Kevin Anderson - Lethal Exposure

Craig swallowed hard. “An antimatter trap. It could be one of those unstable crystal-lattice traps.” Piter clamped his mouth shut, indignant at that characterization of his invention that had been Nobel Prize worthy.

Jackson said, “If Bretti goes on the run, we’ll never catch him-and he’s already got half an hour head start, thanks to my stupid clumsiness.”

Piter said, “I think he’ll be up top. If he’s got antimatter traps planted elsewhere, they’ll probably be in the beam-sampling substations outside.”

“Like the one that vaporized,” Craig said.

Jackson nodded. “Yeah-and the one where he shot Goldfarb.”

Craig spun around. “Let’s get out of this sewer and into the open air. We’re too late to do anything down here, but we can stop Bretti at the substation before he gets away.”

Piter huffed at the insult to his giant accelerator, but Craig paid him no attention. He turned to Jackson. “Get to a phone and have all gates and entrances to Fermilab closed off. We’ll converge on the substations around the ring. Nicholas Bretti is our man. I don’t want him slipping through our fingers now that he’s so close.”

Carefully, feeling a shiver of awe crawl beneath his skin, Nicholas Bretti pulled the small crystal-lattice trap through the access port in the beam-sampling substation. In the garish light of the cramped and chilly blockhouse, he held up the tiny container. It would only take a few minutes to transfer its antimatter to the other crystal-lattice trap, but he would keep a tiny fraction of the p-bars embedded in the salt. They could still be useful- as a diversion. Now, for the last time, he had to cover his tracks.

After today, he wasn’t planning on coming back. With the additional p-bars added to the antimatter already inside the main trap, it would keep even Chandrawalia off his back.

Bretti checked the LCD diagnostic panels on the crystal-lattice trap as he started the transfer. The solid-state diode lasers were aligned, confining the antimatter. Each p-bar oscillated in precarious balance within a tiny electropotential trap of crystalline salt molecules.

He knew now that Chandrawalia’s pretext of needing the antiprotons for “medical applications” was just a sham, a lousy story to cover their nuclear weapon schemes. Maybe now they would be willing to pay him even more-certainly, they wouldn’t brush him off… not with this much antimatter in hand. He knew what it could do.

Finished with the transfer, he carried the crystal-lattice trap toward the half-open door of the substation as if it were filled with nitroglycerin. He longed for a cigarette, but couldn’t take the time. If the antimatter containment grew unstable, he’d be gone in a flash of incandescent energy-himself and most of the prairie inside the Tevatron’s ring. Bretti could have calculated the exact amount of energy released from the annihilation of so much antimatter, but his stomach tightened at the thought.

Of course, the survivors and investigators would take years to piece together what exactly had happened, what had turned most of the Fermilab accelerator into a glassy-smooth crater… if the bumbling detectives ever managed to figure it out.

He had no idea how soon it would be before the trapped FBI agent down in the beam tunnel would be found. But the black agent had recognized him, called him by name-and now Bretti was royally screwed. He had hoped just to slip in, grab the p-bars, and duck out again. Now, he had to keep them off his trail, get the hell out of Dodge, and stay one step ahead until he could board the plane to India and demand asylum or diplomatic immunity, or whatever it was called.

Getting away was worth sacrificing a few precious antiprotons, he decided.

Squinting in the exaggerated shadows of the cramped blockhouse, Bretti carefully inserted the main crystal-lattice trap into a foam-padded suitcase shell, a disguise that would make it appear to be mere carry-on luggage. As far as any inspection would show, he was simply taking a paperweight full of salt. And if Chandrawalia was true to his word, he wouldn’t have trouble with any inspections at all.

Bretti would take one last trip on the Concord, and the payoff would be worth more than anything he might have left behind in this crappy, cold, and miserable place. Given the promised reward, Bretti could live like a king, even as a national hero for what he had done.

If he could get out of here.

Sealing the suitcase, Bretti looked at his watch. Time to move. He carried the other, nearly empty crystal-lattice trap to the door of the substation and connected wires to the wall, and to the door jamb. The next time the door was opened, it would cut power to the cross-feeding lasers-releasing a few hundred nanograms of antimatter.

Enough to blow the hell out of the blockhouse.

Enough to keep the FBI busy for quite some time.

Bretti had to erase his tracks, create an immediate diversion, and keep away from the relentless federal agents. The stakes were high, the time was now, and everything would depend on how he managed to get through the next few hours. He didn’t have any other choice.

He already had his ticket for the Concord, a one-way trip to India… and safety for the rest of his life, compliments of the Liberty for All party. He had his passport and packed suitcase waiting in the trunk of the rental car.

Lugging the main trap with him, Bretti departed from the blockhouse and carefully closed the metal door behind him, connecting the leads and preparing the booby-trap. Not looking back, he set off across the dry, shoulder-high grasses of the restored prairie. It was the most direct way to his car, with the least chance of him being seen, swallowed by the tall waving grass.

He had just stepped into the shelter of the prairie when he saw a gold rental car racing toward the blockhouse. Kicking up dust, it drove along the narrow access road that followed the curve of the racetrack accelerator. Bretti ducked down in the dry grass, his heart pounding. Already! Shit !

He backed slowly away, rustling through the grass as he waited for the fireworks to start.

Minutes earlier, in the first blockhouse around the accelerator ring-where Goldfarb had been shot-Craig, Jackson, and Piter had found nothing, exactly as Craig had expected. Schultz’s evidence technicians had scoured the substation for clues. Among the fingerprints found there, Craig was sure they would identify Bretti’s-but that proved nothing, since the grad student had been authorized to work in that building, after all.

The site of the second blockhouse held only the glassy crater, which they now guessed had been caused by a failed antimatter trap.

As they approached the third substation, though, Craig felt the hairs tingle on the back of his neck. He wasn’t thoroughly familiar with the small and ugly buildings, but something about the trampled grass around the exterior, the mussed gravel around the steel door, the way the padlock hung on the latch, made him think that someone had been here not long before.

Squinting through his sunglasses, he looked over at Jackson. The other agent stood tense, as if he could sense something in the air. The three men cautiously approached the substation door, and Craig nodded to Nels Piter. “Give me the key. Let’s open it up and see what we find inside.”

The Belgian scientist fumbled with his key ring. Selecting a key and handing it to Craig, Piter stood back and watched. Craig twisted it in the padlock with a click, and hung the lock on the ring, swinging aside the hasp.

Before opening the heavy door, Craig looked around, squinting into the bright autumn morning. The brown grass stretched ahead of him inside the circle of the buried accelerator, rasping together like witches’ brooms in the brisk, chill breeze. He sensed someone watching him, but he put it down as nerves. Fermilab’s famous buffalo wandered out on the prairie, incongruous among the high-tech substations and high-voltage electrical wires that ran around the lab. An intense silence hung in the air.