He reread the message, not believing what he had just seen-uncomprehending.

Fire and ice, he felt torn.

He clutched the message and dully sat down at his desk.

It was over… after all these years, finally, finally over.

And life would never be the same again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Friday, 12:38 P.M.

O’Hare InternationalAirport

Craig gripped the armrest of the rental car as Jackson took the exit to the airport at high speed. A white-haired man in a Jaguar honked and extended his middle finger as Jackson whipped into the far right lane, cutting him off.

Craig pulled his cell phone away from his ear as he struggled to maintain his balance in the car. “Hey, Randall, we need to get there alive if we’re going to stop Bretti.”

Jackson unblinkingly kept his hands on the steering wheel, precisely at the 10:00 and 2:00 position as proscribed in the Bureau’s evasive driving course. “You’re starting to sound like Goldfarb, man.” Instead, he accelerated.

Craig didn’t argue with the lean agent. This was personal for him, deeply personal-and he only hoped Jackson could maintain his professionalism.

Agent Schultz at the Chicago Bureau office spoke over the cell phone, and Craig pictured the man still bandaged up, stuck at his desk and wishing he could be in the middle of the action. “We’ve diverted the team of agents from Bretti’s house, and our SWAT teams have scrambled. We’ve informed airport security. Did you want any uniformed police officers as backup?”

Craig lurched into the side of the door as Jackson weaved around traffic. “No, keep them away. The last thing we want to do is to spook Bretti. He’s got enough explosive power in his briefcase to turn O’Hare into a smoking crater-and I don’t think he even knows it. Keep this a federal operation, and let me run it from inside. Special Agent backups only.”

“What about equipment?” Schultz pressed. “Do you need any NEST or FEMA support?” The FBI worked closely with the Department of Defense’s Nuclear Emergency Search Team as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency; but this was totally out of the box. The destructive potential Bretti carried in his briefcase was as great as a small fission bomb, but unlike radioactive material, the antimatter was undetectable.

“There’s no nuclear signature to help find his antimatter trap. And if it goes unstable, you’ll need the Red Cross more than anyone else. Just have additional agents stake out the International terminal, especially the Concord gate. We’ll be running surveillance around it. Remember, we don’t know Bretti’s plans, and were not even sure he’s here.” He swallowed hard, not wanting to consider the possibility that they might be so far off base. “Were you able to find out if Bretti had applied for a visa to India?”

“We’ve queried the Consulate office in Chicago, and they’re taking their sweet time getting back to us. I think they’re giving us the runaround.”

“Use what pressure you can. If Bretti is going to India, it’s got to be in their records… unless the Indians are using some diplomatic Vaseline to slip him through under our noses. Call the State Department if you need help prying that information loose.”

“I’ll do what I can on this end. Good luck, Kreident.”

“Thanks. We’re almost there.” Craig flipped the phone shut and held on. He spotted the airport Hilton and the arching terminal building ahead.

Craig had worked around scientists during his student days at Stanford, before going into patent law and then law enforcement. Researchers were just like any other focused group of people, but usually more intelligent, more introspective, more introverted-classic Meyers-Briggs “INTP” personality types-motivated by personal competence and attention to detail.

But they were also motivated as much by greed, professional jealousy, profit, fame… all the usual temptations other people experienced. Craig had to understand the grad student’s motivations to be able to negotiate with him. And he certainly hoped this situation could be resolved through negotiation, rather than firepower.

As a frustrated grad student, who had worked for seven years with a Ukrainian emigre, Bretti would have wanted to do something big, something to get attention, money, women. He had worked under the shadow of a world-class high-energy physicist who kept his major black-program work completely secret; and while Dumenco published paper after paper, made “new” breakthrough after breakthrough, poor unremarkable Bretti had not even completed his doctorate. He would have blamed everybody else for his own lack of initiative, his own lackluster success.

And when the opportunity came to make a big splash, to do something exciting, something highly profitable, Bretti had jumped at it… and then had fallen down the slippery slope. He was an utter amateur, confused, panicked, and desperate. Goldfarb must have stumbled upon him in the substation, startled him-and Bretti had reacted like a cornered rat. Craig wondered if Dumenco had suspected Bretti’s experimental sabotage, so that Bretti rigged an accident to kill his mentor. That would explain most of the loose ends.

The chaos of the Departing Flights area was maddening, an obstacle course of cars parked in all lanes; cabs honked their horns and dropped off passengers wherever they chose, men in business suits ran with briefcases, families hauled enough luggage to set up a new home, traffic directors blew whistles and attempted to keep order while being summarily ignored.

Jackson squealed up to the curb marked International. A red-jacketed steward shuffled toward them with a metal baggage cart. Before the man could touch the bill of his hat, Craig was already out of the car, flashing his FBI wallet. “Federal agents, sir. I’ll need your cooperation to watch our vehicle.” Jackson joined him, leaving the car running.

The baggage steward gulped and looked around, as if trying to find airport security. Craig and Jackson paid no attention to him as they ran inside the main terminal.

A fifty-foot-high ceiling extended to the left and right. Ticket counters for United, American, Delta, British Airways, and other carriers lined up one next to another, as far as he could see. People milled around in disordered clumps and ordered lines, dressed in jeans, shorts, long flower-print dresses, business suits, jogging outfits, sarongs, casual slacks, military uniforms, robes. Friday afternoon, and it seemed as if the entire city had come down either to fly out or see someone off.

Craig removed his sunglasses, stood on his tiptoes, and saw an advertisement for the Concord. “I’ll go straight for the gate. You go cover the British Airways check-in counter. You remember what Bretti looks like?”

Jackson strode into the thick of the crowd. He stood a good half foot higher than most of the others and was able to orient himself. “Unless he had time for major cosmetic surgery since he shut me in that beam alcove this morning, I’m not going to forget a line on that little twerp’s face.”

As Jackson fought through the line toward the counter like a fish swimming upstream, Craig took out his badge and raced to the security checkpoint He stepped to the left of the metal detectors and the lines, showing his ID. “FBI. It’s an emergency.”

The security gate supervisor glanced at his ID and motioned for a police officer. The officer leaned over, unimpressed. “Let me see your tin. I don’t want to see no paper.”

Craig flashed his gold badge and the policeman immediately straightened, then waved him through. “Need any help, sir?”

“There will be some backup here from the Chicago Bureau office,” said Craig. “Give them a call to confirm it.” It seemed everyone turned to look at him, and Craig hoped the attention didn’t alert Bretti.