Zero Hour (NUMA Files 11)

“Based on what?”

“Our informant,” Bradshaw said. “We’ve been told the project in the outback has been superseded by a larger, more dangerous plan. Evidence bears that out. Considering the effort it must have taken to build and hide that lab — or whatever you might call it — it’s completely irrational to blow it up unless you have something else to fall back on.”

Kurt nodded. It made sense to him.

“In addition to that,” Bradshaw added, “the shipment of mining equipment we intercepted was some of the latest self-contained, oceangoing gear available. It’s designed for use in the most hazardous environments and the worst weather. We plucked it off a freighter that left Perth and was officially bound for Cape Town, but the ship’s track was southbound, toward Antarctic waters, not west to South Africa.”

“There’s no accounting for bad navigation these days,” Kurt joked. “Where do you think they were headed?”

“We think Thero is hiding on the Antarctic shelf.”

“Thero?”

“The leader of this mess.”

Kurt pulled up a chair, swung it around, and sat down with his arms resting on the back, leaning toward Bradshaw. He considered what the man was asking. His own curiosity spurred him on, but there were bigger issues.

“NUMA is not exactly a law enforcement agency. Maybe you want to contact Interpol.”

“And wait six months for the paperwork to clear?”

Bradshaw shook his head in answer to his own question. “Besides,” he added, “this is a science problem as much as it is a terrorist threat. From what I’ve heard, you NUMA guys seem to specialize in that combination. And if they’re using the ocean as cover… well, that’s right up your alley, isn’t it?”

Kurt nodded. “It is.”

“Then let me pass the baton.”

“It’s not my call,” Kurt explained. “All this… our involvement… It was just me being an idiot, like you said. But if we’re going to involve NUMA officially, I have to run it up the flagpole. I can’t promise you anything. But from what you’ve told me, I think our Director will see it your way.”

“Pitt?” Bradshaw said. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Sounds like a good man.”

“The best,” Kurt said. “But before I go to him, I have to know exactly what we’re dealing with. What are these people up to? Who is this guy Thero and what does he want?”

Bradshaw didn’t hesitate. He’d brought Kurt here to talk and he was ready. “Have you ever heard of zero-point energy?”

Truth was, Kurt hadn’t. At least not until he’d done the Internet search on Hayley Anderson.

“I saw the term on a scientific paper,” he admitted. “Can’t say I read more than a paragraph or two, but it sounded like some type of power source.”

“I won’t pretend to understand the physics,” Bradshaw said, “but the concept involves drawing energy from background fields that are supposedly all around us. As the theory goes, tapping into these fields would provide an unlimited and inexhaustible source of energy for the whole world, one that would cost almost nothing to use and distribute.”

“Sounds like a pipe dream,” Kurt said.

“Maybe it is,” Bradshaw said. “Who knows? But this group we’re dealing with believes in it. They claim they’ve unlocked its secret.”

Bully for them, Kurt thought. “How does that turn into what we saw today? If free energy is all about peace, love, and kilowatts, why are people getting shot and blown up?”

Bradshaw coughed and winced in pain. “I’ll give you a file with everything we think we know, but here’s the short version. As I told you, it starts with a guy named Thero, Maxmillian Thero. He’s an American, actually. A nuclear engineer by trade and a self-taught physicist. He spent eight years in your navy, working on submarines and aircraft carriers. He was discharged in 1978 and began work at Three Mile Island a few months before the meltdown in 1979.”

“Great timing,” Kurt noted.

“It was for him, apparently. Feeling like the world had narrowly avoided an epic disaster, he began to rethink his career choice. He bounced around a lot and eventually launched a crusade to find an alternate system of generating power. At some point, he hit on the idea of zero-point energy. As near as we can tell, he spent years trying to get funding and prove the concept was workable. Unfortunately, he was never taken seriously.

“After a while, he came to believe there was a sinister reason for this, that his efforts were being thwarted by big shots in the nuclear industry, the oil companies, and other power brokers in your Energy Department. He claimed in an interview that your government had tapped his phone lines and bugged his home and his laboratory. An IRS investi

gation into his funding only added fuel to the fire.”

“Sounds like a persecution complex.”