“He accidentally dropped the last brick on top of the sphere, which made the setup supercritical. He even saw the blue flash of the radiation burst. Even though the man knew he’d been massively exposed, he meticulously unstacked the bricks, put them away, then walked to the hospital and turned himself in, where he died twenty-eight days later. He received about eight hundred rads.”
“Amazing the man could be so calm,” Dumenco said. He coughed. “But then… you know us scientists.”
Trish walked slowly, pushing the wheelchair. Other patients and their families were enjoying the night air, though many made their way back inside as it grew cooler.
“The other accident occurred nine months later, in May 1946, when a safety trainer was demonstrating how to perform a critical experiment with a beryllium cap over a plutonium sphere. He used a flat-bladed screwdriver to keep the cap from completely covering the plutonium, showing just how close he could come without bringing the core to criticality.
“Unfortunately, the screwdriver slipped, the cap fell closed, and the plutonium went supercritical for an instant before the cap blew off. The safety trainer marked where all the observers had been standing, then calculated everyone’s estimated dose. The others received varying exposures, and the safety trainer died nine days later.”
Oddly, Dumenco smiled at her. Trish smiled back, trying not to let the horror show on her face. His exposure was massive enough that he would die long before the more horrendous symptoms manifested themselves, the bleeding gums, loosening teeth, loss of hair, suppurating skin.
Dumenco patted her forearm. “Even with the hazards of nuclear material, that industry still has the best safety record of any, including chemical or electrical. Look on the bright side, my dear lady, you can add my story to your arsenal of horrifying anecdotes. But please put it in correct perspective. And I shall do my best to describe my symptoms to you, to make one last contribution to science. It’ll give you a broader benchmark for radiation medicine. Perhaps so people would not be so irrationally afraid.”
Trish shook her head, angry at his attitude. “You’ve already contributed plenty to science, Georg. The Nobel Prize committee doesn’t consider just anyone.”
Dumenco looked embarrassed. She knew he was an introspective man, trying to unlock the mysteries of the Universe, not for any fame or glory; but he had been immensely proud when his work became recognized, since so much of his earlier research in the Soviet Union had been locked up and classified.
“Have we heard from Bretti?” he asked. “He is on his fishing trip, and I wonder if he even knows about my accident.”
“Not a word,” Trish said. “I’ll do my best to contact him. Maybe Craig can track him down.”
“That would be most kind,” he said. “My great achievement would have been to win the Nobel Prize… I had fantasized about it many times.” He looked up at the dark sky, but saw something else, something far away.
“ Sweden, in winter. The Nobel Prizes are presented on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. December tenth, I believe, in the Stockholm Concert Hall. His Majesty the King of Sweden hands each Laureate a diploma and a medal, then the Ceremony is followed by a banquet for a thousand people.” He smiled wistfully. “I hear it is quite an event.”
“I’ll bet it is,” Trish agreed. She turned his wheelchair and headed back toward the hospital. Many lights had winked on in the windows.
“It would have been nice to be there,” Dumenco said with a sigh and a feigned smile, trying to keep a stiff upper lip. “I’ll be long dead by the time the ceremonies take place. The Nobel Prize is not given posthumously, but they make an exception if the scientist is already under consideration at the time of his death. I can take consolation in that loophole at least.”
“Oh, Georg,” Trish said, but didn’t know what else to say. She pushed the wheelchair faster. The air had become suddenly colder.
“I’ve accepted the award many times in my dreams. Luckily I have a vivid imagination… as all high-energy physicists must. That will have to be adequate for me.”
As Trish looked down at him, she felt anger and helplessness again, frustration boiling beneath the surface. She had already done much work with the PR-Cubed, but they had been ineffective. Trish and the others had been just another organization pointing a finger at the evils of the world. They spoke at dinner clubs and community service organizations, and the audiences briefly agreed with their cause… but then a different group came to their next meeting and made a different plea for a different problem…
Radiation accidents didn’t have a cute but pathetic poster child around whom the people could rally, like a pretty white harp seal. Maybe, in death, Dumenco could accomplish that for them. But he did have a point- compared to chemical spills, high voltage accidents, and industrial poisonings, the likelihood of anyone receiving a fatal radiation dose was practically zero.
Still… Trish had been to Chernobyl herself. She had seen the devastating effects of the fallout. She had treated other victims of radiation exposure, and to her this seemed even more insidious than smallpox or the bubonic plague-because humans caused this. Mankind brought the misery upon itself. But was she championing a cause that affected too few people, when her talents might make more of an impact elsewhere?
Georg Dumenco had fallen prey to his own scientific curiosity. Had his work at Fermilab condemned him to death? Had his research made him the target for reprisal by another researcher? Had he come too close to discovering something others wished to keep hidden, one of his former connections in the Soviet Union perhaps?
“Please, let us get back to my room,” Dumenco said, preoccupied again. He seemed to heave off the unpleasant thoughts and toss them aside like debris. “I still have a lot of work to do. I should devote my energies to that which is most important?”
She reached the hospital’s rear entrance. The glass doors swooped open automatically. “Important, Georg? Is it really that important?”
He looked up at her earnestly. “My antimatter production rate is far lower than expected, at a level close to that observed by Dr. Piter in his CERN work-which cannot be correct.” He snorted at the thought of his rival. “That means there is a fundamental flaw somewhere in the experiment. If I can solve this one problem, then I can die happy.”
They reached his room, and he began to climb out of the wheelchair even before she had brought it to his bed. He handed her his coat, already distracted, as he reached for the papers on the tray table. “Now, leave me to my data please. There isn’t much time.”
Trish turned to leave him alone in the room. No, she thought, there isn’t much time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tuesday, 9:23 p.m.
Fox RiverMedicalCenter
Late that evening Paige Mitchell met Craig in the hospital cafeteria. It remained open all night for hospital staff, though visiting hours were long over.
Goldfarb lay in his hospital bed unconscious, on the edge of death. Craig had already spent hours outside the ICU, pacing the floor. He had tried to construct a plan of action, but he kept coming up against a brick wall. The only thing he could do was focus on the Dumenco case, which now included the attempted murder of a federal agent as well.
Craig sat in an orange plastic chair, pulling himself close to one of the Formica-topped tables. While waiting for Paige to join him, he set his briefcase on the tabletop, saw that the surface was of dubious cleanliness, and brushed it off with a spare napkin.
In a moment of stunned respite, Craig sat at the cafeteria table and withdrew his folders of paperwork, skimming notes from his conversations with Dumenco as well as the maps, brochures, and other information he had gathered about Fermilab, the beam-sampling substations, and the Ukrainian scientist’s prior work.