Quantum radio, p.4
Quantum Radio, page 4
The gun flew from his hand and clattered across the cobblestones.
Penny screamed out as Heinrich belted her with his free hand, propelling her off him.
Her cry was like a light switch turning on inside of Ty. He dove on the man, raised a fist, and buried it in Heinrich’s already-swelling face, the contact sending a sharp spike of pain through his hand and arm, the impact like striking a thin steak on a hard counter. The ache shot through his body, reigniting the places that were still tender from the bomb blast. The effect momentarily paralyzed him.
Drawing his right arm across himself, Heinrich flung the backside of his forearm into Ty, propelling him off.
Heinrich rolled and pushed up, onto his feet.
But he was too late.
The crack of a gunshot shattered the night.
Heinrich’s head jerked, and he collapsed to the ground.
8
Penny held the gun with both hands, her body trembling now, eyes wide, staring at the dead man.
Ty gasped for breath and rose on shaking legs. The puddle of blood beneath Heinrich spread out, filling the channels between the cobblestones like tendrils of a dark, flowing beast.
“You have to go,” Penny said as she slipped the gun into the windbreaker she was wearing.
Ty’s hand drifted to his pocket, to the USB drive that held his research.
Penny seemed to read his thoughts. “I don’t want your research.”
A million questions ran through Ty’s mind. But he said the thing that hurt him the most. “You lied to me.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“I had to.”
“Why, Penny?”
“I can’t explain—”
“Try.”
“Ty, you have to go. The police are probably on their way—and so are the people he works for.”
“The people you work for.”
“Yes.”
“Who? Why? What’s happening here, Penny?”
She stepped closer to him and gripped his shoulders, making him wince from the pain.
“They only told me to watch you. I didn’t know what they were going to do, Ty. I promise.”
“It was all a lie.”
“At the start. But not after. I… didn’t expect that.”
“You’re lying,” he whispered.
She flinched at the words, clearly hurt. “I just killed a man for you, Ty. If that doesn’t tell you that I love you, then I certainly don’t have the words to convince you.”
For a moment, the world faded away, the alley and the blood flowing toward Ty, and he was completely focused on the words she’d just said, words he had never heard her say before: I love you.
They stared at each other a long moment, and it was as if that statement had erased everything—Heinrich, the blast, their phone call after work—as though those words had rewound the clock of their relationship to that pure and better time before this night.
Penny let her hands slip from his shoulders and down into his pockets. Ty tensed, thinking she was reaching for the USB drive, but she took his phone instead.
Squatting down, she removed the phone’s SIM card, placed it on a cobblestone, and quickly smashed it with the butt of the handgun.
“Don’t get another phone. Even a pay-as-you-go. They can track your voice if you use it. Or if you log in to any service or app.”
“Who are they, Penny?”
“We don’t have time for this, Ty. What you discovered is a threat to them, to the world they’re trying to create. It’s going to change everything.”
“We need to go to the police.”
“If you do, you’ll be dead within hours. Or in their custody. You don’t understand what you’re dealing with here.”
A siren called out in the night, then another.
“You have to go,” Penny hissed.
“Where?”
“Away from me, for one.”
“Why?”
“They can track me. I didn’t know it until tonight.” She glanced at Heinrich. “Go, Ty.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere they’ll never suspect—where you can get help.”
“Where will you go?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
She leaned in and kissed him, recklessly, throwing her arms around him. He ignored the pain in his back and hugged her tight, closing his eyes. When he opened them, the blood flowing in the canals between the cobblestones had reached them, soaking into her tennis shoes, moving toward him next.
She relaxed the hug and stared into his eyes. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I do know this: there is a much stronger person inside of you, Ty, waiting to come out. You’ll be surprised. But don’t let that person change who you are. It happens before you know it.”
She kissed his cheek. “Don’t forget the way you were before tonight. That’s who I fell in love with.”
As the siren blared closer, she hugged him and whispered in his ear. “Go, Ty. Before it’s too late.”
9
Ty rode into the night, through Geneva’s empty streets, away from the coffee shop and the dead man.
Away from Penny.
He once again crossed the Rhône River. This time, the sound of sirens was even stronger, the wails a sharp contrast to the serenity of Lake Geneva, which spread out to the right. On the other side of the bridge, he slipped into the side streets, avoiding the main roads where a street camera or retailer video security system might spot him.
He needed to get help, and quickly. When Penny had said those words, Ty’s mind had instantly flashed on a name: Gerhard Richter, a German whom Ty hadn’t seen or spoken to in thirty years. Richter might not even recognize him. But Ty felt certain he would help—maybe even risk his life to help. Ty was about to bet everything on that belief.
One thing was certain: no one would expect Ty to try to contact Richter. In fact, only four other people in the whole world even knew that there was any connection between them.
That connection between Ty and Richter had been a point of pain for Ty’s entire life. He had periodically looked the man up, out of curiosity mostly, but had avoided any contact.
Ty’s last internet search for Richter had been about a month ago, and it had confirmed that he was still in Zürich, Switzerland, which was three and a half hours away from Geneva by car, directly northeast.
The A1 motorway was the fastest way to get from Geneva to Zürich. Taking a train was out— buying a ticket would be risky, and if he did, Ty would essentially be a sitting duck. And: the next train to Zürich didn’t leave until morning.
He needed to get out of Geneva tonight.
That meant he needed a ride. Ty didn’t own a car. Renting one was out of the question. And taking a car service or ride share seemed too risky as well.
Many of his friends and colleagues at CERN owned cars, but he wasn’t about to call them, for two reasons. One: he was certain that it would put them in danger. And two: how would he even begin to explain something he didn’t understand himself? (“Hey, Mike, I know it’s 3 a.m., but can I get a ride to Zürich? Someone blew up my apartment, and Penny just shot a guy. Gotta get out of town for a bit!”)
That left a single option that Ty’s sleep-deprived, panicked mind could think of: hitchhiking. The practice was far more common in Europe than America. Ty had even done it several times while backpacking just after college.
At this hour, he knew there would be very few passenger cars on the road, but he hoped there would be some commercial vehicles. Truckers in particular. As he arrived at a gas station near the A1 motorway, he was relieved to find his assumption correct.
From the street, he scanned the perimeter and awning of the gas station, spotting the cameras. He didn’t know how likely it was that whoever was after him would have access to the video feed from the Shell station just off the A1, but he knew this: it was better not to be seen, not to take the risk that they could track him that way.
Staying out of the camera’s viewing range, he stowed his bike in the bushes of an office building and jogged to the truck farthest from the station and waited. When the driver exited the store, Ty held his hands up. “Hi. Can I get a ride to Zürich?”
The driver put his head down and barreled forward, shaking his head, not even bothering to reply.
Ty repeated his plea in French, then German. He was still learning Italian but knew it well enough to ask for a ride. The man’s only response was a mumbling in a Slavic language Ty couldn’t place.
The next driver who exited the store spoke English and would have given Ty a ride but was heading south to France.
The third and last truck at the station was pulling away. Feeling more desperate now, Ty stepped in front of it, leaving plenty of space to dive out of the way if the man didn’t stop.
He held his arm up, and the massive vehicle rumbled to a stop. The driver cocked his head and rolled his window down and leaned out.
Ty considered changing up his approach. He had no cash—and he didn’t dare use his credit cards to buy something to trade, but he had a watch his mother had given him for his high school graduation. For a moment, he considered slipping it off and offering it, but thought better of it, deciding instead to place his faith in the kindness of this stranger.
He walked closer to the cab and peered up.
“Sir, I could really use some help. I need to get to Zürich. It’s important.”
The man squinted at Ty. He appeared to be in his sixties, with short hair and a bushy black beard streaked with gray. An audiobook was playing inside the truck.
“Very well. Come on.”
10
The massive truck drove north on the A1 motorway, past the Geneva airport and into the Swiss countryside.
Since Ty had climbed into the truck, the driver had said only four words: “I’m Lars,” and “Don’t talk.”
And he hadn’t.
For the first forty minutes, the only voice in the cab was that of a French audiobook narrator. From the action in the book, Ty was pretty sure it was wrapping up. It was a spy novel, and the protagonist was on the run—and out of options.
When the audiobook finished, Lars lit a cigarette, cracked his window slightly, and held the pack out to Ty, who shook his head.
When the cigarette was half finished, the man said, eyes still on the road, “So why do you need a ride to Zürich in the middle of the night?”
Ty couldn’t quite place his accent. Belgian, if he had to guess.
When Ty didn’t respond, Lars glanced over, silently prompting.
“It’s… complicated.”
“What sort of complications?”
Ty had never been a very good liar. As a child, a fixed stare from his mother was enough to make him spill the beans like a burst piñata.
He opted for honesty because, honestly, he really didn’t know that much to tell.
“I made a discovery that someone is threatened by. I need to get away from them.”
“I assumed you were in some sort of trouble.” He motioned with the cigarette toward Ty. “The way you’re sitting. Are you hurt?”
“No. Not really. Just bruises.”
“A fight?”
“Yeah. You could say that.”
Lars crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray and lit another. Ty cracked his window to get some fresh air, and upon seeing that, Lars stubbed out the new cigarette.
“Do you know why I drive at night?”
Ty shrugged. “Less traffic? Get there faster?”
“That is the practical reason. The real reason is that I’ve become used to being alone. Sleeping during the day. Driving at night. You think being comfortable being alone makes you strong. It helps in this work, but it can hold you back in life. I’ve been driving a lorry on these roads for almost forty years. That’s a lot of time to think. This I know: two things are important in life. The choices you make. And the people you meet. You don’t think so when you’re young, but you’ll know the truth one day: every day of your life is nothing more than a series of choices. Streets you can’t see. Sometimes you take the wrong road.”
He reached for a cigarette, then seemed to remember Ty’s reaction to it.
“You took the wrong one. You either did the right thing or the wrong thing. In this world, you can be attacked for both. The only way to avoid being attacked is to do nothing important, nothing that matters to anyone.”
Ty was considering those words when Lars added, “I wanted to be a philosopher.” The truck driver chuckled at his own words. “I had this theory, a philosophical framework I called ‘The Mind as a Biological Machine.’ Big plans. The problem was, philosophy—ideas—don’t pay the bills. And I had some. Father was gone. Mother was sick. So I left her with my sister and started driving. It was different back then. Good pay. People treated us different. We watched out for each other out here on the road.”
Lars put the cigarettes away and ran a hand through his thinning hair.
“The greatest mistake you can ever make in this life is assuming things will stay the same. Change—that’s the only real constant. I thought I’d drive this lorry for a few years, save up, and go back to college. It didn’t work out. I should have continued my studies on the side—made a living and pursued my passion. You can do both. This job kept changing, and I kept on driving, staying the same. I figured the world will always need lorry drivers, and they’ll have to pay them a good wage to make sure everyone is safe and things get from point A to point B.”
He took a deep breath. “The shipping companies, they can only save money on two things: fuel and the driver. Used to be, fuel was the only commodity to them. These days, both are. They don’t care—the drivers from Eastern Europe. And I don’t blame them. They’re just trying to support their family, same as me. They spend the money to get their license… and it’s a lot of money to them… and they come here, and they work for starvation wages—a third of what we used to earn. Company doesn’t care. If you’re in the hole and you start earning less, you never get out.”
Lars shook his head. “But don’t listen to me. I’ve become a bitter old man. My body’s starting to break down, and I’m having regrets. All I wanted to say is that if you’re in some kind of trouble, think hard. Don’t dig yourself in deeper. Consider where the road you’re taking might lead you.”
With that, the man put on another audiobook, a work of historical fiction centered on World War II. The words and the hum of the truck and the exhaustion finally overwhelmed the ache in Ty’s body. The last thing he remembered was seeing road signs for Bern.
*
Ty woke to a baseball bat nudging him.
The truck was stopped by the side of the road. There was no rest stop or fuel station nearby, only green fields in the moonlight. He and Lars were alone—and the older man was holding the bat, his eyes burning with intensity.
“You’re a terrorist,” he practically spat at Ty.
“What?”
His sleep-addled mind could barely process what was happening.
“You set off a bomb in your apartment!”
Lars held his phone up, showing the front page of the news website swissinfo.ch, which was run by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. The headline read:
CERN Researcher Detonates Bomb at Home
Quickly, Ty scanned the article.
The Geneva cantonal police are asking for the public’s help in locating Dr. Tyson Klein, an American physicist working at CERN, who is a person of interest in the explosion at his Geneva apartment around 2 a.m. The blast killed one person, a sixty-eight-year-old pensioner living below Klein’s apartment, and injured a dozen more.
The words hit Ty like a gut punch. That person was dead because of him—because of his work. And others were injured. He wondered how badly they were hurt. He wondered how many might never walk again or see again because of the blast that was meant for him.
There was no mention of Penny or the man she had shot in the alley. Perhaps it was farther down in the article.
Lars jerked the phone back.
“Wait! Let me read it—please. I need to know what happened.”
The Belgian driver eyed him a moment, then, still clutching the bat, held the phone out with his other hand, showing Ty the article again.
Details about the incident and Klein’s possible motivations are unclear at this time, but sources say that Klein recently gave a presentation at CERN with ambitious claims that were met with skepticism. A colleague reached for comment, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that she did not believe that Klein had any explosives expertise or ill intent but that the thirty-five-year-old physicist had been working long hours and had become distant in recent weeks.
A special anti-terrorist strike force within the cantonal gendarmerie has been tasked with apprehending Klein, whom authorities are treating as armed and dangerous. Local organizations, including the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have placed their headquarters on alert.
Lars drew the phone back and pressed the baseball bat into Ty. “Why? Why did you do it—”
“I didn’t.”
“Get out!”
Slowly, holding his hands up, Ty stepped down from the truck.
“I didn’t set that bomb off. Someone else did. They’re trying to kill me because of my research.”
“Liar.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
Still holding the bat, Lars glanced at his phone. He was opening the phone app.
“I’m calling the authorities. Turning you in. If they know I helped you, I’ll lose everything. All my work—forty years down the drain.”
Ty took a step toward Lars, hands still held up. “Look, you said you took some wrong turns in your life. If you turn me in, it’ll be another one. I promise you. If you make that call, I’ll disappear. They’ll kill me. I know it. What I’ve found will change the world. I’m not certain, but I think it will make it better. I do know that it’s important. Important enough to kill for. I just need some help. Please.”
