“Nobody's told me different.”
Skyler paused for a moment. “Who’s using korium today?”
“Nobody, Mr. Skyler. It's all gone. So no one could be using it, now could they?” Penn turned back to his workbench and started winding a new fly. His irritation was obvious.
Skyler moved around to the side of the bench so he could watch the old man's face. ““Have you ever heard of something called Project Candle Power?”
Penn's hands tensed. He wiped his forehead with the bandanna. “You know, Mr. Skyler, it's getting hotter every day. Summer's here for sure.” He looked up. “What's this got to do with fishing?”
“Let's just say I'm fishing for information.”
Penn gave out a nervous laugh. “At least you're honest. How long will you be staying with us?”
“Just for tonight.”
“I've got to finish these bucktails and get them up to O'Grady's before noon. Maybe we'll chat after dinner.”
“I'll look forward to it.”
“Fine, then you won't mind excusing me so I can get my work done?”
“Not at all.”
Skyler walked out of the boathouse following the path back to the Inn. He heard the constant droning of bees as they moved through the flowerbeds. Nothing like exposing a raw nerve, he thought.
Skyler spent time on the phone checking on the latest developments covering the events in Mexico, the mineral korium, the current whereabouts of Yankee-class subs and Cartagena I&E. He also spoke with Mickey Gates who was in route from the Pegasus to OceanQuest headquarters.
After talking with Gates, Skyler called Dick Miller at the Pentagon. Miller said he had never heard of anything called Project Candle Power, and korium was one of those “ium” words he’d managed to forget from high school science class. Finally, Skyler called a contact with Scotland Yard in London and found out where to start looking for records of the search and rescue attempt and last known transmissions of Arctic Air Cargo flight 101.
At dinner that evening, Skyler enjoyed a home cooked meal of baked pork chops, fried potatoes, candied carrots, and iced sun tea with a generous helping of cinnamon bread pudding and whipped cream for desert. There were only a handful of others in the dining room — an elderly couple who told their waitress they had spent their honeymoon at the falls fifty-two years ago, a middle-aged couple visiting from Canada, and a retired college professor touring historical landmarks in the region.
Skyler saw no sign of Lilly or Harry Penn during the meal. The waitress said it was unusual for them not to come down at dinnertime to chat with their guests. After dinner, he wandered through the lobby and out onto the front porch. Skyler chose a big wooden rocker and sat back watching the fireflies dance across the front lawn. The evening air was cool and dry, the stars just beginning to cover the sky. After a few minutes, someone approached. He turned to see Lilly Penn coming toward him. She stood by the railing, her back to him, arms crossed.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I've told you who I am, Lilly. Is there a problem?”
“There certainly is.” She turned to face him, her eyes burning with anger. “I don't know what you said to Harry but I haven't seen him this upset in ages.”
“Upsetting him was not my intention. I simply need information and he may be the only person who can give it to me.”
“My husband is in poor health. He doesn't need this sort of thing.”
“I apologize if I caused any harm, Lilly, but you have to take my word for it. There's a great deal at stake and a number of very important questions need to be answered.”
“Like what?”
“I believe that a project your father worked on many years ago has resurfaced with threatening overtones.”
“I'm sorry, but I just don't understand.”
“It's all right, Lilly.” Harry Penn came across the porch and stood beside her. “What Mr. Skyler said didn't upset me. Only the memories he awoke.”
“What do you mean?”
“Go in and greet our other guests. Mr. Skyler and I are going to take a walk down to my shop. I'll tell you all about it later.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Now go.”
Reluctantly, Lilly left them and went inside.
Once she was gone, Harry Penn said, “I'm a Catholic, Mr. Skyler, but I haven't been to confession in years. I'm looking forward to this.”
THORPE'S CANDLE
Harry Penn sat at his workbench and picked up a colorful trout fly. The inside of his shop was dark except for the soft glow of a lamp over his work area. Skyler heard the gentle lapping of the waves against the old Boston Whaler.
“After we talked this afternoon,” Penn said, “I made some calls to a couple of my old friends in Washington. You have quite a reputation as a man of integrity and resources.”
Skyler leaned against the bench, shrugging. “I do my job.”
“And quite well I might add. You lifted a Soviet nuclear sub off the floor of the Atlantic that defused a potential political disaster. You also discovered six new species of deep-sea marine life under the Arctic, mapped a large chunk of the Amazon River, and discovered a Spanish treasure galleon off the Yucatan Peninsula. I understand it turned out to be the biggest cache of silver in history. I'd say you do your job well.”
“I need your help in solving this mystery.”
“I don't know if I can solve anything, but I may be able to shed some light on it.” Harry Penn took a deep breath. “You know we found it by accident.”
“Found what?”
“Candle Power.”
“So there was a Project Candle Power?” Skyler asked with a bit of relief.
“At the time, we were working on trying to produce cold fusion. There was a brilliant young physicist on the team who was close to perfecting the right conditions to make it work. We had narrowed our primary element down to palladium. One day he substituted a rare mineral called korium in place of the palladium. What he got was a nuclear reaction — small but impressive. Believe me, it put the fear of God in everyone. He created a whole new category of energy expansion that came close to vaporizing the containment section of the lab. It was only because we had anticipated some violent possibilities and protected ourselves that no one was hurt. We knew we had a potentially lethal weapon that could be mass-produced with a few simple ingredients — mainly heavy water which contains a heavy isotope of hydrogen, and a supply of korium. We argued for days about whether to reveal our findings to the Army. I believed at the time that we should hide what we had found, destroy the records and never tell anyone. Some of the others didn't agree and wanted to tell our Army supervisors. They believed themselves heroes or some such. In the end, I was outvoted.”
Penn paused to wipe his forehead. “Once we reported our findings, the Army clamped an airtight lid on the project. We weren't allowed to speak to anyone about anything. Remember this was at the height of the Cold War. The results of the project were so secret, outside of our group, I'll bet there were no more than two-dozen people who knew exactly what we had done. Even the President was never told the whole story.”
“What happened to the lab?”
“It was heavily contaminated. The only thing that kept the Army from continuing the experiments was that we only had a small supply of korium to start with, just what was left over from our initial experiments at Niagara Technologies. Dr. Thorpe used that up in the cold fusion test. And because there was no other source of the ore, the Army decided to shut the whole operation down to keep word from getting out to the Russians or Chinese. They dismantled the lab into tiny pieces and dumped it down a twelve-mile-deep well in the Mojave Desert. Army engineers poured what seemed like a million yards of concrete down that hellhole to seal it. But I'll bet you anything that if you go out there right now and dig it up, old Thorpe's Candle, that's what we called it, would still be glowing in the dark.”