After he punched his hazard lights, he unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door. An ice-tinged gust jerked it right out of his grip. It was mid-April, but a hint of snow mixed with the sagebrush-scented, squally air. John shut the door firmly then squinted into the wind and made his way to the back of the dented Volkswagen. A piece of grass blew into his mouth. He spat it out and surveyed the scene.
Something told John this was not a woman who’d been waiting to be rescued by the first Good Samaritan who came along. She had the jack set in the right place, the hubcap upturned to collect the lug nuts, and the waiting spare tire on the ground near the fender. She even had a chock in front of the right front tire. Clearly she knew what she was doing, but two potential scenarios ran through his mind to explain the recent-looking dents in the VW’s side panel and her vicious beating of the tire: stolen vehicle or pissed-off wife exacting revenge on a cheating husband.
Whatever the reason for her assault on the wheel, he decided to err on the side of caution. Emotional people sometimes did irrational things, and she had a lug wrench gripped in her hand. Her knuckles were white, and the scrapes on the back of them showed up a livid pink.
“Hi. You got a flat?” John asked over the whistling wind, keeping a safe distance between them, in case she happened to start swinging.
Willa tried to tuck her hair behind her ears. It blew back into her eyes and slapped against her cheeks. She barely made out a quilted, chocolate-brown shirt-jacket and a tawny beard on the man’s jaw. As the sky started to spit rain, she grabbed a handful of hair and held it back.
He gave her a friendly smile.
Willa sized him up quickly. She estimated he was six-one and probably weighed two hundred pounds. His eyes were a hazel that bordered on dark green. Despite gray-dappled blondish curls that crowned his head in an unruly frenzy, he was handsome in a boyish way that made it hard to judge his age. The denim stretched over the contours of his thighs showed he was quite fit. She could take him if she had to, if he gave her any trouble, and he’d never see it coming.
“How about I lend a hand?” he said, like the hero in a romantic cheese-fest.
Willa ground her back teeth together. Regardless of the triteness of the situation—the romance novel, flat tire/good-looking guy scenario—relief tempered her frustration. He’d made it simple, which was good because she wasn’t about to ask for help. The purple tornado pickup truck experience aside, having had a man to come to her rescue once in her life was one time too many.
“Maybe you’ll have better luck. That last lug nut is one uncooperative motherf—” She thrust the wrench in his direction. “Here.”
His amiable smile didn’t waver, but one eye narrowed slightly, and he waited a moment before taking the cold metal from her hand. “I’ll do my best, ma’am,” he said, pausing to look back at his car.
Besides his posture, the ‘ma’am’ was a dead giveaway: Marine on vacation or cop. Willa went with cop because she’d never met a Marine with a beard. Either way, ‘protect and serve’ was applicable, and she liked that. He wasn’t rescuing her. He was doing his duty. That made accepting his assistance easier.
Shaking with cold, Willa let go of her hair to hug herself for warmth. The wind blasted her locks in every direction as he squatted beside the wheel. She stood beside him, watching, shivering, arms crossed, nose running. He put the wrench over the lug nut and twisted, gritting his teeth.
It didn’t move a millimeter.
He repositioned the crossbar, rose, and rammed his booted foot down on the metal. When he looked up at her, the grin on his face was triumphant. “There you go,” he said.
Willa wanted to kiss him. She probably would have if he hadn’t crouched down again. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. You’re a very nice man.”
“So they keep telling me.”
“I tried jumping on it a couple times too.”
“You’ve gotta have a bit more weight behind the force.”
“Yeah, and the force is with you.”
He laughed. Or at least she believed he did. She couldn’t hear him over the sound of the wind in her ears, but his shoulders shook and his head bobbed like he thought it was funny. Then he turned around and reached for the jack. When he started to pump the handle, she stopped him. He’d done enough. “It’s all right,” she said, “I’ll take it from here.”
“No, ma’am. Once I start a job I like to finish it. Why don’t you get in my car? You’re freezing. It’ll be warmer in there than it is out here.”
“No offense. I appreciate your help, but I’m not getting in your car.”
He kept cranking the jack. “Good idea. I could be the Ted Bundy type, but for all I know you might just be another Aileen Wuornos.”
“She went for truck drivers. You’re not a truck driver.”
John looked up at her again. The white hair blowing loose and wild about her face had been deceptive. There was a scar on her pointed chin. A small, sharp nose sat above a mouth that was offset by dimpled laugh lines. Fine crow’s feet feathered her striking gray-green eyes, but this woman wasn’t elderly. “And you’re not a college co-ed, ma’am.”
Her mouth twitched into a smile and the tightness drained from her triangular features. John smiled back. He knew he was smiling a lot, but damned if could help it. She was pretty.
A second later, she was crouched beside him, hands on the tire, her shoulder pressed to his. His arm had come out of the sling only yesterday, and she rubbed across where his stitches had been. The skin was still sensitive and prone to throbbing, but having her brush against the healing wound didn’t bother him one bit.
“I’ll pull this off,” she said, “and since you’re the big strong one, you get the other tire.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And stop calling me ma’am.”
“Would you prefer darling?”
“Actually I’ve always been partial to ‘your majesty’.”
“Well, my queen, I think you’re screwed.”
Willa wiggled off the old tire and eyed the location of the lug wrench, just in case. “Why? Because you really are a Ted Bundy type?”
“No. The spare’s flat too,” he said with a boyish grin.
Willa swore. She chose a nice four-letter word, attached an ing ending, and followed it with hell.
It started to snow the moment he started laughing. Wet sleet mixed with big fat flakes of snow blew sideways in the wind. Downy white settled on his poufy hair. “As far as I see it, your highness, you’ve got two choices. I toss your tire in my trunk and take it up to Madrid to have it pumped up while you freeze in your car and wait for me to come back. Or you can get in my car with me and my eight-year-old niece, and we can come back here together.”
“Eight-year-old niece?”
He nodded. “She spotted you on the side of the road, and she’s been staring at you from the back window this whole time.”
Willa had a look at his car. A little blonde girl was watching them intently. She waved.
Ninety seconds later, the tire was in the Subaru’s trunk. Willa had grabbed her laptop and bag from the Volkswagen. She’d shoved the manila envelope into the outside pocket of the computer bag and climbed into the warm front seat of a stranger’s car.
Blue eyes rimmed by black eyeliner that would put Cleopatra to shame peered over the back of the headrest. The little girl smiled. She was missing a tooth. “Hi,” she said. “You already know my Uncle John, but I’m Sofia Christensen.”
“I’m Willa.”
“Wow, your hair’s a mess, innit, Willa?”
“I imagine so.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to imagine. It is. You know, I thought you were older, like eighty or something, but I bet you’re still too old for Avril Lavigne and Fergie, so you’ll want to listen to Uncle John’s Garbage.”
“She means that literally,” Uncle John said, holding up the Garbage 2.0 CD case. “Okay, Sof, buckle up. You too,
Queenie.”
Mitchell shook the snow off his jacket. It landed on the rubber mat beneath his feet. The inside of Trujillo’s Hardware store smelled like a movie theater mixed with weed killer. The odd combination of aromas made sense when he saw the popcorn machine sitting on top of the service desk. A dusky-skinned Latina behind the counter gave him a friendly nod as she filled a paper bag with freshly popped corn.
“Is he here?” Adams asked.
“I just walked in, like you did. Did you see me talk to anyone?” He watched Adams brush snowflakes from his hair. It fell all over his shoulders. Mitchell thought it blended in well with the dandruff already there. His partner was wearing a tailor-made, fifteen-hundred-dollar suit, but between the dandruff and acne he looked like a teenage surf slob playing dress-up. “You been using the same face scrub Avril Lavigne uses?”
“Every day.” Adams smiled and ran a hand across his jaw. “You can tell, huh?”
“Of course.” Your pimples are redder than usual. “So why don’t you talk to the salesgirl.”
“Awesome.”
Mitchell rolled his eyes. Sometimes it was hard to believe this guy had made it out high school alive.
“Excuse me, Miss…”Adams walked to the service desk and leaned forward to read her nametag, “Daphne.” He glanced back at Mitchell. “We’re looking for Dr Brennan. Is he here?”
Bag of popcorn in hand, Daphne set her hip against the counter. “He’s busy right now. Maybe I can help you?” With eyes like two giant Hershey Kisses, she smiled at Adams and flicked a swathe of glossy black hair over one shoulder. “Nice suit.”
“Thank you. You have beautiful hair.”
Oh, just keep it in your pants, junior. They were here to see one Dr Dominic Brennan, a forty-seven-year-old quantum physicist turned hardware store owner, not to hook up. Mitchell cleared his throat. “Ma’am, is Dr Brennan here?”
Eyes on Adams, the woman offered a dreamy-sounding sigh. “He’s in the office. Follow me.”
“Anywhere, anytime.” Adams grinned.
Mitchell stepped on his foot.
Daphne came out from behind the service area carrying the popcorn. She led them down an aisle stocked with sandpaper and timber stains. Then she turned left and took them past a paint display. At the back corner of the store was a door. She knocked once and entered the office after hearing a muffled, “Yeah?”
“Hey, DB,” she said, putting the popcorn on his desk. “Some guys are here to see you.”
Dr Brennan lifted his head from the document he was reading. He had the bluest eyes Mitchell had ever seen.
Dominic found himself looking at a blond, zit-faced Dustin Hoffman and a brunet Robert Redford. He took off his rimless reading glasses and tossed them on the desktop. His chair squeaked as he leaned forward and grabbed a handful of popcorn. “Thanks, Daphne. Have a seat, guys.”
The two men stayed standing and waited for Daphne to leave before speaking. “Dr Dominic Brennan?” the taller one said once the door was closed.
“Yes.”
“I’m Special Agent Mitchell, this is Special Agent Adams. We’re wi—”
“You want some?” Dominic held out the bag and stuffed a couple of pieces of popcorn in his mouth.
“No, thank you.” Pimple-faced Adams shook his head.
Mitchell wanted the popcorn, but if he had some, then he’d want a Coke, and if he had a Coke then he’d want potato chips and a whole bunch of other junk food. It was a deadly circle his body would hate him for in the morning. He looked around the office and put salty, fizzy goodness out of his mind. His gaze settled on an old calendar tacked on the door. It was from 1999. Arched above the staff photo on the top half was Trujillo’s Hardware Proudly Serving Los Alamos Since 1945. In the picture, Brennan’s startlingly blue eyes were made more vivid by the peacock-hued polo shirts he and his employees wore. “Dr Brennan,” he said, shifting his attention to Brennan in the flesh, “we’re here t—”
“I know what you’re here for.” Dominic waved his hand. This wasn’t unusual. Since the Los Alamos National Lab conducted classified nuclear research, security was always an issue. A Federal background investigation for new employees—and existing ones who were moving into an area with a higher clearance—was standard. Family, friends, current and former co-workers were often questioned. By Dominic’s count, this was the fifth ‘interview’ this year. “So whom are you checking out now?” He set his snack on the desk.
Mitchell cocked his head. “You.”
“Excuse me?” Popcorn paused at Dominic’s mouth. “I’m not currently employed at the Lab.”
Agent Adams picked up where Mitchell left off. “We understand you were once the Associate Director of the Physics division of Experimental Physical Sciences and head of the Quantum Institute at the Los Alamos National Lab.”
“Yes.”
“And from time to time you do consulting work for both the Sandia and Los Alamos labs.”
“Yes, but I’m not doing any consulting now. I haven’t done anything at the Lab for at least eighteen months.”
“Sir, did you work with Dr Harold Dichter, Dr Willa Heston, and Dr Himesh Chandra?”
Agent Mitchell lifted the bag of popcorn and helped himself, sighing.
“Dr Heston was back in the nineties. Chandra and Dichter, on and off on various projects over the last seventeen years.” Frowning, Dominic sat back in his chair. “So this is about one of them?”
The two agents looked at each other. “No, sir. It’s about you,” Mitchell said.
“How can it be about me?”
Adams shook his head. “We’re here to ask you questions, sir, so that makes it about you. We understand your last job with the Lab was in 2010?”
“Yes.”
“And that was in what section?” Mitchell crunched some popcorn.
“Physics-P and Physics-X Divisions, and MST-16 Division, briefly, but that work didn’t include any of the people you mentioned.”
“We know that, sir.”
“If you know, then why did you ask?”
“I’m afraid we can’t tell you that, sir.” Adams smiled, glancing at Mitchell.
The kid was good. Mitchell hid a smile behind the popcorn he chewed and let Adams run with the ball.
“You know,” Dominic exhaled, “the cloak and dagger stuff is really annoying.”
“The work in 2010, what did that involve?” Adams tipped his head in genuine interest.
“Consulting.”
“What sort of consulting?”
“You’re the ones with all the information already, so you ought to know.”
Thoughtfully, Adams’ finger stroked over a large red pimple on his chin. “What sort of work does a quantum physicist do with a supercomputer?”
“Supercomputers are used for calculation-intensive tasks like problems involving quantum mechanical physics. They can run physical simulations to test the detonation of nuclear weapons or, for instance, follow the propagation of a shock front in liquid deuterium.”
Adams nodded again. “Dr Chandra investigated nonequilibrium thermodynamics at nanoscale.Dr Heston worked on research on the interplay between decoherence and resources in qubit metrology. Dr Dichter examined quantum decoherence in thermodynamics. As a consultant, what did you do?”
“Same thing as always, fooled around with research models of nuclear fusion and the idea of using quanta of light or photons as the basic elements for quantum information processing.”
“Sorry, my physics is a little rusty.” Mitchell shook his head. “What’s a photon?”
“The smallest unit of electromagnetic energy.”
Adams continued stroking his zit. “Interesting. So what would quantum processing be used for?”
A muscle in Dr Brennan’s jaw pulsed. “A functional quantum computer could solve certain large mathematical problems at speeds faster than the fastest supercomputers. Once quantum computers are built, they’d factor large numbers, which would make them useful for
cracking secret codes or decoding information encrypted by means of currently standard methods. They would also run physical simulations to test the detonation of nuclear weapons, and research models of nuclear fusion. Are we done?”
“Almost.” Mitchell dug into the bag for more popcorn. “You’re not planning any trips out of town any time soon, are you?”
“No. Why?”
“We may need to speak to you again,” Mitchell said, just before he shoved more puffed kernels into his mouth.
Dr Brennan was a tall man who had been a bachelor until last October. He stood. A simple gold wedding band gleamed on his left hand. “Agent Mitchell, the next time you and Special Agent Dustin Hoffman want a physics lesson go to the library instead of wasting my time.” Smiling, luminous blue eyes narrowed, he planted his big palms on the desk and leaned forward. “Now give me back my popcorn.”
2
John had been a regular at Santa Fe’s Tortilla Flats for years. By the time he had shrugged out of his quilted jacket, Angie, his favorite redheaded waitress, had set his iced tea with double lemon on the table next to the basket of blue corn chips and salsa. “You want the blue corn chicken enchilada or the chicken quesadilla today, Officer John?” She smiled.
“The blue chicken, Angie, with black beans. And make it Christmas. It’s so cold outside I need red and green chiles to warm me up.”
“In another month you’ll be missing winter. Sopapillas or tortillas?”
“Sopapillas.”
“And one chile relleno,” she smiled as she scribbled on an order pad, “right?”
“Ah, Angie you know me so well.” He winked.
Angie giggled. “I’ll be right back.”
The cell phone in his pocket rang. John pulled it out and checked the number. It was his cousin’s husband, a man he’d come to consider a best friend. “Howdy, Mighty Colossus.”
“What’s shakin’, JT? How’s the ‘vacation’?”
“Very funny. You know I only pretend to like you for your wife’s sake.”
“Liar. You love me. You’d marry me if you could. I’m a great catch. You miss me. You wish I were on ‘vacation’ with you. In fact, this is why you should be your own boss. No one can force you to take a ‘vacation’ because of litigation. I don’t get how defending yourself against a drunk gets you suspended.”
For Your Eyes Only Page 2
