by Paula Wynne
‘So, if the German energy cage I…um found in my research could maim or kill a human who was inside it, why would it be in a room enclosed in a Faraday cage?’ She had to keep a lid on it and not give her game away.
Professor Lowton squinted at her and muttered, ‘A properly constructed Faraday cage would absorb the incident electromagnetic radiation arriving at its outside or inside. It would definitely not maim a person. It is a shield, not a weapon.’
Cami stared at him. Her instinct was to blurt out that, even if his retelling had been vague, Uncle Aron had seen the cage that enclosed the chamber, and what had happened to her father and Rick.
‘If you want accuracy in your story, the physical description you gave me of the chamber is consistent with a giant Faraday cage having been built into its walls. As to why this would have been done, the most likely explanation is that whatever was inside the chamber required shielding from external radiation. If you force me to speculate, the only reasons I could countenance for that would be either to protect the contents of the chamber against some imagined weapon that emitted radiation, or to prevent their detection using penetrative radiation. Does this help?’
Two thoughts struck Cami at the same time. As she tried to digest them, she gave the professor her sweetest dumb-blonde smile, ‘I’m trying to understand the complexity of this. Please let me get my thoughts straight.’
‘Do take your time,’ he circled his thumbs around each other while he waited.
She remembered Uncle Aron’s quivering voice as he described the vault. It had been like descending into a giant, circular birdcage, he’d said. Rick had gone first, then Papi, and as Uncle Aron had followed them he had watched both of them seem to lose control of their bodies and then begin clawing at their faces. Whatever had done that to them he had also felt, and he had barely been able to grab Papi and haul him up the ladder and out of the vault.
Yet even as she tried to piece together the fragments Uncle Aron had told her before he passed, more exciting was her other thought: what the hell had Hitler hidden in the cage that was so precious? She was truly her father’s daughter.
‘You said earlier that the Faraday cage could be used to prevent radiation contained within it from escaping. Is it not possible that the cage somehow amplifies radiation inside the chamber so that anyone who enters it is maimed?’
‘No, it most certainly is not! Miss, I must say that I am greatly taxed every Michaelmas term by having to dispel my new students of the foolish notions put into them by novelists and movie producers who pilfer scientific terms and then grossly abuse them. The Faraday cage is a shield, nothing more. That is the scientific fact.’
‘Professor,’ she purred, trying to appear contrite and humble instead of murderous, which was increasingly how she was feeling. ‘With your intelligence it is easy for you to understand this. Would you be so kind as to explain how it works? I mean, in simple language…for someone who is really not very scientifically minded?’
He gave a theatrical sigh. ‘Alas, that is ever my task. Very well, let us seek a metaphor. Do you have a microwave oven, Emma?’
‘Yes.’ Papi had always bought the most modern gadgets for her mother. Despite the myths and fears surrounding this mysterious new method of food preparation, people were starting to see that the benefits of microwave cooking outweighed the possible risks. No one was dying of radiation poisoning, going blind or sterile from having one in their home, as had once been predicted. Papi had seen them used widely in Japan and had brought one home.
‘Good,’ the professor intoned, ‘that might help to explain. You see, Emma, what you’re trying to understand is the same principle that keeps the microwaves inside a microwave oven, popping your popcorn instead of cooking your eyes as you watch.’
She looked confused.
‘You’ve heard of microwave popcorn, surely?’
Hating to admit ignorance, she shook her head.
‘Well,’ he said, his manner opening up as he went into lecture mode. ‘Microwave popcorn was invented in 1946. Dr. Percy Spencer was conducting experiments for the Raytheon Corporation with a magnetron. He loved chocolate and one day he discovered that the chocolate bar that he had in his pocket for lunch had melted while he was working with the magnetron. Of course, this piqued his curiosity, and he experimented with other foods to see what would happen to them. One of those food items was popcorn, which popped when brought into proximity with the magnetron.’
Great, microwave popcorn, but no discovery about Papi’s illness.
Struggling to understand the professor’s point, she smiled her sweetest smile. ‘What exactly does that tell me?’
‘If you will bear with me… In the case of the microwave oven, the source of electromagnetic radiation is inside the,’ he hooked his fingers into an air quote, ‘”Faraday cage” with the food. If you put the source outside the oven, then the food would not get cooked, but the people standing nearby might be feeling a little warm.’
Had her Papi been like the popcorn, his deformity the same swelling and contortion that the little kernels experienced? ‘But, professor, could that not be what the chamber is, a giant microwave oven? Would it not explain the energy being sucked away and the deformity my…characters in the novel would suffer?’
Again his tone was waspish. ‘This is what I mean! It’s absurd! Young lady, I’m afraid you really don’t have a clear grasp on what you are talking about. A microwave oven is a tiny enclosure, and still it requires two kilowatts of power to heat a small mass of foodstuff, and quite slowly at that. If you were to build this huge cavern you described to me, and then to fill it with water as you said, which would greatly reduce amplitudes, then the power required to fill it with enough radiation to harm a man in mere minutes would be immense, absolutely immense.’
Cami remained silent as he glared at her, checking to see if his reprimand had found its target.
He continued, ‘And you seriously wish to propose that not only could such a device have been constructed in the nineteen forties, when the technology for it did not exist, but that it would still be functional thirty years later? It is laughable. And as for your Faraday cage, why bother? If all that is outside the cage is solid rock, what on earth is it protecting? The radiation could dissipate harmlessly there.’
She was about to speak but, not done yet, he held up a finger. ‘And this concept of energy sucking and deformity you are so attached to, perhaps as cheap horror for your readers. It is not accurate. Energy would not be sucked, it would be, if anything, pumped in. As for physical damage, in the short term a person inside this vault of yours would suffer no more than skin burns, so in fact if this death trap of yours was designed to protect something from intruders it wouldn’t actually work very well, would it?!’
He plumped back into his seat, seemingly pleased to have demonstrated his alpha brain credentials. He then glanced obviously at his watch.
Cami knew that she had no weapons at her disposal to charm this pompous goblin, and anyway if she didn’t get out of here soon she would be tempted to wrestle the man’s spindly body to the floor, stuff his stinking cycling socks into his mouth, and hold them there until his breathing stopped, and she could ask him for his opinion on that, please, sir!
Looking directly at him she said, ‘Professor, if you will give me an answer to one hypothetical question, I will leave immediately and will assure Professor Radcliffe that you were of tremendous assistance. Do we have a deal?’
The professor looked shocked for a second and then emitted a peculiar, high pitched cackle. ‘Well, I think that’s the best proposition you’ve made today! Ask away, and I shall impart my opinion.’
Cami smiled her all-weather smile. ‘Suppose that the Nazis did build a cavern as I’ve described and that when an intruder entered it they were subjected to enough radiation to immediately incapacitate them. How would it be possible to enter the vault and remain safe?’
The professor was unable to resist rolling his e
yes. ‘Well, supposing all of that, and I think I’ve made my opinions clear about your premise…the only way would be either to disable the power source or to enter the chamber inside another Faraday cage, one large enough to contain the intruder, and with, of course, an earth connection. Does this satisfy your needs?’
‘I would like to thank you for being so generous with your time, professor, and I shall now keep my end of the bargain and leave you in peace.’
He laughed his horrible laugh again and, ushering her towards the door, said ‘I wish you perspicacity with your novel, Emma.’
As he opened the door they looked into the surprised face of a pale, gangly youth who had been about to knock.
‘Ah, Jeremy! Here for our physics tutorial.’ She noticed how he stressed the last two words. Well that confirmed what she had suspected.
‘If you wouldn’t mind, Emma, just ask my secretary at the end of the corridor and she’ll direct you out.’ And then the door was swinging shut, with Jeremy discreetly shuttled inside.
Cami walked down to the secretary in a tiny cubbyhole office. ‘Excuse me, Professor Lowton said you could direct me out?’
A stressed looking woman looked up. ‘Yes, love, of course. Fastest way’s down this corridor and take a right at the end, and it’s the first door. And watch out for his bicycle, won’t you? Always parks it in the corridor next to the door. No matter how many times I tell him someone will clatter into it, he still does it!’
When Cami reached the door she bent down to examine the bike, a new looking Dawes Galaxy. Pinching the two parts of the front brake caliper together, she unhooked the cable. She then did the same to the rear one, and squeezed the two brake levers to confirm that they now did nothing.
As she walked out into the street and headed for her car, she noticed that the Oxford traffic was moving quickly today, and smiled.
43
Little Hollow Hall
Driving back to Aldermaston, Cami’s thoughts turned to how very easily Allan had taken the bait to be led into her web. Almost as easily as Matt had done, but limping boy was no use to her now. She had only ever been using him as a backup to get to his cousin.
A volley of curses ran through her head. He was a puppyish idiot and she would have preferred not to have got him involved, but there could be no half measures in what she did. Now it turned out that she’d never needed him, but such was life. She hoped he wouldn’t get in her way. People who got in her way would bite the dust.
Because it was a ruthless world filled with deadly enemies. As Papi had discovered.
During her childhood, she had walked past Little Hollow Hall on her way to school and envied the big, expensive cars entering and exiting the huge wrought iron entrance.
Once she’d stopped to kill a spider that had spun a web around the intricate gate design. Not because she didn’t like spiders, just the opposite, she admired their cunning in catching prey, but simply because it had ruined her vision of who lived behind the gates. Rich fancy people would never allow webs to spoil the entrance to their home. And she wasn’t about to let a spider give the impression the mansion was a crusty old ghost house, even though rumours in the village said that money was running short and the place would soon be up for sale.
Now, years later, she’d finally managed to get the money Papi had made from his huge find just three months before the accident and hidden in various Swiss bank accounts. With it, she had returned determined to buy the place, only to find out it was now a conference centre. Living there was more important than owning the place, though, so she had simply kept increasing her offer until management had agreed to rent her the entire south wing.
Cami was pleased she had matured early, soon after Papi’s accident. When she had found his hidden money, she had started pretending to be an adult and giving the fake age of twenty. Easy enough to do at fifteen if you knew how to dress, and adults got so much more respect. Papi had been strangely obsessed with her growing up, and had always given her gifts and clothes that were far beyond her age. That helped her to hide her true youth.
She prided herself on being able to pull off any age she wanted, whether eighteen or thirty. Half an hour studying a teen magazine and one quick shopping trip, and she’d easily managed to make Matt think she was about his age.
Whenever she entered the local shops here, Cami made a point of complimenting someone’s “lovely” dress, another woman’s “funky” glasses and yet a third woman’s “simply gorgeous” shoes. She wouldn’t have been seen dead in any of it, but this kind of soft soap usually melted the female ice. And she never knew when she might need a favour from one of them.
Of the ones living near her old house, none had mentioned her family’s past, even though she had no doubt they were thinking and gossiping about it. Who needed them, anyway? Besides, most of them stunk of dogs!
Including Matt. Mm, she had to get rid of the whining cripple. He had fallen for her limp so easily. Such a gullible idiot! She had hoped he would disappear off to Oxfordshire as he had planned, but she had probably come on too strong for the poor little sod. Now he was claiming he was staying until the Air Fest, but she had no doubts about his real reason for hanging around.
More complications. Getting rid of a man wasn’t that difficult.
Two made it more awkward, even if one was very much just a boy.
Cami made her way through the small village of Aldermaston, past the wrought iron gates of her new office suite, Little Hollow Hall, and headed the few miles to her former home. Her mother had kept the cottage, but never came back here and had left it shut up and unused.
Inside, she readied herself for Allan’s arrival. She had plenty to do and prepare.
* * *
An hour later, she opened the door for Allan and ushered him into the large country kitchen.
He seemed to be struggling to cope with a few notches more heat than the usual cool summer months. Wet patches had appeared under his armpits. She hated that, it showed the man had no control and no sense of pride. Then again, it could be her presence that had him perspiring so much. Or was it because of their conversation? Was he getting all worked up because he thought he was close to finding his hidden Nazi?
Although the reporter projected confidence in his abilities to film his puny little documentary, she had seen through his big talk. Several times he had been caught out, and even though he waxed over it with guff to the narrow-minded locals, it was obvious to her that he was raw and inexperienced. She guessed this was his first proper assignment as an intern, but he was making out that it was an important production to impress all his country bumpkin relatives and acquaintances.
Hah!
She busied herself making them fancy cocktails. In the reflection in the bottle, she noted him eyeballing her. Like all men. His eyes raked her body and then he ran his tongue over his lips before speaking. She had him in her web already, but she had to play along a little before going for the kill. Otherwise what fun would there be?
She turned and held out a pink cocktail with a frosted rim for him.
‘So, Camryn,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone as he took the glass, ‘this was your family home, is that right?’
‘Yes,’ she sighed, and told him how her parents had got divorced when she was in her teens. The first part of the plan was to make him feel compassion for her.
Yet even as she delivered her lines, a deep longing filled her. She had always had a strong connection with Papi, but since his accident, there had been a void she couldn’t fill. She cared nothing for men or relationships, yet she wouldn’t give up the thrill of the chase. She loved being in control by making men all around her obsessed with how beautiful she was, but she wouldn’t dare try to dominate them openly.
Instead, she prided herself on secretly manipulating them with her charm and body language, an act guided by her ability to sense their hidden desires.
If men were stupid enough to get sucked into her web, that was their problem.
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br /> Now she talked about her father in an intimate way, to get her victim’s confidence before snaring him. She had to make him trust her completely, and showing little snippets of her personal side always worked.
She and Matt hadn’t really interacted with each other at school. How could they have? When she was eleven he’d been nothing more than a snotty little kid of six or so. Same village, different worlds, but of course they’d occasionally been in the same places at the same times. And yet a bit of a limp and smile and flutter her eyelids as she listened to his droning about aeroplanes, and he was instantly convinced they’d shared some sort of childhood bond. That was the power of her charms.
She felt sexual desire, too, of course, but it took a distant second place to her purpose. It was at a precociously young age, soon after Papi’s accident, that she had started trying to continue his work. Most of the men she had dealt with when she started asking questions about her father were quite contemptuous and dismissive of her …but a year later, around fifteen, she noticed them starting to show more interest in her suggestions, or at least in being around her to hear them. By sixteen these same men, for the most part paunchy and starting to sprout grey hairs, were hanging all over her and eager to impress. It was little wonder that her contempt for men and the habit of using her looks to control them had developed as it had. Really, it was all their fault. Not hers.
As for Allan, she could see she made it hard for him to listen when her butt waggled at him in her tight white dress. It was one of those that kept the line of her panties hidden. She wore them so men would wonder if she was wearing any. That was how easy it was to take his attention away from the serious conversation they were about to have.
He twirled the glass stem in his fingers and leaned against the counter, thrusting out his hips and groin. She smiled. So very predictable.
