the gun barrel to the back of the old man’s head and told him, ‘Get in the car and go,’ he’d turned around and said, puzzled, ‘Escargot?’
Finding a hostage, however obtuse, wasn’t the end of Shamus’s luck, for the old man who drove him through the front gate with a gun at his head was Gerhard von Trakl, Father of Fission and the ranking nuclear scientist in America. Shamus intended to keep von Trakl only until they reached the getaway car, the first of three switches he’d already set up.
But to Shamus’s wild surprise, von Trakl begged to go along. He told Shamus that he was a virtual prisoner of the U.S. government and was no longer interested in the work they wanted done. He wanted to explore the other side of the equation, the conversion of energy into mass, and ultimately, he supposed, the obliteration of the distinction. He confided to Shamus that he’d made a fundamental scientific error in his career – he’d viewed the universe as a machine instead of a thought.
While Shamus was delighted to discover that the most brilliant physicist in the country was a fellow alchemist at heart, he knew that von Trakl’s employers would never stop looking for him till the old man was returned. But von Trakl refused to be freed, and for reasons Shamus honored.
Shamus compromised. He kept von Trakl through the first car switch, but a mile from the second switch Shamus pulled over and forced von Trakl out on the empty country road. He promised von Trakl he’d leave the car a mile up the road, wished him luck with his new research, and thanked him for his company, then fried rubber as von Trakl started to reply.
A mile down the road he exchanged the car for the dirt bike he’d stashed the day before. He gunned the dirt bike up the hill. He cut the engine at the crest and coasted down the long, gradual slope into Coon Creek Valley. He abandoned the bike in a dense stand of hickory, covering it with the camo netting he’d pulled off the battered Gimmy pickup he’d hidden there earlier in the week. But when he reached to open the truck’s door, a laconic voice behind him said, ‘Ain’t none of my business, friend, but less’n my scanner done fucked
all up
, they’ll have a roadblock at the end of the valley ’fore you can fart the first bar o’ “Dixie.” Be my suggestion to ride with ol’ Silas Goldean here, seeing as how me and most of the local law grew up together and get on fine, and they know I got a fondness for going over to the res’vor this time of night and soaking a doughball for them catfish. Got a good place for ya to ride, too.’
And so Shamus went through the roadblock curled up in a cramped compartment under the backseat of Silas’s dusty Packard sedan while Silas jawed with a sheriff ’s deputy about a turkey shoot early next month to raise money for the local Grange. Silas’s second cousin was waiting at the reservoir in a funky johnboat to ferry him over to another cousin who locked him in a camper and drove all night to an airstrip south of Nashville. A cross-country flight punctuated with what seemed like twenty refueling stops eventually ended on Cummins Flat, two miles down the ridge from the Four Deuces, where Smiling Jack had picked him up.
Though Shamus found it difficult to believe, Gerhard von Trakl had evidently made his own escape, a fact that pleased Shamus immensely even though it meant personal grief. The Feds unfortunately assumed the daffy old bastard was still his captive and had poured on the heat – or as much as they could without causing undue media attention. They didn’t seem to want
any
, in fact, since there hadn’t been a hint in the press or on screen that the country’s foremost nuclear physicist had been kidnapped inside the nation’s largest facility for the production of fissionable materials – an understandable silence, as such information would not inspire the citizens’ confidence or advance any political careers.
‘But,’
Finding a hostage, however obtuse, wasn’t the end of Shamus’s luck, for the old man who drove him through the front gate with a gun at his head was Gerhard von Trakl, Father of Fission and the ranking nuclear scientist in America. Shamus intended to keep von Trakl only until they reached the getaway car, the first of three switches he’d already set up.
But to Shamus’s wild surprise, von Trakl begged to go along. He told Shamus that he was a virtual prisoner of the U.S. government and was no longer interested in the work they wanted done. He wanted to explore the other side of the equation, the conversion of energy into mass, and ultimately, he supposed, the obliteration of the distinction. He confided to Shamus that he’d made a fundamental scientific error in his career – he’d viewed the universe as a machine instead of a thought.
While Shamus was delighted to discover that the most brilliant physicist in the country was a fellow alchemist at heart, he knew that von Trakl’s employers would never stop looking for him till the old man was returned. But von Trakl refused to be freed, and for reasons Shamus honored.
Shamus compromised. He kept von Trakl through the first car switch, but a mile from the second switch Shamus pulled over and forced von Trakl out on the empty country road. He promised von Trakl he’d leave the car a mile up the road, wished him luck with his new research, and thanked him for his company, then fried rubber as von Trakl started to reply.
A mile down the road he exchanged the car for the dirt bike he’d stashed the day before. He gunned the dirt bike up the hill. He cut the engine at the crest and coasted down the long, gradual slope into Coon Creek Valley. He abandoned the bike in a dense stand of hickory, covering it with the camo netting he’d pulled off the battered Gimmy pickup he’d hidden there earlier in the week. But when he reached to open the truck’s door, a laconic voice behind him said, ‘Ain’t none of my business, friend, but less’n my scanner done fucked
all up
, they’ll have a roadblock at the end of the valley ’fore you can fart the first bar o’ “Dixie.” Be my suggestion to ride with ol’ Silas Goldean here, seeing as how me and most of the local law grew up together and get on fine, and they know I got a fondness for going over to the res’vor this time of night and soaking a doughball for them catfish. Got a good place for ya to ride, too.’
And so Shamus went through the roadblock curled up in a cramped compartment under the backseat of Silas’s dusty Packard sedan while Silas jawed with a sheriff ’s deputy about a turkey shoot early next month to raise money for the local Grange. Silas’s second cousin was waiting at the reservoir in a funky johnboat to ferry him over to another cousin who locked him in a camper and drove all night to an airstrip south of Nashville. A cross-country flight punctuated with what seemed like twenty refueling stops eventually ended on Cummins Flat, two miles down the ridge from the Four Deuces, where Smiling Jack had picked him up.
Though Shamus found it difficult to believe, Gerhard von Trakl had evidently made his own escape, a fact that pleased Shamus immensely even though it meant personal grief. The Feds unfortunately assumed the daffy old bastard was still his captive and had poured on the heat – or as much as they could without causing undue media attention. They didn’t seem to want
any
, in fact, since there hadn’t been a hint in the press or on screen that the country’s foremost nuclear physicist had been kidnapped inside the nation’s largest facility for the production of fissionable materials – an understandable silence, as such information would not inspire the citizens’ confidence or advance any political careers.
‘But,’
Similar Books
