The God Particle

by Tom Avitabile

  In an article about the killing of Anwar Sadat of Egypt, she found a kernel of truth to what the woman, who wrote her about her son, had mentioned about her ‘chaste’ son. Alcohol, gambling, deviant sexuality, love interests, love triangles, and drugs were all leverages an enemy could employ to turn a trusted body guard into an assassin. Under that kind of personal pressure, the loyalty of any human might be swayed. The need for self-preservation of a protector often trumped their oath of allegiance to their protectee. Therefore, men who didn’t dabble in these things were the most reliable and less likely to turn their guns on those they had sworn to protect.

  In the Hammer of God operation, a trusted Diplomatic Security Service agent had been turned by a Jihadist woman whom he loved. He then engineered the kidnapping of the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt.

  At 2 a.m. she finally yawned and closed her computer. Before she nodded off, she made a plan to visit the nightclub tomorrow after work.

  XXV. GETTING RELIGION

  The aftershock of the president’s little video message, delivered by Bill to the Vatican Envoy, had reverberated worldwide throughout the entire Catholic oligarchy. Within 72 hours, three Mitchell administration personnel had quietly resigned, two at low-level positions in the Old Executive Building next door to the executive mansion. The third one was Claire Cunningham, an administrative assistant to the president. Her job in the West Wing was assisting the president with his paperwork and materials, so she was on the inside and privy to almost everything the president was involved in. Her devout Roman Catholic observance, on full display on her smudged forehead every Ash Wednesday, would have been deemed perfectly innocent prior to the emergence of the Knights. Now Claire and other staffers who might wear a cross were suddenly viewed as potential security threats just as surely as if they had a photo of Fidel Castro, Chairman Mao, or Putin on their White House desks.

  The president was outraged and inflexible. He was satisfied with the loss of pension and immediate separation of the two members of his administration who were at arms-length from his office, but for Claire he wanted the full weight of his ruling to be brought down on her head. Furious that she would betray the trust of the inner circle, he had her arrested and charged with treason. So deep was his rage and sense of personal violation that even the person who had recommended her for the position and that person’s superior were also demoted and lost two levels of pay.

  Her arraignment proceedings were cloaked under a national security blackout, in part because it left a diplomatic channel to the Vatican publically intact, but also because neither Mitchell nor Claire wanted it made public that she spied for the Pope. The process stayed under the radar for the first twenty-four hours, until the U.S. marshals found her dead from an overdose of sleeping pills when they came to pick her up for her secret arraignment.

  Among the items the marshals logged in as her personal effects was one barbed-wire-type ring. She never wore the ring because it had a tendency to snag fine fabrics; a downside not contemplated by the men who had designed it. In the end, she wore it one final time in honor of her service to the Vatican. That service was indeed rare. She had been specifically approached and allowed to serve as an undercover agent in the normally male-dominated Roman Catholic structure because of her close proximity to the President of the United States. Her comprehensive training in clandestine communications and spy craft, that would make the CIA and KGB proud, were honed on innocent “weekend retreats” which just passed banally as the religious observance of a devout Catholic woman.

  Upon Claire’s death, the whole thing evaporated into just a human drama. Her death at her own hand was accepted as a personal matter and the indictment was sealed forever by executive order. Not acknowledged, but felt throughout the upper corridors of power, was a collective sigh of relief. It all tied up nicely for everyone: the president, the Pope and the American people. The Papal Nuncio himself had an off-the-record audience with the president in his residence the next day, bringing the assurance of the Pope that the Knights of the Sepulchre were disbanded and dismissed. Then the Nuncio handed over an intelligence file, which detailed the exploits of the Knights over the last fifty years, including their role in foiling the attempted assassination of the Pope in France. Information that would fill in some blanks in the CIA and FBI’s timelines of history.

  The president also accepted an invitation to meet with the Pope in Rome and have a joint press conference on efforts to help the world’s poor. The president gracefully accepted and sent his appreciation to the Pope in the form of a recently-recovered bottle of brandy from the 1800s found in the safety deposit box of a former communist dictator who secreted it away during World War II. He had the FBI lab run a special analysis of the bottle with a self-sealing needle. It proved to be non-lethal and therefore worth hundreds of thousands to collectors. The president hoped it would heal the rift between him and God’s representative on Earth prior to their first face-to-face meeting.

  XXVI. RIDE 'EM COWBOY

  “It’s impossible. The whole thing is totally organic, biological and doesn’t have any mechanical parts or metal machinery. So there’s nothing to ping or scan to get a return, an echo or signature. According to the plans your Agent Burrell obtained from Disney, even the batteries have minimal hard metals. Dr. Hiccock, it’s not a hole in the water; hell, it is no different than water. How can we find it in an ocean?”

  Bill sat back in his chair. The head of naval warfare tactics was unloading his frustration at trying to hunt and kill a pirate whale that made less noise and generated less heat than an actual whale. They had calculated that the “whale” displaced approximately two tons of water, but the actual weight of the non-organic, mechanical/propulsion parts, batteries, signal and steering control was probably only ten pounds. That was four hundred times smaller than the faux mammal’s total mass. Another way it was described to Bill was like trying to find the insides of a single laptop — just the circuit boards and batteries without the case — floating somewhere in or under the Pacific.

  Although Bill felt sympathy for the man and his futile assignment, his job wasn’t to commiserate. “Admiral, there has got to be a way, something we are overlooking.”

  “We’ve run this up more flagpoles than co-ed underwear on hell night, and no one, not military, not civilian contractor, or even think-tank weenies, has a clue.”

  “I know this is probably a silly question, but can our current computer-aided sonar be re-calibrated?”

  “Re-calibrated to what? Water? Yeah, and you’ll get an instant, off-the-charts reading; then where are you?”

  “Okay, I admit that was a little elementary, but hey, it was my first shot.” Bill tried his proven tactic of adding a smile to his demeanor, but the two-star fleet officer wasn’t biting.

  “How is the whale piloted? Is it a total remote control weapon or more like a mini-sub with a driver?”

  “Look, it could be a pilot whale that swallowed Minnie Driver. She or any human is just as biological as the device. Unless they make a noise like metal on metal, humans are mostly water with the trace amounts of minerals and iron in the body that don’t reflect a ping.”

  Bill was just connecting the actress’ name, Minnie Driver, to the admiral’s attempt to add a smile to his demeanor.

  For some stupid reason, Bill was going to add, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that ping!” but the decorum the conversation demanded changed his mind.

  The admiral recapped the challenge facing them, “Look, without a bounce or something to bounce off of, there is no return, therefore no range and no firing solution. All we can do is waste a lot of fuel and hope to run the damn thing over.”

  Bill stared for the longest time at the two five-pointed platinum stars on his desk; the Admiral was right, this was a real tough nut to crack.

  ∞§∞

  Bill was really racking up the Special Air Missions frequent flier’s points. He was back in D.C. on a quick thirty-two-hour turn-around and wa
s flying out mid-day tomorrow back to the team in Europe.

  Janice had had the day from hell at work and Bill’s meeting with the admiral delayed his getting home till after eight, so they decided to go out for dinner. Mimmo’s was becoming their favorite place. “Casual and good” was how Bill thought of the bistro where Mimmo’s wife, Tina, did all the cooking, while Mimmo worked the dining room. “The no makeup place,” was how Janice defined it, in that just a little tinted foundation and lip-gloss and she was at the level of Mimmos. One didn’t go there to be seen, just to eat. Figuring that little Richie would probably nod out before they got their entrees, they passed on the sitter and brought the sassy seat.

  Mimmo was his usual happy self as he seated the Hiccocks. He attached the sassy seat to the table and even took Richie from Janice and sat him in the contraption. “I got the meatballs tonight!”

  “Sold!” said Bill. Tina’s meatball dish was a meal in itself. Janice scratched the itch for Shrimp Scampi and then she opened a baggie with skinned apple slices for Richie, since he had already eaten at his usual time. They both took pride in the fact that Richie was always the perfect little kid in restaurants, so they were both shocked when he let out a shriek and then began squirming, throwing apple slices, crying and trying to break free from his sassy little prison. They had never seen him like this, and they were very conscious of the disturbance they were causing in the room. No matter what they did, no matter how they tried to distract him and do the little game things that were usually good for a few minutes of quiet baby time, nothing worked.

  “You know it’s past his bedtime, so he’s a little cranky,” Janice volunteered to the couple seated next to them. Their bittersweet smiles in return were of small comfort.

  “Maybe we should get it to go,” Janice said in the voice that, although it sounded like a suggestion, all husbands know it is not open to discussion. “Gimme the keys, I’ll take him out to the car,” Janice said as she got up and pulled her son from his seat.

  Bill started unhooking it, trying to avoid looks from the other patrons.

  Mimmo came over and Bill announced in a voice a little louder than needed, “You know it’s past his bedtime and he’s a little cranky.” Just in case the rest of the diners didn’t get it the first time from Janice.

  At that moment, Tina emerged from the kitchen, seeing Bill heading out the door with the seat she asked, “Aw, the bambino, he no feel good?”

  “Nah, he’s just tired.”

  “No, it’s his teeth. You’ll see, I raise five kids. I hear him all the way in the kitchen. It-a rattles my own teeth, that’s how I know. You’ll see, I know.”

  “You may be right. I’ll take this out to the car and come back for our order.”

  “Its da teeth, I’m-a-tell-a you. It rattles, right here…” She wiggled her fingers in front of her teeth.

  Bill got to the car, and of course Richie was now a quiet, happy baby boy banging his stuffed rabbit on the car seat. “Figures; now he’s a little gentleman.”

  Janice was smoothing her son’s hair. “He’s just tired, Daddy. He didn’t want to sit in a stuffy restaurant eating apples while you had meatballs.”

  “Tina says he starting to teethe. Said she felt it vibrate in her head when he let out that wail.” Bill stopped and froze. His last words reverberated in his head.

  “He’s just getting his second year molars, Daddy — Bill, you okay?” Janice was concerned because he looked as if he had just had a stroke.

  Bill snapped out of it, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’ve got to call the admiral.”

  “Why? Is he a naval pediatric dentist?”

  “No — what Tina said; she just told me how to catch the whale!”

  ∞§∞

  At four in the morning, Bill’s SCIAD network chimed, awakening him from his half sleep with his feet up in front of his desk in the den. He wiped the groggy mask from his face with his hand and yawned as he opened the communiqué from element member Thieles. He scanned it and saw the response he had been waiting for. He looked at his watch and figured he could catch the last two hours of sleep in his bed. He banged out a thank you response, closed down the terminal and went up to bed.

  ∞§∞

  The admiral was in Bill’s office at 7:45 a.m.

  Bill started right in, “Okay here goes, you were right. There is no way to get a return off the whale, but that’s because our search is the active component, the whale is passive.”

  “True, but obvious.”

  “Piezoelectric effect!”

  “I’m listening…”

  “We base it on the same principles as ultrasonic time-domain reflectometers, only we sweep frequencies from one hundred kilohertz through one megahertz. At some point the piezoelectric effect will resonate in the propulsion fluid and that will be like a high string on a piano, resonating when its lower octave is played.”

  “Like long range sonomicrometry.”

  “Yeah, like that — whatever that is.” Bill was beyond his 4 a.m. lesson in piezoelectric resonance. But the admiral had picked up the ball and was heading for the goal line, so Bill considered his job was done.

  “So we bombard an area of ocean with ultrasonic waves. If they hit the electro reactive fluid of the whale, at some point the whole whale starts to vibrate and that becomes an anomaly in the water we can detect.”

  Bill summed it up, “Like ringing a church bell with a rifle shot.”

  ∞§∞

  Larson Industries had three hundred ultra-high frequency transducers in its San Diego warehouse. Interestingly enough, they were piezoelectric transducer elements that were capable of the megacycle range Bill’s idea required. The rest of the circuitry was stupid simple: a two-hundred-dollar frequency generator and a wide-band UHF power amp, the kind right from the hefty end of a radar system. Roughly five thousand dollars worth of cobbled together hardware that could thrive on any ship that had an eighteen thousand watt electric socket, and that was most naval vessels. Soon all three hundred of these units were put on every kind and every style of Navy ship in the Pacific and Indian oceans. Water increases the range and efficiency of sound, so that one unit could cover four hundred square miles of ocean one mile deep. Limiting the search pattern to the areas where the whale had struck the Vera Cruz, the Nebraska and the Toyota ship geometrically increased the odds of finding the whale and limited the response area or “box.”

  What to do when they found it was not as simple. U.S. Naval Intelligence didn’t want it sunk, they wanted it captured, either to analyze it and effect counter-measures, but more likely to see if they wanted to replicate the stealthy weapon.

  These special missions are normally doled out to the next SEAL team up for assignment. So it was that SEAL Team Nine got the call. Rapid deployment was the key. Once identified, no one could predict how long it was possible to track the still passive machine. Hydro-effects like thermal layers and the salinity of the ocean’s water complicated the tracking.

  The operational plan was to have half of SEAL Team Nine always in the air, at jump-ready status, working off four Sea Stallion helicopters orbiting the most probable areas. The mission was designed so that one of the teams would always be within twenty minutes flight time to any point within the “box.” Each operator wore a wet suit, air-tanks, assault rifle, detonation charges, and one new piece of equipment they called “the knitting needles.” It was essentially an underwater Taser, capable of delivering a fifty-thousand-volt jolt, but only at the long end tips of the “needles.”

  ∞§∞

  Bill asked for hourly updates on operation Quint, a name the SEALs came up with during the operational brief. Although created as an homage to the Robert Shaw character, Quint, the shark hunter in the movie Jaws, it was close enough to their task that it stuck. Everything about the operation was theory. The sweep might not actually work or not cause the whale to start buzzing and give itself away. To that end there was a two-week time limit put on the entire op so that they wo
uldn’t keep searching with a potentially faulty methodology.

  His phone rang. “Dr. Hiccock, the president would like to see you, in the Oval, now.”

  “Know what it’s about, Suzy?”

  “No, but the U.N. ambassador, sec nav, and the director of the CIA are in there with him.”

  Bill hustled down the hall. Usually he had a heads-up on any presidential meeting, even casual ones. To be called in on the spur of the moment was truly a rare event… Or am I in trouble, Bill thought. He forgot to take the obligatory deep breath before the agent manning the door swung it open.

  “Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, Director, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “Bill, how did we get here?”

  “You mean, Quint?”

  “Yes, we were going over our strategy for when we present our case at the U.N., and we noticed we have two hundred eighty ships making circles in the ocean. Some kind of special electronic rig on each and SEALs burning gas in choppers twenty-four/seven.”

  Bill still didn’t know where this was going and responded in a cautious tone, “Yeee-yeah — and your question, sir?”

  “How did CERN get us here and do we widen our indictment to include what you are investigating in Europe?”

  Bill took that deep breath and sat at the chair opposite the president, “Oh, well, through some diverted funds from the U.N., the Maguambi regime was able to secure the electro-expansive fluid that propels this whale. It was made available to the pirates because the original intention was to add it to the liquid helium cooling systems of the Large Hadron Collider and burst the rings. But the amount of electric charge generated by the rings made that plan impractical because the fluid would expand the instant it came within twenty feet of the rings.”