CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Thursday, 4:39 a.m.
O’Hare InternationalAirport
The Concord eased down from Mach 2, approaching the continental U.S. from the north at seven hundred miles an hour, faster than any other airliner in the world. Half asleep, groggy and stiff from time changes, jet lag, and cramped quarters, Nicholas Bretti could have calculated the needle-nosed plane’s altitude and temperature from the Mach number displayed on the front bulkhead; but his mind was focused elsewhere, seething.
Even when they had sent him packing, the damned Indians couldn’t resist pushing him around. Where did they get off? He was the one risking his neck, he had gotten the opportunity for them. So what if he had managed to bring only a portion of the antimatter he had promised? He was still early, and he had the means to get the rest.
However, upon returning to the U.S., he just might find himself the target of an FBI manhunt. Bretti would have to be very careful. He needed to slip in, grab the hidden crystal-lattice trap from the substation, and arrange to drop it off-but not before Chandrawalia made some further guarantees. Bretti couldn’t wait to have words with the smug, whip-thin man from the Embassy. After all, if Bretti got caught, he was damned well going to bring the rest of them down with him and expose all their embarrassing commercial plans.
Too bad he wouldn’t have time to pay his respects to old Dumenco. He wondered if the Ukrainian slave master had kicked off yet. In his imagination, Bretti pictured the physicist writhing in a hospital bed with his skin sloughing off, his hair falling out, his gums bleeding. Dangerous stuff, that radiation. The most amazing part, though, was that Dumenco had been exposed while doing his own work for a change, rather than bossing around his pet grad student.
Still a graduate student. After seven years of research, chasing down elusive leads to prove a new theory, spending all-nighters analyzing someone else’s data and trying to contribute to the next experiment on the massive accelerator, he was ABD-All But Dissertation.
Anyone else would have received a doctorate by now, donning the long, black robe, the maroon-and-blue head ornament of the Ph.D. Each year Bretti watched the graduation ceremonies at the University of Chicago, but never as a participant; instead, he stood back and let the others have their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. He watched as new lawyers were awarded their JDs after only three years of law school; watching new doctors awarded MDs after only four years of med school.
And these people called themselves professionals! All they had to do was memorize esoteric law cases or obtuse medical language and they “earned” their degrees. These people didn’t know about spending years in research with a perfectionist, domineering advisor who was never satisfied with what had been done before.
Bretti wanted his name first on a research paper, not just as one of the coauthors. Everyone in the technical community knew that the real work was done by the first author. After seven years of kissing up to Dumenco, jumping every time the old scientist snapped his fingers, Bretti deserved a little credit of his own.
And some extra cash. He was tired of living in poverty, eking by on a graduate assistantship’s salary. Chandrawalia had given him an opportunity to rise above all that-but now it looked as if he would fall on his face.
At the University of Chicago, Bretti had sought out Georg Dumenco, a respected researcher from the Ukraine, fresh off the boat with mind-boggling ideas of using gamma-ray lasers to induce cascades of antimatter in normal particle reactions. Dumenco had obtained an appointment at Fermilab and needed a grad student… just as Bretti was finishing his Ph.D. coursework.
It was the dream of a lifetime. And Bretti had worked like a dog for the following seven years, doing Dumenco’s work instead of his own. He’d had no chance even to think for himself, much less make his own breakthroughs. Seven wasted years.
Now, stepping nervously from the narrow, air-conditioned Concord into the Chicago airport, Bretti felt as if he had entered another world. The sleek supersonic jet had been a vision of the future, a flying metal island kept immaculately clean and incredibly well-maintained; Chicago ’s O’Hare airport was a nightmare that couldn’t heave itself out of the past.
Bretti bristled at the flood of memories the airport gave him. Even so early in the morning, people jostled his elbows, running past without excusing themselves; lingering scents from the previous day-stale beer, burnt bratwurst, airport pizza, and popcorn-rolled over him. Coffee vendors began to open their awnings, preparing for a new day.
Bretti searched the area for a representative from the Indian consulate, someone who would expedite him through customs. But no one waited for him. Typical. He was on his own, and he would have to handle everything himself.
Bretti snorted and fell into line, waiting with the other passengers as they trudged through customs. “Anything to declare?” He moved slowly up the line, wondering if surly Dr. Punjab had already yelled at Chandrawalia for sending him without the promised amount of antimatter.
He saw airport security, saw TV cameras, wondering if the FBI was already mounting its forces to rash him. What if they had a warrant for his arrest? What if they had seen him step off the Concord? But why would they suspect he had gone to India in the first place? As far as anyone knew, Nicholas Bretti was still down in West Virginia on a fishing trip.
As he stood in line, he flipped through a newspaper he had bought, searching for a notice about the FBI agent he had shot. Maybe it was old news already. Finally, he discovered a small article about Dumenco and his condition, with a mention of the FBI investigator who had been wounded during the investigation and remained in critical condition.
Alive! The man was alive! Bretti swallowed hard. At least he wouldn’t be wanted for murder then, and the FBI agent just might recover. Bretti couldn’t decide if that was better for him, or worse.
By the time he cleared customs-thankfully without incident-he was fuming at the ineptness of all civil servants, but more miffed at India for not taking care of him. They just flew me around the friggin‘ world in three days-you’d think they’d pay a little attention to getting me back here.
If he’d had better sense, he would have gone right to the Pakistani consulate and offered them the new batch of p-bars. That would show the smug Indians, rub their faces in it, just as they had rubbed his face in the fact that he didn’t have his Ph.D. He allowed himself a slim grin at the thought of offering hot new medical technology right to India ’s biggest enemy. Serve them right!
“Hey, open your eyes!” A large woman, all three hundred pounds of her, glared through thick glasses at him, lumbering out of his way. Not that he could have missed her, with hips the size of Greater Chicago.
Bretti clenched his teeth. He’d had it with people- the crowds, the rudeness, the self-centeredness. “Put on a Wide Load sign, lady. You’re taking up half the concourse.”
“That’s tough titty, you little wimp.”
Bretti gawked at her huge breasts, each the size of a watermelon. “And I bet they are.”
The woman glared at him, but he pushed past her to the escalator before she could react. He had meant to catch a taxi to the Indian consulate downtown where he could pick up his red Saturn, but he was too focused now on accomplishing unfinished business, business he should have taken care of years ago.