noted that he had not had braces.
He is so insolent! Jenny forged ahead. She wanted desperately to break new news – and – she also personally wanted to know if Jason and the team were still in danger. She saw the interview as a win/win.
“Why did you destroy the illuminator?” she queried.
The man looked up and straight at her. She was discomfited once again by his oddly bright blue eyes.
“You are fiddling with things and with knowledge you were not meant to have – and which could have horrific consequences. You assume that more knowledge is automatically better; that is an unwise assumption.”
Jenny was taken aback; she certainly had not expected that. She wanted to bring the man out… “What types of ‘horrific consequences’?” she asked.
The man reflected for a moment. “I do not believe you are equipped to understand.”
“Try me!” she shot back.
“You would be giving impetus to the forces of evil in this world.”
“Hah!” she exclaimed. “You do not think it is evil to shoot people, destroy their work, and then to beat up a decent and good man?!?”
The man laughed outright, which infuriated her even more. “I did not try to shoot anyone, and I didn’t. Rather, I was shot. Twice.”
Jenny felt her blood boil. “You assaulted a man,” she hissed.
“I was acting in self-defense. He was trying to kill me.”
Jenny took a breath, reminding herself that a professional journalist should try not to become emotionally overtaken.
“Please explain what evil it is you fear from the illuminator.”
The man looked up again. Jenny thought: The eyes are not only blue; they are piercing.
He spoke: “All throughout history, man tries to alter his world through science and invention. Sometimes those alterations result in great good; sometimes they result in great evil. Sometimes those alterations are done even in the name of great evil – but more often than not, they are done in the giant hubris that good and evil do not exist, and that acquisition of knowledge – of any sort – must be good in and of itself. That is an obvious lie.”
Jenny wasn’t sure what to make of his little speech. She wondered if he were part of a cult. “Are you against science?” asked Jenny. “Is that what this is about?”
“No,” said the man. “I am against evil.”
“As you define it…”
The man laughed again. “Are there not things you believe evil?”
“Of course,” answered Jenny.
“And are you not opposed to them?”
“Of course I am,” she replied.
“Then we are the same in that regard, are we not?” he asked.
Jenny could see the trap she had fallen into. “Then what evil is it that you fear from the illuminator?”
The man lowered his voice, and looked straight into her eyes: “It is a soul-wrecker…”
For a long moment, Jenny did not know what to say. She felt chilled; his response unnerved her.
“It’s just a physics device,” she protested.
“Do you believe that you have a soul?”
Again, Jenny did not know what to say. She muttered: “I’m not religious, but I believe in spirituality.”
The man laughed, angering her. “Spirituality arising from what?”
She was stumped. She mumbled: “I have spiritual feelings.”
“So your spirituality is basically your feelings.”
“No!” she cried out vehemently, without thinking. “It’s not just my feelings. I think there is more, deeper down; things we don’t understand.”
The man smiled and winced, all at the same time. “You are honest, Jenny Barkley! And your son is growing well. Take care of him. Decide what his name is. That’s all I have to say.”
Jenny’s anger rose up again. How would he know if I have a son?!? “ You are a sick, sick man. I can’t believe what you did yesterday. You’re – wacko…”
The man shrugged and lay down on his bed.
Jenny asked for the guards to let her out, which they did.
She strutted out of the police station – her emotions in turmoil – and then realized she had not asked the most important question of all. She strode back in – through the front office and past the two policemen. She approached the locked cell, and put her hands on the bars. “Who do you work for? Tell the truth!”
The man looked up from the bed, where he continued to sit. He deep sky blue eyes drilled into her. Again, she felt fear.
“You do not have the requisite understanding or knowledge to understand the answer.”
“Try me!” she shouted.
“You keep proving my point,” he said. “Ask yourself first what is truly most important and vital in this world.”
Jenny did not know what to say. She turned around and trounced out of the police station into the sunny morning. She was determined to be one of the world’s first class investigative journalists – and now – she had a real story to investigate. Two things she knew: this was not over – and she would find the truth.
Chapter Eight – Changed Plans
Peter Schönbaum, a man known by many for his preternatural good cheer and joy in life, was in a foul, dark, sour, perturbed mood – in part from dealing with the women in his life, and in part from a deep sense of foreboding which had enveloped him. He put his feet up on his messy university desk, and sank into a troubled reverie…
He had decided, as he had discussed with Marisako in the hospital recovery room, that he would reconstitute his team, in secret, at their little lake cabin at the edge of the forest on the shore of Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan. There they would finish building their portable illuminator – the ‘hand-carry,’ as the team called it – with the second of their precious three kernels – and there they would finally and fully test it. It was hardly the perfect solution, for while the cabin was electrified and heated, it contained neither lab equipment nor machine shop. So they would have to bring a great deal with them. Also unfortunately, others knew of the cabin. But only a few, he told himself. And no one knows precisely where it is. He had purposefully kept its location a secret from most all over the years – as it was his one little node of peace and reflection and deep thought in a complex and difficult and noisy world.
A gift from his grandfather – to a deeply troubled teenage boy – the cabin had played a predominant role in saving his life – and was a profound part of who he was. It was there, so many years ago, that he had finally come to grips with life – after teen years filled with various sorts of debauchery and dissipation and stupidity and selfishness – along with a deep, misplaced anger at the entire world. In one bout of drunken vituperation and rebellion at age seventeen, at his grandparents’ fortieth wedding anniversary, he had unleashed an angry, inebriated, profane rant at all the relatives and friends, daring them to live ‘real’ lives, instead of the ‘fake’ lives he thought he saw all around. His father had been absent that evening – traveling – as he so often had to do to support his family… But his grandfather, enraged and fed up, had responded by punching him in the jaw, knocking him down, and dragging him outside. He’d been thrown into the car. His grandfather had peeled out, doing sixty through their neighborhood, and that whole evening, on into the night, at high speeds, his grandfather had driven him the four hundred miles from Colorado up to the cabin in Saskatchewan. In all his little insignificant life, Peter had never seen his grandfather so intense, so angry… More frightening than anything else, the normally gregarious old man had not said one word for the entire trip, and completely ignored Peter’s drunken spew of irreverent, self-pitying and ugly verbiage. They’d arrived just before dawn, and his grandfather had dragged him out of the car – stripped off his coat and shoes, and literally carried him over his shoulder across the landing and thrown him right into the frigid lake. Shocked to his core – Peter had struggled, straggled, shivering and mad as hell – like a rabid, crazed dog – out of the lake, ready to fight his Grandpa. He’d thrown a punch which had broken his grandfather’s nose. But his Grandpa had not backed down. He caught him by his belt, punched him in the gut, and picked him up and threw him right back into the lake. After he emerged the second time, his grandfather had drug his mumbling carcass into the cabin, and dropped him, like a wet fish on the cabin floor. As he left, his grandfather told his grandson:
“This is your cabin now. My gift to you. When you decide to join the civilized world and do something positive with your life, you the hell let us know… Until then, you are completely on your own.” And his grandfather had turned, gotten back into the car, bleeding from his crooked nose, and and had driven all the way back down to Colorado.
Peter had stayed there and sulked for a full three months – throwing stones into the lake, swimming out hundreds of yards and back again – ranging miles through the forest – practicing karate, and kicking and breaking the boards on the side of the cabin (stupidly, as it was now his cabin), and going out to shoot rabbits and squirrels… At one particularly low point, mired in self-pity, he’d even considered committing suicide – just to goddam show everyone… But in the end – he’d not been sure they would even care…
And it was there he had, out of some morbid curiosity, late one evening, sitting by himself by the fireplace, and still looking for things to be angry at, taken a look at his grandfather’s old, worn, well-thumbed Bible, and read the Book of Matthew, and actually become fascinated… And it was there that he hitchhiked twenty miles into town to eventually get a haircut and a shave. And it was there – as the cabin worked its way on him – that he had spent hours and hours intricately whittling a walking stick out of a stripling of perfect maple, which upon returning had presented silently to his grandfather. And it was there in later years, at his cabin, his one magnificent possession in life, a gift better than anything else he could have ever imagined in the world – he made the radical decision to go overseas and do humanitarian stuff – to try to do something just basically useful and good with at least part of his life – and it was to that cabin he had brought Marisako so long ago where, on the water’s edge, with a cool polar breeze blowing, and the clear northern sun setting into the dimpling waters of the sapphire blue lake, he had gotten down on bended knee and asked her to be his wife. And he knew it was there – that he had so long ago finally made the decision to become a real man and not, as he had been theretofore, a complete poseur… God I miss my grandfather. The old man had not only given him a cabin, and saved his life – but had actually given him life. If heaven was real, and he believed for a great many profound and even unusual reasons that it was – and if he were to make it in the end through the promise of the narrow gate – he so very much looked forward to one day embracing that good man, telling him about his life, and thanking him for all that he had done…
Peter snapped out of his daydream, and his thoughts turned to what lay ahead. His took his feet off his desk, hunched over, and tried to concentrate, as there were still problems – a lot of them… For starters, the cabin was just a large simple room, with a fireplace and an outhouse and an indoor bucket shower. And indeed, that had not gone down well with everyone at all…
Upon hearing of it, Lucas had insisted on bringing his latest girlfriend. Peter had refused.
“It’s a one room cabin, Drimich! – We’ll all be sleeping in the same room,” he’d exclaimed. “There’s no making out with your girl up there. And beyond that, we have to maintain secrecy. Someone is trying to obliterate our research – and quite possibly even us. We cannot allow outsiders to be part of this. And besides Lucas, it would be dishonorable to expose your girlfriend to this danger. Don’t you think?”
Drimich had scowled – clearly unenthusiastic about leaving urban Colorado, and his fast, trendy, nightclub life, and spending so much time – without his various women – and without modern amenities – with a bunch of dudes in the upper wildwoods of Canada. Jason, thankfully, in contrast, had been on board from the get go – eager, like he – to do whatever was necessary to test and refine the illuminator, to get back on track, and to at last present it to the international physics conference in Paris – an event now only two short months away. Physics and science were Jason’s passion – and he could, Peter knew, like himself, taste the possibilities of immense discovery and reward. Jason also had the ambitious itch of a young man to prove himself and to succeed. But then Jenny – Jenny had become enflamed and upset when she learned from Jason of the plan, and she had come to confront Peter about it.
“You cannot keep me from being part of this!” she’d cried out. “I’m helping you to find the truth; I’m the one who’s started to learn about the Asian agent. I’m Jason’s partner, and I’m carrying his baby. We have to be together!”
Peter had been completely taken aback to discover that Jenny was pregnant (Did Marisako know about this?) – and did not want to create tension. Nevertheless, he had carefully explained to her that yes – he appreciated Jenny’s helping to find the truth about the foreign agent – and that yes – he cared about her and Jason and the baby. But on the vast other side of the equation – this was only for two months, and the purpose of the team at the cabin was to do build the new illuminator, do the research as quickly and as efficiently as possible. He did not want Jason wrapped up in emotional turmoil there – and most importantly – he did not want to endanger Jenny’s life (or the baby’s life) when there was no good reason to. He had also told her truthfully – given the close quarters and so forth, that it would be a lot easier to just have men only working at the cabin. That had predictably inflamed Jenny even more – given her pronounced and oft-stated feminist leanings, and her omnipresent belief that men were always somehow plotting to advantage themselves at women’s expense… Not true, thought Peter, we just want to be left alone to do our work…
But for Peter – there was a lot more in Jenny’s regard which left a great deal of distaste in his mouth – but which Peter had managed, despite himself, to keep from bringing up. He was rippin’ angry about Jenny’s new stories in the Denver Post. He did not want her revealing anything more to the public. Stories had gone out all over the nation about the attack at the university – and wild speculations about his research were now publicized everywhere. Worst of all – by far, far, by far – Jenny had released the contents of her interview with that Asian madman – in which the blue-eyed destruction machine had described his device as a ‘soul-wrecker.’ That had only served to intrigue and inflame millions across the nation – and apparently all sorts of people and groups from around the world as well. Peter had been completely inundated with requests for information, for interviews, for more information. Bottom line – he knew he had to get to the cabin soon, or his life would be entirely taken over precisely by those he least wanted it to be taken over by. So for all those reasons, he had told Jenny – no! He basically did not want her there. She is consumed with becoming a famous journalist. Not at our expense, nor at the imperiling of our lives… We’re on a mission. No one is going to derail it.
Finally – and worst of all – he had had a terrible, profound disagreement with Marisako – the true love of his life. Marisako had naturally and fluidly taken over the security aspects of their operation after the attack. With that – Peter had no quarrel whatsoever. Decades ago, in another life, far away in other lands, they had met under intense duress. They had both been working for a consortium of western intelligence agencies – he in physics, she in communications – trying to defeat something terrible and evil that had been designed to devastate millions. – And along with many, many others, they had been victorious. But lives had been lost, and great sacrifices made… In the midst of all that danger, Peter had encountered Marisako in action, and had fallen deeply and immediately in love with her. She’d shown tremendous grace under pressure and stress, demonstrated a superb and quick intelligence, and had been incredibly brave where many others had not. He had, quite honestly, never met another woman like her. The attraction had been visceral, intellectual, spiritual, emotional and erotic, and Peter had courted her with everything he had…
So Peter had no problem with Marisako taking over the security part of this hastily conceived change of plan. He trusted his wife completely and implicitly. Yet unsurprisingly – she also – had wanted to come up to the cabin. Peter had gently explained to her that he could not ban the other women from the cabin, if he were to bring his own wife. Marisako had argued that it was different; they were older. She would help take care of ‘the boys.’ Indeed, Peter knew, Marisako’s mothering instincts were incredibly strong. In her mind, she would keep them safe, and feed them, and take care of their colds and sniffles, and tuck them all into bed, and so on… And part of that was very appealing to Peter. But the primary reason he had refused – and had overruled Marisako (something he had only done a very few times in their whole married life) – was that he knew their lives would be in potential danger there, and he would not, could not, countenance endangering Marisako’s life. It was, as Peter saw things, and as most honorable men all over the world do, his responsibility to protect and defend his wife, and to keep her from harm. Finally, quietly, Peter had reminded her that they both still had a prime mission in life – a mission which lay ahead of them possibly for all the rest of their lives – which was to find and save their son. And he wanted Marisako alive and well into the future to accomplish that mission. So with that, Peter had worn Marisako down, but had left both of them sad and forlorn. Marisako knew that she could not change his mind; Peter knew that he could not assuage Marisako’s feelings. The truth was: they would miss each other terribly in the days and months ahead.
The remaining difficulty had been Dip, the lab boy. Dip had insisted on going to help the team; Peter had refused. Dip was not an absolutely essential part of the team – as helpful and as enthusiastic as he was. And he was only nineteen years old. Peter would not endanger this young man’s life. He had considered that settled, until Dip’s father – a big ranch owner from southern Wyoming – had taken him to task over the phone…
“So you’re sayin’,” Dip’s father had drawled, “that muh boy, who’s served your team, and been a vital part of it, and who’s helped you every damn day in and out with all the crappy shit work on the project – and who’s had the thrill of his life being part of this amazing discovery – is just going to be cast aside because of a little danger? Is that what you’re sayin’?”
Peter had forcefully and unabashedly replied in the affirmative – noting that it was not ‘a little’ danger – but a lot. “I’m not gonna put Dip’s life in jeopardy.”
The man had not been assuaged.
“Let me tell you somethin’, Schönbaum… Out here in the West, a man becomes a man by facing danger and dealing with it. No man wants his boy to be weak. Dip’s been loyal to you. He’s of age. We’ve talked about this at length. He wants to be part of the team, and he’s ready to accept the danger. Hell – I was in Vietnam takin’ down the Vietcong commies in the jungle at his age. You owe him, man. He’s taking this on because he has chosen to. Exactly like you are. Now – what do you say?”
And Peter – actually impressed as hell with both this man and his son – had relented. And in one of those rare moments in his life, Peter had allowed another man to dominate. “Yessir,” was all he could manage to say in the end. Dip would be on the team in Saskatchewan after all. Both men understood that Dip was making one of his first major decisions as a man. That drew respect from them both.
And so now he, Jason, Lucas and Dip were readying themselves for a two day car and truck convoy to their secret location on a lake in Saskatchewan. Abu – they had still not heard from, and they all hoped he was safe with the remaining kernel.
But the last thing – the very last and deepest thing – the pièce de résistance – which had dragged Peter down into his uncharacteristic funk was what the foreign devil had said to Jenny about the illuminator: “It is a soul-wrecker…”
Peter understood, as the physicist he was, that human beings were far more than complex algorithmic bio-machines… They had capabilities that went infinitely far beyond what even the most advanced algorithmic computers could do, or would ever be able to do. Humans had consciousness, and truth discernment abilities and free will – all of which cannot be replicated by a computer program. Those abilities, he suspected, as did many others in the world, lay in a connection the human mind has with the quantum realm. And that connection had something to do with humans’ souls. Peter believed deep down – for both scientific and religious reasons – that humans have souls – and that they are not just random accidental biomachines brought about by random mutations in a universe that popped into existence randomly – with no intrinsic purpose and no intrinsic meaning and no connection with the good, the beautiful and the true. And there, in the quantum possibility realm, lay many interesting theses – about evolution, about the nature of good and evil, about God, and about what humans actually are… And that Asian destruction machine – the one who had so dishonorably nailed him in the crotch – had unnervingly put his finger on something that had nagged at Peter for a very, very, very long time. He pondered: What if the Asian devil were somehow right?
Chapter Nine – Jason and Jenny
They had agreed to meet in the physics building, just prior to the departure of the caravan for Saskatchewan. They had embraced, and Jason had smiled, and told her how much he would miss her. And she had smiled, and taken his hand, and put it on her abdomen, upon which he had pulled his hand rapidly back…
And things had gone straight downhill from there. Their baby had come between them.
Jason steeled himself, as Jenny’s face crumpled. “Jenny, I’m sorry – but you’ve always known… I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I don’t want to have children. It’s not how I want to spend my life.”
Jenny bravely took her boyfriend on… “I was OK with not having a child, Jason – but the baby’s here. Now that it is, I’m not sure I want to get rid of it.”
Jason became exercised. “But I don’t get it – you’ve always been progressive – pro-abortion. Hell – you’ve even gone to abortion rallies…”
Jenny nodded her head. “You don’t understand. I’m pro-choice – I think the mother has the right to choose.”
“To hell with that!” Jason had responded angrily. “That’s bunk. The baby is as much mine as it is yours. Half of it comes from me, remember? It’s as much my baby and my choice as it is yours! – We had told ourselves – no babies!”
Jenny’s started to sob, as deep maternal feelings rose up in her; she took Jason’s limp hand. “I’m sorry, Jason. It’s not like I did this on purpose. I was on the pill. You could have used protection – but you didn’t!”
Jason’s face reddened in anger. “Because we agreed on that, Jenny! I offered, and you told me I didn’t have to! You said you had it all taken care of!!”
“So – you got what you wanted, right?! All the pleasure that’s so fucking important to guys, and none of the worry or responsibility!”
“No!” he yelled. “I offered, and you said you would take care of it.”
“But you didn’t really want to, right?”
“You bet!” he said. “Of course I didn’t want to. No man does.”
“So again – it all comes down to the man gets what he wants, and the woman doesn’t.”
“Yikes!” Jason yelled. “This is what you said you wanted! You said you wanted me to enjoy being a man with you. I did! That’s normal; that’s natural. You always enjoyed it too, as I recall!”
Jenny turned her back to Jason, trying to catch her composure. A few moments passed, and she turned back. “OK – whatever – the baby’s here, Jason… I’m not sure I want to kill it. What’s so bad about having a child? Did you ever ask me what I wanted?”
“No – don’t do that to me, Jenny! I told you on our third date that I didn’t want children – ever – and you said that was fine. – – I don’t want little snots that I have to clean up after, and I don’t want rebellious teenagers to fight with – and I sure as hell don’t want to spend a lifetime worrying about them… I want to pursue my passions, which are physics and you. And I also want you to have the career you’ve always dreamed of. – For God’s sake – look at Peter and Marisako! Look at the tragedy in their lives! – – I’m not gonna go through that. I want you to schedule the abortion. I’ll go with you. I know it’s not easy. But this baby never happened! I refuse!”
Jenny was shocked and disheartened at Peter’s absolute vehemence. She could barely get out the words: “And I want you to take a month to think about whether you want to rip your son apart, and steal his life from this world…”
“My son! Oh my God! – – You are listening to that Asian jackal! We are not ripping away a son! We’re just preventing what we were trying to prevent to begin with!”
Jenny turned to leave. “No – that is not true, Jason. This is our son inside me. We rip him out, and rip him apart, and we remove his whole life from this world. We are his mother and father. He deserves our love, and he deserves his life – just like you deserved yours.” And with tears running down her cheeks, Jenny turned and left.
Jason walked out sullenly to the waiting convoy, his face conveying to the others that something really, really bad had done down…
Dip was driving a Ford F-100 pickup his dad had leant him, with a huge U-haul trailer that contained half their lab. Jason chose to ride with Dip – leaving Lucas to ride with Peter, in the Schönbaum’s Porsche.
Peter was sad and reflective. Jason was grim from his clash with Jenny. She has to get rid of that child… Lucas was sulking. Of the four, only Dip showed any cheer. He came over and knocked on Peter’s car window… Peter lowered it.
“Buck up, Mr. Schönbaum. We’re going to change everything.”
Peter managed a smile, despite himself, honestly happy that Dip was joining them. Or everything is going to change us…
Chapter Ten – Others Take Notice
The news story had migrated and metastasized around the world – fueled by Jenny’s insistence on printing interviews and speculations from scientists, people who knew Peter Schönbaum – from Nobel Prize winners – from the breaking story of the hard-to-believe escape of the Asian agent from jail – from her interview with him – and from her breathless account of Peter’s and her own boyfriend’s decision to continue their physics work at a top secret location, and from an interview with Nina, in which she explained to the world that there really was a mathematical way to get at quantum wave functions…
Jenny had sworn to Peter to keep the cabin location secret – and had now turned her attention to the FBI’s tracking down the Asian agent. Many now breathlessly awaited the next installment in what had come to be known as the illuminator chronicles…
And in places both near and faraway – others took notice…
Chapter Eleven – Abu
Abu had gotten on the train to Marseilles at 2am in the morning in Paris with no problem. He did not think anyone was following him, and he had bought the tickets anonymously with his wad of Euro cash. He dozed off for an hour or so, and dreamt of monsters coming to destroy the illuminator… He awoke with a start, and, and as the French TGV – le train à grande vitesse – sliced silently like an arrow through the dark night, he started to plan what he would have to do. There was no way he would not build an illuminator with the kernel he carried, and there was no way he would let down the Schönbaum team, and there was no way that the team would not present its revolutionary theory and device to the International Physics Forum in Paris in September, just two months away. Whoever is trying to wreck our research does not know us…
Abu had a great deal of faith in Peter Schönbaum; no man had had more of an impact on his life. Indeed, Abu had been drawn to him from the very first day they met. He smiled to himself when he thought of it… The brash, skinny, bearded, white but sun-tanned and -reddened Schönbaum, and the dirt poor village boy from Nanergou, northern Togo, West Africa. Schönbaum, then a young man, a youth himself really, had shockingly appeared one Sunday afternoon on the side of the dusty soccer field of Abu’s village, and asked if he could play… Abu’s friends and cousins had never met a white man before, and they talked excitedly among themselves in their patois of Moba-slang.
“Who is he?” “Where did he come from?” “Why is he here?” “Does the chief know?” Several of his friends made crude remarks about the white man’s pale reddish skin (It looks like the inside of a grapefruit…), and his strange straight hair – and wondered (until he peed later on the edge of the field) if his dick was white as well… (Super white – they had all laughed…)
But then they had decided to let him play. What an adventure that boring day in the village had been!
The fellow had a sense of humor, and already knew some Moba banter (including to their extreme amusement some of the crudest words) and the African brothers had teased him mercilessly about everything – but nothing stuck to him… He let it all ride off his back – and they took an immediate liking to him. They also soon discovered that the white yovo from America was fiercely competitive, and had soccer skills – including an array of tricks and shots they’d never seen before. But more than anything, the white yovo gave them a burst of energy and purpose. He bought them millet beer in the marketplace that day after the game, and told them stories about lands far away, and challenged them to form a team to compete with other villages… which they had done – and which had given young Abu and his buddies the first elements of real self-esteem in their lives. And as the days passed, and the white man became more accepted into the village, he had noticed Abu’s tremendous intelligence and ability, and had spoken with his father, and paid for his uniform and books so that he could attend the little open air school in the village. And from that moment on, Abu’s life had changed radically, all because the Peace Corps and the government of Togo had decided to send Peter Schönbaum to his dirt poor village in the dusty, dirty West African Sahel… And because of Peter Schönbaum, Abu had been able to leave Nanergou some years later, and get a grown-up education, and had seen more of the world than he had ever dreamt of seeing, and had eventually reached a measure of modest wealth and success that would escape, he knew, 99.5% of his band o’ brothers back there that day on the sun-caked Sahel soccer field…
Abu still couldn’t sleep. He arrived in Marseilles a few hours later – resolved, and with his plan firmly cemented in his mind. He found a cheap bistro and got breakfast – a raspberry croissant and some sausages – and read the newspaper. He bought a cheap cell phone with a new number, and lied about his name and paid out more Euros from his stash. He mailed a note to Marisako with the new cell number and name, hoping to reestablish connection with the team.
He looked around in dismay at the burgeoning traffic, fumes and industrial decay that was Marseilles. He detested the city, which he associated with the French mafia, international thug gangs of Russians and Romanians, and worst of all, a huge trafficking in African youth – dark boys sold into slavery and bondage in the Arab lands, and African girls sold into the sex trade from age ten or eleven on up, in which they would be trained to service twenty or thirty men a day until they died (usually of despair) or got too old or diseased – a sex trade which proliferated all across a spiritually dead Europe… Marseilles was one of the more dangerous places he’d known in the world, right up there with Lagos and Algiers and Sofia… He had always been wary of it…
It was now 7am, and made his way through the various banlieues, and on into the Muslim quarter – where sharia ruled, and the French police no longer dared go. He was not Muslim himself, but had grown up with the Musulmans, right in Nanergou, and knew their ways well… Too well, he thought. He found the squatter’s apartment he was looking for and entered. He made his way up the stairs to the third floor hallway, which was covered in the unwashed grime and grit of decades of African immigrants into the land which had once ruled them. He entered the fourth door down. Inside, there were eight mattresses spread out in the one room, and a makeshift portable stove in the corner, along with boxes and bags of different sorts of grains – millet and rice and corn… There were two African fellows asleep on the mattresses. He woke one of them up – a Senegalese – who only spoke basic French…
“Je cherche mon frère Bando… Où est-il allé?”
The Senegalese told him that his brother – actually his cousin – was out early in the streets, already hawking fake Rolexes and cheap sunglasses to Marseille’s few tourists along the boulevards. Abu – exhausted – asked which mattress was Bando’s, and with his precious bags next to him, cradled in his arms, he lay down on the mattress and fell into a deep sleep.
When he awoke, a delicious thirteen hours later, there were six of them crowded in the room, cooking something on the stove; cooking oil smoke permeated the air of the room. Bando was there. Abu embraced his cousin – a good and decent and simple man – who some years ago had begged Abu for the funds to make his way to Europe. Abu had financed Bando, and indeed about twenty more of his brothers all told… That was the African way. That is why the African can never be rich, he had told himself many times. An African stands with his brothers and shares what he has, no matter what… Abu asked Bando to bring him to his boat…
The next morning, early, Bando brought Abu to the public marina down along the industrial piers of Marseilles, and to his 28 foot wooden sailing sloop, which Abu had bought with the earnings from his first patent years ago… The boat was getting old and rickety – and Abu could see at once that Bando had been renting it out – against his explicit instruction… He was mad but he wasn’t; he knew what it was like to fight for survival – and Bando had a wife and children to support back home in Togo. So he pretended not to notice. The boat was grimy, on the inside and out… But the marina was electrified, and there were basic bathroom and shower facilities for getting washed, and there was just enough room in the main galley of the boat, Abu thought, to construct a small illuminator with the precious kernel that he had just carried on board – and out of site from the world…
He explained to Bando what he intended to do, and why it was very, very important, and asked his cousin to be his assistant and cook and night guard… He would pay him twice what he earned from his fake Rolex trade. He also told Bando that there would be no parties, no girls, no drink, no socializing of any sort on the boat – and that it was to be all work and nothing but until the conference in Paris in September. Finally, he told Bando that bad men were looking for him, and that no one must know where he is or what he was doing. He could see that his cousin understood, but he could also see that his cousin had only a cursory understanding of the world outside his trade in Asian knock-offs on the street in a foreign land that was so far removed, both geographically and culturally, from the little sunny village where they had once played soccer as carefree boys not so long ago.
And so, in a little cabin on the shores of Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan, and on an old wooden sloop in the industrial harbor of Marseilles, two teams started to build two portable illuminators, far away from prying and interested eyes, and beyond the reach of those who would seek to destroy that which the team was seeking to, for the first time ever in the history of the world, to create.
Chapter Twelve – The Asian Devil Vanishes
Jenny tried to collect her thoughts, as she sat down to write the latest article for the Illuminator Chronicles in the Denver Post. She was alone, and she felt alone – horribly alone. She could not physically feel the little boy growing inside of her, but she could feel her son’s presence – and her whole body and body chemistry had changed. Will you be there in two months, my son? she wondered. She missed Jason – but she burned when she thought of the way he had treated her, and she also burned that she was persona non grata at the cabin on the lake in Saskatchewan. The boys always get their way; after all the years of the feminist revolution, the boys still get their way… She had not made the appointment with the abortionist; she did not know if she was going to…
On the plus side in her life, literally millions were now reading her articles around the world – and her name was already well-known. She had wanted so much to be a respected and well-known journalist, and by strange serendipity, it was happening – so fast that Jenny hardly knew how to handle it. She felt the pressure of keeping her readers informed, of investigating and finding the truth of the Asian Devil, of staying on top of all aspects of her investigations, and of not undermining the men’s feverish effort to rebuild their revolutionary physics device under enormous time pressure. On top of that, she was throwing up every few hours from the morning sickness which had developed in the fifth week of her pregnancy. She felt nauseous almost all the time. That stirred feelings of even more resentment toward Jason – he gets all the pleasure and fun, and I get all the burden… She tried to weigh what her feminist friends said about such (It is unjust…), versus what Marisako had said: The child is a gift; the fruit of your love… She had asked Marisako once if it was unfair that women had to bear the world’s children. Marisako had told her: It is the glory and essence of a woman to grow new human life within, and to bring children into the world. Men cannot have that. They cannot experience that miracle; but they have their own duties and burdens and purposes in life – some of which are very hard. Jenny could see that the deep love Peter and Marisako had for each other respected the real man and real woman each other was. She could see how they cleaved together to make a far greater whole than either one of them could be. She wondered if she and Jason would ever have that. Or whether it will just be my son and me against the world…
Jenny took a sip of water, trying to stave off the next wave of morning sickness queasiness, and flopped back into her beanbag chair with her sheaf of notes from the interview with the police, and from her own investigation. The whole thing was rather astounding – and disheartening. The Asian devil had escaped from prison, just two days after a huge tendon graft operation on his leg, and had disappeared into the world – all despite the round-the-clock security detail on his prison cell. She almost had to laugh; he had done it so apparently easily.
At two in the morning on the second day of the Asian’s captivity, the night guard at the police station had found him on the floor in a pool of blood. His wrist had been slashed. The guard had called 911 immediately, and upon arrival the paramedic had felt for the Asian’s pulse and had declared him dead. They had left him on the floor with the door to the cell open, while they talked to their superiors on the phone. The paramedics had quickly left, and when the policemen went back to figure out what to do with the Asian’s body, it was gone. They realized they had been tricked, especially when they had found a couple of small splotches of the Asian’s blood out on the side road next to the police station. Apparently, he had walked out of his cell, and out of the station, right behind them while they were talking on the phone. A later interview with the paramedic had him swear that the man had had no pulse whatsoever. Then later analysis of the situation by the police revealed that the amount of blood on the floor, while dramatic, had not been much more than a pint – the same amount people give all the time at blood banks.
How had he dropped his pulse so low? They did not know. The next question was: Where had he gone?
They came back to the splotches of blood on the side road by the station. Had he been picked up in a car? It seemed the only reasonable possibility – unless he was hiding somewhere in the neighborhood. And indeed later, from a fortuitous tip from a man who had not been able to sleep, and had been looking out the window of his living room, they had identified a farmer in a pickup who had picked up the Asian as a hitchhiker. The police were incredulous.
“You picked up a male hitchhiker in the middle of the night?!?”
The old farmer had assented – telling the police that the man had been walking with a pronounced limp, and seemed in a great deal of pain, and that he thought he might be in trouble. The farmer told them that the man had been unfailingly polite and grateful, and had even helped him rearrange the tree in the back of the pickup, which had been threatening to blow off the truck. – The farmer had dropped the man off at the Denver train station, along with twenty bucks. The Asian, they had ascertained, had not bought a train ticket, and had not turned up anywhere in the terminal or the rail yard after a thorough police search. Moreover, several trains had left Denver by the time the police got there, including one to San Francisco, one to Carson City, one to New York, and ominously, one north to Canada – not far from where Peter and his team had just set up.
Marisako had become alarmed with the news, fearing for her husband and the men working with him. She had insisted that the police stop and search the north train while still in the United States, and the police, along with the FBI, had consented. At considerable cost in terms of manpower and train downtime, it was stopped in Montana, and after a full and complete search, one hobo, two Salvadoran illegal immigrants and a drug addict were discovered in the train’s cars. But no Asian devil. Which meant, they all assumed, that the man was heading east or west. The FBI had then refused to stop the other three trains, and had essentially given up trying to catch the man – arguing that there was only flimsy evidence that he was on any of the trains – and that no one was now endangered. They also pointed out that the Asian devil would have no knowledge of where Peter and his team now were anyway. Still, Jenny was furious, as was Marisako. They are letting the bastard get away…
On other fronts, Marisako had set the entire team up with encrypted new cell phones. She had downloaded an expensive and powerful encryption app, and had modified it herself, given her knowledge of cryptography, so that their communications would be completely untraceable. Thankfully, she had already received Abu’s letter, had texted him with full information about the app in one way encryption mode. He had used the team’s secret password to read her message, and then had also downloaded and modified the app. The full team was now in full communication mode, and invisible, they hoped to the entire world. They were glad that Abu was alright, and exhilarated that he, like they, was hard at work on the two newer illuminators.
Chapter Thirteen – Fizix Bros
Peter was in his element, for the first time in a while, actually accomplishing things which were important to him. The team had arrived at the cabin, tired and glum from the long drive, but with no glitch. Peter got the one bed in the corner; the younger men spread sleeping bags out on the floor. The cabin’s kitchen table had been usurped for the construction of the new illuminator, and Marisako’s magnificent polished driftwood coffee table had been raised up on plywood boxes and turned into a cooking counter. Lucas and Jason had set up all the computer equipment in one corner, right under the giant growling bear head that Peter’s grandfather had long ago mischievously mounted on the wall to as a joke to annoy his mate of over sixty years.
The men had gotten to work right away – working feverishly through the first night to set everything up, and then falling asleep in the early morning and sleeping until after noon. As Peter had known it would be, it was far easier working with just men. They didn’t have to shower or shave every day – or even every other day – unless, as Dip said, the ‘stank’ got to be too much; they could just be comfortable in their shorts or sweats, and they could cook and eat whatever they wanted. Dip had made the first run to the general store in Lac La Ronge, and the cabin was now provisioned with boxes of cereal, beef jerky, Canadian bacon, chips, beer (Saskatchewan Double Moose Ale), as well as a whole lotta charcoal and meat, which Lucas really enjoyed barbecuing on the fixed grill outside. Lucas had fired up the grill and grinned, telling them: “The Serbs aren’t known as the butchers of the Balkans for nothing.” Peter had shot back: “For nothing are the great wits of Europe known as Serbs…” And the male banter from the git-go had gotten sharp and devastatingly un-PC and profane and clever-as-ever, and with no women to chide them, they had all laughed their brains out…
The following days had seen them settle into a natural routine. Up at 8am in the morning – a quick run along the lake for those who wanted some exercise – cereal or eggs and bacon and OJ for breakfast – along with a general organization meeting with decisions on priorities and action – and then heavy duty work – mostly electronics at first, involving connections with the spare kernel – and machine work to construct the shell for the new second illuminator. Lucas worked on calibrating the kernel with all his computers and screens; Jason and Peter worked on the general construction and machining; and Dip attended to keeping everything in place – clamps, computer wires, putting tools back, keeping the place sorta clean, making potloads of coffee, soldering electronic connections… – – – They skipped lunch each day, breaking at around 4pm – when they all took a two hour break. Time to shower – or, on the hot days – just go for a bracing swim in the lake – which they relished, to wash the sweat and stress and grime off – and then back at the cabin for some of Lucas’ masterful grilling. They didn’t bother with forks or knives – but just ate, for the most part, with their hands. – After dinner, another few hours of work, then a fire in the fireplace, and a chance to read or catch up electronically with their loved ones. For Peter, it was a chance to connect with Marisako, to catch up on the news stories concerning them, to coordinate with Abu, to adjust the team’s work schedule, and to read.
Peter also relished sending encrypted text messages to Abu in Marseilles, through Lucas’ portable satellite communications system, like: “We just finished up some grilled flank steak with Texas barbecue sauce and some Moose Ale; how u doin’?”
And Abu, frustratingly working by extension cord light into the night in the crowded rocking galley of his boat while Bando sorta cooked some (tasteless) beans and rice, responded with things like: “When I get my share of the Nobel money, I’m gonna spend some time in Hawaii on the beach with pretty babes, while you sit in your Arctic Circle outhouse…”
Peter’s funk had fully lifted, and he was happy to see the men work together and as a team progress toward their newly minted goals, despite what the Asian Devil had done. His head exhaustedly hit the pillow each night, while the other fellows had gotten into playing some sort of Serbian Army card game, sort of a cross between poker and gin rummy, with lots of shouting, and with the losers having to clean up the barbecue and beer bottle mess each morning…
In his sleepy mind, Peter laughed to himself: It all might turn out ok.
Chapter Fourteen – Jenny and Marisako Go After the Asian Devil
The Asian Devil was in New York. We’ve found him!
Jenny’s heart raced as she confirmed that the phone pic she’d received from her girlfriend, a New York City Police detective, and who was now reconnoitering Penn Station – was indeed he…
She and Marisako and the whole team had been greatly disappointed that the FBI had not checked out all the other three trains leaving from Denver the night the Asian disappeared. They had had no way to check the trains to Carson City and San Francisco, but Jenny had called up her former roommate in New York City. Her friend was now standing on the train platform in Penn Station, and had identified and begun to follow the Asian, who was nonchalantly heading for the exit… Jenny had confidence in her friend; for Chrissakes’, she’s a NYC detective…
Upon receipt of the pic, and after sending confirmation to her friend, Jenny had raced out to her car, and raced up into the mountains to the Schönbaum’s cliffside residence. By the time she got there, the Asian Devil had gotten onto a subway headed toward Brooklyn. Her detective friend was on the same train, two cars away.
The big question was: Do they call the FBI or not? Jenny at first was for apprehending him – then and there. But Marisako considered more. In Marisako’s mind, the Asian had not killed anyone, and even an attempted murder charge would be difficult to sustain – as – the Asian had fired a shot that day to scare Jenny and Jason, but obviously had deliberately missed. He could easily have killed them; he’d been at point blank range. Indeed, he could have easily killed them all. Rather, he had destroyed the illuminator kernel. What charge would that be? Malicious vandalism?
On the other hand, he and whoever he represented clearly wanted the illuminator destroyed. Who would want that? Why risk so much – years in jail – maybe even death – to accomplish that? Who did he work for? Who were they really up against? There was someone or something powerful at work here. The Asian devil was clearly not going to tell them, if he did not want to. The one single aspect of his personality that stood out above all others to Marisako, from beginning to end, was that he had no fear. That, in and of itself, scared her. Most men, no matter how brave, show fear. The Asian devil did not seem to at all.
So – Marisako put forward the argument to Jenny that perhaps they should follow him to his lair, and try to find out why this was all happening… She knew it was risky. If they chose that second plan, they would have to track him very carefully and very professionally, without his knowing – all the way to his final resting place…
And while they were pondering that, the Asian Devil had gotten off the Brooklyn train at the port – at the Red Hook Container Terminal. Brooklyn, just by itself, was still the fourth largest city in the United States, and responsible for over $200 billion in trade coming through the port each year…
Jenny’s friend had also disembarked and continued to follow him cautiously from a distance. They read over her texts carefully…
He seems relaxed, but walking with a pronounced limp…
He ate lunch in McDonalds…
He bought a newspaper before going in…
He has a gash wound on his wrist…
He’s walking through the port area…
He is very athletic; moves with uncommon grace…
He has bright blue eyes…
He has entered a port employment office…
He’s coming out…
He’s walking toward another area of the port…
HE JUST BOARDED A CARGO SHIP NAMED THE NAPOLITANO…
With the receipt of that last text, Jenny had come around, and agreed that they should track the Asian themselves, and not involve the FBI. She saw Marisako’s wisdom; this was their one chance to really discover the truth (and reveal that truth to the world)…
Five hours later, after Marisako had cooked Jenny a good meal, with lots of vegetables for the baby, and helped her drink down the fluids she needed, despite the morning sickness, they received this text:
The Napolitano is setting out to sea. I’ve checked; it is going to Naples. It will arrive one week from today.
Had the Asian Devil left the ship? Jenny’s friend was adamant that he had not. There was only one plankway onto the ship. She had kept watch the entire time. He was still on board, she told them, unless he had jumped into the water, which she exceedingly doubted.
Her friend later texted: He took a job with the crew – as a ship night watchman…
Jenny and Marisako talked into the night – over herbal tea. How could they follow him in Naples? And – how dangerous would that be?
As they sipped the hot tea, Jenny had more to tell Marisako. Jenny had succeeded in gaining some additional information about the Asian. He was blood type AB-, relatively rare. Most interestingly, his blood showed no antibodies to cytomegalovirus, a common and detrimental spit virus shared by most Americans, or to any of the now epidemic sexually transmitted diseases, such as human papillomavirus, herpes, Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis, chlamydia, syphilis, AIDS, or to any other major disease, for that matter, including smallpox, measles, chickenpox, or mumps… Which meant – not only had he not ever had these diseases, he had never even been vaccinated against them. Startlingly, he did have antibodies to two malarial parasites – Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax – though there was no evidence of either parasite in his blood cells at all. The analyst who had analyzed the blood had told her that it was uncommonly pure blood – the type which could, if donated, help save the lives of many babies in need of transfusions – as well as pregnant women, for whom cytomegalovirus could pose a danger to their babies…
“His blood is precious,” he’d told her.
Even more intriguing, Jenny had paid a great deal of money, reimbursed by the Denver Post, for a pollen analysis of the clothes the Asian had worn the day he’d threatened them. While the clothes themselves had been made in Vietnam (nothing unusual there – many Americans’ clothes were as well), the pollen included grains from mountain flowers only found in –
“Get this,” she’d told Marisako: “Bhutan, Sikkim and Tibet…”
Both Jenny and Marisako had had to brief themselves on Bhutan and Sikkim – ancient Himalayan kingdoms, and on the current status of Tibet – invaded by China in the fifties, and whose native culture was now being purposefully and brutally and almost completely eradicated by the Chinese…
And yet – it appeared – their boy was headed to Italy…
Marisako had laughed: “It’s a little hard to create a theory for this one…”
They both knew, however, that they had to find a way to follow him to his ultimate nest. Jenny wanted to go herself; Marisako considered such extremely dangerous and unwise, especially given that Jenny was pregnant. The physics boys seemed to be doing OK, for the time being, at Lac La Ronge and in Marseilles, so Marisako considered going with Jenny. She will need help, and she does not know how to tail someone. If discovered, her life and her baby’s life would be in probable danger…
In Marisako’s mind, it actually made more sense for her to go by herself. But Jenny refused – telling Marisako that it was her duty as a journalist to get the story – and that there was no way she was giving up on this story… Marisako also told herself: The more the baby grows, the less likely it will be destroyed…
Reluctantly, Marisako picked up her encrypted cell phone and called Peter. They argued, but in the end he relented. She had agreed, at his insistence, not to engage the Asian under any circumstances, but simply to trace him. They both wanted to know what they were dealing with. They both wanted to keep everyone safe.
Jason, for his part, had adamantly refused to talk to Jenny at all, as she had not yet made an appointment with the abortionist…
Jenny had cried again, and relied on Marisako for emotional support. Marisako had tried to console her:
“Men also have fathering instincts, but they often don’t kick in for a while… “
But Jenny had shaken her head.
“You don’t understand, Marisako… He doesn’t have any at all. None.”
A long silence had ensued, as each thought about how Jenny’s and Jason’s baby might be preserved.
And at long end, after Jenny had composed herself, and after they consulted maps of Italy, at 3am that morning, with Jenny looking on, Marisako booked two tickets for a flight to Naples…
Chapter Fifteen – The First Anomaly
Abu and his cousin Bando had come to a decent daily modus operandi in Marseilles; but still, Abu was operating at almost maximum frustration. The two of them would sleep late into the morning every day, on the boat, rise to get cleaned up in the marina locker room and then get some breakfast – usually from African, Middle Eastern and Vietnamese street vendors along Marseille’s seaside Quai de la Joliette. Bando would leave to sell his wares; Abu would return to work feverishly on the illuminator, while overhead daylight poured down through the hatch of L’Orphelin.
For “L’Orphelin” was the name inscribed across the back of his aging sloop, a name he had given it after an African poem which had once entranced him – when he heard it in the dilapidated high school to which Peter had sent him, in Atakpamé, Togo, a decade and a half ago – a poem that captured in his spirit all the yearning he had for his native Mobaland, and his little village, and the values of his culture, and how he felt as an African in the West. The truth was – he pretty much despised – like so, so many Africans (and many others around the world) – the decadent and decaying and introverted and pornographied Brave New World West… where nothing at all was any longer sacred (except feelings), where men were no longer willing to make judgments about anything, where they no longer thought of carrying down and building their lines and families into the future, and where he discerned a vast emptiness of heart and soul (for those who still believed humans have souls), and where there was not much more to life for so many than to eat, drink, watch TV, get high, be merry and screw contracepted women, retire at age fifty-five off the backs of the fewer and fewer remaining young, hang out at trendy discos, restaurants and the nude beaches of Spain until they grew old and the blackness enveloped … He could especially see that Europe was dying culturally (and demographically too), and would soon be taken over by the Muslims, and that America was not far behind in the cultural death spiral, and he knew that he did not like living in the shallow and self-absorbed zeitgeist of the West – though he had managed to do quite well there. His plan – which had been in his mind for a long, long time – was to make a name for himself and become well off, and then to return to his little village, and build a magnificent compound – and there to support his aging parents and his extended family and his friends – and there to wed and start a family of his own and build something good and wholesome, the traditional African way, with all his people’s traditions and culture intact – and to help build his village into something authentic and hopeful… He would give it a shot and fight the good fight – despite the frantic and harmful incursions from the West – so glossily attractive to and corrupting of Africa’s youth – who had less and less of the wisdom of their elders, and so many of whom had forsaken their ancient culture, beliefs and ways. Deep down, Abu did not believe that modern Western atheistic and materialist culture held the keys to happiness and glory and the future; and in that, he believed that many of Africa’s youth were being deceived by ideas and notions that were not good or right or true – and which would in the end betray them. He had grown up dirt poor but happy; in the West he saw massive and pervasive misery, an overworked drugged-out psychoanalyzed populace, broken families everywhere with disrespectful, arrogant, immature and entitled kids, along with unrelenting stress, loneliness, nihilism, unhappiness and emptiness. He was a son of Africa; he was Moba; he was his father’s son, and he would carry on their line as his father had and support his people and their ways. It was a simple dream; he had been working toward it for over a decade and a half… Deep down – he had a dream that as Africa become educated and successful, its culture would rise and show strength into the succeeding generations, in contrast to the West’s obvious decay… He sensed a big inversion in the world – that would catch many by surprise and would replace the West as the world’s center – and he, God willing, would be part of that great inversion…
But first – I must succeed at this, he chastised himself, as he had so many times before. And that was where the frustration lay. He did not have a giant portable lab setup, like Peter’s team did; he was working on a rocking boat with insufficient amenities; Bando was only around sometimes, and did not understand at all what he was doing; there were other folks at the marina, and they were too friendly and too curious, and liked to chat with him. They wondered why he had not taken his boat out; they wondered why he had to go to the hardware store every day or every other day… By himself, he had to solder everything together; he did not have the best computer setup, and did not have Lucas there to make all of that work; but most of all – he was alone and by himself, and at times, he was not sure he could do it. The one thing he did have was his communications with the team in Saskatchewan – and those communications had been upgraded, over their computer systems, thanks to Marisako and Lucas, to a fully encrypted, real-time, crystal sharp satellite link. So in effect, he could talk (and see) the Saskatchewan team any time he wanted. That had been a huge help, as he struggled with parts of the illuminator construction that he had not been responsible for before. And it also gave him a way to relax with the team, though he be thousands of miles away. After the sun went down, he would work through his plans for the next day, download the mathematical software he needed from Lucas, and link up with the rest of the team. Dip had even devised a way for Abu to join in on their evening Serbian poker games – by computer – and Abu had enjoyed that immensely. (The best part being that he couldn’t do their dishes when he lost!)
And given all the constraints he faced, the plan he had worked out with Peter and Jason was this: They, in Saskatchewan, would make the ‘elegant’ hand-carry – the illuminator which would be shown to the world, at a conference in Paris now only one and half months away. Abu would use the third kernel to make a ‘down-and-dirty’ illuminator – patched together by whatever means were available, and to be made operational as quickly as humanly possible – so that they could test it and start discovering whatever it might be showing them. For as of now – they were slotted to show the world something that they did not even begin to understand themselves. They were making a huge bet – and expecting a huge reward just for unveiling to the world what might now be seen in this universe. And if they discovered interesting things in that new sight, all sorts of incredible possibilities opened up into the future. Bando’s heart raced as he thought of all that had to be done. But he reminded himself of what Peter always liked to say: “A goal without a deadline is just a dream…” They were far, far behind in their plans – thanks to the warped and frightening Asian agent who had destroyed their first magnificent device.
Given all of that, Abu could feel the tremendous pressure on him to get something up and running, as the whole team’s presentation to the world would likely depend on what he found. And although Peter never put any verbal or psychological pressure on him (quite the opposite), Abu wanted very badly for the team to succeed – for all their sakes – but also, because he felt so greatly indebted to Peter Schönbaum. He knew this was the one single time in all their lives where he might actually be able to repay Peter for just a little of what that man had done for him. It was a debt which he felt, as an honorable and just man, it was his duty to repay – and which he wanted to repay out of his deep friendship with Peter.
And so – three laborious weeks into the work – Abu thought he had finally put something together that might constitute a working illuminator. It was nothing to look at or celebrate. The kernel – the little box perfectly and oh-so-expensively machined to hold a beautiful resonant series of overlapping sustained standing quantum possibility waves, and made out of a special niobium/selenium/gadolinium alloy, was now wrapped in an extremely sensitive mesh of wires, designed for multi-frequency electromagnetic shielding. A small hole had been drilled through both sides of the kernel, allowing polarized photons to pass through, sent via a small laser diode / polarizer apparatus attached to one of the holes. The photon detector – the most elegant part of the device after the kernel itself – on the opposite side of the laser – was sensitive enough to detect slight statistical variations in the polarization of the photons – which in turn depended on – according to Nina’s immensely complex equations – deviations from randomness among the wave function standing waves – which in turn depended on greater deviations from randomness of waves out to a radius of about five miles or so (for this kernel) – all without actually collapsing the wave functions – something physicists had theretofore thought impossible. The detector, in addition to the kernel, was one part of the brilliance of their device – and he – Abu Fandwaré – had been the man who had designed it. If the device showed anything significant, Abu would have a patent on something beyond valuable. I could become a big man in Africa…
The sun was setting, and Abu had turned on the working lamps clamped to the cabin ceiling of the boat. Abu sat there and looked at his device. It was portable, the computer and the kernel and the photon detector all wired together in a box with a handle. He wanted to wait for Bando to turn it on, but Bando was late (and had not made dinner either). Further, he knew it meant little to his cousin. So – alone – and even without alerting the team, Abu decided to turn the thing on and see what would happen. He did. He smiled ruefully and laughed to himself. I doubt some Asian madman is going to jump into the boat and shoot me! But still, thinking about that, he grabbed a knife from the galley and held it in his right hand. He then clamped his hands together, knife and all, in his people’s gesture for hope. A moment later, Bando came bounding down the hatch… Abu gestured that he come over and watch as the illuminator warmed up.
At first, he was not sure the device was even working at all. He did not have the fancy ‘blue cube’ to create an iridescent showpiece of the quantum disturbances – just his computer screen, hooked up to the illuminator, and running a large number of exceedingly complex programs. He sat there, hunched over L’Orphelin’s galley table, and watched the different windows on the computer screen. From his laser photon polarization distribution analyzer tracking device, he could monitor the kernel as it developed its set of gazillions of quantum standing waves. That part was working! – And then – he was surprised to see on his surrounding area map (covering the right half of his computer screen) a significant quantum anomaly registering about a half a mile from the marina. His first thought was that something was not calibrated right. He took some time to recalibrate and recheck – but it was clear as day on his screen; the illuminator, on its first startup, was showing a massive quantum wave function anomaly just a short walk from where they were…
Abu’s heart raced. What if it is something real? He took out a map of Marseille, and tried to correlate the anomaly on the screen with a real destination on the map. He had not completely finished correlating the two sources of information (the screen coordinates and the map), but he thought he had a pretty good idea of where it was – and he didn’t want anything to change until he got there. The anomaly seemed to be occurring not far from where Bando usually set up shop to sell his watches and sunglasses. Abu decided at that moment that they would go investigate. But then – as he was watching the screen, the anomaly seemed to float from one position to a slightly different one. It was still near Bando’s turf, but he was sure he had seen it move. Total excitement overcame him. My God – what is happening a half a mile from here?!? He grabbed his encrypted cell phone – and with Bando carrying the illuminator, now running off batteries, they charged off the boat and out into the dreary, dusky and dismal streets of Marseilles…
Chapter Sixteen – Stalking the Asian Devil
Marisako and Jenny arrived at Naples International Airport, just 24 hours before the Napolitano was due to arrive . They secured a room in the port area, and spent a good portion of the day determining precisely where the Napolitano was to dock. Jenny was already showing a bit around the waist, and was exhausted from continuing morning sickness and the inability to sleep on the plane. And so after visiting the actual Napolitano docking facility, they returned to the hotel, where both tried to doze.
The next morning, with two hours to docking, they donned disguises that Marisako had prepared prior to the trip. Jenny was amazed at Marisako’s abilities in that regard, and could only conclude that she had done this before. At Marisako’s direction, Jenny had cut her hair short, dyed it black, and had donned clothing which Marisako called ‘Asian mommy frump,’ and Marisako had donned something Hawaiianesque, with a multicolored shirt and baggy shorts, and stout waking shoes. They looked very much like two middle-aged casual oriental female tourists. Marisako had also done Jenny’s makeup in an Eastern way, while Marisako had applied no makeup whatsoever, making her look rather plain. Though they had made no drastic changes, they both looked quite a bit different from the day when the Asian had accosted them all in the physics lab in Colorado.
Their plan was simple – which was to wait at a café across the street from the plankway from the ship, and wait for the Devil to come out. They would follow him on foot – but just in case the Devil took a cab or had an accomplice pick him up, they had rented a Vespa motor scooter. The Vespa sat alongside the wall of the café. They had checked the Napolitano’s itinerary, and it was supposed to stay at dockside for a full week for maintenance before reloading (and then heading off to Cyprus). Their hope was that the Devil would want to get off the boat for one reason or another, and that this – not Cyprus – was his ultimate destination. They were both determined to find out the truth: Marisako – because of what he had done to Peter, and Jenny, out of concern for Jason and the team – but also – because she sensed a very, very big story – likely of intense worldwide interest – which would magnify her newfound fame.
The ship docked on time, and they settled down into an outdoor table at the café. For two hours, no one at all came down the plankway. – – But gladly, at 11am, probably after some sort of processing, over fifty men suddenly poured from the ship. The ladies had been watching very carefully, while pretending to be talking over their third coffees. The last man to come down the plankway was the Asian. They were quite sure, even at that distance, as his body build and his limping catlike walk were quite distinctive. They paid their bill. The plan was that Marisako would follow him on foot, and Jenny would stay close by on the Vespa. They had their international satellite encrypted phones with them, so that they could stay in contact. Marisako had put them in walkie-talkie mode. Marisako walked briskly out of the café to follow the Asian.
He walked straight up the street across from the ship, and then turned on the Via del Pellgrino. Marisako stayed a discreet half a block behind him, but did not let him out of sight. He did not seem concerned at all about anyone’s possibly following him, as he never turned around, not even once. His gait was relaxed and confident, and he moved with purpose, though not all that fast. Marisako continued to wonder what gave him so much confidence. He was also not limping anymore, she noticed. He must heal very quickly…
For the next hour, they followed him down the ever widening and complicated Via del Pellegrino, to the Naples train station. He entered the station, and Marisako closed the gap with him, so that she could see where he was going. He went into the men’s room, and then out; he had a coffee; and then he bought a ticket. From there he went down to the track waiting area. A train arrived. Just at the last second, Jenny appeared, having returned the scooter to a pick up area, and they were barely able to step together onto the same train – not having any idea whatsoever where it might be going.
The Asian Devil was five cars ahead of them. They moved up four cars closer, sat down, and prepared themselves to monitor him as best they could, should he potentially leave at any stop along the way. The conductor came for tickets, and they had to buy them directly from him. Marisako, who to Jenny’s surprise seemed to know some real Italian, haltingly asked for the last ticket on the line. She also, trolling for information, asked the conductor: “Any others for the last stop?”
“Yes, signora, the Chinese fellow in the car ahead is also going there. Very popular with all you Asian tourists these days… And don’t forget, you’ll need your passports.”
Marisako looked surprised, took the tickets, and they both sat back.
Jenny asked: “So where are we headed?”
Marisako looked down at the train tickets. They were to the City of San Marino, in the little mountain enclave republic of San Marino, completely surrounded by Italy, some four hundred miles away…
Marisako thought to herself: There is much, much more to this than we imagined…
Chapter Eighteen – Hounded…
Peter Schönbaum was exhausted – but pleased. All the fellows had arisen early, as this was the day – one month prior to the conference in Paris – that they would turn their illuminator on. Indeed, the team was advance-testing it – for the formal test scheduled later in the afternoon. Peter had absented himself for those tests, as he had faith in his team – and he really, really needed some fresh air. After several days of no exercise whatsoever, Peter and Dip had gone for a few miles’ run up along the side of the lake, and were about to turn and take the forest path – a little more inland and a little shorter – back to the cabin. Peter had also received a cryptic message from Abu, that his illuminator had started well, and had found something (but Abu ha not said what). Marisako and Jenny were on a train to the country of San Marino (which he had had to check out on the computer). For the first time in a while, he felt in charge of the way things were playing out. He thought, not for the first time: The Asian will not have succeeded; we are too strong and determined for that… And now we are on the offense.
They had come to the end of the lakeside trail, and had stopped to look at the view. Peter was out-of-breath, and his sides hurt. He knew he had been holding Dip back – and he appreciated Dip’s kindness in keeping him company on the way out. They both looked out at the sparkling lake.
“I’ve not seen a more beautiful sight anywhere, Mr. Schönbaum.”
Peter smiled. “This is my favorite place in the whole world, Dip. I grew up here – from a boy into something like a man. My heart has never been more at peace than when I’m here. I’m glad you could join us. – – – – So, how is it? Boring, or exciting?”
It was Dip’s turn to laugh. “I like the crew, and I like the physics, and I like the place, and I like helping make history. I’m most excited by what the illuminator will find. The only downside – no ladies…”
Peter smiled again, wistfully. “I know, I miss my girl too. I hope she’s doin’ OK… Don’t worry, man… You might be famous soon; then the girls will come to you!”
Dip laughed. “I would like that, Mr. Schönbaum; I would like that very much.”
They turned to go down the forest path. Peter had just barely caught his breath, and one of his shins was hurting – from not having properly stretched. “You go ahead, Sir. Make sure those fellows have some coffee… It’s gonna be a long day…”
“Are you sure?” Dip asked.
Peter nodded, and watched Dip lope off into the forest.
Peter stopped for a moment and stretched his legs. The sunlight careened down through the canopy and the firs, and he could hear a slight insect buzz in the woods. He loved the forest; he had had many, many adventures in it. He took off down the path at a very, very relaxed slow jog, so that he could truly enjoy and savor the moment. Today is the day! he thought. The day that might change everything…
The path turned and straightened, stretching out for about ½ mile straight, with thick bushes on either side. When he was a teen, he had always sprinted down the alleyway, as he called it. He picked up his pace a little bit, trying to remember what it had felt like to be seventeen years old again… He smiled to himself, relishing the bit of time away from the fizix brotherhood…
But then halfway down the alleyway, he thought he heard something to his left – a little rustle in the bushes… At first he thought he imagined it – but then he heard it again – and he saw one of the bushes move… He just barely caught a glimpse of something running with him, several feet away, on the other side of the greenery…
His heart sped up. What the hell is that?!!! It wasn’t wolves. There weren’t any around here, and he knew they didn’t hunt that way. Not a bear, as it was keeping pace with him. Bears never did that; bears either accelerated or decelerated. He sped up a little. And then he heard a rustle on his right. His tranquil idyllic moment in the woods turned to concern and fear – very, very quickly. Coyotes? There had never been coyotes in these woods – that he’d ever heard of. I must be very careful… He’d had coyotes follow him down a path at dusk in the Elk Forest in Pennsylvania once. They hadn’t dared attack, but he’d shot off his gun several times just to be sure. And even with the gun shots, they had stayed with him – a whole pack – just waiting for a slip or an occasion to take him down. He felt adrenaline surging through his bloodstream, and he picked up his pace again. He didn’t have his gun with him – how stupid of me! He shouted out Dip’s name. There was no response. He was reaching the end of the alleyway, where he knew the trail would rise up over a knoll, but was still heavy with undergrowth. He made a mental note to himself not to trip.
He had made it to the turn up in the trail, and bounded up over the rocks and crevasses in the rock. He could hear animals bounding along with him, just behind the bushes which bordered the trail. There was a long stick, like a martial arts bow, lying on the side of the trail. He stopped for but a moment, and pried it up from the ground. He started running again, and held the stick like a javelin in his right hand. His lungs were aching as he climbed the steep knoll. At the very top, right at the crest of the hill, there was a clearing. He sped up once more to run across the clearing, and as he did, three huge coyotes appeared from the bushes, running with him. He stopped, his heart pounding through his chest. He was shocked at their size. These were not little western coyotes. They looked like big eastern coyotes – wolf/coyote half breeds. He knew they feared man – or at least the coyote part did. He had to show no fear – because fear would feed their hunting instincts. He also knew, from his time in Asia, that the only way a man could survive an encounter with a man-eating Tiger was to roar with all his might. He swung the stick in the air, and roared, like a giant predatory animal. The three coyotes stepped back, surprised. He charged at one with the stick. It fell back more. He looked into its eyes, staring right into them. He started. The eyes frightened him; they were completely and totally black. There was no reflection on them at all. He had never seen anything like that. A little involuntary shiver went up his spine. He thought about taking to a tree, or making his way to the lake, but decided to keep running. Again, he knew they were wary of him. He had to show no weakness or vulnerability. He made growling noises, and strode down the path, slowly picking up speed.
Then he heard a scream – the scream of a man in horrible agony… Dip! The scream seemed to come from ahead. My God, coyotes have gone after Dip! He forgot about his own beasts, and ran as fast as he could down the trail. The three coyotes again ran with him, but hid themselves again in the underbrush, and stayed at a safe distance. He scanned ahead for any signs of Dip, or of blood, or of a struggle… It was a good two miles to go still – and he was not sure he would make it. He had to find Dip. Two would be stronger than one, if Dip were still able to fight.
He chose a good stride, letting the adrenaline power him, even though his lungs and legs ached and strained for oxygen. Every quarter of a mile or so, he swung the bow around and yelled out with all his might. Do not show weakness… Do not show vulnerability…
It was like a surreal nightmare, running and running along the trail, back to the cabin… It seemed to go on forever. And the coyotes stayed with him; they were always there. Yet they did not attack. And finally, he could see the opening into the meadow next to the cabin.
He started shouting for help. And where is Dip?!?
But nothing prepared him for what he was about to see.
He bounded into the meadow, yelling his head off, and running as fast as he could. The three half-wolves bounded into the meadow with him. He saw Lucas standing just outside the cabin with his own Glock 39, in a straight shooter’s stance, and in the driveway to the cabin was a bunch of cars and trucks and a mob of people with TV cameras. Reporters! Lucas took aim and shot straight into one of the half wolves. He heard a howl behind him, and was now halfway across the meadow. Lucas shot again, the second beast went down. He was nearly to where Lucas was, by the cabin, and the third half-wolf bounded past him with an amazing and sudden burst of speed, and leapt right up on Lucas. Lucas fell backward, unable to get the shot he needed. The wolf tried to go for Lucas’ throat, but somehow, Lucas got his hands around the creature’s neck and was just barely able to hold its snarling head away. Jason ran around from around the side of the cabin, lunged at the ground, and picked up the Glock, while the coyote/wolf was trying to rip into Lucas’ throat. He put the gun against the side of the creature and fired several times. Blood spattered all over, as the animal went berserk. It spun around several times, howling, and then Jason put several more bullets into it. One went into the brain, and there was another giant explosion of blood – and brains. Peter fell onto the ground, curled up, clutching at his side, and panting, like an animal. Lucas took the gun from Jason and reloaded. He was covered in blood. He looked down at Peter.
“We’re going after Dip. We know where he is. He’s in trouble!”
Peter tried to say something, to warn them… But they were off, sprinting into the woods – men on a mission…
He looked up toward the driveway. Several men and a woman were coming over to him.
One poked a microphone into his face.
“What just happened?!?” the man asked breathlessly.
Peter looked around at the half wolf carcasses, and the blood and brains spattered all over. In his mind, he thought: It’s happening all over again! Something is trying to stop us…
He looked up at the man with the mike and growled: “Get the hell off of my property.”
Chapter Nineteen – The Lair of the Asian Devil…
Marisako and Jenny had sat for over ten hours on the train, in what seemed like the passage of many days. They took turns napping, as they wanted to make sure the Asian did not disembark before San Marino. Marisako spent some of the time studying the tiny country on her cell phone (the oldest constitutional republic in the world, she discovered), and Jenny spent her time outlining possible new articles on her Blackberry. Though they could see through the car end window into his car, he did nothing interesting at all for the entire extent of the journey. He seemed to be reading, but they could not see what.
They arrived at last at Rimini, a lazy and, judging from the window view, somewhat dilapidated Italian beach resort on the Adriatic Sea. They waited while the train switched engines and tracks for the very short extension ride to Serravalle, across the San Marino border. On that short ride, they had to show their passports to a government agent, as San Marino was not yet party to the Schengen Agreement allowing Europeans free passage from one country to the next. As the train stopped, the ladies scooped up their bags, and watched through the window as the Asian headed for the exit from his car. They disembarked at the same time, and immediately walked a bit away from him, so as not to cause suspicion. They were able to sit on a bench which partially hid them from his view, yet while they could see him over a short wall.
As they watched, he was met by two men in robes, in what Marisako, devout Catholic that she was, recognized as the habits of Capuchin monks. To their astonishment and surprise, the Asian removed his shirt, and put on a habit given to him by one of the men. He then removed his shoes – as Marisako was just noticing that the men had nothing at all on their feet. The Asian did not seem to have any luggage at all – just as he had not when he went from the Napolitano to the train station in Naples. How incredibly clever, thought Marisako. Disguising themselves as monks. And in an order devoted to poverty, simplicity, austerity, chastity and charity… The ultimate cover… Hiding evil with the pretense of good…
She and Jenny watched as the three men crossed the parking lot and started walking up the road into the City of San Marino – which she knew to be some four miles away. Marisako was surprised. They are going to be walking four miles barefooted?
They had to follow them, but they could not walk after them without being noticed, and while carting their suitcases. Marisako presumed the faux monks were headed into the City of San Marino, and so she and Jenny rented a small taxi for the next four mile excursion. The cab driver whisked them out of the Serravalle train station, and up the road into the city. It was steep, with many turns and switchbacks, as they climbed the mountain upon which the city rested. Marisako and Jenny turned the other way, as they passed the Asian and his two accomplices about a half mile up. At the top of the main plateau on which the city rested, on the border with the City, they noticed a small hotel. Marisako asked the driver to leave them off there. They quickly rented a room, and once inside it, Marisako, to the marvel of Jenny, threw off her middle-aged Asian mommy frump disguise, and methodically reworked herself into a fairly athletic (and much, much younger looking) world travelerette, replete with small backpack (with European country stickers on it), shorts and suspenders, light fake freckles – which she applied with drops of transparent skin glue – and a hat the writing across which stated: Save the Seals… Jenny laughed, but Marisako did not. They could not see the road from the room, so Marisako told Jenny that she would go out and tail them on foot, once they (hopefully) passed by on the road. Jenny was upset that Marisako was not taking her, but Marisako rightfully pointed out that the two of them might strike some suspicion or recognition. Further, Jenny was still feeling sick and out-of-sorts from her pregnancy. They had their phones in walkie-talkie mode, and could stay in contact. So out the hotel room door Marisako went – leaving Jenny to shower, cool off and get something to eat.
Marisako went to the woods along the side of the hotel, found herself a good walking stick and a place to sit on a rock and wait. Within the hour, the three men came up the road – still walking at a fair pace. She waited for them to pass, and then strode out onto the road with her walking stick, well behind them. She strived to keep them in her sight, while not getting that close. If any of them turned around, she was fairly sure that none would suspect anything amiss from a hardy and lean freckled female world traveler also making her way on into the city.
And so it was late in the day, with the sun was lowering in the sky, that they all made their way into San Marino proper. She had to close ranks a little bit, as the road turned into a city street, with many crossways and far more people. The three men did not slow down, but wended their way up through the city, in narrow streets that were steep and cobbled. She looked up, and could see an ancient walled fortification, with a church above it overlooking the city. The men seemed to be heading upward in the general direction of the church. And indeed, some twenty minutes later, they were all now walking across a giant horizontal plaza which stretched across the front of the church, and wrapped itself around that part of the San Marino mountain. They came to a non-descript but classic older Italian building, not far past the church, and turned into the doorway and disappeared from her view. She continued walking, and turned to look at the entranceway. There was an iron gate across it, and she could see ancient Latin words inscribed on a wooden plaque next to the door. She translated easily: “Capuchin monastery of San Marino, Serravalle and Fiorientino”
And there she was. How wonderfully clever they are; hiding in a monastery! Are they pretending to be monks in the monastery, or have they forcefully usurped it? Who are they? It disturbed her to think that evil might have infiltrated a monastery, and that the real monks might be in danger. They should be warned! She deeply understood, unlike most in the world, the beauty and true freedom from the evils of the world a monastery or a cloister represented. Again, she thought to herself: The real monks should be warned. They are in danger. Would they be so easily deceived? But the even bigger question in her mind remained: Why the hell would they be in San Marino? To launder money? Is San Marino one of those secret tax havens, like Liechtenstein?
Most maddeningly of all, as she looked down the street at the monastery gate, and farther down, at the church, she could not immediately see any easy way to get into the monastery. She was a woman.
Chapter Twenty – On the Hunt for the First Anomaly…
Abu and Bando made their hurried way up through the darkening streets of Marseilles. Abu had a GPS unit; Bando carried the illuminator and computer in a sturdy cardboard box. Every block or so, they stopped and Abu checked the coordinates on the computer screen – and hoped that all of the connections in the jury-rigged device would hold. Abu could see, looking at the computer readout, that there were actually many anomalies around them – but the intensity of the one they were looking for was far, far, greater than any of the others. And it was persistent. He noted to himself; it had not moved again. If anything, it had grown stronger. Abu’s heart pounded in his chest. What are we going to find? And even deeper in his thoughts: This breaks of laws of physics… Or what we guessed those laws would be…
They passed a trendy night club on their right, on one of the back streets; Abu could hear the mechanical beating cadence of African/Islamic music pouring from inside, and there was a group of cheap Spanish prostitutes hanging out just outside – dressed in very tight and very short skirts. The prostitutes approached them both, and one put her hand around Abu’s waist and into his pocket. Abu forcefully disentangled himself, and waived them off. He beckoned to Bando to ignore them. They moved on, and he heard one of them shout at them: jotos!…
How many have you had tonight? Abu thought, in disgust. He looked down at the computer in Bando’s box. Abu could see that it was just about three blocks up, to the right. At one and a half blocks up, they passed two Arab-looking males in expensive suits, and with, Abu was pretty sure, guns packed in their belts. He grimaced; he knew how so many of them thought about black non-Islamic Africans.
They came to an alleyway, just 20 yards away from the anomaly, according to the GPS. Abu looked up into the dark passageway. He could not see all the way into the darkness. He put a hand on the knife sheath attached to his belt. He told Bando to be ultra careful, and to watch their backs. They ventured a short ways up the alleyway.
Bando pointed. Abu looked into the shadows. He thought he could see a figure, hunched down, at the end of the alleyway. Abu’s fingers closed around the hilt of his knife. He had a sudden doubt… I should not endanger our lives; there will be ample opportunities to explore what the illuminator is showing… But then, even as he hesitated, he felt a strong compulsion to move ahead, down toward the end of the alley… He knew he had to get there. Something, he sensed, was terribly amiss…
“Get ready to run!” Abu whispered to Bando in Moba.
Abu glanced once more at the computer screen, on top of the illuminator in the box held by Bando. The intensity was even greater than before. But there was more! There were now two dots on the computer screen – both intense. Abu stepped forward; one of the dots moved as he moved! A surge of adrenaline powered through Abu’s system. It is showing that I myself am an anomaly!! He felt himself in his thoughts; he did not know how that could be. He just knew he had to go all the way into the darkness. Something terribly improbable in nature was happening, and now he was part of it… He tried to sense what was around him. Had they walked into a bubble of other physics? The excitement and apprehension made him light-headed…
They inched their way down into the back of the alleyway. At last, they could see a small figure hunched down on its knees… He and Bando approached very slowly. And – to their complete surprise – it was a boy, kneeling, hunched over… They came even closer. The boy was shaking violently, uncontrollably, and tears, Abu could see, streamed down the boy’s moist cheeks…
The boy looked up – and spoke in a language Abu had not heard in more than twenty years…
In the language of the Peuhls… the Fulani tribe… the cow-herding nomads of West Africa, the boy said as plainly as ever… “I knew you would come. Help me, help me, please help me!!”
Chapter Twenty – One – What the Hounds Wrought…
Peter huddled with Jason and Lucas around the fireplace in the cabin. It was now 8pm, and they had just returned from the hospital. They had not eaten. They had not showered. Peter still had coyote blood and brain splattered on him, as did Lucas. Lucas had brought out a bowl of stale chips and bottles of beer.
Peter tried to make sense of the day, and to decide how to proceed. He had not fully recovered from his coyote attack, and many dark thoughts were germinating in his mind…
Jason and Lucas had earlier, just as Peter had managed to get back to the cabin, run off into the forest with his gun to help Dip; Peter had been left with the dead coyote/wolf carcasses, and to contend with not one, but four different news crews who had trespassed on his property. The crews had gleefully filmed Peter’s dramatic, out-of-breath and bizarre exit from the forest, followed by the coyotes, the attack of one of the coyotes on Lucas, and the bloody shooting of each of the beasts… The crews had also filmed Peter, in a livid, exhausted rage, ordering them to get off his property… A strange, surreal scene it was, and it had now been broadcast and YouTubed to every location in the world…
It was obvious that the cabin’s location was no longer secret; and half the world probably saw him as some scientific lunatic. Stories were undoubtedly already being put up by the Enquirer and the Star with headlines like: “Eminent physicist attacked by deranged beasts; physicist goes berserk…” Peter’s phone had not stopped ringing, but he had refused to answer it. There was no word from Marisako or Jenny in San Marino. He had still not heard from Abu in Marseilles…
And then – the crews had also filmed Jason’s and Lucas’ retrieval of Dip, his bloodied and mutilated leg, and his being taken by ambulance to the hospital…
For Jason and Lucas had headed up the lakeside, whereupon they had found Dip clinging to a rock sticking up from the lake about sixty feet from the lakeshore. The flesh on his leg and been horrifically torn and bitten; there was a dead coyote floating in the water, and several others were baying at the water’s edge. Lucas summarily and with gusto shot each one multiple times.
Jason and Lucas had swum out to Dip, as his body lay draped over the rock. He’d been in shock, and hovering on the border of consciousness. As gently as they could, they’d swum him back to the shore. They’d taken off their shirts, and wrapped Dip’s leg tightly with them – trying to staunch the loss of blood. Jason had puked upon seeing the mangled flesh. They had then carried Dip on their shoulders all the way back to the cabin. Upon returning, they had found the sheriff’s car, the sheriff and an infuriated Peter – who had requested to press charges against the news teams. The sheriff had immediately administered further First Aid to Dip, and had called the ambulance. Peter had thanked the sheriff, whom he knew, and then the three of them had taken Dip’s truck and followed the ambulance to the hospital.
Dip’s condition had been serious; he had lost a great deal of blood. Dip faded in and out of consciousness, but by the time they reached the emergency room, he was completely unconscious. Peter had reached Dip’s father; Dip’s father had insisted that Dip not be given a transfusion of blood from the general blood bank – as his father did not trust the safety of the Canadian blood banks’ stores. But both Peter and Jason had type O- blood, which meant they could donate. Both had broken rules to donate two pints – for a total of four to begin replenishing Dip’s loss. Dip’s leg had been bitten and ripped repeatedly. The hospital staff had clipped off one of the offshoots to the femoral artery, which had been blasting out Dip’s blood into the lake prior to the application of the shirts as tourniquets, and then cleansed and cleaned out the damaged flesh. There was also damage to one of the tendons. A young surgeon, thankfully, had been on hand to repair the tendon and the blood vessel, and then to put in the over ninety stitches to repair the multiple skin tears on Dip’s right upper leg. After the surgery, they had waited for over two hours for Dip to regain consciousness. He could barely talk, between the anesthesia, the antibiotics and the painkillers which now flooded though his system. But still, when he saw them, he had managed a rueful smile…
“I drowned that mangy beast; score one for Dip…”
They had laughed, for the first time, and Dip had immediately fallen into a deep drug-induced sleep. Peter had called back Dip’s father back with all the news. “My boy’s real strong,” his dad had said. Peter had replied: “Yeah – he sure the hell is.” Deep down, Peter could not help but feel guilt. If I had only carried my gun with me…
Now finally, in front of the fire with his team, Peter was trying to understand many things. They were filthy and exhausted and Jason and Lucas were pale as hell, after donating so much blood. Still, Jason was speaking, excitedly…
“Peter, the illuminator’s working…! It was absolutely fucking amazing…! We could pick up on the cube bright dots for all the coyotes; we could see the whole pack. We could see their location, and we could see them running.”
Lucas broke in: “At different times, we could see you and Dip as well. We saw the coyotes which ran with you, and we saw the coyotes which ran with Dip. We could see Dip run down to the water, and then swim out. One of the coyotes went after him in the water. We could see the struggle…”
Jason: “We didn’t know what the coyotes were, but it was clear they were chasing you. At first we guessed bears, or people, but Lucas guessed wolves. We grabbed your gun, and were running out to help you and Dip just when you came bounding out of the forest.”
Lucas: “Goddam, Peter, it’s amazing…! The illuminator could ‘see’ the coyotes and at times you and Dip! The question is: Why? And how?”
Peter nodded, trying to think logically – and not giving heed to some more uncomfortable feelings deeper down. “Well, the illuminator picks up agglomerations of highly improbable wave functions – before they collapse into reality. If the illuminator picked up the coyotes – on a continuous basis – that would seem to imply that high sustained and continual quantum improbability was occurring – leading to highly improbable and unlikely sustained events in the real world… The odds against that would be off-the-charts… “
Lucas was nodding. “Yeah… We reached the same conclusion. The question is: How could there be a sustained improbability over space and time – and what does it mean in terms of the reality it coalesced into?”
Jason looked at Peter. “Professor – How could something like that possibly happen? How could there be sustained quantum wave improbability, and how could it be centered on certain things – like the coyotes – and Dip? It goes absolutely against everything we know about the nature of this universe…”
Peter the physics professor thought for a moment, his heart racing a bit… “No, actually fellows, it goes against everything we thought we knew about the underlying quantum nature of this universe. But we’ve never even once been able to see into the quantum wave function realm before… Until now, everything about such has been complete and absolute pure speculation. We have no scientific observations of the quantum wave function realm but these in the whole history of the world… Until now.”
There was a pregnant silence in the room, as they considered the truth of what Peter said.
Peter looked at his fellow scientists. “We are, gentlemen, in completely uncharted scientific territory. We should not have any pre-suppositions about what we will find – as we have absolutely nothing to base them on…”
Chapter Twenty-Three – Rescue
Abu was incredibly tired and stressed. He looked out over the stern of L’Orphelin, and at the sizeable wake it was now creating, as they powered by diesel engine across the mercifully calm Mediterranean. Bando had the tiller, following a compass bearing Abu had calculated for him. The boy – Dudani – sat across from him on the rear benches of the sloop…
Abu was struggling to bring up the words he needed in Fulani – as the child seemed to speak only rudimentary French, and only a few words in Moba. The boy did understood Arabic, but he and Bando knew only a few words and phrases. It was frustrating for Abu – for as as a child he had once been rather fluent in the Fulani language – the result of Fulanis coming through his village twice a year with hundreds of head of cattle… and inviting the Fulani boys to play with them in the village… But without any use whatsoever, the language seemed to be pressed back into part of his brain that he could not anymore easily access… He got up and got the boy and Bando beers from below, as well as one for himself, and he leaned back, enjoying for a moment the feel of the warm wind across the side of his head…
He shuddered to think of what might have happened to them… The moment after they had discovered the boy in the alley, Abu had forcefully and tersely instructed Bando to return to the sloop immediately with the illuminator. He knew, even before the boy tried to tell them, that evil men were looking for him. Bando had left as ordered, carrying both the makeshift box with the illuminator, and Abu’s high speed portable computer. Abu knew that the total worth of that apparatus was well in excess of two hundred thousand dollars, just by itself – but that if it really opened up a new era and understanding in physics, its worth was almost incalculable… He knew that his future and the future of his dreams and the future of the Schönbaum team might well lay in that box.
The boy had been in a panic, frightened for his life, and babbled uncontrollably in Peuhl about men looking for him… Abu had lifted him up, and pulled him over into the furthest shadows of the alley, as they watched Bando leave.
Abu had held his shoulders, and shaken him, and tried to tell him, in his limited Peuhl, that he could trust him – that he would protect him. Once the boy had been calmed, they had started down toward the exit from the alleyway, but had heard men’s voices. Abu knew they were in extreme danger. He turned his back to the alleyway entrance, and told the boy to hide back in the dark. The boy had scurried to the darkest corner, and huddled down into it. Abu had then pretended to be relieving himself, holding his stance as the men walked across the entrance to the alleyway. They’d stopped and peered down into the shadows; Abu had pretended to be zipping up and turned and walked toward them – as if he had nothing whatsoever to hide. One of the men held up a gun. Abu had raised his hands.
“Have you seen a black boy?!” one of them demanded.
Abu suspected they were Algerians, or Libyans, by their way of their speech.
Abu raised his hands higher and shrugged. “Non, messieurs,’ he responded.
One of the men approached him. “Where are you from?” he demanded. The man had a horrific and ugly scar across his lower lip.
“Le pays du Togo,” responded Abu. He bowed slightly, and said in his highly inflected African Arabic. “May the grace of Allah be upon you.”
One of the men laughed, but responded, also in Arabic: “And upon you.”
And the men had left him and continued on into the darkness.
Abu had run to the back of the alley and grabbed the boy by the hand. They had exited the alleyway, and run down the street in the opposite direction the men had taken. But they had had to pass the club, and other Arabs and the prostitutes had seen them pass. The prostitutes now yelled foul things at him as they passed. Abu knew that it was only a matter of time before the Algerians came to look for him and the boy. Worse yet, one of the men outside the club had left the steps and started to walk after them.
Abu and the boy turned the corner, and there was a seedy bar there… They had entered, gone toward the back, past the restrooms and toward the rear door. Abu had looked around carefully; there was no one observing them. He opened the back door and left it ajar, and then took the boy up the stairs that came to the back door. Two stories up, they had come to a door onto the roof. They went through it. On the roof, there were several large vertical vents, with brick bases, and they hid behind one of them. Neither said anything, but the boy clung to him, intermittently shaking. A short while later they had heard men talking animatedly down on the street, but their voices had quickly tailed off… And there on the rooftop they had waited until about four in the morning – when, Abu surmised, the thugs had finally made their way to sleepland.
Abu and the boy had descended then, gone out the back door, and made their way in the wee hours of the morning back to the sloop. Abu had taken the boy aboard, woken Bando… They had conferred quickly in Moba.
Both knew they could not stay there. The men in the streets were slavetraders, or worked for slavetraders – trafficking in poor African children, and selling them into slavery in the Arab world… Many had seen them that night… Many knew two black men lived on a boat in the harbor in Marseilles… Connections would be made. The men he had deceived would be furious and unforgiving – and murderous.
And so, at 5am, just as the first glimmers of the sun were appearing under the horizon, they had pushed out of the dock, and set off in L’Orphelin. Bando and Abu had discussed their destination. Another French port? Nice? Monaco? The Italian Riviera? Corsica? In the end they had chosen the island nation of Malta, as Abu knew that Africans were more welcome there than in France or Italy, and there were far fewer Arabs. It was also far enough away that it would be difficult to trace them.
The boy looked beyond exhausted but would not sleep. “Are we going to Africa?” the boy had excitedly asked.
“No,” Abu told him. “But we are going nearer. One day soon, you and I and Bando will see our homelands and our families again.”
And for the first time, the boy smiled…
And so, as they sat on the cushioned benches drinking beer, and made their way south and east to the land of Malta, Abu had talked – or tried to talk – for the first time with the boy.
The words came out haltingly, with deep emotion – in a mixture of French and Peuhl and Moba – as the boy tried his best to communicate to them. Dudani had been taken from his family in a town in Burkina Faso (only a couple of hundred miles from where Abu and Bando had grown up) – literally abducted from the herd of cattle he was tending on the outskirts of town, while his family traded in the marketplace. He had been punched in the head until he was unconscious and then put and kept in a cage for several weeks as he was transported by truck across the Sahara and to the north coast of Algeria. He had then been cleaned up and sold to a wealthy Qatari who had a large house in Marseilles. He’d worked there for several months, doing the scummiest chores from morning until night, and was beaten every day. He had run away one night, and the Qatari had sent his sons and his goons after him. He had run miles through the streets of Marseilles, but they kept on tracking him, doling out money to anyone who had seen him run… At last completely exhausted and grief-stricken, he had run into the alleyway.
Abu and Bando were grim – they had heard many such stories.
After the boy’s recitation, Abu asked: “But what were you doing down on your knees in the alleyway, Dudani?”
The boy started sobbing… “I was praying Monsieur Abu, I was praying…” And then, almost choking on his words: “And God heard me.”
Chapter Twenty-Four – The Asian Devil Shocks
Marisako and Jenny had returned to their little hotel on the outskirts of San Marino City to consider their options, and were trying to enjoy cappuccinos sent up by the warm Italian staff (decaf for Jenny, for the baby) – despite their incredible frustration. It was a clever checkmate, or so it seemed, as the Asian Devil was holed up inside a Capuchin monastery, where women simply could not venture.
Jenny observed: “The one thing about him always is that he is completely unpredictable.”
Marisako thought to herself: He is unpredictable because we do not know who he works for and why. If we knew that, everything would make sense. She was determined more than ever to find the truth.
Their first thought was that they should contact the FBI. Indeed, Marisako knew that that would be Peter’s strong choice. The Asian Devil was, after all, a fugitive from justice in the United States. But then again, they realized, hauling him back to the United States would prevent them from finding out who he really was, and who he really worked for. More than anything else, they knew that there could be no resolution until they found out why he had attacked them – or the illuminator at least…
On a hunch, Marisako asked Jenny to check on extradition to the United States from San Marino. After consulting the internet, they were both surprised to find that San Marino (like the microstates of Andorra, Liechtenstein, and Vatican City) were not members of the European Union, and unlike most all the EU countries, San Marino had absolutely no extradition treaty with the US.
Bingo! thought Marisako.
Jenny said: “So basically, he’s holed up in a monastery in one of the tiny little dots in all of Europe where he is safe from American law… He’s made himself completely inaccessible. – – And he made his way here right under our noses. The bastard!”
Marisako took a sip of her cappuccino. “But surely, he is not going to stay in San Marino for long… He will have to escape at some point. He comes from somewhere, and he works for someone.”
They looked at each other with melancholy in their faces. It was obvious to both that he had outwitted them and could outwait them – for they could not remain in San Marino indefinitely. Nor could they even know if he left the monastery. And for all they knew, he might already be on his way…
On a hunch, Marisako telephoned the church and asked the church secretary if the Capuchin monks were ever allowed to leave the monastery.
“Oh, si,” replied the kind lady on the phone in Italian, “they come for Mashttps://new-newarka.schoolpress.co/wam/wp-admin/post.php?post=66&action=edits every Sunday morning at 9am…”
Chapter Twenty-Five – Controlling the Chaos in Saskatchewan
Peter huddled with Jason and Lucas the next morning at the cabin. To their dismay, there was no coffee brewing, as Dip was in the hospital – and none had thought to take over his duties. During the night, the several news crews had pulled up again to the front of the cabin, and a couple of the newsmen were already milling about in front of Peter’s cabin door. Peter’s anger was building again, fast, and he was even more aghast after they had seen some of the news feed videos which had gone out across the world showing the confrontation with the coyote/wolves, and the recovery of Dip, bleeding and maimed, from the lake. The whole thing looked like a scene out of Harry Potter… Lukas offered to chase the news reporters away with Peter’s Glock.
Peter laughed and was sorely tempted, but restrained Lucas. “I will have to face the world, and soon… Better to negotiate with them for the moment… We will be needing them in the future and should use them to get our side of things out.”
And so – huddled around the rough-and-ready kitchen table, effectively trapped in the cabin, they strove to make more sense of what had happened…
First, it was quite clear that the illuminator was working – or at least – something deeply significant was happening. Peter visually reviewed the recorded blue cube patterns, and just as he had been told, he could see the sustained points of wavefunction improbability which represented the coyote halfbreeds, and as a pack how they had chased him and then Dip. He saw himself and Dip appear, as dots in the grid, and randomly it seemed, at different times, and then fade. He could see the coyotes that had been chasing him. He noted with great interest that they disappeared from the cube just after they were shot. Does the illuminator distinguish between the living and the dead? He could see the coyotes that had gone after Dip, and he could see them clustering around Dip as they mangled him. Logically, there was something about the coyotes that made them show up on the illuminator, and there was something about him and Dip – at various times – which made them show up as well. How baffling. What is the explanation? Many improbable thoughts went through his mind, and he shuddered. Deep down he knew they were on the brink of a huge discovery – but they didn’t know what the discovery was!
After his brief alone time, which the fizix bros respected, he congratulated them on their work, and reminded them that they were seeing into things previously unseen in the universe. He asked them to ponder in their minds what they had observed through the illuminator, and to see if over the next couple of days anyone (including himself) might formulate a sensible theory about it. Peter also asked Lucas to research on the web if and when coyotes had ever been seen in the Lac La Ronge area. He was still incredulous, for Peter had never once in his entire life heard of coyotes in this region at all – though he knew they were multiplying rapidly and spreading out into all sorts of areas across North America.
They had then agreed to wait one day before they tested the illuminator again. Today Peter would deal with the press jackals outside the door; they would examine and remove the coyote/wolf carcasses; they would try to make contact and catch up with Marisako and Abu; they would get cleaned up and showered; they would visit Dip in the hospital; but most of all – they would think… As Peter often told them: We must never be too busy to think and reflect… Our real work is in the mind…
After their meeting, Peter got first dibs on a much-needed shower – then got dressed, and headed outside to try to restore some normalcy to his reputation in the world…
As he stepped out the front door, several microphones were thrust into his face…
Peter scowled, but pulled himself together. “Gentlemen and ladies of the press: I will give you a full interview, but only if you remove yourselves from my property – and permanently…”
There was some initial consternation among the news crews, but in the end they reluctantly agreed. Like all good negotiations, it was a win/win. Peter followed them out along the gravel driveway leading to the cabin from the country road that ringed the lake.
An interviewer was chosen from among the crews. Peter was offered a seat in a foldable beach chair, and their interviewer, a young fellow with a Canadian accent, took a beach chair opposite him. Peter took a deep breath, and tried to look earnest and sensible. Just damn! he thought. Marisako is going to flip out when she finds out what’s happened. Time to contain the damage…
“The whole world is following you now, and everyone everywhere wants to know: What the hell happened to your team yesterday, Professor Schönbaum?”
Peter grimaced. “I and one of my associates were attacked by a band of coyote/wolf halfbreeds while going on a jog…”
“Why did they attack you?”
“Because they are hungry carnivores…”
The interviewer and the other newspeople laughed. “Yes, of course…”
“How is your work progressing?”
“Slowly.”
“What discoveries have you made to date?” queried the young man.
Peter smiled. “Our device is working, and is showing us things which we do not yet know how to interpret… We are nevertheless quite sure that we are obtaining scientific information for the very first time from the heretofore unreached quantum wave possibility realm – the realm which lies underneath everything which we observe in the universe… That is a stunning advance in physics… We look forward to introducing our device and our research and our thoughts to the world at the Born Physics Conference in Paris next month.”
“What things?” asked the reporter breathlessly.
“I would prefer not to respond right at the moment,” said Peter, “until I myself understand what is going on.”
“Will you win a Nobel prize?” asked the young reporter.
Peter laughed. “Who knows! That would be wonderful – especially for my team – who is quite young – but that is not our goal. We’re scientists. Our goal is to develop and seek to understand a realm of physics – quantum possibility wave functions – which are behind all the reality we see – and to understand what occurs in the quantum possibility realm, before those wave functions cohere into that reality. Our goal – like that of all scientists – is to understand better the true nature of the universe we are embedded in.”
“Do you have any more information about the man who attacked you and the illuminator?”
Peter paused for a moment, unsure how to answer. The interviewer pounced when he sense the hesitation.
“Do you know where that man is, or who he works for?!”
Peter strove to answer sensibly, without lying, but without revealing what they knew: “We believe he may have left the United States, but we do not know who he works for.”
“Do you think your device is a ‘soul-wrecker,’ like the Asian attacker claimed?’ asked the reporter.
Peter was dismayed, but used the chance to put his first spin on this thought. “While I believe in the reality of human souls, for both scientific and religious reasons, I do not know how one might be destroyed.” And then he added: “And I certainly cannot see how tracking quantum possibility waves scientifically for the first time could wreck human souls…”
“So do you think the Asian terrorist who attacked you is a mad man?”
Peter was silent for another good long moment. He certainly seemed like a mad man, but Peter suspected very deeply that he was not. “I don’t know; but in retrospect I think that he was not out to kill us. I think he is very concerned about something, and I do not understand what that is.” Yet – Peter could not help but thinking…
“Do you think you and your team will be ready to present your revolutionary device to the world at the Born Paris physics conclave?”
Peter laughed. “Well, I certainly hope so. But we have endured a great deal in trying to get there. I mean – how many scientists get attacked by Asian madmen and coyotes while doing their research?”
The young interviewer laughed. “Not many!”
The young interviewer wanted to ask more, but Peter stood up, and looking into the camera (and as he well knew – at the entire world), said:
“It’s been a pleasure. But now, if you will allow me, I have a great deal of work to do – starting with the disposal of several dead coyotes.”
The interviewer laughed again, and threw out: “Einstein never had to deal with anything like this.”
Peter turned back to the camera, his face serious: “Actually, Einstein had to deal with a lot more – and – if you want to know – I think I would do well to remember that myself… Thank you all.”
And with that Peter turned and starting walking up the gravel driveway which bent around by the dock, and then over to the cabin in the meadow. He thought to himself: Once again, things back to reasonably normal. He wondered how long that would last. He looked down at his phone; there was a very big video file from Abu. And he was very surprised to see that the file had originated from Valletta, Malta.
Chapter Twenty-Six – Catholic Mass
Marisako has truly outdone herself! They were standing in front of the church, just down the street from the Capuchin monastery in San Marino City. Jenny looked at what Marisako had done to herself. She was dressed in a very conservative black dress, with heels and stockings and a black Catholic lace mantilla, attached to a black hat, the mantilla hiding her face, and which traditionally serves to keep a Catholic woman from becoming a sexual distraction in church to the men. Jenny, in turn, wore a light summer dress, but also with a light yellow, fine-meshed mantilla and matching hat. Jenny, to her own amazement, realized that Marisako had made a superb call, for most of the women around them also covered their faces in the same traditional way. Jenny found herself thinking: It actually makes the women more special. It was now minutes before the 9am Mass, and Jenny was a bit nervous; she had never been to a Catholic Mass before in her life. Marisako had told her to just follow her lead, and to mumble through the communal prayers. The main thing, Marisako had told her, was to appear to be reverent and humble and grateful before God.
It is hard to pretend to believe, when I’m not sure I do, Jenny thought to herself. She took a deep breath, and together they walked into the narthex of the church, and then into the nave.
To their delight, all of the Capuchin monks were arrayed across the first two pews. They both scanned the backs of the now unhooded monks. Jenny saw him first, and pointed him out to Marisako. They took seats two pews back, behind the Asian, confident that they could not be recognized with their face veils.
The Mass started and they sang the first hymn, Veni Creator Spiritus, as the priests and deacons processed to the altar. Jenny was taken by the beauty and haunting melody of the hymn. More than that, she realized with a start that she had never once before seen Marisako, the devout Catholic, in her natural state, in her church, and in the practice of her deep faith. She was surprised at Marisako’s strong and natural singing voice, her startling comfort with Latin – and her surprising piety…
She remembered something from long ago… Marisako had told her once in a bar that James the apostle of Christ had made his way to Spain to proclaim the Christian faith, and the Spanish had carried that faith to the Philippines, and from there Jesuit priests had brought the faith to her family’s little fishing community on Hokkaido in northern Japan. And so Marisako had said, she had always given thanks to that apostle for her marriage. For Peter had been looking for a truly Christian wife, so many years before, and would not have married another, and but for that apostle, she and Peter would not have come together. The tale had made Jenny think, when she first heard it, of the great influence certain people have on into the future of humanity. She had also been surprised to consider that but for Christ himself, Peter and Marisako would not be wed – and quite possibly – none of them would be doing what they were…
The hymn was over, and they sat down to be welcomed to the Mass. Through the bowing of the heads, to the request for forgiveness of sins, to the Bible readings from the Old and New Testaments and the Gospels, Jenny did her best to look normal and at ease. It was not difficult, for she followed exactly what Marisako was doing.
Marisako, for her part, was, as she always did, turning her soul over to God, but yet still managed to watch the Asian, just in front of them, in between her prayers. To her surprise, the Asian seemed to lead most of the Capuchins through the prayers and the kneelings and the singing and the responses. When they knelt, the Asian’s head went down, deeply down, in what gave the illusion of true reverence and belief. She thought: He is so very skilled at so many things – he certainly is a superb actor.
The Mass continued on… They heard the homily from the priest – in Italian – a good portion of which Marisako was able to follow. It was about hers and Peter’s favorite of Christ’s parables – that of the prodigal son… Marisako knew that that parable lay at the heart of who Peter Schönbaum was – and for that she was immensely grateful. Those few words of Christ had once changed her husband from a different creature to whom he now was.
And when the time came for Communion, Marisako watched with an eagle eye as the Asian went up to the altar to receive the bread and the wine. She followed a little while later, while Jenny stayed in the pew. When she returned to the pew to pray, on her knees, she noticed with alarm that the Asian was no longer with the Capuchins. She gritted her teeth – for their daring plan had been to strike up a casual conversation with him after the Mass, still hidden by their mantillas. She had thought most long and hard about that – for it technically broke the agreement she had with Peter. But she had justified that in her mind, telling herself that ‘contact’ did not count if the Asian did not know who they were.
She wondered where the Asian had gone. He cannot slip out of the Mass! It would break his cover as a Capuchin! And as she was just thinking of making her way to the back of the church herself, she was greatly caught up in astonishment and surprise when the Asian Devil made his way into their pew – and knelt down right beside her! Her heart started beating furiously, though she knelt over slowly to pray herself. Jenny also gave a start, shifting around on the kneeler – to catch a glance.
She watched the Asian out of the corner of her eye. She could almost hear his breathing, which was whisper quiet and easy. He was kneeling also, and bowed over in what looked like deep prayer. She saw his hands clasped tightly together, and almost, she thought, saw beads of sweat on his temples. He kept on praying, even as the host was returned to the tabernacle, and as the priest started to address the congregation. The time came for the last hymn, I Am the Bread of Life, in a simple and joyful Italian. She followed from the hymnal, but was quite surprised that the Asian did not use one. His voice was strong and clear, and it had that strange foreign accent she had heard once before. The Italian came off his lips easily…
She felt a deep anger rising up in her. She would confront the bastard. Enough of the hiding! What could he do to them here?
She was about to reveal herself to him, when he knelt down once again at the Benediction, and said some prayers in a language she did not recognize.
Then to her utter shock and horror – he turned suddenly straight toward her and said, in English: “Do not be frightened wife of Peter Schönbaum. I want to tell you that your most heartfelt prayer has been heard. You will see your son again. Very soon.”
Marisako – who had been preparing mentally for a confrontation – and for danger, even physical danger – was so taken aback she started to swoon… The Asian and Jenny both caught her, and kept her head from banging into the back of the pew. Marisako managed to sit down on the bench, leaning over in intense emotion. Jenny was about to confront the Asian herself, but found herself saying instead: “Will my son be born?”
The Asian reached out to clasp her hand, and looked at her with his clear bright blue eyes. “Your son’s life rests with your decision. But I beseech you; do not take your son’s life. Nourish him and love him and be his loving mother. He will be the joy of your life.”
And then suddenly, several Capuchins came over right next to them. One of them said to Jenny, in fragmented English, “I hope you don’t mind, but the monks must return to the monastery at once.” The Asian semi-bowed to her and then he and the Asian and the others simply walked out.
Jenny felt flushed. She bent down and held Marisako. She had never, ever, even once, seen Marisako – the strongest woman she had ever known – so vulnerable and taken over by emotion. She would not have believed it possible. Marisako had gone almost completely limp, hunched over in the pew.
Jenny held Marisako’s arms as they exited the church and made their way, slowly, haltingly, back to the hotel.
Marisako lay down on the bed. Jenny went to get her some water and switched on the TV. As Jenny came back with a cool damp cloth for Marisako’s head, they were stunned to watch a video of Peter’s run across the cabin meadow, with coyote/wolves right behind him, his collapse on the ground, the attack of a coyote on Lucas and the bloody execution of three coyote halfbreeds – all in the meadow next to the Schönbaum cabin in Saskatchewan.
Both Marisako and Jenny were stunned…
Marisako’s hands were shaking when Jenny gave her the glass of water. Marisako barely whispered: “Get me Peter. I must speak with him.”
Chapter Twenty-Six – Out of Control
Peter looked out the window of the back seat of Dip’s huge Ford pickup, as he and Lucas and Jason and an American colonel named Sam rushed to the hospital in Lac La Ronge. The now-working illuminator apparatus sat next to him on the back seat – its blue cube lit up with anomalies here and there, and with one huge one showing – at the hospital itself… Does it know where we are going? Peter had already repeatedly asked himself. Adrenaline coursed through his arteries, and he was trying, trying to assimilate everything that had happened in the past two hours…
The team had awoken early, with a superb pancake and sausage breakfast cooked by Jason. They had reviewed the long audio/video file from Abu – who to their shock was in Malta with his cousin and a West Africa nomad boy named Dudani. On the video file, Abu swore over and over and over that the boy had showed up as a super strong anomaly in an alley in Marseilles – over an extended period of time – and that he too (Abu) had been an anomaly for a short while. In other words, they had all realized, the same sort of pattern as that with the coyotes. And what did they find the boy doing, on his knees in a dark back alley in Marseilles? Praying. Peter mulled that over. How does that fit with the coyotes? And life and death…? They were all thinking: What was the theory that connected and made sense of their first observations? It seemed to make no sense at all. But whatever the illuminator was revealing, Peter knew it was significant and revolutionary. We have to understand what it is showing us…
And then, right after breakfast, he’d been stunned to receive a call from the White House – on his cellphone! – and had been asked to wait for the President of the United States. The fellows had been taking and setting up the illuminator, and he’d gone crazy gesticulating for them to be quiet. In the now silent cabin, the president informed him that the National Security Agency and other agencies of the government were following his research, and that it was possible it could be ‘militarized’ down-the-line. Over my dead body! Peter had screamed to himself. But for the moment, the president’s staff had become concerned that they were in danger, now that their location was known. There are fanatics all over, Professor, who might want to derail what you are doing. We are concerned by chatter we are hearing. Further, my science advisors tell me that you could be opening up a significant new vista in the area of physics… We want to make sure that America benefits first from whatever you discover. We believe you and your team may be in significant danger.
Peter told the president: “Thank you Sir for the warning… We are indeed having difficulties getting our research done.” And he thought of the Asian and of coyotes… And then he added: “But of course, I hope our research will be used for the benefit of all humanity.”
The president had replied: “Yes, yes, of course – though I have been given to understand that there could be unpredictable consequences, depending on what you find. I hope you will confer with us as your research progresses.” Peter was about to respond, but the president continued: “I have worked out an agreement with the Canadian prime minister, and he has allowed me to station US troops around your cabin, under the command of Colonel Sam Breckinworth. They are under orders to protect you from terrorists, coyotes, intrusive news crews – or anything else which threatens you and your team.”
Peter had laughed: “If you can just take care of the news media, Mr. President, we would all be very grateful.”
And then at last the President had laughed himself: “If I only knew how to do that, Sir!” But then the president warned him again about potential and now likely dangers. “You are a great resource to our country, Dr. Schönbaum. We will do our best to keep your team on track and from harm. If you need anything, you may relay your request directly to me through Colonel Breckinworth.”
Peter had thanked him, sincerely, and then with that, the president had hung up.
They had sat back for a moment in awe, as a knock came at the door. When they opened it, a tall, obviously fit and uniformed Colonel Breckinworth stood in it, with forty heavily armed men behind him.
The Colonel had introduced himself, and had announced to them: “The perimeter of your property is secured, Dr. Schönbaum, and the press teams have been pushed back to beyond that perimeter.”
Peter had asked the Colonel where his men were going to station themselves – and learned that a tent camp had been set up on the square of land where his very long driveway just entered his property.
“Thank you for keeping us safe,” Peter had managed to reply.
The Colonel had smiled – a wide happy smile. “It is my true pleasure, Professor.”
By ten o’clock, they had sort of collected their wits, in all the excitement (The President of the United States!), and had begun setting up the illuminator once more. By 10:45, it was working, and a large and sustained anomaly immediately showed up in the blue cube – which proved to be situated right in the hospital in Lac La Ronge where Dip was convalescing…
“Could it be Dip!?” Lucas had asked first.
“How the hell would I know?” Peter had responded.
And then, just as they were getting ready to take the illuminator to the hospital, with a full US military escort, Marisako had called from San Marino. She had been crying – and that scared Peter. Marisako did not cry easily. And indeed, it had taken a while for him to even understand what she was talking about. The Asian Devil, she and Jenny had discovered, and had come to believe, was an actual Catholic monk – and a very religious one at that. Well if he’s a Catholic monk, thought Peter, I don’t ever want to get into a brawl in a monastery… Marisako’s assertion had made no sense to him, and he asked her to explain. .. But she’d gone on – almost hysterically –
“The monk knows about Jonah! He said we will see him soon! – – – I have to go back to talk to him!”
Peter had been stunned. He wasn’t sure what to say. He did not want to puncture their hope, but he found it hard to believe the Asian had not simply investigated their history before attacking the illuminator in the lab in Colorado…
“Listen, honey, I think we have to be very careful. We can’t just trust this man; we know what he’s capable of… He could easily have found out about Jonah from past articles in the press…”
Marisako whispered in the phone: “No – I think he’s the real thing, Peter; I think he is the real thing – a man of God. I think he knows things…. He is very, very devout.”
“Wait a ding minute!” Peter had shouted. “This is a man who kicked me in the groin!”
Peter yearned for his wife, and to hold her and reassure her. He knew the one and only thing in the entire universe that could make Marisako irrational – was the desire to see their son again. He knew that arguing would only make the situation worse.
Peter begged his wife. “Please, please be careful, honey… Keep your guard up. There is so much we do not know and which makes no sense.”
After hanging up, he realized Marisako had not even asked about the news reports of coyote massacre making their way around the world. And then he dared ask himself one question: Could it be true our son will be found?
He looked at the colonel sitting next to him, with a ramrod straight back – and out at the forest along the road into Lac La Ronge… He seemed to be losing control of everything – his timeline, his property, his freedom, his wife, Jenny, the news cycle – except for one thing – getting the illuminator to work and finding out what it could do. He could not but help think: there is more than science going on here… And deep down, he did know there were things far deeper than science.He looked out the front window and saw the hospital approaching. Like good, beauty, truth… And their opposites… Like evil, repulsiveness and lies…
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Jonah
Marisako looked out of the window of a huge Airbus 380, and down toward the Alps. A glass of wine stood on first class wood grain fold-table in front of her, but she had not touched it. Her heart had been racing since she’d heard her son’s voice…
Mom – hold me.
Marisako had brusquely left Jenny in the hotel room in San Marino, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and had bribed officials to get her on a small plane from San Marino City to Rome, where she had been able to get the expensive Airbus ticket to New York. Her heart told her that Jenny would be alright – as she was now convinced that the Asian devil was actually a Catholic Capuchin monk. But it still does not make sense…. she had repeated to herself numerous times. She had been planning to go back to meet him on the next Sunday, to try to understand so many things – but right after Jenny and she had caught up with all the goings on with regard to the illuminator team, the phone had rung… It was Jonah, their son. Mom – hold me.
And Marisako – so deliberative, so in control at all times and so confident – had fallen onto the hotel bed in tears and wailing – as her and Peter’s most fervent prayer had just been fulfilled – that they might know if their beloved son were still alive.
She had collected herself, and left multiple messages on Peter’s phone – and had tried to call him many times – but of all days he had not checked his phone yet. What does this mean? What will happen to everything when he finds out?
She calmed herself, and looked out the window once more and had a sip of the wine – and then silently said many prayers of thanksgiving to God for what had just transpired. And she was trying to make sense of it all. She knew, she knew – that if she could just understand what was going on, everything would become so much clearer. And she was incredibly frustrated – for she knew that the Asian knew – but now it would be up to Jenny to try to get more information out of him. He predicted what would happen; that is impossible, is it not? she asked herself. Did the saints have predictive powers? And God was supposed to know all things – to stand astride of time, and thus to include the future. Unless… But her thoughts were interrupted by the steward, who asked her what she wanted for dinner. She waved him off, as she had lost all her appetite…
Right now – more than anything else in the world, in the entire universe – she just wanted to hold Jonah once again. To be able to do so would erase in a moment of love all the years of misery and horror they had been through…
She leaned back in the sumptuous seat. There were so many memories… She and Peter had had the magic wedding – in a beautiful church high up in the Rockies, and then they had honeymooned in the Bahamas. They had both wanted to start a family right away – and so – on the honeymoon, they had gotten right down to that task – joyfully and blissfully – in full love and dedication to each other and to a complete and full life together…
But Marisako had not become pregnant. Not then, not later, not after meeting with scores of specialists, not after having Peter checked out, not after many prayers… It had been the hardest setback she had ever had to deal with in her whole life, and she had struggled in her faith to not become bitter, to not blame God, to not hurt their marriage in her disappointment… She had looked out at so many who took their children for granted…
And at five years into their marriage, they had realized that barring a miracle it was not going to happen. So they had decided to adopt. And they had adopted a little boy from Marisako’s village in Japan, who had lost his parents in a fishing accident. They received him at age two, and had showered him with love. Her maternal instincts had come to the fore, bringing her great joy and purpose. And she could see how happy Peter was to have a son, and to play with him, and teach him things – like how to throw a ball… And all had been well until a few years later, when they realized that Jonah had certain tendencies which were off… He had an addictive nature, and had trouble disciplining and controlling himself. He had gotten into trouble on innumerable occasions. At then at age twelve, he had gotten into a friend’s alcohol cabinet, and nearly killed himself after drinking a full bottle of brandy. By the time he was fourteen, he was doing drugs of all sorts, in addition to the alcohol… From 14 to 18, he had been in over five different establishments, all of which promised to help him free himself of the chemicals to which he was addicted. During that time, he had run away twice… He had never graduated high school…
For all their love, and all their concern for their son – they had not been able to release him from the draw of the drugs and alcohol… He told them he knew they loved him; but he could not break free – the pull was so strong. He had to have the drugs to cope, he told them. They begged him to rely on his faith. And that – that had proven also to be a monumental struggle for him – in that he had tried to mimic the deep faith that came so easily to his mother and father – but had failed at that as well. He simply did not feel or discern the presence of God in his life. And between the drugs and that failure, Jonah the young man had despaired of ever making his parents happy and had run away for good, right after he turned eighteen. He had vowed not to go back until his life was turned around. But then that had not happened either – though he had just barely managed to exist and to survive… And Marisako had known from his voice on the phone in San Marino that he was not free of his addictions. It did not matter; all she wanted to do was to see him again, and to hold him. We will not forsake you, son, no matter what… No matter what… And the plane seemed to fly so slowly in that strange limbo of frozen events that she eventually drifted off into sleep…
Upon landing, and exiting the customs area at JFK, she saw him standing there, waiting for her… His hair was thinner, and receding, and his face drawn and gaunt, but he was standing there, all by himself…
She dropped her bags, walked up to him and hugged him with all her might, as he did her. Oh baby… she whispered. You did not have to hide from us…
Mama, he whispered… I saw dad on TV. I thought you might be in trouble… I just suddenly knew I had to help if I could…
Chapter Twenty-Eight – Miracles
Peter and Jason and Lucas entered the hospital with their portable illuminator, and the blue cube denoting a major anomaly on the second floor, right around where Dip’s room was. They had rushed up the stairs, run down the corridor with the apparatus, and barged into his room. They did not know what they had expected to see, but all they did see was Dip in his hospital gown hobbling back from the bathroom on crutches. He tried to turn when they came in, and dropped one of the crutches, and then almost fell. Lucas caught him and helped him to sit on the bed.
Dip smiled, but spoke quietly, as he was still in much pain: “Hey fellas, it’s great to see you! My leg hurts like hell…” Dip looked a little confused, and then was a bit taken aback when he realized they weren’t that interested in him right at the moment…
Peter spoke: “Dip – is there anything at all unusual going on in here? Do you feel strange in any way?”
Dip could see the blue cube and the anomaly readings on the illuminator.
“Wait! Is there an anomaly going on right here? I feel completely normal!”
Peter held up Dip’s leg to look at the wound. Nothing different.
Peter laughed. “God damn! There’s nothing unusual going on at all.” He spun around to face Jason and Lucas. “Are you guys sure the anomaly’s in this room?”
Lucas spoke, as he was in charge of the computer navigation and pinpoint system. “It’s either here or real close.”
Peter walked out of the room and looked down the hallway. There was nothing – although – there was some noise from one room over. He walked over quietly and looked in.
There was a beautiful woman standing there – radiant really – and holding her baby – obviously just born. There was a small group of men and women and a Catholic nun standing with her, as sunshine poured through the window. The joy in the room was overflowing. He smiled when he saw the woman, and she smiled back. He nodded and mouthed the word: “Congratulations…”
He then walked up and down the hall looking for anything at all unusual – as the sustained anomaly indicated something incredibly unusual happening in the universe. But he just didn’t see it.
He reentered Dip’s room and shrugged. “I don’t the hell get it.”
They all laughed – but the disappointment was palpable. Jason spoke up: “Look, it’s clear it was picking up those coyotes. That was strange, to say the least. I don’t know about the prayer thing Abu was telling us about; a kid praying – maybe it had nothing to do with the illuminator at all. Maybe there was something else going on in that alleyway that Abu didn’t see. And besides, the illuminator could be picking up anomalies of the invisible physics in the room – neutrino flux, EM waves, something like that. We wouldn’t be able to see it.”
Lucas broke in. “No, I think Abu was led to that boy. And there is something happening right nearby, and we just don’t see it.” They all started looking around again.
Dip, a little hurt that they were completely ignoring him – asked them to get him a soda. Lucas and Jason went down the hallway to the vending machine to get him one. There were two doctors getting their own drinks, in front of them.
They could not help but hear the conversation: “She had stage five cancer, and her body was completely shutting down, just as she gave birth. It’s a miracle that we did not have to extract the baby. Then today, she’s in the best health she’s been in since last year. “
“Are you running tests?” asked the second doctor.
“Everything. – But it looks from her blood work like the cancer is receding – rapidly. I’ve only seen something like this once before in all my years.”
The second nodded. “I can tell you a couple of stories…”
The first: “From my exam this morning, I think we might be looking at a full blown recovery from stage five cancer.”
The second doctor: “The more you’re in this career, the more you see things that you just can’t explain. I’m really glad for her. She’s a beautiful woman with a beautiful baby….”
Upon returning to the room with the soda, Jason and Lucas recounted what they’d heard.
Peter looked up, thinking intensely.
Dip spoke up: “Thanks bros for the pop. So what you’re saying then, is that right next door there’s a miracle happening…”
Peter showed no emotion – because that was what he was already thinking. Jason scoffed: “We know nothing about that woman. Miracles just don’t happen.”
Peter’s phone rang. It was his son.