With that Sam and Tom sat down on the small couch. It appeared older than its owner.
Professor Locke then poured all three of them a whiskey without asking if they were interested. “Okay, so you want to know why they killed Luke Eldridge.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sam looked at Tom. The edge of his lips curled into a slightly upwards grin. “Yes. How did you know?”
“Because they’re after me, too. They’d like to kill all of us if they could, but even they understand that you can’t get rid of the four top energy scientists in the world without someone wanting to investigate more thoroughly. And that’s the last thing they want. No, they’re going to let me live. At least for a year or two. They’re hoping they’ve paid me enough to buy my silence until they can get rid of me.”
“Who are they?” Sam interrupted.
Locke took a large sip of his drink. “They are the ones who didn’t want us to succeed with our project.”
Sam studied the man. He appeared confident. Almost relaxed for someone who knew THEY wanted him dead. He had light blue eyes. Almost gray. His eyes expressed the significance of his intelligence. He must have been nearly eighty, but his mind hadn’t faltered an inch. “What exactly were you working on?”
“It was called Elixir Eight.”
“I’ve heard of it, but have no idea what it means.”
The Professor laughed. “The name’s industrial espionage — a red herring. Elixir Eight represents probably the most significant discovery about electricity since Benjamin Franklin proved the correlation between electricity and lightning by using a kite with a key — and it also means absolutely nothing.”
“Nothing? Two people are dead, over nothing?”
“When we registered the research lines, we didn’t want to have everyone else trying to copy us. We were working on a means of stabilizing thorium nuclear reactions.”
“You were working with nuclear energy? I thought Luke was a leader in alternative energies and clean fuels?”
“Thorium conductors are the holy grail of energy production. The stuff is everywhere. It’s in the sea, the soil, mountains. There will be no wars waged over thorium.”
“So, why haven’t we had thorium conductors for years?”
“Two reasons.” Locke spoke slowly, with multiple pauses for significance. His voice was deep, and Sam found it hard not to feel like he’d entered one of the man’s lectures. “In the late 1940s when uranium and thorium isotopes were first being used to build nuclear reactors, the U.S. Navy wasn’t interested in power generation for the country. Instead it was concerned with building nuclear submarines to power its fleet of subs to maintain its shield of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War.”
He waited for them to nod their head in understanding. When they didn’t, he continued his lecture. “Uranium reactors cause a fission of an atom of uranium-235 and produces two to three neutrons, and these neutrons can be absorbed by uranium-238 to produce plutonium-239 and other isotopes. While thorium only produced energy and waste products, uranium could produce an ample supply of plutonium, which as you know, is required to build nuclear weapons. Consequently, all the funding for research and development went towards uranium reactors.”
Sam had heard the argument previously. He’d also heard the other problems associated with thorium conductors, but he wasn’t going to get into that now. “And the second reason?”
“The second? Like with all the best technologies, there’s a minor glitch that we couldn’t overcome. The nuclear reaction is highly unstable, and difficult to maintain. You can do so, but only in large scales. Elixir Eight however, was supposed to change all that. It broke down the process, theoretically making it possible to build hand held thorium reactors, safely. It was supposed to take eight single thorium molecules and bind them to make one stable molecule — Elixir Eight.”
Sam grinned. He’d heard of a lot these types of spiels before. None of them had panned out, the way their proponents had hoped. Even so, the threat would have been enough. “You’re going to bring down the price of electricity and piss off the oil industry?”
“I don’t think you quite understand the value of this discovery. Elixir eight meant that people could power their entire house with a single thorium reactor that fits in the palm of their hand — and it would do so for their entire lives. Electricity is the source of everything. The greatest changes to humanity occur when electricity becomes readily available.”
Sam drank more of his whiskey. “But you said Elixir Eight means nothing.”
Lock smiled. “Well, you see. The theory behind Elixir Eight had been tried previously, with no success.”
“By who?” Tom asked.
“Me.”
“Then why did you patent the name? And how did you upset someone bad enough that now we have two dead scientists?”
“We patented the name and the idea because we needed funding for a different type of research. At the same time, we wanted to put industrial feelers out, looking for a big name to fund our real research.”
Sam shuffled in his seat. “And what was it that you were really working on, if not the original Elixir Eight?”
Locke crossed his arms. “Telling you that, I’m afraid, would get me killed.”
“Why can’t you just tell us what this is all about? You obviously know. And if you wanted to keep quiet about it, you wouldn’t have said as much as you have. Instead you would have told us both to go away.”
“THEY watch me. If I tell you, they’ll kill me, too.” He shook his head. “By the way, how did you find out about Luke?”
“He sent the man in charge of his life insurance a text the night before he was murdered, saying to find me in the event of his death to prove it was murder.”
“Really?” Locke took a deep breath. “So, you see why I can’t talk to you about it.”
“That’s crazy. You’ve already told us THEY are planning to kill you within the next couple of years anyway, and haven’t you essentially just told us everything?”
“No. I haven’t told you any more than you could have gotten for yourself by walking into the patents office. I wish I could help.” Professor Locke shrugged his shoulders. “I can tell you that Luke was probably the smartest pupil I ever had. If he sent a text saying that only you could prove that he was murdered — I would suggest you look into the areas that you, of all people, know best.”
“The rogue wave,” Sam said, thinking about why his old school friend would have reached out to him. “Tell me what happened. How did THEY build the rogue wave? We’ll protect you.”
Lock laughed. It was only a little forced. “No one can protect you from THEM.”
Sam stood up to leave. It was clear he wasn’t going to get any more out of the man. Beneath his outward composure, Professor Locke was terrified to the core. “Good luck. I hope you live long enough for us to sort this all out.”
“Yeah, you too, son.” Locke’s voice was crisp, but polite.
Sam stopped just before the door. “Oh say — where did the name Peter Flaherty come from?”
Timothy gritted his teeth, just slightly. Even the most casual observer could see the man was trying to hold something back, with great difficulty. He looked like a restrained man about to fly off the wheels. His voice became concentrated and intense. “Forget about that name. It won’t do any good to you, or to anyone else for that matter. Just forget it. Concentrate on the damn rogue wave.”
Chapter Fifteen
Senator Vanessa Croft stood at the podium. She wore elegant business dress with flat-soled shoes in an attempt to conceal some of her height. A small American flag pin at her left breast pocket. With light brown hair tied back in a bun, high cheek bones, and a large confident smile, she was easy to watch.