Quantum

27

‘Oksanna, have you found out anything more about Wolff?’ Orlov asked as he seated himself on the couch, facing Zoshchenko and Leskov.

‘Very little, actually, other than to confirm some elements of Wolff’s background. He was born and raised in Dresden, the fourth child of an engineer. He attended university in Berlin and, during the war, completed his doctorate under the guidance of Werner Heisenberg. I was unable to locate a copy of his thesis; it was presumably lost during the fall of Berlin. Wolff and several other physicists fled Berlin before the Red Army arrived, hiding in a rural area that was eventually occupied by the Western Allies. As a junior scientist, he was detained only briefly by the Allies and eventually emigrated to America. According to the Gestapo background checks, Wolff was a quiet, introverted young man whose instructors felt showed great promise. Evidently, Heisenberg was so impressed with his young protégé that he used whatever influence he had to protect Wolff from serving in the army. As Dmitri reported on Wednesday, Wolff lived quietly in America until he was killed.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Just an interesting note. Following the war, several of the German scientists who’d been liberated by the Red Army and became guests of the state were interviewed regarding the German atomic-weapons research. The German effort to build an atomic bomb never really started, because Heisenberg convinced Hitler that even if it were remotely possible to build such a device, research and development would drain billions of deutsche marks away from the war effort, and by the time the first bomb was completed, the war would be over.’

‘What does this have to do with Wolff?’ Leskov demanded to know. ‘He was just Heisenberg’s lackey at the time.’

‘Heisenberg’s recommendations to the Reich were based on what he considered to be irrefutable scientific facts — facts borne out by rigorous manual calculations.’ Zoshchenko’s tone was snide and superior. ‘It was all in the numbers, and those numbers were meticulously ground out by Heisenberg’s so-called lackey, Wolff.’

‘Spasíba, Oksanna,’ Orlov chided, politely ending her lecture before she riled Leskov even more.

Zoshchenko bristled but said nothing further. Orlov knew that she and Leskov barely tolerated each other, and did so only because Orlov demanded it. She despised Leskov as a hulking Neanderthal — an unfortunate necessity of Victor Orlov’s business. Conversely, Leskov viewed her as an arrogant, self-centered intellectual bitch who could easily be replaced by any of the high-priced whores servicing Moscow executives.

‘Dmitri, what do you have to report?’ Orlov asked, looking to get the meeting back on track.

‘The notebooks found with Johann Wolff have been taken to a laboratory on the campus of the University of Michigan for analysis and preservation. Our electronics team has infiltrated the university’s computer network and located information, what they call image files, linked to these notebooks. The files are secured, but they believe they can hack their way in. They have also monitored someone outside the laboratory accessing some of these files, someone named Grin from MARC. We are working to identify this individual.’

‘Have you discovered what is in Wolff’s notebooks?’

‘No, and neither have they.’

‘What do you mean?’ Zoshchenko was confused. ‘If they are interested in these books, then it must be Wolff’s research.’

‘I have no doubt that that is exactly what it is, but apparently the notebooks are somehow encrypted. Wolff didn’t want people to know what he was working on.’

‘That’s very interesting.’ Orlov rubbed his chin as he considered Leskov’s report. ‘Oksanna, based on Wolff’s letters, do you think his work might be of value to our competitors?’

‘Absolutely. Wolff’s thinking is highly unconventional, and his insights into quantum reality could provide the keys to understanding how Sandstrom’s device works.’

‘Then we must acquire these notebooks, even if only to deprive our competitors of them. Dmitri, make the necessary arrangements.’

‘Da, Victor Ivanovich.’