Thorpe's Candle

DEEP SCAN

“Do you have any idea what you're asking me to do?” As he spoke, the President turned his back on the three men and stared out the window of the Oval Office. Dressed casually in slacks and golf shirt, he brushed his hand over his silver hair and watched the parade of tourists beyond the fences.

Dr. John Dolen answered. “Yes, Mr. President, we definitely understand.” Dolen leaned forward in his chair with a determined expression. The tall, lanky, fifty-year-old nuclear research scientist from the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory had a narrow, stern face sporting a peppered gray goatee, thick horn-rimmed glasses, and small, dark eyes. “We would never suggest anything like this if we didn't believe it to be a matter of gravest concern. We simply don't see any other course of action. As Professor Reynolds and I have explained, we have reason to believe someone gained access, copied, and then destroyed the original Project Candle Power files. If that proves true and this technology should fall into the wrong hands, the United States and the rest of the free world would be helpless to defend against it.”

The President moved to the leather chair behind the Resolute desk, his face pale and drawn. Only six months into his term and he already felt the accelerated aging process that came with the job. “Frankly, if it weren’t for your impeccable scientific credentials and the insistence of Colonel Argentine, I would assume you both were raving lunatics.”

“That's understandable, sir,” Reynolds said. Professor Carl Reynolds possessed doctorates in both biochemical engineering and quantum physics from MIT. Short and stocky, also in his mid-fifties, he had a shiny, balding head and a warm smile. His chubby fingers constantly pulled at the ends of his bushy mustache. “To understand our concern, you must realize the nature of our organization. Deep Scan is one of a handful of ultra-secret projects unknown even to the CIA and National Security Agency. Even your predecessor didn't know it existed.”

The President raised an eyebrow. “If that's the case, how do you get funding?”

“Actually,” Reynolds said, “Deep Scan is a modern offshoot of the old Strategic Defense Initiative. As I’m sure you recall, the original concept of SDI was to create a defensive shield against a surprise missile attack from the Soviet Union.”

“Star Wars had many levels,” Dolen said. “Most were Level One projects that involved the military and the Department of Defense. Then there were Level Two projects controlled directly by the NSA dealing with offensive weaponry. Finally, there were a couple of Level Three groups like Deep Scan — purely scientific in nature, answering only to the President. President Bush, forty-three, conceived the idea of Deep Scan. He authorized Colonel Argentine’s predecessor to set up a network of obscure research grants and bogus government agencies. They were buried deep in Washington's bureaucratic maze in places like the Department of Agriculture and the National Parks Service. Congress appropriated funds earmarked for everything from biological and chemical research to improving crop yields, farming techniques and fertilizer compounds. The funds really went for futuristic research into developing new energy sources.”

“But that doesn't answer the question — why keep it a secret from the former administration?” The President directed the comment at Colonel Michael Argentine.

A little over six feet tall and lean with a straight nose, dark hair, and hollow cheeks, Argentine was a cognitive psychologist specializing in training techniques. Officially, the forty-five-year-old career officer served as director of the Institute for Defensive Research at the Southern Command Headquarters, Miami. Unofficially, he was the military coordinator for Deep Scan.

The colonel cleared his throat. “Well, sir, once President Bush created Deep Scan, he made arrangements for it to go on even after he left office. One of the last things he did was to instruct that the current President be informed about the existence of Deep Scan only if it were successful in its mission.”

“I'm still not clear on exactly what that mission was, gentlemen.”

Dolen spoke up. “The original assignment of Deep Scan was to evaluate existing military technology and adapt it to our nation's dependency on foreign sources of oil.”

“About a month ago,” Argentine said, “during a routine electronic file search through the Department of Defense archives, we came across a reference to something called Project Candle Power. It was only a partial document and our guess was it might have been a file fragment. It contained just enough information to attract our attention. Are you familiar with the principle of fusion, Mr. President, particularly the theory of cold fusion?”

The President nodded. “There were a couple of scientists in Utah—”

“Pons and Fleischmann,” Dolen said.

“Didn’t they claim to achieve fusion at room temperature?” the President asked. “But I thought the scientific community regarded their work as fake. Just a chemical reaction, not nuclear.”

“Until recently it was never duplicated in other labs,” Argentine said. “Even when there was success, it was inconsistent. Palladium is just too unreliable. But what we’re talking about came prior to the Pons and Fleischmann experiments. Apparently, a decade earlier, the government conducted secret tests to develop an alternative energy source based on cold fusion. The tests were much more successful than what came later with Pons and Fleischmann in Utah.”

“Obviously, it wasn't much of a success or there’d be a noticeable lack of gas pumps today,” the President said. “So what happened?”

Dolen answered. “What started out as an energy experiment turned into the development of a new type of weapon, a weapon of unthinkable power capable of mass destruction on a global scale. It's referred to in the document as a korium device and was code named Thorpe's Candle.”

“Interesting name.” The President made a note on his pad. “Do we know how it worked?”

Dolen went on, “Yes, sir. To create conventional nuclear fusion, you need to operate in temperatures way beyond what can be safely handled in the lab.”

“Like what you would find at the core of the sun,” Argentine said. “One hundred million degrees or more.”

“That's what makes cold fusion so attractive,” Dolen said. “Theoretically, we're talking about very manageable temperatures and conditions. The theory of cold fusion is amazingly simple — a rod of metal such as palladium is placed in heavy water. Heavy water contains the hydrogen isotope tritium that is also an essential component of nuclear fusion weapons such as the hydrogen bomb. The palladium is placed near a second metal electrode and an electric current is applied to both poles causing electrolysis — the splitting of water molecules. Atoms of deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen, are forced into the palladium metal where the deuterium atoms fuse to form helium atoms.”

“My eyes are glazing over,” the President said. “Can you give it to me in plain English?”

“I'm sorry, sir,” Dolen said, blushing. “When the people working on Project Candle Power substituted the palladium electrode with one made of a rare mineral called korium, all hell broke loose. They came close to cooking themselves and everything in sight. There was heat produced in a factor of a hundred thousand to one, neutrons and gamma rays along with massive quantities of helium and tritium. All the makings of a nuclear event.”

“Korium?” the President said. “Never heard of it.”

Dolen said, “Korium has existed only in small quantities. Somewhat similar to platinum or rhodium, it was used for a short time for plating tiny precision instruments. There have only been a few sources of korium, mostly in remote areas of the Arctic. In fact, only one commercial mine ever existed. It was located in Iceland and played out after only a few years. According to the Department of Mining and Exploration, none are known to exist today.”

“All right,” the President said, “you've convinced me this korium is rare.”

“Much more than rare,” Dolen continued. “Essentially non-existent. That's why we theorize they abandoned Project Candle Power because there was no korium to build the device. Using anything else yielded minimal or no results — not worth the investment. The scientists destroyed their one working model and put their research data under Alpha level protection.”

“So if there's no more korium, why are you so concerned about someone stealing the design of the device?” the President asked.

Reynolds answered, “Technology has come a long way since the discovery of cold fusion using korium, sir. Utilizing virtual elements created with the VR molecule engine at Lawrence Livermore, we've already confirmed that the device is possible. We can show in theory that Project Candle Power works using computer generated element simulations. All we need is a sample of korium to build and test the real thing.”

“So this brings us back to the original problem,” the President said. “You tell me that you’ve actually located a new source of korium but it's on foreign soil. And you want me to approve a covert mission to go in and get enough for you to confirm your tests?”

“That's correct, sir,” Argentine said.

“Well, the suspense is killing me, gentlemen. What country are we talking about?”

“Since we uncovered the existence of Project Candle Power,” Dolen answered, “we've had the Department of Reconnaissance reconfigure their RAYKR satellite to perform a search for any trace of the mineral. Yesterday they scanned the Caribbean. Their data confirms small traces of korium at a remote mining site in the mountains of Eastern Cuba.”

The room fell silent as the President leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Couldn't be someplace easy, I guess.”

“No, sir,” Argentine replied. “Never seems to work out that way.”

“You said you believe someone else is working on a korium device. Do you think it's the Cubans?”

“We have no idea, sir,” Reynolds answered.

“Well, if they're going to the trouble of digging it out of the ground, they must be doing something with it. Are they plating tiny precision instruments or are they building some new kind of hydrogen bomb?”

“There's no market for the mineral as a plating agent anymore,” Argentine said. “There are too many other cheap, synthetically produced alternatives. I doubt the Cubans have the technology to construct Thorpe's Candle. Although cold fusion is simple in theory, it would still take a great deal of skill to set up a lab and build the device. We think they're extracting it for someone else.”

Dolen added, “We're convinced that someone removed the files on the original Project Candle Power. Last night, Professor Reynolds ran a latent image sector and cluster scan and found that about six months ago the files were copied and subsequently erased.”

“And the data could not be recovered?” the President asked.

“No,” Argentine said. “It was electronically shredded at the highest security level.”

“Could it have been a routine data purge?”

“Mr. President, data with an Alpha level classification can't be purged without an executive order from you or the National Security Adviser.”

“Then how could it have been erased?”

“We don't know,” Dolen answered.

“So,” the President said, “along with everything else you've told me, we can also assume that someone has the ability to access the highest levels of secured files at the Department of Defense and do whatever they want to them?”

“It appears that way, yes,” Colonel Argentine said.

The President shook his head and made a note on his pad to have the FBI start a full-scale investigation into who stole the file. Then he said, “Gentlemen, I've got a nationwide rail strike set to start at midnight, forest fires all over Southern California, and a budget crisis on Capitol Hill that's come close to fist fights on the Senate floor. I've got to tell you, this is not a good time to ask me to invade Cuba.”

“Not an invasion, sir,” Argentine said, “just a recon mission. A couple of Army Rangers and an Army Corps of Engineers mining expert.”

“Are you absolutely certain that you can reconstruct this korium device?” The President’s voice was stern and dry.

“As certain as we can be, sir,” Dolen said. “Based on our computer simulations, that is. What makes Thorpe's Candle so deadly is that its destructive power equals or dwarfs anything we currently have in our arsenal. Combine that with the fact that once you get around the technology, it's inexpensive to build. What was conceived as a cheap, renewable source of energy turned out to be a new way to produce widespread death and destruction.”

There was a long pause before the President finally said, “If you had a supply of the ore, how long until you can deliver a working model?”

Argentine said, “It's hard to say at this point with so little data remaining from Project Candle Power. The important thing is to get our hands on a sample and start the real tests as soon as possible. In addition, it's imperative that we find and secure whatever sources of the ore exist in the world. We know someone has stolen the information. The possibility of this technology falling into the wrong hands is, well, too frightening to ignore.”

The President stared at Argentine for a few seconds, then looked down at his notes. “Out of curiosity, why was it called Thorpe's Candle?”

“Apparently,” Dolen said, “it was named after one of the original members of Project Candle Power, a brilliant young scientist by the name of Dr. William Thorpe.”

“And where is this Dr. Thorpe now?”

Argentine answered, “He was a member of the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina for almost fifteen years. Then three years ago, his wife had a terrible bout with cancer. When she died, he became despondent and developed a heavy drinking problem. He went into debt, lost everything, and screwed up his career. The university finally let him go. The last anyone heard, he was somewhere in Mexico doing research for a pharmaceutical company.”

The President thought for a moment then said, “How do you plan on getting your team into Cuba?”

“Navy sub,” Argentine said. “We'll drop them off the southern coast of the island at night.”

“Colonel, I'm authorizing you to use whatever resources you need to locate Dr. Thorpe. Get him on an Air Force jet back to your Deep Scan headquarters as soon as possible. No sense in re-inventing the wheel. I want him involved in the reconstruction of the korium device. In the meantime, proceed with your mission to Cuba. I'll expect a progress report every twelve hours. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

The President stood. “For everyone’s sake, gentlemen, I hope you’re all dead wrong and this proves to be nothing but a waste of time.” Without another word, he walked out of the Oval Office.

Dolen turned his silver Lexus out of the White House gates and onto Pennsylvania Avenue. “That was quite a gamble, Michael,” he said.

“Maybe not,” Colonel Argentine said. “More like a calculated risk.” He watched the visitors ambling along the sidewalks admiring the splendor of the most powerful government in the world.

“Still,” Reynolds added from the back seat, “it could have blown up in our faces. He could have rejected the whole thing and tossed us out on our impeccable behinds.”

“I don't think so,” Argentine said. “Here's his chance to go down in history as the man who saved the world from the most destructive force imaginable. How could he turn down a shot like that?”

“Let's hope you're right,” Dolen said. He steered the Lexus toward Arlington, away from the crowds and monuments. “I don't want to be around when he finds out you sent your recon team into Cuba two days ago.”