The Planck Factor

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWODaniel

Daniel had thought about burning the evidence of the

research he and Swede had worked so hard to gather--but throwing away all those

years of work was more than he could bear. Did it come down to pride? Daniel

maneuvered his VW bug along the switchback turns. Was it foolish pride that had

led Robert Oppenheimer to head up the Manhattan Project?

Not pride--fear. Fear that Nazi Germany would develop

the atom bomb first. Today, we’re not fighting Nazis. Today, it’s much harder

to figure out who the bad guys are.

The VW’s headlights pierced the light veil of fog

descending along Oregon’s coastal range. In places, the

veil thickened into a shroud. The headlight beams swept across sentinel trunks

of tall Douglas firs. Daniel squinted from the reflected glare as the car

plunged into another cottony patch of fog.

All the things he’d never told Alexis and the

arrangements he had made in case the worst should happen. He’d done his best to

keep Alexis out of it and protect himself. Found someone who didn’t have as big

a stake in the whole thing as he and Swede did. Someone other than Alexis that

he could trust.

A wave of guilt over what he’d never said to Alexis

mingled with his anxiety about where all his work could lead if allowed to get

into the wrong hands.

Daniel turned the wheel hard to follow a tight curve,

and the VW slid sideways beneath him--a feeling of being totally out of

control--in keeping with the rest of his life.

He steered as far from the precipitous drop along the

roadside as he could. One moment, Daniel peered through the murk. The next, he

squinted as his rearview mirror reflected the glare of high beams.

Daniel’s heartbeat quickened. Keep calm, he told

himself. Then, the car jolted as the vehicle behind him rammed his car.

“What the f**k?” he said. Daniel gripped the wheel

harder. He focused on breathing evenly and staying on the road.

Daniel spotted a crossroad up ahead that led into the

mountains. If he could just turn fast enough, maybe the vehicle behind him

would overshoot the road. Hopefully, he’d lose the tail.

As he approached the road, Daniel waited until the last

second and yanked the wheel left. The car spun as if floating. Daniel held fast

to the wheel. A loud crash filled the air. Everything went dark.

Alexis

Two weeks. That’s all the time Alexis had allowed

herself after her fiancé, Daniel’s, tragic death. Just two weeks off. Then it

was back to her studies. She had a limited scholarship, after all. No parents,

no big inheritance, no trust fund to rely on. She couldn’t drop out of school

after all the work she’d done on her master’s thesis on existentialism and

modern literature. She had to keep going.

Alexis had to stay on track to get her master’s in

philosophy at the University of Oregon within the three years her scholarship

allowed. But now her studies were more than a means to a scholastic end. Her

textbooks were a blanket wrapped around her consciousness. One that protected

her from the death of her parents barely a year ago, under circumstances too

painful to contemplate. And now Daniel. It was too much to take in.

Alexis worked in her carrel until the lights flickered.

The library would be closing in ten minutes. Nine o’clock already? Where did

the time go?

Reluctantly, she closed out her word processing program

and turned off her laptop. She placed her books neatly to one side on the

carrel’s shelf and the little paper placard that read “Reserved” in the middle.

Alexis placed her belongings in a knapsack and, with a

casual wave to the reference librarian at the desk, strolled out the door

toward the parking lot. She dropped the knapsack onto the passenger seat of her

aging Toyota Tercel, rounded the car, and got in.

As her Tercel roared to life, farther back in the lot, a

small dark van’s engine did the same. The van held three men--one behind the

wheel and two in the back. Alexis eased out of the space and exited the lot.

The van followed.