Bill went into his den and turned on his secure laptop. It took two minutes for it to regain all its ability for SCIAD and would lose it all once again at the end of the session. During the boot-up time, he glanced out the window and saw a Secret Service agent was on post at the end of his driveway. The new 12-foot fence around his humble little home, motion sensors in the hedges, cameras on trees and 16-foot posts, and the gatehouse at the end of his driveway must have made the neighbors wish he’d never moved there. Bill scanned his retina and opened his in-box. It was stuffed with responses on Peter’s book. As he started to read, it became clear he needed a meeting with everyone. One response in particular rattled him to his core.
To: Nucleus
From: Abramson
The treatise of the book, mathematical proof of UFOs, is compelling but the science is not fluid. Certain jumps in celestial and quantum calculations may invalidate postulates. From a scientific point of view, more research is in order. However, if I may editorialize on a personal observation, in the author’s attempt to tie natural and manmade phenomena into the mathematics of the grid, I noticed that each atom bomb and hydrogen bomb test he charted, a relationship between his extraterrestrial math and the success or failure of a nuclear explosion exists. In fact, 107 out of 110 successful blasts were correctly predicted by this confluence of the Earth and Sun’s “harmonical” relationship. More astounding was that 100 % of the non-explosions, or atomic duds, happened when his extraterrestrial math showed the Sun and Earth to be out of harmonic relationship. This extraordinary observation is well outside the laws of chance. I will apply his algorithm to nuclear tests conducted after the printing of this book in 1968, and see if the trend continued. How curious that an amateur investigation into aerial phenomena and the stuff of science fiction might have stumbled over a natural law regulating nuclear warfare.
Bill blurted out the words, “Jesus Factor!” He found the printout of Peter’s copy of Harmonic Epsilon and read the three chapters entitled, “The Mathematics of the Grid,” “The Harmonic and Nuclear Testing,” and “Sorry, Mr. de Gaulle.” The last chapter recounted the many times the French nuclear tests kept fizzling and how many of those times then-French President Charles de Gaulle had flown to the Mururoa Atoll test site only to be disappointed. Bill then read the paper generated on his SCIAD ring calculating the dates and locations of those tests with the mathematics of the grid and the terra-physics involved.
Damn.
What the author had pleaded for in his book 35 years ago — that someone with access to the “new calculating machines” would run his numbers and pick up where he left off — was all in the report that Bill now held in his hand.
Bill sat motionless for nearly five minutes. His mind replayed the President’s serious concern, Peter’s running away at the mere mention, scientists stumbling across that which was only held in close confidence by three living men in the world, then disappearing. Correction he thought. Three men in the free world. Did every nation who possessed nukes know that the rules of warfare were subject to solar tides?
He picked up the phone and called Cheryl. He asked her to get the White House travel office started on getting 10 SCIAD members to his office the day after tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Rodney had an instant dislike for the new guy, Number 11, who showed up today. It was the leather jacket. The guy was full of himself and that leather jacket and sunglasses were the height of smugness. Number 11 was the helicopter pilot. Unfortunately, Rodney had to train for two days with him.
Joey waited for Bill’s 10:30 meeting to wrap before he went in. Five glum-looking people walked out of his office.
Joey went right in. “No happy campers in that bunch, boy.”
“Why is it that they think lawyers beat scientists like rock beats paper? They think because it’s a political football that I can just change the science! Science is not negotiable. It’s not politically convenient. It is what it is.”
“What it is. Right on brother!”
“Shut up!” Bill picked up a red pen and — with extreme prejudice — crossed out the title page of whatever it was they left behind. He then tossed the document into the out basket. “What do you have for me, Joey?”
“Your call the other day could be the walking dead. We are very quietly exhuming the body from Woodlawn. We’ll have DNA and fingerprints in a few hours.”
“I just hope Signora Remo doesn’t get wind of this unless we are sure her son isn’t in that grave.”
“I got Johnny ‘No’, as next of kin, to approve the order. He and I agreed it’s better not to put his mom through this.”
“Do you think Peter gave his jacket to someone or do you think it was lifted?”
“It could have gone down like this: the Sureté has seen neither hide nor hair of a grifter that operated in the clubs in that part of St. Germain for the past two weeks. Word is he crossed a family member of a very connected Frenchman who wanted him hurt bad for ripping off the man’s nephew. It’s possible Peter had his jacket off in the club, maybe behind a chair, and this guy sees one of the men the uncle sent to break his legs so he quick changes his appearance by grabbing Pete’s jacket, then heads upstairs, but the henchmen catch on and get him on the stairway. They break his legs and stab him for good measure. The creep doesn’t die fast, manages to make it to the street, but goes cold in the gutter and some poor schmuck on his way to make baguettes before dawn runs over his pumpkin. Splat! No identity other than Pete’s papers in the ‘borrowed’ coat.”
“The FBI teach you to talk like that?”
“No, Mr. Garafolo in gym.”
“So everyone just accepts that he’s Peter because he’s got my card and that makes this a case the locals want no part of.”
“So they don’t do the basics and we just accept the body.”
“And poor Anna Remo cries because we tell her she lost her son.”
“Yep.”
“What a way to run a railroad.”
Riding along in the passenger seat of Jamal’s truck, Bridge peered into his satchel. The L.E.D. meter of the radiometer, the latest generation of Geiger counter, was kicking above normal. That almost certainly meant this could have been the truck. Bridge decided to take the risk.
“What kind of loads do you usually work?”
“Used to do a lot of furniture — desks, tables, chairs. Lately, a lot of electronics. I have televisions back there now.”
“Ever carry any dangerous stuff?”
“Like what?”
“Radioactive material.”
“Why would you ask me that?”
Bridge took the Berretta out of his bag and pointed it at Jamal.
“You jackal; are you going to rob me?”
“Pull over. And say nothing.”
“You are a dog, you bastard.”
“I said shut up and pull over.”
Jamal acceded to the gun. He looked at the picture, taped to the dashboard, of his wife and four children.
“Okay, shut it off, hand me the keys, and get out on my side,” Bridge said as he opened the door on his side and back stepped down off the cab. He had his gun trained on Jamal. As Jamal slid across from the driver’s seat to the passenger seat, he looked at the family photo one last time, then down onto the ground. Bridge tossed the keys back to him, “Now open up the back.”
Jamal opened the lock, then pushed the big door up.