Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation

by Stuart Gibbs

  HELEN DUKAS: No! He gave me strict orders. No painkillers . . .

  DOCTOR: Please. He’s in tremendous pain. He’s running a 104-degree fever . . . (OBSCURED) . . . a violation of my oath to refuse such care.

  Charlie looked up at Dante, stunned. “This is from Einstein’s house the night he died. The CIA had it bugged?”

  “Why do you assume it was us?”

  “Besides the fact that you have this transcript? The US government was always uneasy about Einstein. He was a big agitator for peace. Even though he originally pressed President Roosevelt to begin the Manhattan Project, he refused to work on it. During the Red Scare, he publicly called on scientists to refuse to testify to Joseph McCarthy. He was outspoken and popular. And he was theoretically working on Pandora, the world’s next great weapon. How could the CIA resist?”

  Dante raised his hands. “Okay. Yes. The Agency bugged him.”

  Charlie swallowed her annoyance and returned her attention to the transcript. She read it carefully, piecing together the events of the night, looking up only when she came to Einstein’s final words:

  Pandorabüchse. Sie ist im den Holm. Die Gleichung muss geschützt werden.

  “Do you understand it?” Dante asked.

  “Of course. It’s only German. ‘Pandora’s box. It’s in the railing. The equation must be protected.’ ”

  “Correct.”

  “Did the CIA search the railings in the house?”

  “Every last one,” Dante replied.

  “Did they try . . . ?”

  “Finish reading it,” Dante said. “Then we’ll talk.”

  Charlie turned back to the transcript. She read the rest, up until the strange men arrived and stopped Ernst Klein from destroying Einstein’s papers, at which point the transcript ended abruptly. Charlie set the papers aside, astonished by everything she had learned. “Wow. The CIA really screwed this up, big-time.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Hiding Pandora must have been kind of a Hail Mary pass for Einstein. He was assuming that if he made the equation extremely difficult to find, then anyone intelligent enough to locate it would also be wise enough to use it properly. Therefore, there’s no reason for Einstein to ask anyone to destroy it—unless you know two things: Einstein suspected his house was bugged, and he spoke under the influence of morphine.”

  Dante leaned forward intently. “Why?”

  Charlie explained. “From what I understand, Einstein was always extremely cautious about remaining in control of his thoughts. He rarely drank and never used drugs. Because alcohol and drugs make people do stupid things. But then, on Einstein’s deathbed, his regular doctor—a man he surely trusted—isn’t there. Instead, some naive kid shows up, disobeys the housekeeper’s orders, and gives Einstein morphine. Einstein loses control and talks about Pandora—but since he’s whacked out on drugs, he speaks in German, the language of his childhood. The doctor doesn’t understand him. Meanwhile, the housekeeper calls Ernst Klein, whose worst fears are confirmed: Einstein has revealed that Pandora exists. Klein knows it’s in the house—but he doesn’t know where. Therefore, he has only one choice: to destroy everything. But a goon squad stops him before he can finish the job. That’s the CIA, I assume?”

  Dante reluctantly nodded.

  Charlie tossed the transcript back to him. “How’s the story end?”

  Dante said, “The Agency impounded everything Klein failed to destroy—although they quickly replaced most of the documents. That way, Princeton, which had claim to anything Einstein produced while employed there, wouldn’t realize anything had been taken. Klein and Helen Dukas, the housekeeper, threatened to go to the police, but the Agency was able to prevent this from happening.”

  “How?”

  “A private meeting with President Eisenhower was arranged. Miss Dukas’s concerns were assuaged. Klein wasn’t so easy. He didn’t go to the police, but it was evident he never got over the belief that he’d failed Einstein. He died in a car wreck a few months later. Alcohol was involved.”

  “That seems awfully convenient for the CIA.”

  Dante let this slide. “Given Einstein’s final words, every railing in the house was examined. Over the years, they were all removed and replaced, one by one. They were checked for engravings, x-rayed, taken apart splinter by splinter. There was nothing inscribed on or hidden inside them.”

  “‘Holm’ can also mean ‘shaft,’ ” Charlie pointed out. “Did the CIA check the fireplace?”

  “They took the whole thing apart brick by brick. And checked out every other shaft they could think of. Air vents. Heating vents. Then they went over the entire house with a fine-tooth comb, just to be on the safe side. Over the years the whole building was practically taken apart and put back together again. Nothing was ever found.”

  Charlie asked, “How much of Einstein’s work did Klein destroy before the CIA got there?”

  “Very little. A tenth at most.”

  “Pandora could have been among that.”

  “True. But why would Einstein say Pandora’s box was in the railing if it was actually in his papers?”

  Charlie nodded agreement—and then sat upright, excited. “Maybe he didn’t say it was in the railing. Maybe he said something else entirely.”

  Dante frowned at her. “That transcript distinctly says ‘holm.’ ”

  “Well, who’s to say that the transcript is correct? Whoever transcribed this was eavesdropping on a hidden microphone almost seventy years ago. No offense, but the technology back then was crap. It was probably hard to make out what anyone was saying at the best of times, and on that night there was a lot going on. So maybe whoever was transcribing heard something wrong. Or wrote it down wrong. Or maybe Einstein mumbled a bit in his delirium.”

  Dante’s frown slowly shifted to a look of intrigue. “What do you think Einstein said instead?”

  Charlie considered that, trying to remember her German. And then her eyes lit up again. “What about ‘Holmes’? As in Sherlock Holmes? It would be much easier to hide something inside a book than a railing.”

  Dante shook his head, killing her excitement. “The Agency thought of that. There was a Holmes anthology among Einstein’s books. The CIA took it apart, scanned every page for imprints, and compared it to other copies of the book to see if Einstein had altered it in any way. He hadn’t. They didn’t find a thing.”

  “That was the only copy they checked?” Charlie asked. “The one in his house?”

  “It was the only one they found. They searched his office and his classroom as well.”

  “That’s it?” Charlie sighed. “I thought you Agency guys were supposed to be smart.”

  Dante’s eyes narrowed. “So enlighten me, genius. What’d we do wrong?”

  “The CIA went through Einstein’s belongings only at the time of his death.”

  “So?”

  “Who says Einstein didn’t find Pandora until he was old?”

  Dante bit his lip, unsure of the answer.

  “Mathematicians and theoretical physicists tend to peak early,” Charlie explained. “Look at me. I’m already in college and I’m not even allowed to drive yet. Lots of big names did their landmark work before they turned thirty. Einstein published his theory of special relativity when he was twenty-six. He published three other major papers in that same year, including one on the photoelectric effect that won him the Nobel Prize. He was at the top of his game then.”

  Dante scratched his chin, intrigued. “You think Einstein found Pandora as early as that?”

  “Maybe not in 1905, but I’ll bet you there’s a far better chance he found it within ten years of relativity than fifty. Old people don’t think nearly as well as young people. Look at us. I’m, like, half your age and I’m the one with the brains in this operation.”

  Dante ignored the insult. “Would the timeline still hold up?”

  “Absolutely. Einstein didn’t have to wait until World War Two to see human
ity wasn’t ready for something like Pandora. All he had to do was know human history: the Crusades, the Inquisition, slavery. . . . So Einstein hid Pandora shortly after finding it—and never saw anything in the rest of his life that made him have any more faith in us.”

  “But why would Ernst Klein have destroyed things in the house when the book wasn’t even there?”

  “Klein didn’t hear what Einstein actually said that night; only the doctor and the CIA did. All Klein knew was that Einstein mentioned Pandora. Maybe there was another clue in the house to finding the equation. Something that pointed to the Holmes book. Something Klein did destroy. But it didn’t matter, because Einstein accidentally spilled the beans about the book in his delirium.”

  Dante nodded thoughtfully, realizing this all made sense. “Einstein lived in a dozen cities in six different countries after 1905,” he said, concerned. “He traveled all over the world. If he had fifty years to hide Pandora, it could be almost anywhere on earth. . . .”

  “I’d start with Jerusalem,” said Charlie.

  TEN

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Jamilla Carter knew she would never get back to sleep.

  It was the nature of the business, the curse of this job. Evil never slept—and therefore, it often seemed, neither did she.

  The work was what got you out of bed, but the fear kept you awake.

  That’s how it had played out tonight. The call from Dante Garcia had come only minutes after Carter had fallen asleep, revealing that there was a good chance Pandora was in Jerusalem.

  According to Dante, the kid had figured it out. It had taken her only minutes to find a lead that had escaped the CIA for decades.

  Pandora was in a book, and that book was probably in Einstein’s archives. Einstein’s archives were at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The great scientist had been one of the university’s founders, as well as an ardent supporter of the creation of Israel. Einstein had raised funds for the university’s establishment, delivered the first scientific lecture there, been chairman of its academic committee and a member of the board of governors. At one point, he had even been asked to be the president of Israel itself. (He had refused the offer, claiming not to have “the natural ability or the experience necessary to deal with human beings.”)

  The archives included many famous items, like the original E = MC2 formula, Einstein’s scientific notebooks, and his personal letters, which were on display for the public—but what most people didn’t know was that Einstein had donated far more than that, periodically sending troves of documents and other items to the university from the moment it was founded. All of this was preserved in a climate-controlled vault there. It made sense that if Einstein had something he really wanted to keep safe, like the hiding place for Pandora, then he had sent it there, where it would be protected for centuries, rather than keeping it in his home, which was susceptible to fire, mold, bookworms—and the CIA.

  The CIA had known about the archives, of course. They had gone through the scientific papers and diaries dozens of times over the years. Maybe hundreds. But no one had ever thought to look for a mundane Sherlock Holmes book, which was probably tucked away in a box and forgotten.

  The lead was good news, to be sure, but it meant more work for Carter. The CIA couldn’t just waltz into Hebrew University, flash their badges, and invoke the Patriot Act. The Israelis didn’t know about Pandora, and unless Carter wanted to cut them in on it—which she didn’t—she had to make the acquisition look like routine research. That required tracking down the proper administrators, concocting a reasonable fake story about the reason for the visit, and greasing the wheels so Garcia could operate. After which, Carter had to deal with the fact that there were already CIA agents stationed in Jerusalem.

  In part, that was beneficial, because Garcia needed support. But it was also tricky, because agents could be very territorial. If word got out as to what was at stake, any senior agent worth their salt in Jerusalem would want to run the show, rather than handing it over to Garcia. However, at the moment, all the senior agents stationed in Jerusalem were out in the field on covert operations. There were only a few young agents available, which was good for territoriality issues but bad for field experience. They had to be briefed on the mission, sworn to secrecy, and ordered to let Garcia be in charge.

  Carter could have pawned most of the work off on her staff, but half the reason she had the position she did was because she knew how to get results. By the time she was done with the calls, it was well past midnight and she knew sleep was out of the question.

  So she did what she always did when this happened. She walked.

  Carter lived in a gated community of tree-lined streets and three-car garages, close to Langley and far from the hustle and bustle of Washington. It was one of the few places in the world Carter felt comfortable at night without her gun. And yet, even out here, she couldn’t escape the fear, because the fear was about things that could be done to you from a long distance away.

  As she circled her neighborhood, Carter stared at the silent homes where fathers, mothers, and children slept. People who thought their biggest problems in life were traffic jams and office politics. People who had no idea what was really going out there in the world, how thin the line between calm and chaos could be. They all could afford this ignorance, Carter thought, because she and her agents were doing their jobs. But if they failed, that ignorance would end. The world would quickly become a very different, very dangerous place.

  There were so many things that could go wrong with Pandora at stake. Maybe Charlie Thorne wasn’t as smart as Garcia thought; maybe she was wrong about Pandora being in Jerusalem. Or maybe she was right and the CIA would get there too late. Maybe the Furies were too far ahead of them. Maybe they already had Pandora. In any of those scenarios—and a hundred others—death for millions of innocent people was a possibility.

  Thorne.

  Her presence in all this bothered Carter almost as much as the Furies did.

  Garcia had probably been right to bring the girl in, but it was a devil’s bargain. Charlie Thorne was a criminal, even if she was a young one, and criminals could never be trusted. They didn’t see the world the same way Carter and her agents did. They looked out for only themselves. And given Charlie’s incredible intellect, there was no telling what she was capable of. Carter didn’t want someone like that getting her hands on Pandora.

  Carter had been uneasy all along about Charlie’s involvement, but beating the enemy to Pandora was the priority here, and Carter was prepared to do whatever it took to ensure that happened. But once the CIA had the equation, Charlie would need to be dealt with.

  Carter knew Garcia couldn’t be counted on for that. There were things Garcia hadn’t told Carter about his connection to Charlie Thorne, but Carter knew them anyhow. She was the head of the CIA after all; it was her job to know things.

  However, there was someone Carter could trust to take care of things, someone who could guarantee that after this was all over, Charlie Thorne would no longer be a threat.

  Standing on the corner outside her house, only a few yards from where her husband slept, Carter sent an encrypted text and gave the order on how—when it was time—to take care of Charlie Thorne.

  ELEVEN

  Thule Air Base, Greenland

  The CIA jet came in low and skidded across the icy tarmac.

  Dante and Milana had decided to change route in midair, after Charlie explained why they should be going to Jerusalem.

  They had veered north. The distance from the United States to Israel was actually shorter if you went over the arctic, rather than the central bulge of the earth. However, their small jet didn’t have enough fuel to make it the entire way, so the CIA’s transit division arranged for them to stop in Thule, Greenland, at the northernmost US Air Force Base.

  Charlie had spent her time en route looking at everything the CIA had on the Furies. Dante provided her with dossiers on each member. Charlie
started with the surveillance photos, which had all been taken in Bern. There were six members of the terrorist cell and there were many similarities between them. They were all Caucasian men, in their twenties and early thirties, but they looked older due to tough lives, bad choices, and festering anger. In the photos, not a single one of them was ever smiling. Instead, their faces were locked into permanent scowls.

  They wore cheap workmen’s clothes and old boots, their winter jackets threadbare. When there were photos of them eating, it was always fast food, because fast food was cheap.

  The photos were rarely head-on shots, and they were usually taken from a long distance, so they tended to be grainy. But there were enough for Charlie to get a decent idea of what each man looked like and commit his face to memory.

  After that, she turned to the background information the CIA had amassed on each member. Overall, none of the Furies seemed particularly impressive—or even above average—in any way. They weren’t the brilliant, erudite bad guys you saw in spy movies. They didn’t have much in the way of specialization: There were no suave ringleaders, resourceful munitions experts, or deft break-and-enter men. They were all simply angry young thugs committed to a terrible, sadistic cause. They barely seemed capable of supporting themselves, let alone hatching a plan to kill millions of people. Two of them had done military time, and both had been dishonorably discharged. One had applied to be a policeman and been rejected. None of them were married or seemed to have much success with women, though all had been in a relationship at some time or another, which had all ended badly.

  The only thing the Furies had been good at was ending up in jail. It happened time after time. Petty theft. Vandalism. Drunken driving. Bar fights. Domestic abuse. Public urination. The kinds of things that built up thick police files but didn’t make for long incarcerations. The men usually spent a day or two in the drunk tank and were then spit back onto the streets.

  The only one who seemed even remotely intelligent was the leader, Alexei Kolyenko. Alexei was a competent man who’d had a lot of bad breaks. His family was originally from Russia, but he had been born in a poor suburb of Berlin. He had gone to university for three years, doing well, only to have to quit due to financial issues. He was a half-decent mechanic, knew how to weld, and could do construction, but he still couldn’t seem to find a long-term job. He had done far less jail time than the others—only two separate nights, both for public intoxication. The CIA believed he spoke three languages, including English.