Allegiance Burned: A Jackson Quick Adventure

by Tom Abrahams

  “N-e-u-t-r-i-n-o-s?”

  “Yes,” I repeat. “I guess so. Get it to me in a pdf file I can read on my phone. I don’t want unsecured links I have to click.”

  “No please or thank you?” George laughs again.

  “I’m a little stressed at the moment. I may have gotten myself into something here and I need to know more about what it is.”

  The elevator groans to life and it starts moving downward again. I almost lose my balance and quickly grab onto the stainless steel rail against the back wall.

  “Gotten yourself into something?” George asks, his computer keyboard clicking away in the background. “Did you ever get yourself out of anything?”

  He knows I’ve been running for my life for the last year and a half. He helps me when he can, but I try not to over involve him. He’s in danger enough with his almost weekly reports on the governor’s illicit schemes and the fallout, and it’s only his high profile that keeps him alive.

  “Not really,” I admit. “But maybe this something will help me with the other something.”

  “I’ll get this stuff to you as soon as I can, okay?”

  “Thanks, George. I appreciate it.”

  “I know you do. By the way, were you on a bus in San Antonio this morning?”

  “Can I trust you?”

  “Hmmm,” he pauses and then laughs again. “Probably not.”

  “Then no,” the elevators door slide apart at the first floor, “I wasn’t.”

  ***

  As soon as the elevator doors open, I press the button for the sixtieth floor and the doors close again. There’s not much of a choice here, but I’m going with door number two. On my own, I’m as vulnerable as I’ve been in months. With the resources of both Sir Spencer and Bella I’ve got a better shot, regardless of whatever it is they’re really trying to get me to do. I don’t trust them. However, Sir Spencer was right when he told me I needed him. As much as I hate admitting it to myself, I do. He’s got connections and access that I don’t. He can help me, he says, once I’m done with this job.

  Truth be told, I’ve got no way of knowing if I’ll survive this “scavenger hunt”. I’ve no guarantee he’ll follow through with his promise to help me start a new life, free of bullets and blood and betrayal. I’ve been burned before and I survived.

  The elevator doors open on the sixtieth floor and I’m greeted immediately by Bella Francesca Buell. We both jump back a step, surprised to see each other.

  “I was coming to get you,” she states. “I—we—really need your help.”

  “Sir Spencer convince you of that?” I ask, stepping into the hallway.

  “I convinced myself,” she says, walking back toward her office. “Sir Spencer is persuasive, but the decision is mine alone.”

  “I still don’t trust what either one of you are telling me, but I don’t really have a choice.”

  “He tells me you’re not quick to trust anyone, pardon the pun.” She laughs nervously, her edge softened.

  “Ah hah,” bellows Sir Spencer’s voice from the end of the hall. “There he is! See, Bella? I told you the prodigal son would return.”

  I roll my eyes. “I was gone all of five minutes. I was just telling your conspirator I don’t trust you, but I don’t have a choice.”

  “See yourself on the news did you?” He laughs. “Such a silly mistake, good man. You know better than to have left the security camera intact aboard that bus.”

  “How did you...?”

  “Bella has a row of television monitors on the back wall of her office,” he says, stopping a step too close to me, always skilled at making me uncomfortable, keeping me off-balance. “No sooner had you walked out when your handsome visage pops up on three of them almost simultaneously. Such a pity.”

  It takes everything in me not to punch him square in his smug Anglican jaw. I clench mine instead and walk past him into Bella’s office. I spot the row of LED televisions to the right. I didn’t notice them before.

  I’m really off today. I’m missing the little things.

  “So then,” I sit down in one of the chairs opposite the desk, “what’s the plan?”

  “You and Bella will take my plane to South Dakota,” Sir Spencer says. “There, you’ll rendezvous with a friend of hers who should make your lives a touch easier.”

  “How so?”

  “He’s former military,” Bella tells me. “He’s a contract employee of Nanergetix, a consultant who wears a lot of hats.”

  “Any of those include killing people?”

  “They include advance intelligence,” she answers. “He’ll provide us with scouting reports of what we can expect ahead of our arrival...well, anywhere.”

  “Why South Dakota?”

  “That’s where Dr. Wolf was killed,” she says. “And there may be some additional information we need to find.”

  “Okay then,” I stand from the seat. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  “Here you go, Mr. Quick,” Sally Anne, Sir Spencer’s flight attendant, hands me a Diet Dr. Pepper in a leaded glass. “Is there anything else you need?”

  “No thanks,” I take a quick sip of the drink before setting it on the table beside me. “I’m good.”

  Sally Anne turns her attention to Bella, who is sitting in the large captain’s chair next to mine at the rear of the plane. “Ms. Buell, would you like a refill of your espresso?”

  “In a few minutes, please,” she says. “Thank you, Sally Anne.”

  The flight attendant nods and walks to the front of the aircraft. Sir Spencer is reading the newspaper in a mid-cabin seat. He’s been in his own world since takeoff.

  Bella turns her attention to her iPhone. I notice a small white square on the back of what looks like a Vera Bradley case. Charlie liked Vera Bradley.

  “You have the Tile app?”

  “Uh,” she flips over her phone to look at the square plastic stuck to the case, “yeah. I’m always misplacing this thing, so I ordered a couple of these things. I’ve got one on my keychain too. It works pretty well.” She flips the phone over and goes back to thumbing through whatever it was she was reading.

  Tile is like a beacon. Stick one to anything, and with the help of a cell phone app, I can locate it. The trick is, if it gets too far away, I have to hope other people using the app are nearby. Then their phone locates my tile and relays that information to my app. It’s pretty crazy technology but it seems to work. I bought a few of them when they came out and like them.

  “So, Bella,” I shift to my left and face her, “tell me more about solar neutrinos and why this process is so important.”

  “It’s complicated,” she sighs and clicks off her iPhone. “I’ll keep it as simple as I can.”

  “Thank you Obi Wan. If you made it too complicated for me, my head might explode.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she blushes. “I meant it’s not easy for me to explain. I’m not a scientist. I’m a businesswoman.”

  “I’m kidding with you.”

  “Oh,” she says. “All right then.” She brushes hair from her cheek and then pulls it back behind her ear.

  Apparently her sense of humor isn’t nearly as appealing as her appearance. It’s difficult not to stare at her. She’s that striking. The more time I spend with her, it’s all the more noticeable. I find myself intentionally avoiding eye contact with her. I don’t want her to think I’m a creeper.

  “Go ahead,” I offer. “I’m listening.”

  “So,” she begins. “The sun is powered by nuclear fusion, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And there are byproducts of that process,” she explains. “One of those byproducts is an invisible particle called a solar neutrino.” She holds up her hand and pinches her fingers together, as though that helps me understand how tiny these invisible particles are. “Fusion, in case you didn’t know, is when two atomic nuclei merge, or fuse, into one nucleus.”

  “Okay.”

  �
��Well, without getting too deep into this,” Bella says, “during the fusion process, there is what’s called beta decay. That’s essentially the conversion of a neutron into a proton accompanied by the release of an electron. When that electron leaves the atom, its energy should match the energy missing from the atom it left behind.”

  “Clarify that. My mind is exploding.”

  “Okay,” she says. “So, you have an atom with three parts. One of the parts becomes charged and another one of the parts leaves. It’s like subtraction, kinda. Three minus one should equal two, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, it doesn’t in this case. There’s something missing. Instead of three minus one equaling two, it equals one and a half. Or it equals one. Whatever. It doesn’t calculate. So scientists discovered the missing part is what’s called a neutrino. It’s the missing energy that escapes the fusion process. And it flies through space onto the Earth and gets absorbed.”

  “Absorbed into what?”

  “The Earth.”

  “So why are these neutrinos important?”

  “As far as I understand it,” she says, “neutrinos are one of the fundamental particles of the universe. They’re similar to electrons, except they don’t carry a charge. They’re not negative, not positive. So they can travel a long way without being affected by other charged particles. They really can travel through anything.”

  “Like radiation?”

  “Good question!” She leans forward, eyes widening. Bella seems excited I may be getting this. “Yes! Like radiation but with one big difference. Radiation doesn’t necessarily travel well through water.”

  “And neutrinos do?”

  “Yes. Neutrinos, as I said, move through anything. So, they have the potential to carry ‘things’ with them as the move. Even through water.”

  “Okay,” I shake my head, “now you lost me.”

  “Neutrinos have the potential to carry information with them. If you can encode a message in the neutrinos, they could take that message from one place to the other. If you take a bunch of these neutrinos, concentrate them, and then blast them in a beam in a particular direction, they can deliver those messages much faster than other forms of communication.” Her eyebrows arch, looking for any indication of my understanding of the physics lesson. “The real application here is underwater, in the ocean. As I mentioned, radiation doesn’t travel as well as neutrinos do. Neither do radio waves. Right now, submarines use a low frequency wave to communicate, but to do that they have to surface or use trailing radio antennas.”

  “So...?”

  “So,” she shakes her head condescendingly, “that makes them vulnerable to detection. The point of a sub is to remain undetected.”

  “Understood.”

  “If you could use neutrinos, which pass through everything, you could send messages to these submarines from very long distances without compromising their positions. It’s tactically a game changer. And since two-thirds of the Earth is covered in water...”

  “If the neutrinos pass through everything, wouldn’t they pass through the subs too?”

  “Yes and no. Scientists figured out a way to actually make the hull of the submarine a neutrino collector of sorts. Without giving you too much information to digest—”

  “Too late.”

  “Right,” she laughs. “Well, scientists embed the neutrinos with these other particles that are charged. By measuring those charged particles they can, essentially, ‘catch’ the neutrinos in the subs. But there’s a catch.”

  “Always is.”

  “This whole neutrino communication thing is cutting edge, and so the messages can only flow one way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The subs can only receive messages. They can’t send them,” she says. “Or at least they couldn’t send them.”

  “Your scientist figured out a way to send them from subs?”

  “Yes,” she nods excitedly, “he did. He was really the first one to perfect the reception of those particle transmissions, building off some work done by guys at Virginia Tech and N.C. State.”

  “My dad went to N.C. State.”

  “Oh,” she says, completely disinterested. “So, building off that work, he perfected the transmission of the neutrinos to the subs. At the same time, he was able to design a portable, lightweight neutrino transmitter that would allow submarines to transmit encoded messages faster and farther than ever before. It’s revolutionary.”

  “Instead of the looking for these puzzle pieces all over the world why don’t we go find the portable transmitter? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

  “It would,” she says. “Except it hasn’t been built yet. The puzzle pieces are the blueprint and instructions for the transmitter. Without those pieces, we can’t build it or use it.”

  “I see.” I get it. This isn’t some formula. It’s not just a process. It’s much bigger than that. “If the wrong people get a hold of it, that could be a problem.”

  “A huge problem. If the wrong people find these pieces, they’ll sell them off to the highest bidder. They could end up in the hands of the Russians or the Chinese.”

  “Or worse,” I add.

  “Or worse.” She leans back against the leather of the captain’s chair. She takes a last sip from her coffee cup and then holds it up. “Sally Anne,” she calls, “could I please have a refill on the espresso? I need the caffeine.”

  “Of course, Ms. Buell.” Sally Anne hurries toward us, smiling the entirety of the short trip to the rear of the cabin. She takes the empty cup. “Anything more for you Mr. Quick?”

  “No thank you.”

  “I’ll be right back, Ms. Buell,” she says. “Black with no cream or sugar, correct?”

  “Yes, Sally Anne, thank you.”

  Sally walks to the front of the cabin, her hips swinging in the skirt that leaves little to the imagination. My eyes follow her until she turns into the kitchen adjacent to the cockpit.

  “Nice,” Bella scowls at me. “So typical.”

  “What?”

  “You know exactly what.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Rapid City, South Dakota is not what I remembered. It’s beautiful; the dense forests, jagged hills, deep blue, cloudless skies. But aside from the grumble of the occasional passing Harley, it feels almost uninhabited.

  “We should be there in about thirty minutes,” Bella says. “It’s a quick trip to the monument.”

  We’re in the back of a rented Chevy Suburban. The driver is an older man with a snow white mustache. His face resembles the weathered outcrops of granite poking out from behind the trees and brush that line US-16. He’s listening to an AM country station on the radio. Merle Haggard.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s a message from George Townsend, the reporter. I touch the screen to reveal the text.

  lots of good info. call me when u can talk. i sent some prelim stuff 2 ur email. pdf like u asked. talk soon -gt

  I thumb a quick response.

  just got off a plane. can’t talk now. will look at pdf and call l8r. thx.

  “Who’s that?” Bella nods at my phone.

  “Nobody.”

  Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t say anything.

  “So,” I say, changing the subject before it gets uncomfortable, “what’s the deal with Sir Spencer?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He left us here and flew off to wherever. How do we get around once we’re finished here?”

  “I have a plane on standby,” Bella says. “It’ll be ready when we are.”

  “What is it? A G6? I’ve always wanted to fly in a G6.”

  “What are you, a hip hop mogul?” she laughs. “No. It’s not a G6. Those planes are sixty million dollars new and they hold eighteen passengers. I don’t ever need anything that large.”

  “But you shopped one, obviously. Don’t act like I’m the only one who thinks they’re cool. And I’ve been shot at more times than 50 Cent, so that
gives me street cred.”

  “It’s a Bombardier Global 5000, good enough to get us to Europe nonstop,” she replies without expression. “And you’re a child.”

  I smirk and turn to look out the window. The trees have given way to the granite. The hills framing the horizon poke at the sky with their jagged, irregular peaks. They’re mesmerizing as we whir past one after the other. It’s almost like standing on the beach, watching the ocean meet the sky in the distance. My mind drifts, hypnotized by what’s out there, what awaits me.

  ***

  My dad, when he was alive, loved the outdoors. He was an expert marksman who relished the kick of a rifle, but never put a bullet in an animal. And the summer before he died, he and my mom had brought me here to South Dakota.

  Our true destination was Wyoming and Devils Tower. I wanted so badly to see it up close after my dad and I watched Close Encounters Of The Third Kind on cable. I’d begged for months to take a trip there. Sloppy molds of the laccolith, made with my mother’s homemade mashed potatoes, were a poor substitute for the real thing.

  I remember seeing it for the first time. We were in a rental car, heading west on US Highway 14 from South Dakota. There was little but prairie and rolling hills for most of the two hour drive, but over a rise, miles from the monument itself, we saw it. Like a singular casino in the Vegas desert, the Tower grew unnaturally from its surroundings.

  As we drove closer, and the Tower grew taller, the excitement built. Even my mom and dad were giddy at the prospect of hiking around the monument and learning more about it.

  My mom turned around in her seat to face me. “You know, Devils Tower was the country’s first national monument. And when they made it official, on paper, someone left off the apostrophe in Devil’s. They never bothered to change it.”

  “The devil’s always in the details,” my dad laughed. He glanced at me through the rearview mirror, a big grin plastered on his face.

  “You’re too funny,” my mom said, playfully shoving my dad’s shoulder. “Always one with a joke.”