Ultimate Weapon by Chris Ryan Page A

brilliant young physicist in Cambridge, which means she is probably the best in Europe. You should be very proud of her.’ He smiled at Nick, then turned round, walking towards the window. The rain was starting to fall more heavily now, splattering up against the glass. ‘But she is erratic. She is unstable. That’s true of many great scientists, although in Sarah’s case she’s had incidents in her past that may have made her prone to mild depression, and perhaps even schizophrenia.’ He turned back to Nick, his expression accusing. ‘I suppose you know all about that. She regularly disappears for several days at a time. But she has always turned up again in the past, and I suppose she will again.’
    He stepped away from the window, standing right in front of Nick and Jed. ‘So I’m sorry not to be more helpful, and I understand your concern,’ he said, ‘butI’m sure she’s fine. Now, I’m afraid, I have a tutorial to give.’
    ‘She’s never disappeared for this long before,’ snapped Nick, his tone exasperated.
    ‘There’s a first time for everything,’ said Wilmington.
    ‘What kind of work was she doing recently?’ asked Jed.
    Wilmington shrugged. ‘Nuclear physics,’ he said. ‘Even I had trouble understanding some of the concepts she was exploring. I imagine they’d be way beyond you.’
    Nick ignored the insult. ‘Anything to do with weapons research?’
    ‘A soldier’s natural question,’ said Salek.
    ‘Well, what’s the answer?’ said Nick, ignoring Salek. The professor chuckled. ‘When you say nuclear physics, the average person always thinks it’s something to do with weapons. But of course, just about all physics is nuclear physics, since our work revolves around what laws govern the subatomic world. Nothing that Sarah is working on is ever likely to make a big bang, of that much I’m certain. We don’t do that kind of work here.’
    ‘Can you be sure of that?’ said Jed. ‘You saw her work?’
    ‘I can be quite sure,’ said Wilmington. ‘There’s actually very little interesting theoretical work being done in nuclear weaponry any more. It’s just engineering and computing. All the conceptual work was done fifty years ago.’ He looked hard at Nick and Jed. ‘Now, much as I’m enjoying this conversation, that tutorial is going to start in one minute. So you really must excuse me.’
    Salek smiled at Jed. ‘I hope we meet again one day,’ he said, with exaggerated courtesy.
    Jed nodded but remained silent.
    ‘In fact, I feel sure we will …’
    Jed walked briskly along the road, his jacket pulled up high around his neck to protect himself from the rain. ‘Maybe the professor is right,’ he said. ‘Maybe Sarah is just on another of her benders. It’s happened often enough in the past.’
    ‘This time is different,’ said Nick
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Jed. ‘You’re always away, so you don’t see as much of her as I do. Or the people in the lab.’
    ‘I’m her father,’ snarled Nick. ‘I know her better than anyone.
    ‘Fathers always think that.’
    ‘What the hell does that mean?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jed, turning away.
    Nick looked at him. He was thinking about the money deposited in the joint account. It didn’t matter what anyone said: nobody made a hundred grand without doing anything. If they disappeared right afterwards, it meant something had happened to them. And he would find out what. Just him.
Nobody else
.
    ‘This is my business, you hear,’ he said. His voice was raised, and a woman walking down the street with a baby in a buggy started to cross the road to get away from them. ‘So you just keep out of it.’
    ‘Right, because you’ve made such a great job oflooking after her in the past,’ said Jed. ‘Maybe that’s why she goes on drinking benders all the time. Maybe that’s why she pops pills, and doesn’t believe she can ever commit to another man.’
    ‘You know bloody nothing about it,’ said Nick.
    Jed