More than once Sandstrom had to ask her to stop so he could digest what he’d heard. The beautifully written prose was interspersed with mathematical notations and explanatory doodles. The first four-page letter took nearly an hour to read.
“‘— and I look forward to your thoughts on this. Your friend, Johann Wolff.’”
‘Amazing.’ Sandstrom sighed, physically drained by the effort he’d put forward to follow the letter. ‘I’d have to study that letter more carefully, but I’d swear that part of what you just read dealt with interaction-free measurement.’
‘I was thinking the same thing,’ Kelsey agreed.
‘I’m sorry to be the dumb guy in the room,’ Nolan said, crossing his arms over his chest, ‘but what is it about that letter that has you both so stunned?’
‘If Kelsey and I understand this letter correctly, Wolff was working on quantum optics.’
‘And why is this significant?’
‘The significance is not what, but when,’ Kelsey said. ‘Wolff was thinking about interaction-free measurement in the mid-forties. I’ve never seen anything on the subject dating that far back. In the early sixties the guy who won the Nobel Prize for inventing holography essentially said such a thing was impossible. No one was even fooling around in this area until the eighties.’
‘This is cutting-edge quantum thinking now,’ Sandstrom added. ‘Fifty years ago, my God. This guy’s grasp of the subtle nature of potential and probability is amazing. Las Vegas would hate a guy like this.’
‘Shall I read another?’ Kelsey asked as she carefully placed the first back in its folder.
‘Absolutely,’ Sandstrom replied eagerly.
Four hours and five letters later, Sandstrom was ready to get out of bed and go back to work. While Nolan was impressed with the author’s ability to describe incredibly complex phenomena lucidly, for Kelsey and Sandstrom the experience was something akin to an epiphany.
‘Raphaele was right,’ Sandstrom declared, ‘this guy’s thinking was decades ahead of his time.’
Kelsey nodded her head in agreement. ‘I’m just surprised that we’ve never heard of him.’
‘Me, too,’ Nolan said as he put the last few folders back in the pile. ‘Especially since he was here at Michigan when he wrote these letters.’
‘His comments on some of the senior faculty in our physics department sound like they could have been written today. Just change the names,’ kidded Kelsey.
‘Bureaucracies are eternal,’ quipped Nolan.
Still reclining in his hospital bed, Sandstrom stared in wonder at this gift from his mentor. ‘It’s like Wolff was doing stuff in his head that we’re just starting to figure out now using supercomputers. Based on what he showed Raphaele, I think Wolff was working toward a theory of everything.’
‘A theory of everything?’ Nolan asked. ‘Sounds like a Monty Python movie.’
‘For physicists,’ Sandstrom replied, ‘a workable theory of everything is the Holy Grail.’
‘I’ll bite then. What is it?’
‘You want to field this one, Kelsey?’ Sandstrom asked.
‘Sure. The short version goes something like this. Four basic forces are known to be at work in the universe — forces that determine the behavior of everything from the smallest subatomic particle to the universe itself. Current theory predicts that if we were to wind the clock back in time to less than a hundredth of a second after the Big Bang, we should find these four apparently separate forces merging into a single unified force.’
Nolan nodded. ‘I’m with you so far. Gravity, which keeps us from falling off the earth and affects all the big stuff in the universe is theoretically related to the forces that hold atoms and all the subatomic bits together.’
‘Exactly. A theory of everything, or TOE, describes the linkage between all the forces. If we can ever develop one that can survive experimental testing, we’ll have a much clearer understanding of how the universe began, how it works, and where it’s going. Now, trying to tie all four forces together in one shot is incredibly difficult. Einstein spent the later years of his life on his unified field theory and came up empty. Taking it one step at a time, we’ve managed to tie two of the forces — electro-magnetism and the weak nuclear force — together. Currently physicists are trying to tie these two forces with the strong nuclear force — the one that holds protons and neutrons together to form atomic nuclei. A theory describing the union of the three nongravitational forces is known in the trade as a GUT, which stands for grand unification theory. The next step after a working GUT is developed is a working TOE.’
‘So, based on Wolff’s letters, you think he was piecing together a theory of everything?’
‘Absolutely,’ Sandstrom assured Nolan, ‘and he was at least as far along fifty years ago as anyone is today. I’m seeing glimmers of M-brane theory in these letters and hints at strategies for resolving some of the stickier problems that current theorists are wrestling with.’
Nolan nodded. ‘Can these letters help you with your research?’
‘Who knows? It all depends on how far Wolff progressed with his theoretical work. These letters are just chip shots, snippets; Wolff did his big thinking somewhere else. A guy this bright had to have published somewhere — left some kind of record of his research.’ A gleam shone in Sandstrom’s eyes, and he looked up at Nolan and Kelsey. ‘We have to find Johann Wolff.’
‘Ted’ — Kelsey’s voice carried a touch of concern — ‘even if he’s still alive, he’d be at least as old as Raphaele was.’
Sandstrom smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter. A mind like this has to have left some mark behind — some evidence that he was here. Dead or alive, we have to find Johann Wolff.’
14
Irena Cherny placed the handset back in the cradle of the multiline phone on her desk and sighed. She took a deep breath, attempting to stave off the anger that threatened to disrupt her normally poised demeanor.
‘Yop t’voi yo mat!’ she growled, cursing the man with an expression suggesting an incestuous relationship between the bureaucrat and his mother.
She glanced down at the slip of paper containing the flight and cargo identification numbers for the materials acquired by Dmitri Leskov’s team in the United States. Orlov had handed it to her more than two hours ago, requesting that she locate the shipment and arrange for it to be retrieved.
Cherny stood, brushed at a crease in her skirt, and calmly walked to her employer’s office. She knocked, and Victor Orlov waved her in.
‘Did you talk with the people at Sheremetyevo?’ Orlov asked.
‘Da, Victor Ivanovich, I most certainly did.’
‘And?’
‘And I have been able to confirm that the aircraft has indeed arrived and been unloaded.’
‘Good, then we can send a truck down to retrieve our shipment.’
‘Not yet,’ Cherny said.
‘Why?’
‘As you requested, I called Customs using only the name on the cargo manifest and made no mention of you or the company.’
Orlov nodded.
‘After wasting a great deal of my time, they finally connected me with someone who allegedly has enough blood flowing between his ears to generate a spark of intelligence. This individual informed me that the aircraft that arrived from Chicago had no cargo on board that matches our number or description.’
‘How can this be? Voronin faxed us all the paperwork. The shipment should have been on that plane.’