Dante's Equation Part 15

"Work? Um . . . wave mechanics. I'm at the University of Was.h.i.+ngton."

"Wave mechanics," Cheever repeated faintly.

"I don't understand. I called to speak to Dr. Ansel. Is he on sabbatical, or-"

"I'm sorry you hadn't heard. Henry . . . Dr. Ansel pa.s.sed away last month."

Jill was floored. He'd been in his late fifties when she worked with him and far from decrepit. She felt a grief that was genuine, if self-interested. "Jesus. What happened?"

"He . . . took some pills."

He took some pills?Ansel had committed suicide. A terrible coldness sluiced through her. How far down he must have sunk into the cesspool of shame and dishonor to do such a thing. How hopeless he must have felt. It was awful, terrible. She felt bad for Ansel, but the worst part was that she could practically taste that fate as her own. The horror she felt was as much for herself as for him.

It took a moment for logic to override emotion. Thatwasn't going to happen to her. That would never happen to her. Because she hadproven her theories. And when she finally spoke out she would have so much evidence that no one would be able to refute her.

"Dr. Talcott?"

"I'm here. Thank you for-"

"We were friends. I know many people here didn't believe in Henry's work, but I did. I knew quite a bit about his work. Things other people didn't know."

Jill was starting to feel uneasy. Something wasn't adding up. Ansel had been a nice man, a very nice man, but he'd also been pretty stubborn. It was hard enough to imagine that he'd gotten so battered down that he'd committed suicide. But if he'd had the support of his department head . . . ?

Things other people didn't know.

Cheever's voice lowered. "If you're working on anythingclose to what Henry was working on, then I really think we should-"

"G.o.d, I'm sorry; look at the time. I have to go."

Jill hung up. She stared at the phone for a minute, her mouth dry. She would give anything-yes, she wished very, very much that she hadn't made that phone call.

Her mind raced through the possibilities. Ansel hadn't had access to a quantum computer. Therefore, even if he had turned to wave mechanics after she'd left, even if he'd come up with her exact equation, he would never have been able to test it. Therefore, it was unlikely he even suspected the existence of the one-minus-one. And even if he did, he couldn't have had more than a vague idea about it. She went over it several more times, but she was certain her logic was correct.

She put her head in her hands and sighed deeply. Her work was safe. And even if Anselhad been close to some of her theories, as long as she didn't know the details no one could accuse her of plagiarism. Part of her knew that she was being paranoid. Cheever had just wanted to talk; he'd sounded perfectly nice.

But she wasn't going to let him steal her work.

August 15. The morning was warm and sunny. The newspapers proclaimed it had been one of the driest, hottest summers on record in Seattle. Jill, to whom the sun was merely an eye-blinding annoyance on her forays from cla.s.s to bas.e.m.e.nt lab to her house, wished for rain. She was finis.h.i.+ng up some journal entries regarding her students' grades. She had begun to notice some weeks back that the papers and tests were quite a bit better than normal, so she had dug out files from last summer and compared them. The scoreswere much higher this year, sending the bell curve lofting in the middle like a cat's arching spine. But since they were different students, there was noverifiablecorrelation. . . .

She heard the door open with that sucking sound the rubberized curtain gave off, and Nate entered the lab. A black leather motorcycle jacket was slung over one tanned arm. The rest of him was clad in blue jeans and a black T-s.h.i.+rt. She found it annoying that he was looking less like a frumpy science student and more and more like his funky co-residents on Capitol Hill. He'd purchased a motorcycle this summer with some financial windfall or other and the black leather gear had triggered a chain reaction. First his hair had been cropped to a thick nubby cut; then he'd colored it with a fluorescent blond on top that made the olive in his skin s.h.i.+ne like gold. He'd had a hoop punched into one earlobe where it glittered against his dark neck, and he'd lost a good fifteen pounds. He looked amazing, even younger now than his twenty-eight years. It made Jill feel pathetically old and unhip by comparison.

"I thought you'd be late today. The 520 bridge is closed, isn't it?" Perhaps, Jill thought, he hadn't gone over to Linda's last night, hadn't had to take the bridge back this morning. He'd made such a point of telling her about his staying with his girlfriend in Bellevue, so she'd know why he was late in the mornings, he said, though she suspected a bit of face rubbing was involved. Her face had stung afterward, at any rate.

Nate tossed his jacket and helmet on the coatrack and put on a protective ap.r.o.n. "They finished up two days early. G.o.d bless the highway department."

"Hmmm."

"It was beautiful driving over the lake this morning. The water was likegla.s.sand it had this deep greenish-blue color. The sky wasflaw less."

"Huh." Jill moved over to the objects on the table.Here's a topic of conversation, she thought,the experiment. "The growth rate is still slowing down on the virus, and the mice aren't as hyper."

He came over and squatted down beside the mice, his face focused in that utterly dedicated way of his. "They look healthy, just not as active as they were."

"Should we risk putting the males and females back together?"

" 'Kay."

They were up to six cages of mice now, so quickly had the reproduction proceeded before they'd separated the s.e.xes. The h.o.m.os.e.xual "humping" activity in the male cage had not been noticed for about a week. Perhaps the mice had been shamed to abstinence by some h.o.m.ophobic moralist in their midst. Then again, perhaps they'd lost the drive. Nathan took three male mice out of cage A and three female mice out of cage D and switched them.

Jill and Nate knelt opposite cage A and watched. There was a flurry of mutual sniffing as the mice reacquainted themselves; then the three girl mice settled down near the food, unmolested.

"Being back together might set them off again," Nate suggested.

"Hmmm. Keep logging s.e.xual activity. Every day."

"Mine or theirs?"

If looks could kill, the one she shot him would have been the equivalent of a coronary thrombosis.

"Right." He went over to his computer and opened the mouse file, began taking notes. "The virus has slowed, too," she said, then remembered she'd already said it. They'd noted all this yesterday afternoon, on their daily rounds, but it seemed from moment to moment she could not help wanting to check it all again. "The fruit justwon't rot. These bananas are still yellow and it's been a month. The produce industry applications alone could make us rich." "I know," Nate said, still typing. She was not kidding. It had occurred to her that they might one day be able to use this technology to delay the decay of food on a large scale. As in ending starvation. n.o.bel prize, anyone?She moved over to the equipment table, freshened her cup of coffee. "You want some?""Yeah, thanks." She got him a cup and came over and sat down next to him, yawning a bit. "Are you still keeping that journal?" "Yes." "I'd like to see it." He snorted as if she'd just said she wanted to dissect his liver. "Ihave to, Nate. It's part of the experiment." "Does that mean I get to see yours?" he asked dryly, going back to his typing. "If you'd like." The mere thought made her hyperventilate. Priority one: Rewrite her journal. Take out the personal bits. As if reading her mind, Nate said, "I'll rewrite it for you. It'll take a while." Jill started to protest, knew it would be not only pointless but also hypocritical. "So howare you feeling?" He stopped typing, took a drink of coffee. "Good. Calm." There was a bit of hedging in his voice. "But not as good as before?" "Not asmaniacally good. I'm sleeping better." "Yes," Jill agreed. "Me, too. Appet.i.te?" "Functional. I'm still not excited about food, but I'm handling it better than I was. My stomach's calmer. I'm calmer in general. Too calm, almost." She allowed herself to really look at him, since it was her job. He was so gorgeous, the swine, definitely healthy-looking. And with that half-lidded look of complacency he did seem remarkably relaxed and untroubled. d.a.m.n it.

"Yes. And, um . . ." She couldn't say it, no matter how scientific her motivations.

"It's . . . less," he said tightly, then added, more cruelly, "I'm not surprised. I probablybroke something with Linda."

Jill got up and went over to the mice. They were still there, still not interested in one another. "That's not it," she forced herself to say. "The subjects are showing the same thing. That's very curious. So at seventy-five percent of power on the one pulse, s.e.xual activity and overall stimulation peaks. At ninety percent there appears to be a more mellow kind of well-being. What would be your hypothesis on that one, Nate?"

"Maybe the mice have broken hearts," he muttered.

7.2. Denton Wyle

OUTSIDESTUTTGART, GERMANY.

For a while, things had not looked too good for everyone's pal, Denton Wyle. Of the three names he'd gotten off the E-mail to Uberstuhl, two of them had resulted in the purchase of Kobinski pages, negotiated by Mr. Fleck. Unfortunately, neither set of pages contained anything more about black holes or the night of the escape. And the third dealer, a gentleman in Charleston, had taken Schwartz's exclusive, wouldn't talk to Fleck at all.

It might not be a big deal. But it might. Those pages might beexactly the ones Denton needed, and now they were gone forever. And Fleck, in his capacity as "adviser," had warned him that Rabbi Schwartz might have been collecting Kobinski for years, might have other pages he'd gotten from private parties or whatnot. Fleck felt it was his "duty" to point that out.

Yeah, thanks. Thanksa lot . If it was meant to bother Denton, it worked. It was bothersome the way pins stuck in one's corneas would be bothersome. If Denton really thought about it, which he tried not to, it made him weak-kneed with frustration.

But as Kobinski might say, the pendulum finally swung the other way. Fleck had located a new ma.n.u.script fragment. Apparently, when World War Two artifacts were sold among the German community-that is, among those who had been on the non-PC side of the war-they were advertised in certain German small-press magazines, things unlikely to be read by any outsider. The advertis.e.m.e.nts were discreet and inquiries were responded to with the utmost caution. That's where this nibble had turned up, and Fleck had confirmed that it was, indeed, a Kobinski fragment, one that even Schwartz probably didn't know about.

Denton was on the plane that same afternoon, Fleck's words of warning and instruction glowing in his ear:Take cash. Don't ask questions. And whatever you do, don't get into politics.

Denton understood perfectly. He was prepared to kiss some n.a.z.i b.u.t.t if that was what it took:You guys lost the war? b.u.mmer, man. I hate when that happens. But as he drew closer to his destination-a farm in the Schwabischer area east of Stuttgart-and found himself in a rural landscape where there was about one house per hundred sheep, he felt a leaden reluctance settle in the seat of his pants. His foot eased from the rental car's pedal until he fell far below the speed limit.

Excuse me,his foot was saying,but are we going to a n.a.z.i'shouse? Out on a farm in the middle of absolutely nowhere? Where the nearest neighbor is good ol' Hans, ten miles down the road? Are you out of your freaking mind?

"It's okay," he said aloud. "The guy's gotta be pus.h.i.+ng eighty. Besides, he has no reason to dislike me. I'm the blond white guy with the bag of money."

He cracked himself up with this and forced his foot down on the pedal. He wanted thisbad .

His first Kobinski article-which he'd written to get Jack off his a.s.s and start some PR for the book-had been a background piece only. It had talked about the ma.n.u.script but hadn't actually printed any of it. Still, it had been a big hit with their audience. He'd laid the groundwork for his black hole theory of vanis.h.i.+ngs by discussing stories from various religious traditions of mystics visiting other planes of existence, usually called heavens and h.e.l.ls. Heck, the entire Tibetan Book of the Dead was a description of the various worlds one pa.s.ses through after death. And the Swedish mystic Swedenborg? He claimed to have visited Heaven and h.e.l.l on many occasions. He was, you might say, "a regular."

Of course, the leap from mystical visions to believing that a man had used kabbalah magic to physically disappear from Auschwitz was a big one. Then again, the readers ofMysterious World were leapin' fools.

But the real meat of the article was courtesy of Loretta. She'd found an almost-eyewitness, a survivor named Biederer in Tel Aviv. Denton had interviewed him over the phone. Biederer's story was amazing-two enemies wrestling, a flash of light . . . But Beiderer had also said something not too cool. He'd mentioned that "other people" had been talking to him recently about Kobinski.

Denton knew very well who those "other people" were: Schwartz!

Denton hadn't seen or heard from the man, not directly. Yet he was convinced that Schwartz knew what he was up to, was doing everything in his power to work against him, was d.o.g.g.i.ng his every move.

The more Denton thought about this whole kabbalah magic thing, the more he'd become convinced that there was some seriously heavy-duty power there. What if Schwartz was the head of some secret fraternity of kabbalist magicians? After all, Schwartz was reputed to be one of the greatest living kabbalists, wasn't he? And the man was so d.a.m.ned secretive. He'd totally lied about his familiarity with Kobinski, tried to put Denton off the scent, tried to block his getting any of Kobinski's work.

Why? Because Kobinski had written big-time kabbalah secrets, that's why. Maybe it wasn't all that clear in the pages Denton had seen so far, but he just knew there were pages out there that contained powerful spells and formulas or whatever of kabbalah. That's why Schwartz didn't want them found.

Which was a little bit scary. Denton's latest imaginings of Schwartz included candlelit rooms in that nice stone building and cl.u.s.ters of chanting bearded-and-fringed men swearing blood oaths and mumbling Hebraic incantations. It included ritual knives intended for Those Who Revealed the Secrets. He wished to G.o.d he hadn't seen the movie.

Denton tried to put the problem of Schwartz from his mind. Because the alternative was to give up, and he couldn't do that. Molly Brad was just the kernel of it; he knew that now. He didn't bother to a.n.a.lyze his motives. He justwanted it . And Denton always got what he wanted.

Fortunately he, and not Schwartz, had the services of Mr. Fleck.

When Denton found the address he was able to convince himself to pull into the driveway.

The farm was of medium size. It was late August and the corn was high. The house was large and typically German: white and rectangular with brown beams and window boxes. But the paint was chipped and the only car in the driveway was a small, older economy car. It appeared the German junk police never made it out this far, because a pile of rusting trash sprawled behind the barn. The place was strangely quiet.

Denton got out. He stood for a moment next to his car, certain he was being watched. The house windows were dark and curtained. He had a brief image of a butchery in there, with dripping flanks of meat hanging on hooks in the kitchen. Lovely.

He plastered a smile on his face and crossed on wooden legs to the door. Then he did see a face, a woman's face, studying him and the car from the kitchen window. He turned up the wattage on his smile for her. She came to the door.

"Ja?"she asked, opening the door a crack.

"Frau Kroll? I'm Denton Wyle, the buyer Mr. Fleck contacted you about."

She scrutinized him and the car, with the face of someone drinking a.r.s.enic, and then she let him in.

"Sit, please, Mr. Wyle," she told him in heavily accented English.

He sat at a pine kitchen table, old but st.u.r.dy, with what looked like handmade looped yarn place mats in blue and white. German kitsch. The rest of the kitchen was at least fifty years old, with cabinetry that had not been all that grand to begin with. A rusting long-necked tap stuck out of a cracked basin filled with dishes. The wood floor was sticky and warped under his soles. Denton put his briefcase awkwardly between his feet, still smiling. Without asking, Frau Kroll brought him a cup of coffee. It was hot and thick as sludge.

"Well . . ." he said, not sure how to lead in.So! Someone in your family was a n.a.z.i?

It was obviously not Frau Kroll herself. She was in her mid-forties, with a worn, bruised look and a pasty face. The skin around her eyes was brown in racc.o.o.nlike rings. Her hair was a thin blond-gray that hung limply on either side of her hard face. Her clothes were old and poorly made. She looked like she could chew nails, and if her chipped teeth were any evidence, she did.

"It's beautiful country," Denton tried. He forced down another sip of coffee, grimacing at the taste.

A man entered the room, making Denton flinch. He was large, ugly, and gangly, as weathered as the woman and around the same age. He wore filthy jeans and a field jacket.

"This is my husband," Frau Kroll told Denton.

"Guten Tag, Herr Kroll." Denton considered rising for a moment and shaking hands, but the man s.h.i.+fted his gaze out the window.

"You have some ma.n.u.script pages for sale?" Denton asked Frau Kroll, still smiling.

She went into the next room and returned with an old file folder, very old, it appeared from the faded green color and the thick, they-knew-how-to-make-stuff-back-then cardboard. She placed it on the table and motioned to Denton. "You look."

Denton was definitely getting the sense that these people were as anxious and uncomfortable as he was. He cleared his throat and opened the folder.

Inside, without any further protection whatsoever, were pages of Kobinski's ma.n.u.script. Denton knew them at once. The top page was written on a heavy toweling, brown all around the edges, with a bug squashed among the text. It was unexpected to suddenly be right there within finger's reach of anoriginal- not in plastic, not under gla.s.s, not a Xerox. He drew in a hissing breath.

He looked up. The Krolls were watching him with painful hope and greed.

He wished for tweezers. If he'd been prepared, been professional, he would have brought some. There were more pages under the first, a lot more. In lieu of the proper tools, he carefully closed the folder and, propping it on its fold, tried to open it to the second page, then the third. The first three pages were written on the same toweling-it looked like the same session to him. Beyond this was a page of a faded brown postal wrap, then a short piece on a half sheet of wax paper (ink light and hard to read on that one), then more toweling.

There wereten pages . The last two contained nothing but mathematical equations, very neatly and carefully transcribed. Those must be the pages the Yad Vashem entry had mentioned.

Denton must have lingered too long, because Frau Kroll reached for the folder. "Enough," she said, s.n.a.t.c.hing it from him. He wanted to scream at her to be careful, but she placed the folder safely in front of her on the table. He smiled weakly. His dumbfoundedness was misread.

"It's real," the woman insisted, fiddling nervously at the folder's edge. "From my father. He died, eh, few months . . ."

"A few months ago?"

"Yes. He was only aworker." She said it fiercely, eyes darting to her husband. "Only cleaning things in the camps. He sleep outside camp."

"Of course." Denton nodded sympathetically.Yeah, cleaning up things like, oh, Jews.

"And a few things from the camp he keep." Her eyes darted back to Denton. "This," she poked at the folder, "is from Auschwitz."

"I know it is. I can tell it's genuine."

"Yes, genuine," she said, latching on to the word. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of her face. "You make offer?"

Herr Kroll turned from the window and leaned back against the cracked sink, arms folded over his chest.

"Hmmm. . . ." Denton put his finger to his chin in a pleasant"well, let's see" gesture, but inside he was kicking himself around. The Krolls obviously were on their own, didn't even want to pay a commission to an agent. They probably had no idea what the ma.n.u.script was worth, and he was getting the distinct impression they were desperate for money. On the other hand, he didn't want to risk offending them. Whatever he started with, they were likely to bid him up.

"Four thousand dollars, U.S.?" he offered, with a lilt to his voice and raised eyebrows to show that he wasn't completely firm on that.

Frau Kroll glanced at her husband, her face neutral. They spoke for some time in German, their voices low and tense.

"You have hotel phone number?" she asked. "We call, yes? Another man comes also today."

No.

"We talk to him first; then we call."