The Krone Experiment (44 page)
The two exchanged a long glance.
“That’s the last entry?” Isaacs wanted to
know. Danielson nodded.
“Are there any more of these?” Isaacs
inquired, turning to examine the shelves.
“Not in here,” Danielson replied. “There is a
computer. It may have files of interest, but this book seems to be
where he records his personal insights and reactions.”
“Let’s keep looking,” Isaacs said.
They toured the rest of the perimeter, but
found only shops. There were no more lab books. Isaacs went outside
and spoke briefly with Floyd who was fidgeting in the driveway. He
returned and explained to Danielson.
“Floyd says anything connected with this
experiment should be here, unless Krone has other books at home. He
worked at home a lot.”
He raised his voice.
“Alex? Time to move on. We’ve got to go see
Krone.”
Runyan was near the top of the device. His
voice carried faintly.
“A little longer. I’ve hardly explored a
tenth of this thing.”
Isaacs allowed control of his temper to slip
a little.
“Goddamnit, Alex, we’re on a tight schedule.
You’re never going to understand that thing poking around by
yourself. It’s not going anywhere, and we’ve got to talk to Krone
if we can!”
Runyan muttered something unintelligible at
the height, but began to climb down, feet clanging on the
scaffolding steps. When he reached the bottom, his eyes still
contained a glow of passion.
“That thing is fabulous! Do you see those
immense particle accelerators?” He pointed at the hedgehog
protrusions. “And apparently a gigantic superconducting magnet.
Inconceivable that one man did that!”
Danielson clutched the lone lab book to her
chest and felt a pang of jealousy. Jealous of a machine! Damn him!
she thought.
Back at the administration building, Isaacs
gave Floyd a receipt for the lab book.
“We’d like to try to see Krone. Perhaps we
could borrow your van.”
“I’m really afraid that won’t “ Floyd said,
then halted, stopped by the steel in Isaacs’ eyes. He thought
desperately, but could see no recourse. He could try to stymie this
group, but others would follow. Silence had been his only defense,
and now that silence would inevitably be shattered. Why had these
people come?
“Yes, of course,” he conceded. “I’ll give
instructions to the driver.”
“That won’t be necessary. The pilot who flew
us up can drive. I don’t want to cause you excess trouble.” Or let
you in on any more than necessary, Isaacs finished to himself.
“Fine, if that’s what you wish. I’ll give
directions to your man, it’s just a short drive, perhaps fifteen
minutes.”
“Is there anyone else in the house?” Isaacs
inquired.
“There is a, ah, woman. She’s lived with him
in the big house for, well, I guess about two years now. I believe
she’s been taking care of him while he’s—incapacitated. There is
also a Mexican couple who come in to help, but they are only there
for half a day. They wouldn’t be there at this hour.”
Isaacs herded his team into the van and made
sure they had the directions straight. A woman. He remembered the
stories of the Soviet refugee he had heard from his contact in the
FBI. Of course, she could be some old peasant lady who changes his
sheets.
*****
Maria Latvin opened the door and knew the
dreaded visit had come at last. The two men wore conservative
western business suits, but she recognized the type and, despite
herself, felt as if she had been suddenly yanked eight thousand
miles back to the home she had fought so hard to leave.
The taller man stepped forward and reached
into his inner jacket pocket for a small leather identification
folder. He flipped it open and Maria stared at it. Not his papers,
but photographs. Her mother and younger brother still trapped in
Lithuania. Fighting the growing feeling of numbness, she stepped
back and held the door open for them.
The tall man spoke quietly in Russian.
“We must see Paul Krone.”
“He’s not well,” Latvin replied, slipping
into the same language.
“We know that. We must see him anyway and
judge his condition for ourselves.”
“You know who I am. Why are you interested in
Paul?”
“This is not necessary for you to know. You
will take us to him.”
The woman led the two Russians into the
study.
“There, you see,” she pointed to a figure
seated before the fireplace, “he is very ill and cannot talk to
you.”
The two men slowly approached the figure in
the chair. They crouched next to the chair, then began to whisper
animatedly to one another.
Finally the taller one stood and walked back
across the room to where Maria Latvin stood.
“You take care of him?”
“He responds to me a little. Enough for me to
feed and wash him, to see to his basic functions.”
“His research?”
The woman merely raised an eyebrow in a
deeply skeptical look.
“What do you know of his work?” the man
demanded.
“Nothing. I am no scientist. I know
nothing.”
“Notes. Does he keep notes of his work?”
“If he does, they are at the lab. He never
worked here.”
A faint crinkling cracked the frost around
the man’s eyes. “I must report for instructions. He will stay with
you,” he said, gesturing to his companion.
The woman’s face betrayed no expression. The
man shot a glance at his companion, a silent order, and left the
room rapidly.
He had been gone five minutes when they heard
a car coming up the drive. Maria Latvin looked questioningly at the
remaining Russian. He shook his head and slid a hand toward the
bulge under his jacket.
“Quickly,” she said, “you can hide in a rear
bedroom. I’ll see who it is.”
“Get rid of them. Immediately!” he demanded,
as she hustled him down the hallway.
Isaacs scanned the house as they approached.
It was a large, multi-level adobe structure, graceful despite the
characteristic thick walls and solid projecting beams. It faced the
southwest with a glorious view of the plains and the oncoming
Sunset. Isaacs spoke to the agents and the pilot who had driven
them up to the house.
“This is a private home, and we don’t want to
come on like an invasion force. We’re just going to try to speak
with the man who runs the complex up the road. I’d like you to sit
tight here.”
The agents nodded.
Isaacs, Danielson, and Runyan walked up the
flagstone walk to the massive carved front door. Not seeing a
doorbell, Isaacs used his knuckles.
After a moment the door swung open. Runyan
was not sure what he expected, but it was certainly not what he saw
in his view over Isaacs’ shoulder. A lovely young woman stood
there, one hand on the knob of the door. She was of medium height,
dressed in a dark hostess gown. She had a smooth brown complexion,
thick black hair in a longish page-boy cut, and high cheekbones.
Her black eyes sparkled behind gold-rimmed eyeglasses, but
registered no surprise at the three strangers in the doorway of her
redoubt. Runyan saw her take in Isaacs and then swing her gaze to
him. After a moment she looked past him to Danielson and raised one
eyebrow in a slight quizzical gesture.
Isaacs displayed his badge and said, “We are
here by authority of the President of the United States. May we
come in?”
The woman seemed to instantly understand and
accept the situation. She stepped aside and said, “Come in,” in a
lilting slightly accented voice.
Inside the door was a foyer, high-ceilinged
and about eight feet across. There was a closet door on the left.
On the right was a small stand holding a lamp and fronting a
mirror, which ran nearly to the ceiling and added even more width
to the area.
The woman led them from the foyer to a large
living room. The room was decorated in Spanish style. A massive
fireplace dominated the wall directly across from where they
entered. A thick Navaho rug lay on the dark tile floor in front of
the fireplace. Bordering the rug were two heavy leather sofas at
right angles with a high-backed overstuffed leather chair filling
the gap on the right side of the fireplace. On the wall on either
side of the door through which they had entered were floor to
ceiling shelves of dark mahogany that contrasted with the
whitewashed walls. The shelves were filled with books and excellent
specimens of Mayan and Incan relics. To their left a large archway
led to a dining room dominated by a great mahogany table,
surrounded by twelve ornate chairs, but set, Isaacs noted, with
only two places—the right end and the position to the immediate
left of that, such that the diner would face away from the living
room. To the right of the fireplace a hallway disappeared from
view.
The woman stepped around the sofa that faced
the fireplace and sat back in the chair, tucking her legs beneath
her. Without taking his eyes off her, Runyan followed her and
perched unbidden on the corner of the sofa nearest her chair.
Danielson watched him with the closest scrutiny, but remained
standing behind the central sofa with Isaacs. Isaacs asked the key
question.
“Is Paul Krone here?” The woman looked back
at Runyan and then at Isaacs.
“Yes,” she replied simply.
“May I ask who you are?”
“I am Maria Latvin, his companion.”
“I would like to speak with Dr. Krone.”
“Certainly.” She arose without further
comment and proceeded down the hallway to the right of the
fireplace.
Runyan rose with the woman as she led the
three of them down the corridor. They passed a closed door on the
right, but she paused before a door somewhat beyond that to the
left. Opening that door, she stood aside and gestured for them to
enter.
The room was a study, extending down to the
left and ending in another large fireplace that backed up to the
one in the living room. The other three walls were lined with
shelves completely filled with books. A large desk dominated the
middle of the room. Its surface looked well used, but was currently
empty save for a pencil holder and a couple of mementos. Two
high-backed large chairs, mates of the one in the other room,
flanked the fireplace. Unlike the other fireplace this one had a
small flame flickering in the grate. A figure was seated in the
chair to the right of the hearth. From their vantage point just
inside the door at the far end of the room, they could only see
extended legs and the left arm draped on the armrest.
“Paul?”
Isaacs jumped slightly and turned at the
sound of the voice behind him. Her tone had been gentle, but
faintly condescending, as one might address a child. The figure
gathered itself slowly and rose from the chair.
Isaacs had never met Krone personally, but he
recognized him immediately from photographs. He also saw more.
Krone was in slippers and a dressing gown, incongruous attire for a
physicist, but it was his face that arrested Isaacs’ attention. The
jaw was slack, the eyes glazed and unfocused, his whole visage one
of lifelessness. Isaacs stepped forward.
“Krone? Paul Krone?”
The eyes shifted slowly to the speaker, but
there was no sign that the words registered.
Isaacs stepped up to Krone and lightly
grasped his arm above the elbow. The eyes maintained their original
focus. Isaacs waved his other hand in front of Krone’s face. The
eyes blinked about three seconds later with no apparent regard to
cause and effect.
Isaacs released Krone and spun around to face
the dark figure in the doorway. “He’s virtually catatonic! How long
has he been like this?”
Her face was nearly as expressionless as
Krone’s except for her eyes that, by contrast, still sparkled with
life. “Since last April,” she replied succinctly.
“Has he been treated?” Isaacs’ voice betrayed
more strain than he intended.
“Three experts have been called in. They have
been of no use.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
She unwound slightly, moving around Runyan
and Danielson to the desk and extending the fingers of her left
hand until they rested lightly on the surface. She turned her face
to speak directly to Isaacs. Her voice dropped in pitch.
“He was doing experiments in his
laboratories. He was very excited, totally engrossed. Then the
excitement left. He became withdrawn, more and more. Very late one
night he tried to commit suicide. I called the doctor at the
laboratory. He was in the hospital for a month. They saved his
life, but since then he has been like this.”
She moved to the motionless figure beside
Isaacs and took his arm in much the same manner that Isaacs
had.
“Come, Paul,” she spoke gently and led him to
the chair where he sat as if by instinctual response. She saw that
he was arranged comfortably and then turned and proceeded directly
from the room without a glance at her visitors.
During this interchange, Danielson’s eyes had
been scanning the bookshelves. When Maria Latvin departed, she
moved over and touched Isaacs’ sleeve. He followed her pointing
finger to a shelf behind the desk. There was an array of lab books
identical to the one they had found at the complex. Isaacs and
Danielson stepped around the desk and began to examine them. They
took turns lifting down a volume, checking its contents briefly and
adding it to a growing pile on the desk. All the books seemed to be
related to the experiment that led to the creation of the black
hole. Although it became clear they were in chronological order,
they continued to spot-check to make sure that all dealt with the
same subject.
Maria Latvin hurried along the corridor to
the room where she had left the Russian agent.
“They are from the Central Intelligence
Agency,” she whispered. “They also came to see Paul. I could not
make them leave. You must warn the other. He must not come in.”