The Einstein Equation

21 The Weigh-In

In Brussels, it was time for the congregation of principal players in the global management of atomic energy to convene. The Hon. Lance McFadden hosted the event, since he had been involved in the United Kingdom chapter of the International Atomic Energy Agency since just before his campaign to become mayor of Oban.

“The turn-out is at one-hundred percent, sir,” Wolf reported to McFadden as they watched the delegates take their seats in the splendor of La Monnaie’s Opera House. “We are only waiting for Clifton Tuft to show up, sir. As soon as he is here, we can proceed with the,” he paused dramatically, “supplanting procedure.”

McFadden was decked out in his Sunday best. Since becoming involved with Tuft and the Order, he had become acquainted with wealth, even though it did not buy him class. He turned his head surreptitiously and whispered, “Have the calibration been successful? I have to get this information to our man, Jacobs, before tomorrow. If he does not have the exact weight of the collective passengers, the experiment will never work.”

“Each seat set out for a representative has been equipped with sensors that will quantify their exact body weight respectively,” Wolf informed him. “The sensors were designed to weigh even the finest materials with deadly precision by means of new, top of the range scientific technology.” The repulsive thug smirked. “And you are going to love this, sir. This technology was invented and produced by the one and only David Purdue.”

McFadden gasped as he heard the genius explorer’s name. “My God! Really? You are too right, Wolf. I love the irony in that. I wonder how he is doing after that accident he had in New Zealand.”

“Apparently he uncovered the Dire Serpent, sir. Thus far the rumor has not been verified, but knowing Purdue, he probably did find it,” Wolf speculated. It was both a good revelation to McFadden, as much as it was terrifying.

“Jesus Christ, Wolf, we have to get it from him! If we get the Dire Serpent, deciphered, we can apply it to the experiment without having to go through all this shit,” McFadden said, looking positively blown away by the fact. “Has he completed the equation? I thought it was a myth.”

“Many thought so, until he took his two sidekicks out to help him find it. From what I am told, he is working hard on solving the problem of the missing details, but has yet to crack it,” Wolf gossiped. “Apparently he has been so obsessed with it that he almost never sleeps anymore.”

“Will we be able to get it? He certainly will not give it to us, and since you did away with his little girlfriend, Dr. Gould, we have one less mate of his to blackmail for it. Sam Cleave is watertight. He is the last person I would bother to count on to betray Purdue,” McFadden whispered as the delegates of the government agencies spoke softly in the background. Before Wolf could reply, a female security official of the EU Council overseeing the process interrupted.

“Excuse me, sir,” she addressed McFadden, “it is eight o’clock sharp.”

“Thank you, thank you,” McFadden’s false smile fooled her. “Kind of you to let me know.”

He glanced back at Wolf as he stepped out from the stage and onto the podium to address the members of the summit. Each chair occupied by an active member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as well as the NPT countries, had transmitted the data to the Black Sun computer in Meerdaalwoud.

While Dr. Kasper Jacobs was collecting his important work, wiping his data as far as he could, the information came onto the server. He lamented having completed the vessel for the experiment. At least he could corrupt the equation he created, similar to the Einstein Equation, but with less power drive, himself.

Just like Einstein, he had to decide whether he would allow his genius to be used for nefarious actions or not allow his work to destroy on a mass scale. He opted for the latter and, keeping an eye on the mounted security cameras, pretended to be working. In actual fact, the brilliant physicist was corrupting his calculations, in order to thwart the experiment. Kasper felt guilty enough that he already constructed the giant, cylindrical vessel. No more would come from his abilities to serve Tuft and his wicked cult.

Kasper wished he could smile as the final lines of his equation was being altered just enough to be accepted, but not to function. He saw the numbers being transmitted form the Opera House, but he ignored it. By the time Tuft, McFadden and the others came to activate the experiment, he would be long gone.

But one desperate individual he did not factor into his escape calculation, was Zelda Bessler. She was watching him from a secluded booth just inside the large site where the giant vessel was waiting. Like a cat, she bided her time, allowing him to do everything he thought he had gotten away with. Zelda smiled. In her lap she had a tablet, hooked up to a communications platform between operative of the Order of the Black Sun. Without sound betraying her presence, she typed in ‘Apprehend Olga and put her on the Valkyrie’ and sent it to Wolf’s subordinates in Bruges.

Dr. Kasper Jacobs pretended to be hard at work on the experimental paradigm, having no idea that his girlfriend was about to be introduced to his world. His phone rang. Looking rather nervous at the sudden disturbance, he quickly got up and went to the men’s room. It was a call he had expected.

“Sam?” he whispered, making sure every stall in the restroom was vacant. He had told Sam Cleave about the experiment due, but not even Sam could get hold of Purdue to change his mind about the equation. While Kasper checked the waste bins for bug devices, he continued. “Are you there?”

“Aye,” Sam whispered on the other side of the phone. “I am in the booth at the Opera House, so that I can eavesdrop properly, but so far I cannot find anything amiss to report. The summit is just beginning, but…”

“What? What is happening?” Kasper asked.

“Wait,” Sam said abruptly. “Do you know anything about a Siberian train trip?”

Kasper frowned in utter confusion. “A what? No, nothing of that sort. Why?”

“The Russian security representative said something about a flight to Moscow tonight,” Sam recounted, but Kasper had heard no such thing from Tuft or Bessler. Sam added, “I have a program I nicked from reception. From what I gather, it is a three day summit. They have the symposium here today, then, tomorrow morning they are going to fly privately to Moscow to board some or other posh train called the Valkyrie. You have no knowledge of this?”

“Well, Sam, I do not exactly enjoy a great deal of authority around here, you know?” Kasper ranted as quietly as he could. One of the technicians came in to take a leak, making a conversation of this nature impossible. “I have to go, darling. Lasagna will be fine. I love you,” he said and hanged up the phone. The technician just smiled sheepishly as he pissed, having no idea what the head of the project had really discussed. Kasper dismissed himself from the restroom and felt apprehensive about Sam Cleave’s question about a Siberian train trip.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” Sam said on his side, but the physicist had already hung up. He tried Purdue’s satellite number, based in the billionaire’s private study, but even there was no answer. No matter how he tried, Purdue seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth and it concerned Sam beyond panic. Still, he had no way of getting back to Edinburgh now, and with Nina accompanying him, he could obviously not send her to check on Purdue either.

For a brief moment, Sam even thought of sending Masters, but, having denied the man’s sincerity by giving Purdue the equation anyway, he doubted Masters would want to help him. Crouching in the box Ms. Noble’s contact had organized for him, Sam contemplated the entire mission. He almost found it more urgent to stop Purdue from completing the Einstein Equation, than to follow a blooming catastrophe orchestrated by the Black Sun and its high-end disciples.

Sam was torn between his duties, spread too thin and caving under the yoke. He had to protect Nina. He had to stop a possible world tragedy. He had to stop Purdue from finishing his math. The journalist did not often come to desperate blankness, but this time he was out of options. He would have to ask Masters. The mutilated man was his only hope at stopping Purdue.

He wondered if Dr. Jacobs had made all his own arrangements to defect to Belarus, but that was a matter Sam could still catch up with when he met up with Jacobs for dinner. Right now, he had to get the details of the flight to Moscow, from where the summit representatives would board the train. According to the discussions after the formal meeting, Sam gathered that the next two days would be to visit various reactor stations in Russia, still generating atomic power.

“So, the NPT countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency are going on a field trip to grade the power stations?” Sam muttered to his recorder. “I still do not see where the threat is going to unfold into the tragedy. If I get Masters to stop Purdue, it does not matter where the Black Sun hide their weapon. Without the Einstein Equation, it will all have been in vain anyway.”

He quietly slipped out, walking along the row of seats up where the lights were off. Nobody even saw him from the brightly lit section below where it was bustling. Sam had to get Nina, call Masters, meet with Jacobs and then make sure that he was on that train. From his intelligence, Sam took note of a secret elite airfield called the Koschei Strip, a few miles outside Moscow, where the delegation were set to land the next afternoon. From there, they would be chauffeured to the Valkyrie, a trans-Siberian super train for a luxury trip to Novosibirsk.

Sam had a million things on his mind, but first and foremost, he had to get back to Nina to see if she was alright. He knew better than to underestimate the reach of men like Wolf and McFadden, especially once they discovered that the woman they had left for dead, was very much alive and could implicate them.

After Sam had slipped out via Stage Door 3, through the props store room in the back, he was met with a cold night, full of uncertainty and menace in the air. He pulled his hoodie tight in the front, buttoning it over his scarf. With his identity concealed, he swiftly traversed the back parking lot where wardrobe trucks and deliveries usually came. Under the moonlit night, Sam looked like a shadow, but he felt like a wraith. He was tired, but not allowed to rest. There was so much to be done to make sure that he boarded that train tomorrow afternoon that he would never have the time or the sanity to sleep.

In his recollection, he saw Nina’s battered body, the scene looping repeatedly. His blood boiled for the injustice of it, and he direly hoped that Wolf would be on that train.