Free Lethal Exposure by Kevin J. Anderson, Doug Beason Page B

have to accept it for his dear-departed mentor.
    Nicholas Bretti took a deep breath. The fading rush of adrenaline had left him with a case of the shakes. He had to move fast before anyone found the man he’d shot. He had to take his equipment and get out of here.
    Over at his work station, Bretti carefully disconnected the transfer mechanism from the Penning trap. Working quickly, he attached the much smaller, but much more efficient crystal lattice trap and accelerometer to a port upstream from the main detector, where the substation tapped into the Tevatron flow. The crystal trap was the real key, a treasure chest for storing antimatter—but it needed nearly a week to collect enough p-bars to make it worthwhile.
    Similar to the hundreds of other diagnostics attached to the beam channel, his small device had never drawn attention. Many teams of technicians had their own equipment in these substations, and nobody ever messed with someone else’s diagnostics. It just wasn’t done.
    Instead of passively imaging the intense, rotating beam of p-bars, Bretti’s lattice trap would bleed off antimatter particles after they had been laser cooled and slowed by the accelerometer.
    Glancing at an oval clock that one of the grad students had wired to run counterclockwise, Bretti saw that it hadn’t been more than three minutes since he had fired the shots. Still, much too long. He had to get out of here.
    Grunting, Bretti lifted the disconnected Penning trap. Its case was lined with high-efficiency lithium-ion batteries, making up the majority of the weight. Two insulating Dewars, one inside the other, held the Penning trap itself—three strips of room-temperature superconducting magnets that created a precise magnetic field shaped like a bottle, bouncing the p-bars back and forth along the axis. Over time, the bottle would leak, but the lithium ion batteries would keep the magnetic field alive long enough for him to get to India, while he filled the more efficient crystal-lattice trap that could literally hold nine orders of magnitude more antimatter.
    He walked carefully away from the isolated substation as if carrying a suitcase full of bricks. He locked the door to the blockhouse—with any luck, and with many of the temporary hires on break, the agent’s body wouldn’t be found until Bretti was safely out of the country.
    Making his way to his car, Bretti realized he didn’t even have time to drive back to his apartment and pick up his bags. He had a plane to catch.
    This early on Tuesday afternoon, Bretti didn’t have to worry about rush hour traffic heading into downtown Chicago. Still, with his battered nerves, he didn’t want to push his luck finding a parking spot for his small red Saturn—leased, but still a good bargain on his grad-student salary. He couldn’t walk for blocks lugging the bulky Penning trap. Every bag lady and cab driver would spot him and wonder. He tossed a cigarette out the window and started for the embassy.
    But first he pulled off to the side, stopping by jetty on the shore of huge gray Lake Michigan. The old concrete jetty was just remote enough that no one questioned people who stopped to gawk. Gold and red leaves from a cluster of trees hid him from others along the shoreline. A place for early-morning joggers; not much in the mid-afternoon.
    The traffic was sparse, and he waited scant seconds before he fumbled in his pocket for the stolen FBI handgun. The gun was slick and still seemed hot—hot from firing the bullets that had torn into the agent’s flesh. Bretti thought he could still feel the heat on the barrel, the unexpected kick from the recoil as he reacted without thinking.
    Standing on the jetty, he tossed the handgun underhand into the chilly depths where waves churned with the brisk October breeze. The heavy gun made a soft splash like a gulp, and was swallowed up by the gray surface.
    Much farther down the shore, a kid threw stones into the water, then ducked back as a wave