Ben Hope 05 - The Shadow Project

  ?There?s probably a boar in there or something.? There were more important things on Ben?s mind than whatever was preoccupying the dog. ?Why did you think I was dead??

  ?I was brought up believing it. That?s what Maximilian told me. He said there?d been this whole investigation. That he?d used every bit of his influence to find my family, and that what had come out was that my parents and my brother had been killed. I was only a kid. What was I supposed to think? At the time, I just accepted the reality I was presented with.?

  Ben narrowed his eyes. ?Killed how??

  ?An air crash, in India. A small tourist plane smashed into a mountain. He showed me the press cuttings. I saw it clearly. It was all there. Alistair Hope, his wife Kathleen and their son Benedict. He couldn?t have got that wrong, could he??

  ?No,? Ben said. ?I don?t think there was any mistake.? Rage was building inside him. Steiner?s wealth gave him the power to fake just about anything he wanted. But to deliberately fabricate a lie of this magnitude ? why would he do such a thing?

  ?I don?t understand,? she muttered. ?When I was seventeen I wanted to find out more about what had happened. Maybe I didn?t totally trust Maximilian, I don?t know. I hired a private investigator from Bern to trace information about you all. He came back to me with exactly the same stuff Maximilian had.?

  Ben said nothing.

  Realisation crossed her face like a passing shadow. ?The bastard got to him. Paid him off. Shit. I should have thought of it. More lies.? She shook her head.

  ?The question is why,? Ben said. ?Why has Steiner pretended all these years??

  ?Are our parents still alive, Ben?? she asked suddenly, excitement flaring for a brief moment.

  He sighed. ?No. He wasn?t lying about that. They?re dead. But it wasn?t a plane crash.?

  ?What happened to them??

  It was hard to say it, but he told her the truth about their mother?s suicide and their father?s subsequent pining away. She paled as she listened, and buried her face in her hands.

  ?I hate him,? she said. ?I hate that evil bastard. I?ll get him for what he?s done to us all.?

  ?What about Silvia?? he asked. ?You think she was in on it too??

  Ruth shook her head vigorously. ?He lies to her about everything. Even after all these years, he?s got her believing the sun shines out of his ass. She gave up everything for him, to live in that mausoleum. So, no, I don?t think she?s in on it. She?s a good person, not like him. I was close to her once. I wish I still could be. My cousin Otto, too. I miss them.?

  ?What happened between you and Steiner??

  She shrugged. ?I grew up, and he couldn?t deal with it. There was endless fighting. He wouldn?t let me breathe. I couldn?t do anything, couldn?t have a horse, couldn?t do this, couldn?t do that. The more he tried to control me, the more I rebelled against him. Hanging out with people he disapproved of, smoking dope, getting involved in environmental causes, going on marches. He was probably afraid I?d cause a family scandal. In the end he gave me an ultimatum. Either toe the line or get out. I got out.?

  ?From teen rebellion to kidnapping,? Ben said. ?That was a big step up.?

  ?Yeah, well, you know why I took it. Because of the Kammler papers.?

  ?You?re going to have to explain all this to me.?

  Her lips curled into a dark, grim smile. ?OK, but I can do better than just explain. I can show you. Have you got a computer??

  ?In the office.?

  ?Let?s go. There are things you need to see. Then you?ll understand.?

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  They left the ruined church and started making their way back along the leafy path through the woods. There was a closeness between them now that hadn?t been there before, and it warmed him more than the June sun streaming through the trees.

  ?How much do you know about science?? she asked him as they walked slowly side by side.

  ?Just what I?ve picked up here and there,? he answered.

  ?You never studied it, then??

  ?I studied theology, then war. Why??

  ?I studied science,? she told him. ?Physics. University of Geneva was where I took my first degree. When I graduated I went to Bonn for my PhD.?

  He stared at her in surprise. ?How does someone with a science doctorate end up selling pottery??

  ?Because I happen to give a shit about scientific integrity. Science is meant to be the pure pursuit of knowledge for the good of the planet and its occupants, you know? But of course that?s not the way it works. Like when a big telecommunications corporation uses bribes and threats to suppress studies that prove carcinogenic effects from mobile phone radiation. Or when astrophysics research projects get mysteriously shut down because someone inconveniently showed up major flaws in the Big Bang Theory. Little things like corruption and hypocrisy, I kind of have a problem with. I?d rather be helping Franz to sell his art than be part of that fucking machine. All it does is serve the establishment.?

  ?You?re an idealist,? he said.

  ?Something wrong with that??

  ?Not at all. I?ve had the same problem all my life.?

  ?Then you understand why I quit my career. But before that, it was my whole life. I was eighteen when I went away to Geneva. Maximilian hated me being away from home, but he was pleased I was following in his footsteps.?

  ?How so??

  ?You didn?t know? Before he made all his money, way back, he trained in chemistry and physics. Was pretty talented at it, too. That?s what got him started in business ? when he was a student he patented a heart drug that got taken up by a big pharmaceutical company and made him rich. Anyway,? she went on, ?off I went. I had everything money could buy. Maximilian bought me a luxury apartment in Geneva. I had a sports car, a fat allowance. Everything except freedom. He wouldn?t let me have friends or go to parties with the other students. He always seemed to know what I was doing, like he was having me followed. Insisted I always came straight home for vacations and couldn?t leave until term began again. That?s why I was there, the summer after the end of my first year, when I overheard the phone call.?

  ?What phone call??

  ?Between him and his brother Karl. Not long before poor old Karl died. Shame, I liked him. Maximilian had been collecting antiquities for years by then, and he was telling his brother about these documents he?d found by chance at some auction.?

  ?You mean the Kammler papers??

  She nodded. ?Of course, back then I?d never heard of Kammler. But he was telling Karl what an amazing discovery it was. Amazing and worrying, and how he?d been sitting up nights reading the stuff, becoming obsessed with it. I could hear Karl?s voice on the speakerphone. He told Maximilian that if this stuff was even half true, he?d be out of business and that it was best to lock it away and not let anyone else see it. He was kind of joking, but I could tell that Maximilian was taking it really seriously. He was scared.?

  ?I don?t understand. What was it about the Kammler documents that was spooking him so badly??

  They?d reached the office. Storm left them to go sniffing round the buildings, and Ben led Ruth inside.

  ?That?s what I?m going to show you,? she replied. ?And it?s going to blow your mind.?

  ?I?ve heard that before,? he said, thinking of Lenny Salt.

  ?Just wait and see.?

  Ben fired up the laptop on his desk. As it whirred into action, he ran his eye over the pile of mail that was stacked up beside it. He was about to sweep the whole lot aside when he noticed the official Steiner logo on the envelope.

  ?That looks familiar,? Ruth said.

  Ben tore it open, remembering the letter that Dorenkamp had mentioned. It was from Steiner?s lawyer. An invoice for forty thousand euros in respect of damages incurred to property during Ben?s brief period of employment. The letter finished tartly by warning that ?If the outstanding sum is not paid promptly within fourteen days, there will be further legal action and possible criminal charges.?

  He tossed it down on the desk. Ruth read it
and whistled. ?Even at my worst, I only managed to smash a few of his windows. What the hell did you do??

  ?I had an argument with a smoke alarm. Now let?s see what you have to show me.?

  ?Get ready,? she said. ?When you see this, everything you thought you knew about the modern world is going to change.? She sat in the swivel chair and he watched over her shoulder as her fingers rattled over the keys. She quickly entered a website URL and a box flashed up on the screen asking for a password. She rattled the keys again and hit ENTER, and the site opened up. Its design was basic, homemade, and Ben realised right away that its only function was as a repository for data files, secure storage for large amounts of information that could be accessed only by a chosen few.

  ?This is access only,? she said. ?Not open to the public. Rudi created it, and we uploaded all our research stuff onto it. I?ve never shown it to anyone on the outside.? She scrolled down an index of files, all with coded names that made no sense to Ben. ?You?re a big boy,? she said, selecting one and clicking on it. ?I think you can handle it if I throw you right in at the deep end.?

  As Ben watched, a video file loaded up onscreen and then began to play. The video seemed to have been filmed in some kind of warehouse. Bare brick walls, concrete floor.

  ?You?re looking at a storage facility on the edge of Frankfurt,? Ruth explained. ?We hired it cheap, no questions.?

  ?Who?s filming this??

  ?I?m holding the camera. Franz was there too, operating the gear. A few other guys, too. All witnesses to what happened there.?

  ?Franz, the potter??

  ?He wasn?t always a potter. He was my colleague at Frankfurt University, where we were both teaching applied physics at the time this was filmed.?

  As Ben watched, the camera panned slowly across a massive bank of equipment that looked as if someone had salvaged it from a 1950s military base or the set of some antiquated science-fiction movie. Lights flashed, the display of an oscilloscope glowed green, the needles on gauges pulsed up and down. Banks of diodes and buttons and dials, wires trailing everywhere. The equipment was emitting an electrical hum. The camera panned across to reveal more of the warehouse, and more equipment wired together across twenty yards of the concrete floor.

  ?This was all stuff we bought as junk, borrowed or stole wherever we could and rigged up ourselves,? Ruth explained. ?There?s a Van de Graaff generator, a bunch of tuning capacitors, and that thing there that looks like a giant dumbbell is a Tesla coil. Nothing fancy or expensive. That?s the beauty of it.?

  Ben didn?t reply, watching without comprehension of what he was seeing. In an empty space a few metres from the machinery were two large items that could only be described as scrap metal. One was a huge rusting cast-iron hulk of an old mangle that looked as though it had been dragged out of a river and probably weighed over seventy kilos. Next to it was a truck axle and differential, complete with double wheels. Beside the axle lay a small dark object that Ben couldn?t make out at first, then realised was a plain black baseball cap.

  ?What is this all about?? he asked.

  ?Just watch.?

  Some voices could be heard offscreen from behind the camera. Then someone went ?Shh? and the room fell into a hush. The hum from the equipment grew louder. Lights began to flash faster. The readouts on the dials went wild.

  ?It?s starting,? Ruth said. ?You?re going to be amazed.?

  Ben watched closely.

  Nothing was happening.

  ?I don?t see anything so spe?? he began.

  And his voice trailed off in mid-word and his eyes opened wide as the baseball cap, the truck axle and the enormous mangle all suddenly sailed weightlessly up into the air.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  The items hovered there, levitating without support. Ben stared hard at the screen, searching for tell-tale wires that might explain how this trickery was being done. But there were no wires, and what happened next made his jaw drop. While the baseball cap and the mangle floated in mid-air, the massive truck axle started to rotate slowly around on an invisible pivot. Then it suddenly took off, flashing across the warehouse faster than the eye could follow and smashing itself into the far wall with a loud crash and a cloud of masonry dust. A solid lump of metal, half a ton or more, zipping through the air like a lightweight arrow.

  Propelled, apparently, by nothing.

  At that point, the video clip came to an end, the image of the axle?s impact freezing on the screen. ?We turned everything off then,? she said. ?Aborted the experiment. We couldn?t control the movement or direction of the objects, and it was just too dangerous to continue. Then we packed up the gear and got the hell out of there before the warehouse owners discovered the damage to the wall.?

  Ben tore his gaze away from the screen and turned to her. ?This isn?t for real,? he said. ?It?s got to be faked.?

  ?Come on. Open your eyes. To fake that on camera would cost millions. It would take the kind of CGI special effects technology they use in the movies. Did that experiment look that well funded to you? No, Ben, this is real. And there?s more.?

  He looked at her, studied her face for traces of a lie and could see she was absolutely serious. ?OK. That was impressive. But what the hell was it??

  ?It?s not a magic trick,? she replied, allowing a smile. ?It?s scientific reality. What I?ve just shown you was the most successful AG experiment Franz and I ever achieved.?

  ?AG??

  ?Anti-gravity. The next one we did was a disaster. Nothing worked properly. Soon after that, the university cottoned on to what we were doing and found out that we?d borrowed some equipment from their labs without permission. We got sacked for conducting dangerous, unorthodox experiments ? for which read experiments that the academic establishment and its corporate paymasters don?t want the world to know about.?

  Ben shook his head in confusion. ?Hold on. I thought that what you were going to show me had to do with the Kammler papers ? stuff dating back to the 1940s.?

  Ruth tapped the screen with her finger. ?That?s exactly what this is, Ben. Harnessing hidden energies, tapping into the power of the ether. That?s what Kammler?s work is all about.?

  ?It sounds more like science fiction. Something from the future.?

  ?Wrong. Scientists have been talking about it for centuries. Benjamin Franklin said in 1780 that ?We may learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity for the sake of easy transportation.??

  ?How did you get into this stuff?? he asked, still reeling from what he?d just seen and fighting to make sense of it.

  ?Remember I told you how I?d overheard Maximilian?s phone call that time, when I was a student? Well, this is the stuff he was telling his brother about. As soon as my vacation was over and I went back to university, I started digging through every science text I could find that could explain what it was all about. Of course, the tutors did all they could to discourage me. It was years before I started seeing the deeper implications, and understanding that this radical, incredible thing was based on a complex phenomenon called Zero Point Energy.?

  ?I?ve never heard of it.?

  ?Not many people have. That?s for two reasons. One, because the physics of it makes Einstein?s relativity look like first-year maths. Secondly, because there are a lot of rich folks out there who stand to gain if this thing stays a secret. Zero Point Energy is, basically, free energy.?

  He pointed at the screen. ?So you?re saying Kammler?s research was to make stuff float about??

  ?There?s much more to it than that,? she said. ?OK, I?ll try to make it simple. As Einstein showed, we need to think of the universe and everything in it as an infinite soup of energy. Including you and me. We might think we?re real and solid, but in reality we?re just floating clouds of electrons. All that?s stopping us from falling apart, or disappearing through the floor, is the interaction of electromagnetic forces. We?re literally made up of and surrounded by gigantic, limitless amounts of energy.?

  Ben frowned, absorbing the
ideas.

  ?Now, when it comes to trying to exploit natural resources for human civilisation, our technology is limited to using the crudest methods imaginable. Fossil fuels are inefficient, wasteful and harmful to the planet. And they?re running out fast. But imagine if we could tap into the natural energies that surround us, literally pulling power out of the ether. We?d be rewriting the future of the planet. Each home with its own little Zero Point Energy reactor, providing unlimited power for heat and light. Free. Safe. Clean. No more toxic by-products to dispose of. No more gases pumping into the atmosphere, no more radioactive waste sitting at the bottom of the ocean. For the first time since the industrial revolution, humans would actually be living in harmony with the Earth instead of destroying it.?