Craig noted the man’s indignance with interest. “You don’t think the substation explosion was meant to cause Dr. Dumenco’s exposure?”
“Absolutely not!” Piter said, lifting his chin. “The two incidents are totally unrelated.”
Goldfarb dutifully scrawled a few comments on his notepad; Craig knew, though, that nobody would ever be able to read the words. “So if Dr. Dumenco was working on something different from the other experiments, what was he doing, exactly?”
“Well, it’s very technical,” Piter said evasively. “Dumenco was attempting to radically increase the number of p-bars present in our beam-”
“You’re going to have to define ‘peebars,’ please,” Goldfarb said. Craig suppressed a satisfied smile to see his partner playing the dummy and drawing the Belgian out. Paige seemed to know exactly what they were doing, but Nels Piter didn’t catch on at all.
“Antiprotons,” Piter said with a dismissive wave. “The antimatter analog to protons.”
“Like the antimatter in Star Trek,” said Goldfarb.
Piter said coldly, “Yes, I suppose so.” He turned back to Craig. “For years, Dumenco’s been publishing highly theoretical papers on how to pump up antimatter production by using a gamma-ray laser to excite certain resonances in the target nuclei. His results-which have not been verified-indicate that this should greatly increase the production of p-bars. Since obtaining a gamma-ray laser from Los Alamos, he has been involved in quite a number of experiments to verify the increase.”
“Any luck?” said Craig.
Piter shook his head. “This is frontier physics, pushing the envelope. After Fermilab discovered the top quark, some of the teams wanted to concentrate on the Higgs boson-although at these energy levels, I’d be surprised if they were successful. My own work in p-bar phenomena followed a much more traditional, and less risky, path. It’s the right way to go.”
“Well, I guess we can let the Nobel Committee decide,” Paige Mitchell said in her best peacemaker voice, then brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “Nels is being seriously considered for the Physics Prize this year, as is Dr. Dumenco. We’re very fortunate to have so many world-class scientists working at Fermilab.”
Craig’s interest clicked as Piter nodded. Was there more than professional jealousy between Dumenco and Piter?
Piter placed his hands on the railing in front of him, a ruler looking out over his kingdom. He came up to Craig’s chin, and his blond hair looked wild from the quick walk down the tunnel. Unconsciously, he combed it with his fingers.
“You never told us exactly what you worked on at CERN, Dr. Piter,” Craig said.
“Storage of p-bars, Mr. Kreident. Not just tens of thousands of antiparticles at a time, but a new way to hold them in a portable container. Until recently, people have been able to store only minuscule amounts of antimatter in magnetic bottles-Penning traps, they call them. The antimatter is cooled and injected into a long cylinder with specially designed magnets on either end. The particles bounce back and forth between the magnets, but they tend to leak out.”
Paige interrupted. “At CERN Dr. Piter demonstrated a more efficient storage device, the Howe crystal-lattice trap. Unfortunately, we’ve never had access to large enough amounts of antimatter to test the actual limits of his device.”
Piter’s face twisted, as though annoyed Paige had interrupted. “Yes, my design was based on an idea first suggested by a Los Alamos scientist, Larry Campbell. It was then popularized by another Los Alamos scientist, Steve Howe, who thought it might be possible to trap antimatter particles inside the molecular lattices of crystals-simple salt crystals.” He drew himself up. “But it was I who took the idea beyond theory, and actually made it work.
“Years ago, the initial experimental team that detected the first particles of antimatter won the Nobel Prize in Physics. My work is just as significant. My crystal-lattice trap stores its p-bars at crystal lattice sites, reinforced through resonances in crossed laser beams. In theory, enormous amounts of p-bars may be stored this way.”
“How much is an ‘enormous amount’?” Goldfarb asked with a faint mischievous grin. “Or would it be too technical for me?”
“The million million p-bars in a Penning trap amounts to mere picograms-my crystal-lattice trap could hold up to tens of milligrams, more than has ever been produced in the world.”
“Enough to power the Starship Enterprise.”
Piter ignored Goldfarb’s observation.
Craig looked out at Dumenco’s experimental area. Several small ladders gave access to the main beam pipe above the floor. Three carts of diagnostic equipment were spaced along the tunnel, each loaded with bundles of wire connected to laptop computers.
Craig watched Piter carefully as he mused, “I don’t suppose you and Dr. Dumenco had any rivalry going? A race for the Nobel Prize.”
Piter blinked in astonishment, as if Craig had somehow blasphemed the prestigious award. “One doesn’t compete for the Nobel, Mr. Kreident. The Prize goes to those who are worthy. It is an arduous process, and the Nobel committee ensures the best person is chosen for the best work. It is certainly not a race.” He hesitated, then stared coolly at Craig. “Surely you’re not implying that I would somehow engineer Dr. Dumenco’s accident for a physics award? I’ve won enough prizes to be beyond that.”
“Just asking, Dr. Piter. I have to probe all possibilities.” Craig was uncomfortable, though, at how the Belgian scientist’s gaze had lighted on Paige when he mentioned his prizes. “I think we’ve seen enough here. Ben, if you’re willing to check out one of the intact beam-sampling substations, I’d like to stop by Dr. Dumenco’s office now.”
CHAPTER SIX
Tuesday, 1:47 p.m.
Fermilab,
Beam-Sampling Substation
Working alone now, fully charged with a fresh cup of coffee from the Fermilab cafeteria, Ben Goldfarb went searching for scraps of evidence. He preferred being a field agent, investigating the scene of the crime, trying to uncover something the evidence technicians had missed. Maybe even something Craig Kreident hadn’t noticed.
Since Fermilab was a nonsecured facility, unlike Lawrence Livermore or the Nevada Test Site, Goldfarb could walk around by himself. Having another person looking over his shoulder as he snooped put a crimp in his style. He went around the service road by the huge Tevatron, glancing at the other small concrete substations identical to the one that had been vaporized.
Special Agent Schultz, in charge of investigating the crater, told Goldfarb he was welcome to take a second look, but Schultz assured him that they had already been through each one of the substations with bomb-sniffing dogs and nitrogen detectors. They had found no evidence of explosives, no sabotage-only incomprehensible diagnostics and technical equipment. The blockhouses didn’t look as if they were used too often, and they had little strategic importance, as far as Schultz could see.
All that was well and good, Goldfarb thought, but he wanted to make up his own mind. The glassy crater itself offered no evidence for him, no leads, but he made his way to one of the other beam-sampling substations to see if there might be an overlooked connection with Dr. Dumenco’s accident. Schultz wasn’t even thinking about the deadly radiation exposure.
The unobtrusive concrete structures stood at regular intervals around the raised dirt berm above the Main Particle Accelerator Ring. Tall brown grass filled the middle of the giant circle, dotted by occasional ponds and the dark forms of distant buffalo grazing within the high-tech enclosure.