“I sent Jackson over there earlier to look around,” Craig said in alarm. “If somebody is trying to leave with an antimatter trap, we can catch him, see what he intends to do. I need to call for backup.”
Craig snatched the sunglasses out of his pocket and pointed to Piter. “Let’s go out there, Dr. Piter, now that we know what to look for. Maybe that’s what Goldfarb stumbled onto.”
Flustered, Nels Piter turned and followed him out of the room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Friday, 9:53 a.m.
Experimental Target Area,
Fermilab Accelerator
Craig and Piter reached Fermilab some time before the backup agents from the FBI’s Chicago office. Using his own keys, Nels Piter took him through the access doors and beyond Restricted Area fences down into the underground experimental target channel.
They ran down concrete stairs into the thick-walled underground tunnels. Before them sprawled low ceilings, naked pipes, and garish lights that vanished to a point in the distance, which made the high-energy facility seem to go on forever. The walls were smooth and painted a thick yellowish-white.
Piter nodded to the left. “We haven’t used that beam-dump facility since Dumenco’s accident. No need to worry about residual radioactivity, though. It dies down quickly… well, fairly quickly anyway.”
“You really know how to inspire confidence,” Craig answered dryly.
In the opposite direction was the main entrance to the underground passages and the Tevatron control rooms. Technicians, graduate students, and contractors for scientific teams set up equipment for international experiments, making the underground corridors bustle like a subway station. In the midmorning rush of activity, they took advantage of the beam’s down time. People in lab coats or dark coveralls moved about in the main target areas and diagnostics alcoves, intent on their own work, trying not to get in each other’s way.
An announcement came over the scratchy, echoing intercom that everyone was supposed to remain where they were and to offer whatever assistance the Federal agents requested. But Craig didn’t think he would find anything in the crowded areas-the Tevatron accelerator was four miles in circumference, and the experimental target tunnel was nearly a mile long.
They briskly set off away from the main entrance. They had a lot of empty area to cover, many places to hide, many places to set a trap. What disturbed Craig most, though, was that he couldn’t get in touch with Jackson. The tall agent did not answer his cellular phone.
Piter brushed aside his concern. “Don’t worry. With all the copper shielding, high-energy equipment, and thick walls, cell phone transmissions are difficult under the best of circumstances. It’s like being in a Faraday cage.”
Still, it just didn’t feel right to Craig.
Piter hurried along the tunnel at a brisk pace, puffing; sweat glistened at his blond temples. “We should first check the other beam-dump alcoves,” Piter said, out of breath. “They’re rarely inhabited and would be an ideal place to hide suspicious equipment, such as this alleged antimatter trap. Few workers ever have reason to go inside. Dr. Dumenco shouldn’t have been there either-as he’s learned too clearly.”
Craig jogged easily alongside the dapper scientist. “Unless someone intentionally caused the crash and the exposure.” He watched for Piter’s reaction out of the corner of his eye.
Piter snorted. “Intentionally killed him? Preposterous. I can believe someone may have wanted an experiment to backfire or be delayed, for whatever reason-but murder is another thing entirely.”
“Yes,” said Craig in a monotone. “Yes, it is.”
They hurried down the long corridor, running so intently that technicians and scientists hustled out of their way. A repeat of the announcement came over the intercom, and Craig knew that other Chicago agents must have arrived, descending into the tunnels of the giant accelerator. Bandaged and on administrative leave, Agent Schultz might even have used a little influence.
Craig listened to the humming of the upper and lower accelerator rings built into the side of the corridor. The superconducting magnets throbbed, barely audible. When the Tevatron operated, the magnets formed a shaped field that curved the beam of high-energy particles in a precise circle. When the beam was on, the protons and antiprotons accelerated around and around, picking up energy with each trip through a booster. The flow was like an atomic fire hose, gushing currents powerful enough to slam a deadly dose of radiation onto anyone who stood in their way.
As they neared the first beam-dump alcove, Craig was surprised to observe that the door had been wedged tightly shut and barricaded from the outside.
Piter frowned. “Those doors are supposed to remain open at all times. It’s for general equipment and diagnostics storage.” He stopped in front of the barrier, shaking his head. “This makes no sense.”
At the sound of their voices, someone pounded against the heavy door from the inside, and Craig heard a muffled yell. Surprised, he and Piter rushed forward to unwedge the lock and pry away the barricade, tugging and grunting to swing the heavy hatch open. They heard more banging, a push-and then Randall Jackson staggered out into the tunnel, blinking in the wash of fluorescent light.
“Craig!” he said, leaning against the smooth wall for support, “I’m always glad to see you-but more so now than usual.” He panted heavily.
“What were you doing in there? You were supposed to be looking-”
“I was trapped!. I caught our man in the act trying to set up something. I thought he ran in here, but he tricked me. It’s Bretti-Nicholas Bretti, Dumenco’s grad student. The twerp sealed me in, and I’ve spent the last half hour just waiting here, knowing I was standing right in the high-energy bull’s-eye. Not a pleasant feeling, I can tell you!”
“But Dumenco’s grad student is on vacation. He left days before the lethal exposure.” Piter turned pale. “And the substation explosion.”
“I bet he never went on vacation,” Craig said. “His parents had no idea where he was. He knew that if he was out of state, we had no reason to suspect him.”
“Until now,” Jackson growled. “I kept thinking any second the accelerator would crash and send another blast of radiation in here just like the one that hit Dumenco.”
Jackson struggled to regain his composure. He brushed himself off and straightened his tie, as if trying to pretend he wasn’t bothered anymore. “It was like he was trying to retrieve something he’d hidden. He was carrying something, but I didn’t see what.”
Craig swallowed hard. “An antimatter trap. It could be one of those unstable crystal-lattice traps.” Piter clamped his mouth shut, indignant at that characterization of his invention that had been Nobel Prize worthy.
Jackson said, “If Bretti goes on the run, we’ll never catch him-and he’s already got half an hour head start, thanks to my stupid clumsiness.”
Piter said, “I think he’ll be up top. If he’s got antimatter traps planted elsewhere, they’ll probably be in the beam-sampling substations outside.”
“Like the one that vaporized,” Craig said.
Jackson nodded. “Yeah-and the one where he shot Goldfarb.”
Craig spun around. “Let’s get out of this sewer and into the open air. We’re too late to do anything down here, but we can stop Bretti at the substation before he gets away.”
Piter huffed at the insult to his giant accelerator, but Craig paid him no attention. He turned to Jackson. “Get to a phone and have all gates and entrances to Fermilab closed off. We’ll converge on the substations around the ring. Nicholas Bretti is our man. I don’t want him slipping through our fingers now that he’s so close.”