“And?” Tin Man asked.
“No more magnetic field means that what’s inside isn’t isolated from the matter outside this canister,” Spiro said. “And, if that happens we’re all in a world of pain.”
“Again, no longer your concern,” the director said.
“I’ve spent ten years of my life developing this program,” Spiro said. “I don’t want to see it fail.”
“This is not your program,” the director said. “You are an employee. And you should be very careful, because I’m not impressed with your performance. Ten years have passed, and you’ve only managed to collect a couple ounces.”
“That’s enough to obliterate a continent. How much more do you need?”
The director shrugged. “More.”
“Collection is difficult. It takes time,” Spiro said.
“You are no longer credible,” the director said. “It was your call to leave Knight alone. If I had listened to Tin Man in the first place, I wouldn’t be thinking about destroying a two-trillion-dollar facility and you wouldn’t be out of a job.”
Spiro looked relieved that he was only fired. The penalty could have been much worse.
“Why would this have to be destroyed?” Spiro asked.
“Knight has money, and he knows powerful people,” the director said. “He also has a blog that’s read by thousands. If he learns enough and goes public with it, we’ll have all sorts of idiots crawling all over this facility. We won’t be able to kill them fast enough. Everyone from conspiracy theorists to Sunday hikers to political watchdogs will be here. Our plans will be savaged, and our technology will be discovered and stolen.”
Spiro shook his head. “It will take a year to dismantle.”
“On the contrary, one well-placed tactical nuclear device detonated in the underground lava lake beneath the dome should do the trick. The entire area will be buried under fifty feet of magma in no more than a day.”
Spiro went pale. “It would destabilize the entire super-volcano. The entire park, not just the dome, could be buried under fifty feet of magma. If that happened, it could kill millions.”
Tin Man smiled. “I knew there was a silver lining. I almost hope we don’t find Knight and Moon.”
The director turned to Tin Man. “Always the optimist. From here on out, you’re in charge of Yellowstone. If you don’t find Knight and Moon in a week, or if there’s even a whisper about Sour Creek Dome on his blog, detonate the nuke.”
The little Penning trap beeped and the green light on its side changed from blinking to solid.
“The transfer is done,” Spiro said. “I’ll get someone to help us move it to the transport.”
Tin Man watched Spiro leave the warehouse. “You’re not taking him with us?”
“He’s leaving with us, but he won’t be walking off the plane in Hawaii. You know how I hate loose ends.”
NINETEEN
Emerson and Riley watched from their hiding place until the guards left with the portable Penning trap and the room was empty.
“Wow,” Riley said. “What do you think they’ve got in that thing?”
Emerson opened the warehouse’s back door a crack and peeked out. There was still a guard hanging around. “I don’t know. The concept of a Penning trap has been around since 1923.”
“You don’t know enough to leave red buttons alone, but you know what year the Penning trap was invented.”
“Hans Dehmelt won the Nobel Prize in Physics for its invention in 1989. It made a major impact in my life.”
“You wanted to be a physicist?”
“No, I wanted to be Captain Kirk. The Penning trap is basically a vacuum environment capable of containing charged antimatter in a magnetic prison. Antimatter is what makes warp speed possible, without which the starship Enterprise could never have explored strange new worlds.”
“Could they be harvesting antimatter?”