Free Lethal Exposure by Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason

door, prepare it for the next person. If I die with my work unresolved, the door will slam shut again. All my thoughts—all my life—will be worthless.”
    Craig tried to be soothing. “If you’re already up for the Nobel Prize, you’ve done plenty in your life. Your work will be carried on by others.”
    “Consider it this way, sir,” Dumenco said. “If you were to leave this case, another agent could pick up the clues and perhaps solve my murder. Forgive my arrogance, but if I die now it will be many years before someone grasps this esoteric subset of particle physics to synthesize what I have done and take it to the next step.”
    He moved his rook into position and scanned the board. Craig moved another piece, and Dumenco countered rapidly. “Check,” he said simply.
    With sudden embarrassed alarm, Craig studied the board. He moved to counter the Ukrainian’s ploy.
    “Are you a scientist, Agent Kreident?” Dumenco said.
    “I have some training,” Craig said. It had been a long time since putting himself through Stanford, working for Elliot Lang’s PI agency. . . . “I’ve got a physics undergraduate degree, and I went into patent law after law school—I thought that was where the money was, but it was boring.”
    Dumenco moved his queen, calmly said, “Checkmate,” then leaned back into his pillow as if exhausted. He closed his eyes as Craig scrutinized the little magnetic chesspieces, trying to understand what the Ukrainian had done. He could find no last-ditch way out.
    “Have you heard of the mathematician Fermat?” Dumenco asked.
    Craig frowned. “Of course.”
    The old man’s lips were swollen, and he spoke in a quiet whisper. “After his death, someone discovered a handwritten notation in one of his texts—Fermat claimed to have found an ‘elegant proof’ for one of the great mathematical mysteries. But he didn’t write down that proof, and mathematicians wracked their brains for centuries to rediscover it. Until just recently, Fermat’s Last Theorem remained unproven.” Dumenco finally opened his eyes again to look at Craig. “I don’t want to be the high-energy physics equivalent of Fermat.”
    Craig swallowed a lump in his throat.
    “Maybe this will help.” They both turned to see Paige Mitchell standing at the door to the intensive care room, a folder full of papers in her hand. But Trish LeCroix bustled up to block the way.
    “You can’t go in there.” Trish looked sourly down at the sheaf of printouts. “Dr. Dumenco needs to rest and gather his energy. If you give him those papers, he won’t sleep a minute.”
    Paige held the folder so tightly her knuckles whitened. “He was quite insistent about having them. Let me guess—you must be Trish?”
    “It’s Patrice.” The room temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees.
    Craig interrupted. “This is Paige Mitchell, from Fermilab on Dr. Dumenco’s request. It was the only way he would agree to go back to his hospital room.” He looked intently at Trish’s sepia eyes behind her delicate eyeglasses. “Let him have the papers,” he said, lowering his voice. “Those experimental results mean more to Dumenco than anything right now. Maybe he loses a little sleep, but he’ll die a lot happier.”
    Trish’s eyes flashed, but she backed away, gesturing Paige inside.
    Dumenco sat up in his hospital bed with an expression of such extreme delight that Craig knew he had made the right decision. The scientist swept the chessboard away from the small table, knocking magnetic pieces in all directions. “Bring them here—thank you, thank you. You’re very kind.”
    “It’s the least I could do,” she said. “Dr. Piter also asked me to pass along that he is at your disposal if you require anything else.”
    Dumenco rolled his eyes. “That man has been a thorn in my side for years, just because some of my work contradicts his old CERN papers. I’m glad he is at least pretending to have a change of heart.”
    As the