Opposing Force: Book 01 - The God Particle (13 page)

Gant started to catch on. "But Campion can see the big picture. And he heard you asking about the rules and the game—forcing him to remember that this was a game."

"Yes, and what did I remember that he forgot while he was living in fantasy land on the Eastern Front?"

"I do not know. What did you remember?"

She smiled "Nothing. Not a damn thing. Like I said, you’re toast. But he doesn’t know that."

He glanced out the side window, seeing little more than rain and fog, although it seemed they traveled over an endless field of forest.

"What happened historically?" she asked.

Gant told her what she already knew: "Instead of taking Moscow in the summer Hitler moved his tanks south to surround and destroy several big Russian armies. That took time. When they finally returned to attack Moscow the rain and mud set in. After that came winter."

"Yes," she said. "Hitler's move delayed his armies long enough for reinforcements and General Winter to stem the German advance. Moscow was saved in '41 and the rest is history."

Gant told her, "My opponent has gone to great lengths to avoid that same mistake. He's ignoring everything except for Moscow."

"You're right, but this time it’s not a bad decision by Hitler to attack a Russian army in the south that is going to delay the Germans—it’s indecision. You wait and see. If I read his personality right he’s going to get nervous now, tentative. He could finish it in a move or two, but he’s afraid I’ve laid some sort of trap."

Gant asked, "And if he realizes it was all a ruse?"

"Better learn to speak German."

—

To Thom Gant's eyes, The Tall Company's New York facility resembled a military installation more than a commercial complex. For starters, it sat far away from civilization in a valley surrounded by a chalky white forest of bent and broken trees seemingly suffering from some cancerous blight.

The compound included three windowless rectangular buildings standing four or five stories, apparently designed by an architect who consulted shoeboxes and bricks for inspiration.

As they flew in, he spotted fences topped with razor wire, cameras, and rooftop walkways equipped with spotlights. The helipad on which they landed actually descended on a lift into an aviation hanger.

A thin man with thick glasses from the public relations office escorted them across the grounds, including through an underground tunnel where Thom spotted armed guards and numerous "Security Is Everyone's Responsibility" signs.

Whatever ruse Liz had used to gain access had worked; their guide kept babbling on about how the company appreciated working with the military and how Uncle Sam was more a partner than a customer. The man professed his admiration for men—and women—in uniform a half-dozen times during their walk despite Gant and Thunder wearing casual civilian attire.

Finally they reached a laboratory situated in a quiet corner of one of those big brick-shaped buildings. Their accommodating host led them around rows of silent computers and electronic equipment in various states of repair to a lonely office, at which point he left the visitors to their business.

Inside that office waited a woman whose strong muscle tone helped hide her age. She wore a lose-fitting white jacket over a black turtleneck. Thin glasses hung from a strap and dangled to her chest, and she kept her gray and blond hair in a tight bun.

"Dr. McCaul?" Thunder started the conversation.

"Yes," the woman answered. "You must be Lieutenant Colonel Thunder and Major Gant. Please come in. And my name is Doreen."

Unlike General Friez's office at Darwin and Thunder's new home at Red Rock, Doreen McCaul's corner of The Tall Company featured numerous personal touches.

The color green dominated the decorum in the form of plants—some hanging, others crowded on shelves. Thom did not have an eye for such things, but he did recognize several ferns, a Chinese evergreen, a couple of arrowhead plants, and a row of lucky bamboo. His wife, Jean, had cultivated similar plants during their first year of marriage when they lived in an apartment in North Carolina with small windows and a lack of natural light.

"Please, take a seat," McCaul invited.

Thunder accepted the invitation and took advantage of a wood bench with cast iron legs positioned beneath a window looking out at the laboratory. Gant remained on his feet and drifted around the office. Collections of figurines, photographs, a child's finger painting, and all manner of books grabbed both his eye and his curiosity.

Their host rolled a swivel chair out from behind her quaint antique desk to the center of the small office, as if preparing to lead a discussion group.

"You’ve come a long way for a short story," she told them.

"Dr. McCaul—I mean, Doreen," Liz said in a friendly tone, matching their host's demeanor. "I was recently placed in charge of the facility at Red Rock."

"Red Rock? The big hole in the ground in Pennsylvania. Nice countryside, though. I remember a little restaurant not far away down on the main road. Of all the places, do you know what they had?"

Gant smiled and told her, "A fantastic roast beef melt sandwich."

McCaul flashed a similar smile and nodded. "Yes, it was always a favorite with the soldiers. The Rooster restaurant, or something like that."

Liz seemed eager to get to the point. "I found your name in files regarding an experiment run in 1992 by a Dr. Ronald Briggs. From what I read, you were a member of his research team prior to the actual experiment. I should add that both myself and Major Gant have all the necessary clearances."

McCaul waved a dismissive hand. "I'm not that impressed by clearances. I find all of that rather silly, to be honest."

Liz pressed, "But you were on his team?"

McCaul sighed in what sounded like disappointment. Judging by the isolated location of her office, Gant figured she received few visitors and might have enjoyed some chitchat.

"Yes, yes, I was on his team. Still, there’s not much to tell. Dr. Briggs removed me before the big day."

Gant listened but his eyes drifted across a line of books covering subjects from ancient civilizations to mathematics, so wide a range of topics that the collection of reading material did not reveal the doctor's area of specialty.

"The records are sketchy as to the nature of the experiment," Liz said. "Any information you can provide would be useful."

"I’ve tried for a long time to put Ronald and his pet project out of my mind. It was not a very pleasant experience."

Liz leaned forward. "What was so unpleasant about the experiment?"

"Not the experiment; Ronald Briggs. He was not a pleasant man."

"Oh." Liz relaxed, but her question obviously had struck a nerve, and Doreen's memories came flooding back.

"He was prematurely balding, he smelled, and he was very much full of himself. On top of that he showed an open disrespect for women. It may sound self-serving, but that had a lot to do with why he removed me from his team. He kept Ruthie around because he liked looking at her ass—excuse me for being so blunt."

Gant tried hard but he could not suppress a smile.

"Ruthie and I were research assistants, not well suited to his project, but I believe he enjoyed bossing women around. He would always refer to us as 'the girls'. I was in my thirties at that point, Ruth a little younger but still an intelligent researcher. He treated us like summer interns. He worried about our figures—not the math kind, either. Ronald was always telling us that we were putting on weight or something. Yet he was the one with the cupcakes and girlie magazines in his desk drawer."

Gant mumbled, "Briggs does not sound like the hero type."

"Hero? Why would he be a hero?"

Gant started to explain but Thunder spoke first: "He initialized containment protocols, locking himself in the Red Lab to confine whatever went wrong."

"No. He would have been the first to run for the exits."

Gant said, "Then whatever it was that killed Briggs and his researchers was bad enough that he reacted without considering the consequences. What was he up to?"

Dr. McCaul stood and paced across the small office. Her eyes absently wandered to a cluttered bulletin board full of various notes and reminders.

"How much do you know about quantum physics?"

Gant responded, "How much do you know about urban warfare tactics?"

She laughed. "Okay. We’ll go for the short version."

Thunder said, "From what I heard he was sifting through atoms looking for … well, I heard he was looking for ‘God.’"

McCaul’s eyes lit up. "Yes, that’s exactly right. Why did you need me again?"

Gant turned away from a shelf full of statuettes and collectibles he had been examining. He found himself smiling again. He could not help it; he liked her. She was not one of the coldhearted scientists he so often dealt with. He did wonder, however, how long it would be before Archangel came to this facility to handle some screwup or another.

He asked, "What does that mean,' looking for God'? I would think that would be a better subject for a Bible study group."

"There are many Bibles, all dealing with the truth behind existence. I have a personal interest in that, you see," she said, nodding toward the shelf of figurines and trinkets that had grabbed the major's attention.

"Quite a collection you have here," he said and held up a pendant featuring what appeared to be plaques with inscriptions written in Hebrew.

"That's a kabbalah pendant of the two tablets," McCaul explained.

He gently returned it to the shelf and pointed at a brass figure. "I recognize Buddha here." He then motioned toward a six-inch sculpture with a stone-like resin base holding an Arabic symbol that made him think of fire. "What about this?"

"That is the word
Allah
, depicted in a pure and cleansing flame."

Nearly a dozen more such collectibles lined the shelf, each a symbol from the world's most popular religions, ranging from Christian crosses to a collection of coins depicting the great masters of Sikhism.

Thunder pulled the conversation back on track by asking, "What did his experiment have to do with God?"

The older woman grinned a little and answered, "In all honesty, Dr. Briggs was not really looking for God; not in the generally accepted sense. No, he searched for the fundamental building blocks of creation. Of course, people of religion believe the universe was created by God, and therefore Briggs would mock that he was trying to find God himself, hidden in the subatomic world."

Gant said in a nearly mocking tone of his own, "I would imagine that a search for the Almighty would be focused out into infinity," and he pointed a finger at the sky in reference to the mysteries beyond the stars.

"You know, when we think about the infinite we always think in that fashion; about the universe up there in space. After all, the universe is so incredibly big that it is hard to comprehend. But science tells us there is a boundary, that our universe is like an expanding bubble, and sooner or later you will run out of space. For example, take this room." McCaul motioned to the four walls surrounding them. "If this is the universe and you go out far enough, you will hit a wall. Of course, getting out far enough is the trick. Science fiction aside, it is doubtful humanity will ever explore even a tiny fraction of the universe."

"Okay," Gant said in a light tone, "so the universe is big."

"But it has its boundaries," Liz added.

"If you want true infinity you need to go in the other direction," McCaul continued. "Like I said, if you travel far enough, sooner or later you will hit those walls. On the other hand, you can always cut something in half. You can always get smaller. No matter how many times I cut a strand of my hair in half, I can always take one of those parts and cut it in half once again. And so on. The truly infinite is not the big grand universe, it is the atoms that comprise everything
in
that universe."

Liz wrinkled her brow and said, "I thought there were limits. I thought there were pieces that couldn’t be cut up."

"I’ve been away from subatomic theory for a while, but every so often they say they’ve found the absolute-positive-end-of-the-line building block. Quarks, leptons, and the like. There was a time, dear, when the atom itself was considered indivisible."

Gant said, "And that sort of blew up in our face."

McCaul considered this for a moment, then laughed. "That’s very good. Very good, indeed. For a military man, you have a sense of humor. Dry, but it's there nonetheless."

Liz asked, "Was Briggs’s research military in nature?"

McCaul looked at Thunder and smiled in a manner that made Gant think of a mother smiling at a child who asked if babies come from a stork.

"Colonel, I think you and I both know that everything we do eventually has military applications. But to answer your question, no. Briggs’s work was purely scientific. The military handled security at Red Rock but was not directly involved in Ronald's big project."

"Which was?"

Dr. McCaul paused and rubbed her chin with two fingers.

"How best to explain …" she mumbled. "Do you know what the big bang is?"