Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(147)
Unfortunately, the LHC had suffered a series of break-downs and delays. The latest of these occurred early in the morning of what was still Thanksgiving night in Los Alamos.
According to the article, LHC testing had gone well until a large number of instruments began reporting measurements well outside the expected norm. Program scientists had shut down the LHC and it remained offline indefinitely, while they investigated the cause of this latest malfunction.
What made the article especially interesting to Hanz was a section concerning a group of independent scientists who had begun raising questions about the lack of public information on the malfunction. Despite vociferous protests, the European Organization for Nuclear Research spurned all requests for external review, stating that the top experts in the field were already working on the problem.
Although Hanz didn’t have any evidence upon which to base his suspicions, it smelled like a cover-up. Not that it really mattered what he thought. The problem would be sorted out during the LHCs winter shutdown. He’d leave those concerns to the thousands of scientists CERN already had working on the Large Hadron Collider.
Hanz pulled a big sip from his coffee cup. Crap. Already, it had almost cooled to room temperature. And at the moment, this room wasn’t all that warm.
Walking across to the pot, Dr. Jorgen poured the full cup into the sink, and grabbed a refill. This time he decided he would remain standing until he had finished the whole thing. With his predilection for getting lost in thought, that was the only way to avoid a repeat of the coffee-cooling experiment.
His thoughts returned to the paper’s headline story. Although it was never good for the nation to lose its president, he had a feeling this time was the exception. As for the arrest of that self-important bastard of a deputy director, well…
Dr. Jorgen raised his coffee cup in mock salute.
“Dr. Stephenson, this one’s for you.”
With a long, slow, satisfying sip, Dr. Jorgen let the hot liquid slide across his tongue and down his throat. The warm glow in his stomach felt very good indeed, although he had to admit: not all of that feeling could be attributed to the coffee.
151
Heather McFarland stared across the neatly lined rows of soybeans that extended almost to the horizon and smiled. She was so tired. And it felt so good.
The Robertson family farm had become her home away from home, the Mennonite family having taken them in, accepting them on nothing more than Jack’s word. She didn’t know what the mysterious killer had done for them, but it was clear that they loved him, completely and unconditionally. And Heather had grown to love them too. Norma and Colin had taken them in, treating them exactly as they treated their own kin.
The Canadian family had migrated to Bolivia, along with a large number of their fellow Mennonites, in 1967. And in loose cooperation with the Bolivian government, they had bought a large section of land northeast of Santa Cruz, a short distance from Quatro Ca?adas, where they and other Mennonites had built farming communities. Now they sold their soybeans to ConAgra and supported MEDA, the Mennonite Economic Development Associates, helping the poorer members of their sect establish credit and buy their own land.
Life at the Robertson Farm these last six weeks had been like stepping out of the modern world and being transported back in time a hundred and fifty years. Although the Mennonites avoided modern technology, many families in the area used tractors to farm their lands. Not the Robertsons. Their love of the old ways allowed for nothing more than plowing the land with teams of oxen, driving to town in a horse-drawn carriage, and performing a good, hard day of physical labor.
By night, things changed in an almost magical way. The multigenerational family assembled around the candlelit dinner table, thanked the Lord for their abundance and for each other, and then dined in a spirit of appreciation that Heather thought truly wonderful. Something about coming in after a day of hard work made the shared repast even more special. In a sad-happy way, they reminded her of her own family.
Heather glanced across the field at Jennifer and Mark as they worked their weeding hoes. Their run from the Espe?osa Estate to Cartegena and then to Santa Cruz had resulted in two more deaths, both at Mark’s hands, as they struggled to escape Don Espe?osa’s grounds.
As Heather looked at Mark, a lump rose in her throat. When she had fallen in love with him she didn’t know. Maybe she’d always been there. Sometimes she thought she should tell him. After all, his feelings for her were so clear they could have been stenciled on his forehead.
But somehow Heather couldn’t bring herself to do it. As much as Mark thought she blamed him for the people he’d slain, she blamed herself. Everything Mark had done had been part of her visions. She had chosen the path they all walked. And while they were all still alive, the pain they had experienced could only be laid at one doorstep. She could have chosen differently. She could have chosen better.
If it hadn’t been for the success of their operation to shut down the programmable nanites, Heather might have started questioning herself more harshly. While their success in that was great, something about it worried her. Had she made her savant choices in a way that placed the good of the many over the welfare of her friends and family? She didn’t think so, but until she knew for sure that she wasn’t exercising some subconscious, Joan-of-Arc agenda, her feelings for Mark would have to remain hidden.
Suddenly, her attention was drawn to a plume of dust rising along the dirt road toward the farmhouse. A dusty, black Ford Explorer pulled to a stop in front of the house, the sound of its engine dying as the driver-side door opened. It had been six weeks since Heather had even seen a motor vehicle, and she found herself walking toward the house with an air of expectation.