Fracture Event: An Espionage Disaster Thriller Read online

  “I have a life,” LaFevre protested.

  “Yes, an intimate relationship with a computer.” She glanced at Mark. “But he hasn’t had a date with a woman since university. And even then, I’ve heard, it was with his mathematics professor.”

  Pierre made a face, smiled, and shrugged. “If God would make an attractive mathematician, perhaps I would be inclined to take her out for a delightful evening.”

  Stephanie whispered conspiratorially to Mark. “What a delight. Scribbling equations on the tablecloth all night.”

  He studied Stephanie Huntz from the corner of his eye, evaluating the swell of her breasts, the way her coat narrowed at the waist. Seated, the skirt had ridden up, revealing her perfect legs. She had no ring on her finger but, in this day and age, that didn’t mean anything.

  “So, what does a person do in Oberau? I mean, after hours?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll be occupied in the ECSITE compound for a while, but do you ski?”

  “Never had the time to learn. I’d be a clumsy novice.”

  “Garmisch-Partenkirchen is just up the road. In winter, it’s a skier’s holiday-haven filled with restaurants and shops. The nightlife is all anyone could ask. But if you are enchanted by the city, Munchen, excuse me, Munich is a fast half-hour’s drive. Theatre, opera, fine shopping, wonderful restaurants, museums and cathedrals: they’re all right there.”

  She’d had him so enchanted, he finally realized they were flying down the left lane and moving at an incredible clip. This, he thought, is the real autobahn.

  Even in Wyoming, with its wide-open spaces, he’d never come close to topping out his BMW. Too many chances of hitting a deer or antelope. And yes, there was always the Wyoming Highway Patrol waiting to write a hefty ticket to maintain the state coffers.

  He declared, “I think I’m going to like being here.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Maureen Cole watched Anika French’s reaction, saw the confusion. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “No, please.”

  Maureen slid into the chair. “You didn’t know Schott had submitted this article for publication?”

  Anika looked at her with pained green eyes. “I can’t believe he did this.”

  “The article has created quite a stir. All the way to the FBI.”

  “The FBI?” Anika looked terrified.

  “It’s brilliant work. You should be proud.”

  “But…” Anika anxiously licked her lips. “I designed it to analyze prehistoric societies, not modern ones.”

  Maureen evaluated her with steady eyes. “The article’s title implies that the model has utility for today’s world. Have you tested it on modern societies?”

  “Once or twice, but nothing like applying it to a nation-state.”

  “Why would Dr. Schott have suggested that it could be used that way?”

  Anika rubbed her forehead. “We discussed it over beer one night. He thought I should test it on modern America.” A pause. “I didn’t want to.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was afraid of what I’d find. No one wants to discover her country is hurtling headlong toward the abyss.”

  The situation was almost absurd. A bright young graduate student’s committee chair had published his student’s work. The article had caught the eye of the FBI and State Department, causing them to call Maureen in. After a cross-country chase, here sat the source of all the brouhaha: a startled, attractive, and worried-looking redhead in her late twenties.

  Maureen checked her watch. “Tell you what, it’s almost five. All I’ve had to eat was a so-called breakfast wrap in the Tucson airport this morning. Why don’t we go find a meal somewhere and talk this over? My treat.”

  Anika glanced uncertainly at the stack of term papers piled on the corner of her desk. “I don’t know. I’ve got a lot to do.” And just as quickly, she looked up, horrified. “What am I saying? Of course, I’ll go. The most famous anthropologist in the world just asked me out to dinner!”

  Maureen shoved herself out of her chair and smiled. “Uh, the fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. If I had my way, I’d be back in the lab analyzing the skeletal pathology of a murder victim.”

  Anika stood and almost tenderly placed her dissertation on the chair. Then, she reached for her purse.

  Maureen hesitated. “If you don’t mind, could you bring your dissertation? I’d like to take a look.”

  “Of course.” Anika grabbed it up, extending it like an offering.

  Maureen took it and stepped out into the hall. As Anika locked her office door, Maureen noticed a man down the hall, inspecting one of the archaeological displays of Clovis points. Normally, Maureen wouldn’t have given him a second glance but something about the way he stood, the close-cropped hair, his over-muscled shoulders, struck a chord. Definitely, not a student.

  “Know him?” Maureen asked, inclining her head.

  Anika looked. “No.”

  “Come on.” Maureen turned in the opposite direction and hurried Anika down the stairs. At the bottom, she glanced back, reassured that the man wasn’t following. Probably just getting paranoid in my old age. Right. That doesn’t mean I’m stupid, either.

  She turned her attention back to Anika. “What motivated you to combine psychology, chemistry, economics, and biology, with archaeology in the first place?”

  They walked past the Anthropology museum and out the side door. As Anika led the way to the parking lot, she replied, “All hard sciences rely on mathematics. I just used them to model the evolution of biological processes.”

  “Specifically, psychological processes, correct?”

  Anika nodded. “Sure. I mean, there are only four basic human emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, and fear—and nuanced variations, of course. These emotions are simple biology. They cut across sociocultural influences, meaning they’re universal to all human beings around the globe.”

  She glanced at Maureen to see if Maureen was following her. “Your four variables. I see. Continue.”

  “Well, I’d looked at the models created from the Maya and Cahokia data and analyzed the psychological factors that likely motivated the people. Then, I tried to apply them to the collapse of the Mississippian polities in the American Southeast in the 1400s. Climate played a huge role but emotion was the key.”

  “Why?”

  Anika lifted her shoulders. “Climate puts humans in a situation where they have to make decisions but it doesn’t make the decisions for them. They do that based upon one of the four emotions.”

  “And you’re saying we can mathematically chart how emotional responses cascade and descend into chaos?”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s my car.” Maureen pointed. “You just tell me where to go. Your choice. As a starving graduate student, there’s got to be a place that’s generally out of your budget.”

  Anika directed her downtown—well, as downtown as Laramie, Wyoming, gets—to a restaurant that specialized in steak and seafood.

  “Don’t eat the seafood,” Anika suggested as they were led to a table. “But as a ranch girl, I can tell you that the steaks are the best.”

  Maureen smiled. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to make a quick phone call. Order me a cup of coffee but have your favorite drink.”

  She retreated to the small lobby, retrieved her cell phone, and pressed Amy Randall’s number.

  “Randall.”

  “Are you always in the office? It’s after seven in DC.”

  “Of course I’m in the office. I work for the Secretary of Defense. What have you got?”

  Maureen outlined everything she’d learned from Anika French.

  “She’s a newly minted PhD?”

  “Yes. Her committee chair, Mark Schott, published her research without her knowledge. And under his own byline, which is distasteful, but not all that rare. He’s in Germany, by the way.”

  “We know. What does French say? Is this model really a guidebook for toppling a n
ation?”

  Maureen sighed. “She’s never tested the model on a modern society.”

  “Why not?”

  “Basically? She doesn’t want to prove the world is ending.”

  Silence.

  “I want her on the first plane to DC and bring everything she has. Charts, data, graphs, notes, everything.”

  “I’ll ask.”

  “You’ll succeed or I’ll have the nearest FBI field office arrest her, clean out her apartment, and drag her here.”

  Maureen heaved a sigh. “Understood.”

  Maureen thumbed the “end” button and walked back to the table to find Anika poring over the menu, a tall glass of some amber beer on the table in front of her.

  “So, you said you were a ranch girl?”

  Anika looked up. “If you don’t mind, I’m going for the porterhouse, medium rare.” Another worried look. “Uh, you’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

  “In spite of what I know about the industrial red meat industry, no. I love a good steak, preferably bison.”

  Anika pointed at the menu. “Right there on the menu. Grass-fed, locally raised. No hormones or antibiotics. And, yes, I was raised on a real Wyoming ranch. That was Mom’s first love.”

  “What does your father do?”

  “He was a Marine for most of his life. When Mom was killed, he came home. I was just finishing high school. He took over but, well, the place is leased now. Dad’s the county sheriff.” Her eyebrow lifted. “He’s chasing down barbed wire thieves as we speak.”

  “So, you’re close?”

  “Very.” She sounded sad.

  “Too long away from home?”

  Anika nodded. “Dad served at the point of the sword. He’s the bravest man I know. I really miss him.”

  “What led you to anthropology?”

  “We had a ranch covered with archaeological sites. Mom taught high school history as a way of making enough to keep the ranch running. She invited a University of Wyoming field school out to excavate a Paleoindian site. I was hooked. Before that, I thought I’d be a mathematician.”

  “Rare combination, math and anthro.”

  “Well, given what I know about agriculture, it beats pulling calves, vaccinating heifers, and trying to get a dime’s worth of value out of each nickel.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Anika gave her a weary smile. “Dr. Cole, the only reason the small farm exists anywhere is through huge government subsidies, be it here, Europe, or China. The only money to be made in agriculture is on large corporate farms where volume production and growth hormones make it feasible.”

  “I’ve heard that American agriculture is growing less and less sustainable.”

  “Not just America.” Anika leaned forward. “Did you know that, in China, human food production accounts for 57% of the total biomass? There’s virtually no wildlife or wild country left. Everything alive is there to feed the massive human population of one-point-five-billion. Believe me, there’s a comeuppance in the future.”

  “Scary.”

  They ordered their steaks.

  While they waited, Maureen looked around the restaurant and sipped her coffee. “Where is Dr. Schott in Germany? Do you know?”

  “Munich. He took a position with ECSITE Corporation. You know anything about them? They’re international investors. Until you showed up, it didn’t make sense. Why hire Mark for an investment firm? And it was all so sudden.” Her face fell. “And then you brought the article and the variables fell into place.”

  Maureen stared across the table at Anika. “Speaking of the Chinese,” she said, “did they offer Dr. Schott a position?”

  Anika gave her a penetrating look. “The Chinese? I didn’t know anything about the Germans until Monday. This all came out of the clear blue sky.” A pause. “If the Chinese are interested…” Maureen could see her mind running predictive models behind her eyes. “The global implications…”

  Maureen’s phone rang.

  “Dr. Cole?”

  “Hello, Amy.”

  “Can you check out Dr. Schott’s office? Maybe take a look at his records?”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “Anything you can find out about Dr. Schott’s contacts.” She sounded tense. “We’ll have a team there in four hours but if you could get there sooner, we’d appreciate it.”

  Maureen gazed at Anika and found the woman frowning back at her with unnerving intensity. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Maureen shoved her phone back in her jacket pocket.

  “Would you mind filling me in?”

  Maureen sighed. “Anika, when Dr. Schott published that article, it started a storm. Unfortunately, you’re right in the middle of it.”

  Maureen watched Anika’s face change as her clever statistical mind put the pieces together. Then a glimmer of fear reflected in her eyes. “Are you saying that the government—”

  “Don’t panic. You’re not in trouble. I was called to Washington by the FBI. That was them. They want me to take a look at Mark Schott’s office.”

  “It’s been cleaned out. I turned off the lights after the moving company took the last box.” Anika had a deer-in-the-headlights look.

  “All right, for my next bombshell, an assistant to the Secretary of Defense wants you in Washington. Immediately.”

  “Me?” Anika gaped. “Why? What did I do?”

  “The DC statisticians want to ask you some questions about your model. That’s all.”

  Anika stammered, “B-but… I can’t go! Look, I’ve just been hired as an assistant professor. I can’t screw this up.”

  Maureen gave her an amused smile. “If I could take care of the university, would you agree?”

  Maureen got a hesitant nod before she pulled her phone out and entered Amy Randall’s number.

  “Randall.”

  “I need someone in authority to contact the University of Wyoming and clear Anika French for immediate travel to Washington. Oh, and they need to make clear that this will not in any way affect Ms. French’s employment status.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I think if you handle this little snag, Dr. French will be eternally grateful.”

  “Do you want the call to come from the Secretary or the President?”

  “Now you’re kidding.”

  “Consider the university handled.”

  “Thanks. By the way, Dr. French informs me that Mark Schott’s office is completely empty. He cleaned everything out.”

  “Try his home. I’ll have someone join you with a warrant. Keep your phone on.”

  “We’re in the middle of dinner. Give us an hour.” Maureen ended the call as sizzling steaks were placed on the table. Maureen took a moment to inhale the aroma. “The university is taken care of. Before we fly to Washington, we’ve got a couple of stops to make. First, we need to go back to your office and retrieve all of your notes and data, then we need to—”

  “All my notes?” Anika, still pale, swallowed a gulp of beer.

  “Yes, but for now just enjoy your steak. You’re going to need your strength for what comes next.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Mark’s trip to Oberau might have been a fantasy. Stephanie Huntz acted the gracious hostess, pointing out the BMW corporate building, asking about his car. The proper pronunciation, he learned, was Bay Em Vey. He fought the urge to stare out the window or to ask too-personal questions about Stephanie’s involvement with men. But he did notice that when she talked about going places, it was always “I” never “we.” That gave him hope.

  What was even more suggestive was that he hardly thought of Denise or the boys. He’d gotten over the bitter arguments they’d had after he’d announced he was taking the ECSITE job. Somehow, his arrival in Germany felt like stepping out of an old life and straight into a dream.

  As Stephanie made a witty remark, he shared her laughter, only mildly surprised to discover the dream to be so intoxicating. Denise and the boys,
in comparison, were little more than a fading nightmare.

  He blinked at the jet lag nibbling at his brain and body. The long flight was finally leaching his reserves.

  So, how do I play this? Stephanie’s father walked out on her mother. What do I tell her upfront to keep her from casting me in the same light?

  That would take some planning. He stifled a yawn. “Sorry. Long flight. Should have grabbed an energy drink back at the airport.”

  “Oh.” Stephanie gave him another of her radiant smiles, unbuckled from her seatbelt, and leaned forward to a leather console behind the driver’s seat. She opened the lid, fished around among the bottles and cans, producing, of all things, Red Bull. “There’s beer, wine, bourbon, and sodas, if you’d prefer.”

  “Red Bull will be fine.”

  He took the can as she belted herself back in.

  Pierre LaFevre had been mostly silent since Stephanie had laid into him. “I’d like to have you and your team get to work as soon as possible. What I’ve seen so far is tantalizing. Even the Big Man is anxious.”

  “I think you’re going to be surprised,” Mark admitted. “And maybe a little shocked.”

  “Shocked how?”

  Mark adopted his professorial demeanor with LaFevre. “You may not like what you find when you plug in all the variables.”

  “There are problems with the model?” LaFevre frowned, head slightly cocked as if computing the odds in his head. “I was concerned about the missing—”

  “No. The model works perfectly.” Mark gauged the man’s reaction. “What I mean is that the world is rife with potential fracture events. It’s not pretty out there.”

  “That’s why you’re here, Dr. Schott. ECSITE’s goal is to predict when and where the fracture events will occur.”

  Mark gave him a confident smile. “I’m aware of that.”

  To the south, the Alps had been rising, white, pristine, and stark against the late afternoon sky. The effect was stunning. No wonder they were considered some of the most beautiful mountains in the world. The jagged and snow-covered peaks seemed to rake the sky, contrasting with the spring-green world below.