And then I started to think about the legacy he had left and entrusted to me. And for the first time, I began to realize what a terrible responsibility had been placed on my young shoulders. The most dreadful war in human history had just ended. There could be no hiding the extent of human savagery that had been unleashed. What horrors, I pondered, would the wrong people create with Fortescue’s knowledge? For it had not escaped me that atomic science could be used for good and for evil. What if there was another towering genius out there who could correctly interpret what Egbert had written and utilize what I had recently begun to appreciate could be the most powerful force in Nature?
And so here I am on August 7, 1945, the day after something similar to Fortescue’s science has been unleashed upon the world. I have kept the man’s work hidden for thirty-three years and I do not plan to show it to anyone again. I will keep it quietly tucked away, for I could never destroy these papers. Perhaps someday someone will rediscover them and they will read them in the light of a bright day; and they shall be understood by people more enlightened than we sorry men.
William M. O’Donnell.
His hands trembling, Geoff O’Donnell lowered the letter to the pile of papers covered with equations. Then he reached for his cell phone, found Kate Wetherall’s number stored there from the Houston conference and tapped the speed dial button.
About the Author
Tom West is the pseudonym for an internationally bestselling author of nine novels. Private Down Under, which he co-wrote with James Patterson under the name Michael White, is the latest in the Private series. Tom West lives in Perth, Australia.