Body that of missing asst. prof.
The remains unearthed Monday from a construction site on the Diag of the University of Michigan have been positively identified as those of Johann Wolff. Wolff was an assistant professor of physics at the university from 1946 until his disappearance on Dec. 10, 1948.
Wolff, originally from Dresden, Germany, received a doctorate in physics at the Kaiser Wilhem Institute in Berlin and worked with renowned physicist Werner Heisenberg.
Det. Brian Ptashnik, of the Ann Arbor Police, has confirmed that Wolff’s death is being investigated as a homicide. No further details regarding the investigation were announced.
The discovery of Wolff’s body follows the grisly discovery of the preserved remains of medical cadavers from the 1800s on the same construction site last week. Dozens of handmade grave markers, bearing names like Amelia Earhart, Jimmy Hoffa and Elvis Presley, have sprung up on the Diag as students have transformed the campus lawn into a mock cemetery.
Cooper printed a copy of the article, then closed the window and pulled the single sheet from the printer. After rereading the article for the third time, Cooper scanned the phone list tacked to his wall and dialed the number he was looking for.
‘Research, this is Connie,’ a whiskey-throated woman answered.
‘Morning, Connie. It’s Bart.’
‘Bart Cooper?’ her voice softened with surprise. ‘It’s been a while. How they treating you upstairs?’
‘Same as always, with the great respect due one of my numerous years of service.’
‘Sounds like the same old song and dance we get down here,’ Connie said with a laugh. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I need some research done on an old case.’
‘How old?’
‘Old, as in before your time.’
‘A request like that isn’t research; it’s archaeology.’
‘I know,’ he said, laughing. ‘But please, I need everything you can find on a Johann Wolff. He was a German physicist, worked on the Nazi A-bomb project during the war.’
‘What’s the story?’
‘They just found his body up in Michigan, fifty years after he disappeared. Looks like murder.’
‘A murdered German physicist. How intriguing.’
‘Might be. See what you can dig up. Full package: German Intelligence, Immigration. The works. You can start with file OSS-one seven nine three two. Also, see if you can get anything from our friends at Lubyanka — they got most of the Gestapo’s records out of Berlin.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. Any rush on this?’
‘No, it’s just to satisfy my own curiosity. You see, Wolff was one of the German scientists I vetted after the war — I wrote that OSS file I just told you about. Based on what I could find at the time, I cleared him to immigrate into the U.S. Still, I have a few questions about Wolff that I’d like to resolve.’
26
Kilkenny swiped his ID through the card reader that controlled the electronic lock on the door to the MARC Computer Center. The red light quickly changed to green, accompanied by an audible buzz and the release of the electrified magnets that held the door closed.
Inside, Bill ‘Grin’ Grinelli rose from behind the cluttered workstation that was the heart of the MARC computer network and smiled. He was a few inches shorter than Nolan and wore a black T-shirt, a pair of comfortably worn jeans, and his Birkenstock sandals. His shoulder-length brown-gray hair was drawn back in a ponytail, and he sported a pointed goatee that surrounded an infectious smile. Grin was the embodiment of free-spirited mischief, and the tattoo of a mythological Pan seated on a crescent moon scattering pixie dust that adorned his left forearm only enhanced that perception.
‘Nolan, what’s up, man? Long time, no see. I heard about the excitement in South Bend. I guess trouble just seems to find you.’
‘Same old, same old, my friend.’
Grin laughed. ‘I hear ya, man. Guys like us don’t have to look for trouble; like bees to honey it finds us well enough on its own.’
As MARC’s MIS director, Grin kept information, the lifeblood of the consortium, flowing freely through the building’s electronic veins and arteries. The apparent ease with which he handled his job was even more amazing considering the diversity of personal computers and workstations within the consortium.
At the heart of Grin’s electronic empire stood a pair of supercomputers that he considered his personal property, a recently acquired Moy Electronics massively parallel machine and MARC’s original Cray. The tall, thin Moy machine stood in marked contrast to the squat, cylindrical form of the Cray, prompting Grin to christen them Stan and Ollie. Affixed to the front panel of each machine was a photograph of its comic namesake.
‘Miss me down here?’ Nolan asked, shaking Grin’s outstretched hand.
‘You know it. I had to put Stan in all by my lone-some. Well, me and half a dozen techs from Moy.’
‘How’s he running?’
‘Like a champ.’
‘Great, because I’ve got a problem I’d like him to take a shot at. How are you at cracking encryption?’
‘Officially, I never touch the stuff.’
‘How about unofficially?’
‘You remember that two-hundred-and-fifty-six-bit scheme some genius thought up for the government, supposedly unbreakable?’
‘You’re the one who cracked it?’
‘I must confess. I did have my hand in that little caper. I do so love a challenge.’
‘I’m glad to hear you talk that way. Let me show you what I’ve got.’
Kilkenny pulled a chair around the console, seating himself next to Grin.
‘Log in to main campus and jump down to the library’s Preservation Lab server.’
‘Surf’s up,’ Grin replied as he clicked on the graphical icons that identified other computer networks connected to MARC. ‘And we’re in.’
‘We’re looking for a directory named Wolff Codex.’
‘Kodak, like the film company?’
‘No, codex, like Leonardo da Vinci’s illustrated notebooks. What I want to show you are high-resolution scans taken from the pages of some very old notebooks that were found with that body down on campus.’
‘The murdered professor?’
‘That’s the one. Johann Wolff taught physics at the university for a couple of years after the Second World War, right up to the day he was murdered. It’s the considered opinion of some well-respected physicists, one of whom you know—’
‘Kelsey?’
Nolan nodded. ‘—that the late Professor Wolff may have been one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century.’
‘Last time I checked the calendar, it was the twenty-first century, big guy.’
‘Maybe so, but if Kelsey and Sandstrom are correct, had Wolff not been murdered, the twenty-first century, technologically speaking, might have started thirty years ago.’
Grin let out a long, slow whistle.
‘Is there much left of these notebooks?’
‘Actually, the books are in surprisingly good shape. The experts tell me that the books were all well-made cloth hardcovers with reasonably high quality paper. The tunnel segment they were buried in protected them like a time capsule. There was very little damage to any of the notebooks.’
‘I don’t remember reading anything about notebooks being found with the body.’
‘The police are keeping that quiet because we don’t know what’s in the notebooks yet. They expect us to keep quiet as well. You’ll see why in a minute.’