Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 01 - Flapjack (15 page)

-Chapter 28-

We arrived in Memphis without a problem, having passed the time on the plane trading those tiny liquor bottles between the three of us. 

We
traveled Interstate 240 to the city center, until we located the Parkland Hotel, a large glass tower with a large interior atrium.  I wouldn’t have minded being here for a few weeks either, preferably with Jane.

The elevator took us to the second
floor, and Galveston and Elizabeth plotted intricate ways to get Dr. Sloan to answer the door.  They bantered about such ideas as stealing uniforms and posing as the housekeeping staff, posing as the Memphis police, or making the fire alarms go off. I proposed an even zanier idea.  They would stay out of sight, and I would knock on the door. 

“
It just might work,” Galveston conceded. 

We didn’t know what we would tell Dr. Sloan, if indeed he was there, or if we would just barge in and force him to listen. 

Luckily, the halls were empty as we stepped off the elevator and followed the placards to room 272.  I motioned for them to stop, walked up to the door of the room, and knocked loudly.

I heard rustling inside followed by the un
locking of the door lock.  The door cracked opened and there stood a short, balding man with a grey beard, and wearing glasses.

“
Can I help you?”  He asked me nervously but politely.  I hadn’t even thought of finding out what Dr. Sloan looked like, but this man sure looked like a professor and the older men I had spent the last year of my academic career loathing.

“
Hello sir, are you Dr. Sloan from Dartmouth University?”  He appeared noticeably uneasy at the question, but a covert specialist he was not.

“
Why, yes, I’m Dr. Sloan.”

“
Nice to meet you sir.  I know your daughter, Margaret.  My colleagues and I just came from seeing her yesterday and she gave us this.”  I handed him the message he had sent her.

He looked at it quickly
and I could tell he was not pleased.  He began to inch his feet backward with one hand still on the door.

“
How did you get this?”  He demanded angrily holding up the piece of paper, his eyes burning from behind his glasses. 

I was taken aback from
his reaction, figuring he would have been grateful for the information.  I decided to choose my words wisely, but couldn’t find any.

“
Who are you and why won’t you people leave me alone?”  He demanded.  I turned around wondering if there were others standing behind me.

“
You people?  Uh, Dr. Sloan we have been looking for you.”

That was obviously the statement the good doctor had not wanted to hear because he
nervously began to slam the door.  Luckily, Galveston was standing out of sight and as the door began to close he jumped in front and stopped its closure by jamming his foot against the door jam.  Like a flash, Galveston kicked the door open with his foot, Chuck Norris style, as Dr. Sloan raced into the bathroom.

“
That went rather well, I think,” Galveston said turning to me.

“
Yes, very smoothly,” I answered.

“
Dr. Sloan, we are working for the FBI, but we are not federal agents, we work privately.  They hired us to find you.  We know about what you’ve invented and we’re here to protect you.  We’ve already made Margaret safe, and she wanted us to make sure you were safe.”  There was no reply to his statement.  “We need to know who is after you.  Someone already tried to hurt Margaret, and we stopped them.  We don’t want the same to happen to you.  If you come out, I promise we’ll get her on the phone to talk to you directly.”  Elizabeth pulled out a folded envelope of paper and began to dial on her cell phone.

“
Just give him this,” she said to Galveston.  He looked at it, and slid it under the door.

Moments passed
until we heard the ripping of paper as the doctor opened the envelope.  Elizabeth had thought ahead for such a moment.  It was a letter from Margaret, and it explained who we were and why he needed to help us.  The door slowly opened and Dr. Sloan crept out with tears in his eyes.

“
She’s not hurt, right?” He asked distraughtly.

“
No, she’s fine, just a little shaken.  They took her to a safer place,” Galveston answered.  Dr. Sloan went to the bed, sat at the edge, and wiped his eyes with his hand.

“
She’s all I’ve got, and I never get to see her.  I can’t believe I’ve gotten her involved in this.”  Elizabeth brought the phone over.

“
Here she is.  She’s doing well.”  She handed him the phone and he reached for it shaking.

“
Margaret?”  He asked sheepishly and immediately he showed signs of relief when she answered.

We moved to the other side of the room like a herd of cattle, giving him some room to talk.  The room was large and
unusually immaculate, unexpectedly tidy for someone living out of a hotel room and suitcase.  The only thing out of place was an array of electronic equipment and a small black box that sat on a corner table.

A
s he continued his conversation we quietly discussed our next move of getting him out quickly.  We needed him safe until we had some answers.  At least the professor had checked into the hotel under an assumed name, a smart move for someone without experience in such matters.  Dr. Sloan finished on the phone and gave it back to Elizabeth.

“
I’m sorry.  I’m just afraid of what to believe,” he said to us.

“
It’s understandable.  I’m just glad you didn’t try to club us or something,” Galveston joked, lightening the mood.

“
A few more minutes and I would have.  Margaret explained how you all put her at ease and I thank you.  Now what the heck is going on?”

“
We were hoping you could tell us that,” I said.

“
First, I’m impressed you found me from my message.  I was hoping Margaret would figure it out and call me, but I guess its best that she didn’t.”

“
Yeah, that’s true.  We’re just glad we got to you first,” Galveston told him.

“
Do you know who is after me?”

“
We have a good idea who it is, and they’re not trying to find you to give you an award.  They definitely want what you have.”  The words seemed to put Dr. Sloan at ease.  He knew now that his instinct was right, and things weren’t as they appeared.  His fight or flight response was correct, and his choice of flight was the most appropriate of decisions. 

“
What tipped you off to a problem?”  Galveston asked as he sat down across from him. 

“
As you probably know from my message, I had strange men making inquiries into my work.”

“
How could anyone have found out what you were working on?” I asked.

“
It must have been about a year ago.  I was approached by a group of specialists that were interested in the current research I was doing.  I was developing and testing materials that could reduce the ionization potential between a distinct subset of materials, thereby increasing the capacitance and reducing the electrical loss, while keeping the amplitude and resistance at a level that would provide a normalization of electron flow through the medium in which it was tested.”  Dr. Sloan had just entered the professor mode and our eyes and brains began to glaze over.

“
Uh, yeah.  You know doc, uh, we’re not that bright.  How bout in English?”  Galveston retorted.

“
Oh, sorry.  I was researching how I could make an electrical circuit very efficient without reducing the electrical output or degrade the current.”

“
Thanks, and you were looking at different materials?”  Galveston inquired

“
Yes, mostly the standard ones you’ve probably heard of, nickel, cadmium, lithium, zinc, copper, along with some synthetic insulators.  I was basically looking for a combination that could be used in industrial applications like electric transmission lines.  I was able to come up with a mix that reduced the loss of electricity during transmission by almost 20%, a huge number in today’s world.”

“
And why is that important?”  I asked stupidly.

“
Well when you have an electrical current that flows from a power plant, about 7% of the electrical current is lost out of the power lines.  If those lines carrying the electricity were made more efficient they could transmit the same amount of electricity a further distance.  This would result in a decreased loss of electricity, a significant reduction of corona discharge, and the elimination of a transformer at the output point to step down the voltage.  Basically we could send more energy with less effort.  This means less cost and need to produce as much energy.”

I felt as if I had just finished a
college level physics class, what it had to do with our present problem, I had no idea, but I felt I was a slightly smarter person because of it.  Galveston seemed to understand it all, and forged ahead with his line of questioning.

“
But who were these people in this group?”  He asked, rather astonished. 

“
Oh, they were just other researchers, mostly in the private sector.  They heard me give a talk about it at a conference in Chicago about the future of energy production.  They wanted to look at how my applications could be used in their work.”

“
And you agreed?”

“
Of course.  I’m just a researcher.  Most academics never get to see their work used in real world applications.  I was ecstatic.”

“
Then you were able to help then?”

“
To a point.  Unfortunately the costs were too high.  I mean, the materials I’m talking about would probably take decades and millions to implement into the energy grid, or even longer.  They knew this too.”

“
What was the group called?”

“
It was called the Energy Conservation Consortium, but the company that wanted to fund my research was Global Energy Enterprise.”  Galveston looked at Elizabeth who was already writing down the names.

“
Had you heard of this group before?”

“
Yes, many times, and I was glad to be associated with them.  They are a non-profit company that tries to bring energy solutions to third world, second world, and underdeveloped countries, with no political expectations or reward.  I was honored to be working with them.”

“
So you basically did what you could for them, but it sounds like it didn’t work out.”

“
Well, yes, but it did help their body of knowledge.  The consortium is a think tank on how to bring energy to people who really need it and possibly change lives.”

“
And they have had successes?” Galveston continued his questioning.

“
Oh yes, many.  They’ve set up power plant operations in Africa and South America, as well as some rural areas here.  It’s not on a large scale, but it has created far reaching changes in these areas.  They focus on renewable sources, since those aren’t influenced from outsiders and quicker to build.  They have implemented solar, wind, hydro, even geothermal in a few locations.”

“
Interesting.”  Galveston stroked his chin as Elizabeth scribbled on her notepad.  “Now when did the battery come into play?”

“
I felt badly that I wasn’t able to help the consortium’s cause further, but they got my intellectual juices flowing.  I thought, if not on a large scale, why not a small scale.  There are many others smarter than me looking at the same thing, some for their entire careers.  I figured what better thing to try developing than a highly efficient battery.  If it didn’t succeed, I could at least share my failures in the hopes of helping another researcher.  I wish I would have failed completely, though.”

“
Why is that?”

“
As you can see, I’ve been living as a recluse in a hotel for the past few weeks.”  Galveston recoiled from the biting report and understood his point.

“
How did it come to this then?”  He asked.

“
I took my work from the transmission lines and decided to incorporate the materials into a battery.  I started to work on the problem and by a stroke of luck one night I used a new mix of materials and put together a rather rudimentary battery with the circuits I had already developed.  I set up a crude experiment to establish a baseline to work with.  I hooked my cell phone up to the battery and I left for the night.  I came back the next day and my phone was still fully charged.  I was shocked, so I left it for another day, then another.  Two weeks passed before it finally ran out.  I went through all the numbers and made a cleaner version.  I got even better results each time until after the tenth revision I came up with that.”  He pointed to the table and the black box.

“
So you kind of stumbled on it?”  Galveston asked, surprised.