“What about all the construction work on this extension ring-the Main Injector. Doesn’t that interfere with your work? Lots of shutdowns?‘’

Chang shrugged. “Some of their heavy machinery screws up our delicate beam balance, but we just have to deal with it.”

Jackson followed the young man down the tunnels. He smelled ozone, lubricants, cool concrete, metal shavings. “So what’s it like working for a person up for the Nobel Prize?‘’ he asked in a forced conversational tone. ”Must be exciting.“

Chang squinted up at him. “You mean Dr. Piter? I don’t really work directly for him, he just holds the purse strings. But the man’s a slave driver, a real nano-manager, looking at administrative details down to the billionth part.” The grad student shook his head, flashing his goofy grin again. “He’s lucky to keep any grad students around.”

“So why don’t you leave, go somewhere else?” Jackson towered over the young graduate student.

Chang looked appalled. “Hey, I’ve got a chance to be in on the discovery of the century. If this p-bar enhancement really works, then we’ll be in an energy range close enough to go for the Higgs boson.” He looked at Jackson as if he expected the lean agent to share the excitement, but Jackson didn’t even know what he was talking about. “When the Main Injector comes on line next year, the whole accelerator will work in this new energy range, and we just might have a chance to detect it. Wouldn’t that be something?” Jackson blinked, but Chang’s enthusiasm was infectious.

They passed through a chain-link gate to the main beam tunnel and walked briskly down concrete steps into the long experimental target area. Their footsteps echoed against the bare walls. Industrial lights burned at intervals down the tunnel.

“Dr. Dumenco was down here during the emergency beam dump,” Chang said. “He never should have been in the area, not with the beam on. It’s a safety hazard.”

“Yes, he sure proved that.” As they walked, Jackson continued asking questions. “So what exactly happened to the guy? Some sort of an accident dumped the beam in here?”

“It does that automatically,” Chang said. “If the beam fluctuates too much, or if it’s contaminated, the system shuts down and the beam crashes down here. Dr. Dumenco happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Jackson craned his neck. The tunnel was deserted and silent, except for a low, throbbing hum.

Chang nodded to the left. “I can unlock the systems from the control room just around the corner.” He pushed away black hair that had fallen into his eyes. “Then you can look around wherever you want. There’s nothing dangerous down here anyway.” He hurried down the tunnel, disappearing into the shadows.

Alone now, Jackson looked around the huge underground facility, built to re-create conditions that had existed during the earliest seconds of the universe. But with all the concern now about social ills and poverty, Jackson seriously doubted the public would ever go for building anything so massive again-unless the benefits could somehow be more clearly explained… and scientists weren’t terribly good at things like that. He thought of the expensive Superconducting Supercollider that was supposed to have been constructed in Texas.

For now, though, the big science didn’t matter at all to Jackson -he was more interested in finding Ben Goldfarb’s assailant. Damn, he hoped his friend would come through all this.

The sound of someone shuffling across the concrete floor drew his attention, coming from farther down the curved tunnel, labored breaths, heavy footsteps, as if someone was carrying a heavy load. It was early in the morning, and few people were around. Frank Chang had gone in the other direction.

“Mr. Chang?” Jackson called out. He looked around. Nothing. He saw only the series of lights that disappeared in the distance, darkness and a cold silence like a held breath. He took a step forward, his brow furrowed. “Who’s there?” He felt his weapon in its pancake holster at his hip. “This is the FBI-stop and identify yourself.”

Without warning he heard the sound of feet slapping against the concrete floor-someone turning around and running away through the darkness.

Jackson set off after the footsteps. “Stop!” Why would someone be skulking around in the tunnels where Dumenco had been zapped, so long before work hours?

As he ran, the tunnel gently curved ahead of him, and Jackson never quite seemed to reach a place where he could see his fugitive. He heard panting breaths over the background hum of the machinery. “Hey!”

Somewhere ahead the shadowy figure stopped. He heard a key scraping against metal followed by the unmistakable creaking of a heavy door swinging out. He saw a young, disheveled man with flushed skin, sweat-plastered dark hair, and a scruffy goatee-and he recognized the face of Dumenco’s grad student Nicholas Bretti, the man who was supposedly on a vacation fishing trip, but who had been impossible to locate. Bretti was here-at Fermilab, in hiding! The young man vanished ahead, running in full panic.

“Nicholas Bretti! FBI-I know you! Stop right now!” Jackson sprinted into the uneven light. He still couldn’t see Bretti. He almost ran past a dark shadow at the side of the tunnel until he recognized an opening.

Breathing hard, Jackson cautiously placed a hand on the metal door to a diagnostics alcove and tried to peer through the darkness into the side chamber. Nothing. No sound, no light. Where’s the light switch?

He tightened his fingers and wondered if he should draw his weapon-but other than the sound of someone running away, there had been no indication that this situation threatened his life.

Ever since Ruby Ridge, FBI guidelines had been crystal clear about the use of deadly force, and this instance certainly didn’t qualify. Especially after shooting Dumenco’s would-be assassin yesterday, Jackson couldn’t take any chances.

But then somebody-maybe even more than one person-had tried to kill Georg Dumenco. And someone had shot Goldfarb, someone had attacked him and Craig with poison gas. Perhaps it had been Bretti.

Jackson took a cautious step into the darkened room. “This is the FBI. Special Agent Jackson-come out and identify yourself.” He heard breathing, skittered footsteps-and his own heart pounding.

Jackson felt cold sweat form at his brow. Man, I wish I had a backup right now. In his mind’s eye he saw Goldfarb being shot all over again… except this time it was him.

He cautiously reached out with his right hand to pat the alcove wall for a light switch. Again, nothing. He swept his arm in a half circle against the wall and finally found a control box. Fumbling, he switched it on, at the same time drawing his weapon and crouching, ready for the worst.

A row of overhead fluorescent lights flicked on, dim at first, but throwing enough light to show equipment jumbled across the floor. A dozen gray metal carts held oscilloscopes, computers, users’ manuals, and instruments. A large-diameter pipe ran through the room about ten feet off the floor, one of the conduits for the high-energy beam from the giant accelerator. He heard a low-frequency throbbing, seemingly from the large conduit. The beam channel? Was the accelerator running again?

“Identify yourself.” Remaining in a low crouch, Jackson swept his outstretched gun hand around in a semicircle. Inside the room he heard no sound of movement. He had been tricked, somehow. Bretti wasn’t there.

Jackson purposely tried to slow his breathing-but his body was kicking into high gear, dumping adrenaline into his system. His heart pounded as he inched into the alcove. The place looked like a high-tech junkyard, a cross between a futuristic lab and a storage facility for computer nerds. Red and green lights glowed from every panel-taking data?