Wednesday, April 02, 2003

EXERPT Alma recounted this part

EXERPT

Alma recounted this part of the story, the cool elegance and the insinuating interrogation, the woman’s eagerness to learn of Avagadro’s whereabouts and business, her disdain and warning.  “She put a scare in me.  I thought she was going to do something to me.”
“Well, it looks like she could have - she certainly did something to Stanley.  She’s the only one who could have done it.  I never saw her.  She’s definitely professional.  I just don’t know which side of the aisle she’s working.  If she were one of them she’d have killed you on the spot.  If she were an ally she’d have tried to keep in touch.  It looks like she just disappeared.  She could have anything in mind. Stay with me and she won’t get close enough to see you, much less kill you.  But I don’t think she wants you dead.  Quite the opposite.  She’s warning you off.”
“No shit, Sherlock.  She’s also an ice bitch.  I don’t know what the hell she’s up to.”
“Did she say anything about Richard?”
“She just wanted to see the number.  I wouldn’t give it to her.  I told her about the $160 he gave me and she wanted to know who would get the note and how I would know who to give it to.”
“Did she know Richard gave you the message by mistake?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she know we look alike?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did she expect you to be passing the information to a woman?”
Alma thought for a moment.  “Yes - but I didn’t tell her that part.”
“Damn.  She’s onto something.  We’ve got to figure out her part in this.  But first we have to figure out this code.  He said to call him here ‘periodically’?”
“No, he said to try him there periodically.”
“Periodical.  Avogadro.” Fraser returned her attention to the sheet, and then stood and faced Alma with great intensity.  “Amadeo.”
“You can’t tell in this light...,” Alma replied dubiously.
“Amadeo Avogadro.  Italian physicist.  Developed a standard to describe a single functional mass unit of any chemical substance.  6.023 times ten to the twenty-third molecules in a mole.  The call it Avogadro’s number.”
“So how does that help us?”
The note was steady in her hand as she read it.  “PACKARD-Y.  It’s ‘elementary.’ These are all elements.  We just have to try them ‘periodically’.” Agent Fraser started reaching out across the desk, behind to the back wall, all around the office, checking the posters and informational wall-hangings which peeled like eucalyptus bark from all four walls.  Eventually she found one buried beneath the layers of maps, comparative alphabet charts and blueprints, and yanked it off the wall by its bottom edge.  She flung it across the desktop - a periodic chart of elements. 
“PACKARD(Y).  Eight letters, nine spaces.  P - that’s phosphorus, that’s easy.  Number 15.  Actinium - AC.  That’s number 89.  K - of course - “
“Kryptonite?”
“No, it’s still Potassium on this chart.  Number 19.  Argon - AR.  That’s number 18.  And DY is Dysprosium, that’s easy too.  Number 66.  So, now PACKARD(Y) decodes as 15 89 19 66.”
“That’s ten numbers.  He only put down nine spaces.”
“He must have run out of time.  You said he wrote this quickly.  We’ve got nothing else to go on.”
“But there’s still a lot more numbers.”
“I mean, other than them.” In a few minutes Agent Fraser had assembled a worksheet with a list of elements from the chart corresponding to the numbers in the note, along with their atomic symbols:
16 Sulphur S
8 Oxygen O
92 Uranium U
90 Thorium Th
84 Polonium Po
74 Tungsten W
68 Erbium Er
(+)
91 Protactinium Pa
60 Neodynium Nd
8 Oxygen O
88 Radium Ra

“Jackpot.  These are city map coordinates.  South Power and Pandora.  The other part must be an access code.”
“Great.  Are we finished?”
“Not really.  I know this place.  It’s a corner with four vacant lots, where the old main powerhouse used to stand.  It’s completely empty now.  It’s our lead, though.  It’s what he wanted us to know.  Something important happens there.  I just have no idea what.  Let’s talk in the car.  If Richard’s willing to risk your life to make sure this note got to me, I’m curious to see what he has in mind.”
“Yes, curious....” Alma repeated the word as she followed Agent Fraser out of the office, remembering the look in Stan’s eyes, the flow of his blood.  She had almost forgotten for a moment; it was just cops and robbers, cowboys and indians.  She had to remember that this was really happening.  People were being carted away in body bags.  She had almost been one.