Bill Napier
Revelation
This book is dedicated to Fabbio Migliorini
Prologue
At the mention of memoirs, the Minister threatens me with everything from Section Two to the Chinese water torture. Naturally, since all I want is a quiet life, I back down. To his credit, he tries not to smirk. 'You can't stop me writing a novel, though.' The Minister turns puce but then he's known to be heavy on the port.
So here it is. Of course it's only a story, and if pressed I will deny that it ever happened. And deny it I have done, consistently, in all my conversations with those people with polite voices and calculating eyes.
To me, as a polar ice man, there's nothing odd about a tale of fire which starts in an Arctic blizzard. The planet is an interconnected whole; I measure the burning of rainforests in the thinning of the pack ice I walk on, and of fossil fuels in the desperate hunger of the ten-footers which raid our camps. The Arctic, in turn, is biding her time, quietly stoking up her revenge… but I digress.
The key to unlocking the secret of the diaries was Archie. My old friend Archie was the fatal miscalculation of the puppet masters. They had correctly assumed that I wouldn't understand the material I was handling, that I lacked the arcane knowledge which was the key to the secret. But if this particular puppet cut its strings, if I didn't do what my manipulators expected me to do, well, I give the credit to Archie.
We went back to the Creation, Archie and I. As boys we'd wandered around Glasgow's Castlemilk district in the days when it was run by real hard men, not the sham jessies you see now. Young buccaneers in search of trouble, which we often found. And if that seems an unlikely start to a couple of academic careers, I could tell you some juicy tales about quite a few distinguished Glaswegians. In fact our current Scottish Prime Minister… but there I go, wandering again.
Then there were the ladies, and then I went to Aberdeen and we drifted our separate ways until we met by chance years later at a Royal Society dinner in London. Archie the buccaneer was now a respected nuclear physicist, renowned for his work on superstring theory. I was into Arctic climate, looking for signs of trouble ahead. New Age monks, we had disdained commerce, despised the worldly, and devoted our lives instead to the search for greater truths.
As to how this unworldly pair reacted when wealth beyond calculation came within our reach, well — that's part of the story.
The rest of it has to do with blowing the planet to hell.
1
The Shadow on the Lake
Out-of-towners. Men with an intense, almost unnatural aura about them. Come from God knows where to the back of beyond. In his imagination, the station master sees gangsters, Mafia bosses come for a secret confab.
It is, after all, a quiet branch line, and he has to occupy his mind with something.
He has no way of knowing that the three men alighting from the Pullman are infinitely more dangerous than anything his imagination can devise.
First out is John Baudino, the Pope's bodyguard. His gorilla frame almost fills the carriage door. He is carrying a dark green shopping bag. Baudino surveys the platform suspiciously before stepping down. Two others follow, one a tall, thin man with intense blue eyes. He is wearing a broad-brimmed pork-pie hat, and is smoking a cigarette. The third man is thin and studious, with a pale, serious face and round spectacles.
The man waiting impatiently on the empty railway platform expected only Oppenheimer; the other two are a surprise.
'Hello, Arthur,' says the man with the blue eyes, shaking hands. He looks bleary, as if he hasn't slept.
'You could have flown, Oppie. A thousand miles is one helluva train ride.'
Oppenheimer drops his cigarette on the platform and exhales the last of the smoke. 'You know how it is with the General. He thinks we're too valuable to risk in the air.'
Arthur Compton leads the way to the exit gate.
The station master gives them a suspicious nod. 'Y'all here for the fishing?' he asks, attempting a friendly tone. It is out of season for the angling. His eyes stray to their unfishing-like clothes and luggage.
'No. We're German spies,' growls Baudino, thrusting the train tickets at him. The station master snaps their tickets and cackles nervously.
In Compton's estate wagon, Baudino pulls a notebook and a Colt 38 out of the shopping bag at his feet. He rests the weapon on his knees. He says, 'Do your talking somewhere quiet, Mister Compton. And not in the cottage.'
'Come on, John, it's a hideaway. Nobody even knows I'm here.'
'We found you,' Baudino says over his shoulder. He is already checking car registration numbers against a list.
Compton thinks about that. 'Yeah.' He takes the car along a narrow, quiet suburban road. After about three miles the houses peter out and the road is lined with conifer forest. Now and then a lake can be glimpsed to the right, through the trees. After ten minutes Compton goes down through the gears and then turns off along a rough track. About a mile on he arrives at a clearing, and pulls up at a log cabin. A line of washing is strung out on the verandah. They step out and stretch their limbs. The air is cool and clear. Baudino slips the gun into his trouser belt.
Compton says, 'You know what I'm enjoying about this place? The water. It's everywhere. It even descends from the sky. After the mesa, it's glorious. You guys want coffee?'
Oppenheimer shakes his head. 'Later. First, let's talk.' He leans into the wagon and pulls out a briefcase.
Compton points and they set off through a track in the woods. After half a mile they come to a lake whose far edge is somewhere over the horizon. They set off along the pebbled beach. Baudino takes up the rear, about thirty yards behind the other three, to be out of hearing: what the eggheads get up to is none of his business. His assignment is protection and to that end he keeps glancing around, peering into the forest. Now and then he touches the gun, as if for reassurance.
Compton says, 'Oppie, whatever made you come a thousand miles to the Canadian border, it must be deadly serious.'
Oppenheimer's face is grim. 'Teller thinks the bomb will set light to the atmosphere, maybe even the oceans.'
Compton stops. 'What?'
Oppenheimer pats the briefcase. 'I've brought his calculations.'
The studious one, Lev Petrosian, speaks for the first time since they arrived. His English is good and clear with just a hint of a German accent. 'He thinks atmospheric nitrogen and carbon will catalyse fusion of the hydrogen. Here's the basic formula.' He hands over a sheet of paper.
Compton studies it for some minutes, while walking. Finally he looks up at his colleagues, consternation in his eyes. 'Jesus.'
Oppenheimer nods. 'A smart guy, our Hungarian. At the fireball temperatures we're talking about you start with carbon, combine with hydrogen all the way up to nitrogen-15, then you get your carbon back. Meantime you've transmuted four hydrogen atoms into helium-4 and fired out gamma rays all the way up the ladder.'
'Hell, Oppie, we don't even need to create the nitrogen. It's eighty per cent of the atmosphere. And we've already got the carbon in the C02, not to mention plenty of hydrogen in the water. If this is right it makes the atmosphere a devil's brew.' Compton shakes his head. 'But it can't be right. It takes millions of years to turn hydrogen into deuterium.'
Petrosian says, 'About one hydrogen atom in ten thousand is deuterium. It's already there in the atmosphere.'
'You mean…'
'God has fixed our atmosphere beautifully. He's made it so it by-passes the slow reactions in the ladder. The rates are speeded up from millions of years to a few seconds.'