The God Particle (19 page)

So, on that fateful day in September 1942, he did the right
thing and changed the world forever. In front of some of the most powerful men
of the Third Reich, he put on his best poker face and played his hand. And they
fell for the bluff, hook, line and sinker. The project was abandoned within
weeks as being too costly. Facilities were closed down and resources
re-directed to more conventional weapons. He was re-assigned to the Reich Air
Ministry and stationed at Peenemünde Airfield on the Baltic Coast, where he
worked on the V-1 flying bomb until the end of the war.

Not satisfied with having averted a holocaust, the likes of
which the world had never witnessed before, he had one last heroic act to
perform. He believed that he could foreshorten the war, saving thousands of lives,
if he could pass his findings to the Allies, on the proviso that they would
never detonate the bomb but use the device as a deterrent to force Germany into
an armistice. Having received the assurances via a highly-respected neutral
intermediary, he handed over his entire research.

‘…and the rest, as they say, ladies and gentlemen, is
history.’ Deiter stood his ground, waiting for the audience to burst into
rapturous applause. Instead, he was greeted by three blank faces and a rather
bored-looking security guard.

‘Your father was Reinhardt?’ Volker asked incredulously,
breaking the silence.

‘Yes, Professor Viktor Reinhardt,’ Deiter corrected. ‘A
brilliant scientist who saved the world, but couldn’t even get a job teaching
physics in high school when the war ended. He was ridiculed by his so-called
peers, who insisted that the errors he made when calculating the amount of
radioactive material required to make a bomb weren’t deliberate, but were the
actions of an incompetent fool. He took his own life – a broken man, destitute
and riddled with guilt for passing his research to the Americans. And all
because of some misguided loyalty to the human race.

‘And that’s why you’re doing this?’ Serena’s face was a mask
of contempt. ‘Out of some kind of twisted revenge for you father not having
received the recognition you think he deserved?’

Deiter’s face flushed. ‘My father was a weak, pathetic man,’
he barked. ‘I was ashamed to carry his name through life, so I changed it to my
mother’s maiden name. He should have stuck to his principles as a physicist and
developed the bomb for the Nazis. As scientists, it is not in our remit to be
morally judgemental. We push back the frontiers of knowledge and let others
decide what they do with the results…
that’s
what we do.’

‘Even if it means hundreds of thousands of innocent people
could die?’ Serena interjected.

‘Yes, and that’s exactly what happened as a result of my
father
doing the right thing.
The only difference is that the innocent
victims, in his case, changed from Western to Asian. Does that make it easier
for you to digest?’ Deiter sneered back at her.

‘I’d love to know what Freud would have made of this guy’s
father complex,’ Tom whispered to Serena as Deiter turned away from them.

He must have caught the gesture out of the corner of his
eye, because he suddenly snapped his head round to face Tom. ‘If you’ve got
something to say, Professor Halligan, why don’t you share it with the rest of us?’

Tom hadn’t felt this admonished since he was a schoolboy.
Furthermore, he could feel his face colouring with embarrassment. ‘Er… I was
just saying to Serena that you can’t keep us down here forever. Sooner or
later, we’ll be missed.’

‘I have no intention of keeping you here for long,’ Deiter
replied, icily.

‘Then what do you intend doing with us?’ A nervous edge had
crept into Serena’s voice.

‘I’m glad you asked, Miss Mayer,’ Deiter smiled benignly,
picking up on her anxiety. ‘The Collider is due to be tested tomorrow to
ascertain what damage was done during the explosion. You three will have front
row seats. Only, I fear you may be a little too close for comfort.’

‘You’re insane,’ Serena blurted out.

‘
In a mad world, only the mad are sane,’
Deiter quoted.
‘The human race’s voraciousness to destroy itself is matched only by its
ingenuity in achieving it. Well, this time they may have just realised their
goal and scientists will not be there to put a stop to it. In fact, the
experiment will be brought to the doorstep of millions – literally.
Unfortunately for them, they won’t be around to share the results with the rest
of us who are left.’

‘Is that all this is to you? Just an
experiment
?’
Serena asked, provokingly.

‘Not
just
an experiment, my dear,’ replied Deiter. ‘
The
greatest
experiment the world has ever seen.’

‘And what makes you so certain you will be one of the
survivors?’ Volker queried.

‘There’s an element of uncertainty in every experiment we
do,’ replied Deiter. ‘That’s what makes it interesting – but what we do is
balance those risks against the probable outcome. Take where we are, for
example. Switzerland is a land-locked country, so there is little danger from tsunamis.
If there were a mega-quake in the Mediterranean, then we have some of the
highest mountains in the world where we can take refuge until the flood waters
subside. There have been no reports of earthquake activity here since the
fourteenth century, so it’s a fairly safe assumption that there are no active
fault lines in the region.’

‘You’ll never get away with it,’ Tom ventured.

Deiter ignored his protestation, gesturing to the security
guard to leave the room.

‘It’s been a very…’ Deiter searched his mind for the right
adjective. ‘
Cathartic
experience, and I would have liked to discuss my
hypotheses further. Unfortunately, time is not on my side. In the meanwhile,
I’ll leave you with your handiwork, Professor Volker.’

He pressed a button on the remote control and the TV flicked
to life, showing the havoc caused by the San Francisco quake, before following
the guard out. They all flinched in unison as they heard the metallic clang of
the tumblers clicking into place as the door locked with some finality.

The warm waters lapped at his bare feet as Chad lay prone on
the surfboard, waiting for the right time to paddle. Timing was everything. The
difference between catching the wave and a total wipeout… or, on this occasion,
death.

In his short career, he had never been daunted by the size
of the swells and had competed at most of the big wave locations around the
world – California, Hawaii, Tahiti, even the UK. The opportunity to travel
whilst doing something he really enjoyed was the reason he turned pro in the
first place.

He wasn’t academically bright; even so, it hadn’t been easy
for him to tell his father that he was dropping out of his final year at High
School. He’d expected some resistance, but not on the scale that ensued after
he’d told him that he’d got a sponsor and wanted to become a professional
surfer. During the blazing row, his father had called him a moron – or, at
least, that’s what he thought he’d said. It wasn’t until much later, after he’d
stormed out of the house and met up with his buddies, that they’d explained to
him the definition of an oxymoron and he realised his old man was referring to
the words ‘professional’ and ‘surfer’ being contradictory as opposed to him
being one. It didn’t matter by then, however. They had both said things in the
heat of the moment they couldn’t go back on.
Besides, anybody who dissed his
passion, dissed him.

Growing up in San Diego meant that he was never far from the
love of his life.

He started surfing at the age of 6 when he was given his
first board – a five-foot Liquid Shredder soft board – by his parents as a
present after writing a letter to Santa. He quickly outgrew it (and the need
for Father Christmas) and traded it in for a seven-foot hardboard, which had
the ability to turn more easily.

By the time he’d reached High School he was spending more
time on the beach than he was in classes. On more than one occasion he found
himself grounded and his board confiscated by his parents after receiving a
visit from the truancy officer.

It was around this time that he started to notice the groups
of bikini-clad girls hanging around the beach, particularly whenever there was
a surfing competition on. The guys referred to them as ‘groupies’ or ‘babes’
and bragged about how many they’d had. He never really considered himself as good-looking,
but the attention he was attracting from the younger girls seemed to contradict
that opinion.

He had studied his naked form in the full-length mirror in
his bedroom to work out whether there was something he was missing. His shaggy,
sun-bleached blond hair was parted at the side, with a long fringe over his
aquamarine blue eyes. It fell in layers to just above his shoulders. He had
noticed his muscles starting to develop, particularly the ones he used for
surfing – his triceps and chest muscles he used to quickly push himself to his
feet, while his upper back and neck muscles helped him keep his chest up off
the nose of the board, so he could paddle more efficiently, and his leg muscles
were essentially the powerhouse – calves for balance and control, thighs for
speed and direction. They were the ones that particularly ached after surfing
all day.

He was of average height, compared to the other guys he hung
out with. And his nose certainly wasn’t as big as the Cohen brothers – if
anything, it tipped up slightly at the end. His teeth were straight and white
and his lips full. All-in-all, he couldn’t understand the interest he was
getting; but, as his father always said, ‘There’s no accounting for taste.’

Surfing is an art form, an expression of one’s creative and
athletic impulses, slashed across the fluid, unpredictable canvas of the ocean
surface. Over the next three years he’d honed his skills and his body to become
one of the foremost virtuoso surfers in the area. By the time he was seventeen,
he had surfed the entire San Diego coastline and had even competed in some
events, winning trophies for his speed, control and power. That’s when he got
spotted by a local surfboard shack and was offered a sponsorship deal. It
didn’t provide him with much of an income, but it did pay for travel expenses
and equipment costs – as long as he was doing well and wore the T-shirt.

He’d left home shortly after the bust-up with his old man to
join the circus, which was the professional surfer’s circuit. Having passed his
driving test the previous year, he used the money that his family had given him
towards his first car to buy a 1999 Four Winds motor home for a dollar short of
fifteen thousand from a local dealer. He hadn’t haggled with the salesman about
the price because he was told that another three people were interested in it
and he didn’t want to lose it. It slept five at a push, but most of the time it
was just him and his two surfboards. He did have the occasional overnight
guest; but, because of the transient nature of his chosen career, he was never
in one place long enough to forge a lasting relationship.

His goal was to get on the Association of Surfing
Professionals’ (ASP) World tour. However, for that he needed a more generous
sponsor. His big break came when he was competing in the American Pro Surfing
Series at Huntington Beach, California. It was a sixty-four man knock-out
competition, based over five heats, with a fifty per cent elimination rate
after each round. He’d managed to get down to the last eight and was up against
some old pros. He knew that wave selection was the single most important factor
for winning the heat, as did the other seven competitors.

The wave he selected would determine the manoeuvres he was
able to perform; marks were awarded by the panel of judges on how radical and
controlled those movements were over the functional distance of the wave. In
short, the bigger the wave, the better chance he had to impress the judges with
his speed and power. His technique for selecting a good wave started on the
shoreline, where he would watch the swells come in, getting a feel for their
breaking patterns and gauging their size. After a short time, he was able to
predict how big an oncoming wave would be and where it would begin to break. He’d
paddle out to the site and wait for the next big swell.

Catching the wave was the easy bit – it was what you did
after that that would determine whether you received a high score or not. You
can’t read the characteristics of a wave in advance; you have to be able to
adapt your movement to suit the idiosyncrasies of your chosen ride. On this
particular occasion, that ride turned out to be a real bitch. It started off
okay – breaking to the right, the tip peeling back in a continuous line to form
a twenty-foot glassy canvas on which to paint his turns.

He was about halfway to the beach when the centre of the
wave collapsed; he narrowly avoided a wipeout with a power turn that took him
away from the crashing surf. He had just completed this manoeuvre when the same
thing happened in front of him. With no room to turn this time, he angled the
board at the crest of the wave and popped over the top into the calmer waters
behind the surf, knowing that he’d blown his chances of a decent score.
Dejected, he paddled back to the beach and made his way to his motor home to
brood, without even bothering to hear his scores. The consolatory pats on the
back and sympathetic looks he received confirmed what he knew already.

He was halfway through his third bottle of Bud, when
somebody wrapped on his door. He was in two minds as to whether to ignore it,
when the door opened and the interloper stepped in.

‘Hey dude, don’t you wait to be invited in?’ Chad said
grumpily.

‘Not usually,’ the man countered. ‘Name’s Hogan. I represent
a clothing manufacturer. You may have heard of us.’ He handed his business card
over.

Chad took it and read the details. ‘Steve Hogan, Sponsorship
Manager, North America.’ That caught his attention, but what piqued his
interest more was the logo on the top of the card. Rip Curl.

‘You did well out there, kid.’ There wasn’t a hint of pity
in his voice.

‘I was totally walled off,’ Chad replied despondently.

‘Yeah, but before that, you did well. It was just bad luck –
you did the best you could with the hand you were dealt. I’ve been in this
business long enough to spot real talent when I see it. Let’s say you offer me
a Bud and we’ll discuss what I have in mind?’

Two days later, Chad had a contract in his hand entitling
him to a full sponsorship deal including a remuneration package of $250,000 per
year.
Who’s the moron now?
he thought to himself as he signed his name
at the bottom of the document.

***

That same thought crossed his mind again now as he waited
for the biggest wave of his life. It was, of course, one of those urban legends
that went around the surfing community – everybody had heard of somebody doing
it, but nobody knew their name or had met the person who had done it. It was
always, ‘Some dude in Thailand…’ or ‘This Aussie guy...’

There was always enough information to make it sound
convincing, but never enough detail to prove it either way. Well, he was about
to find out first-hand whether it was a fallacy or not.
Could a pro surfer
ride out a tsunami wave?

***

It had been just over three years ago that he’d signed up as
one of Rip Curl’s rising stars. They had appointed him a Personal Assistant,
who was responsible for organising his calendar, booking him into the
tournaments, making the travel arrangements, setting up the photo shoots and
interviews – everything, really, apart from wiping his arse. All he had to do
was be at the designated pick-up point at the allotted time and he would be
whisked off to the relevant beach via a plane, train, boat or automobile.

He had traded in his old motor home for the four and
five-star hotels that the company were putting him up in. He wasn’t complaining
– he got to do what he loved doing the most without the hassle of organising
it. And the chicks! Those had increased exponentially. And it was a lot more
comfortable screwing on a king-size Marriott bed than it was in the back of his
old motor home. There had been a couple of girls that had wanted more than a
casual relationship, but either he hadn’t found the right one or he just wasn’t
ready to settle down. Either way, they were given the cold shoulder if they got
too pushy.

After two years of mastering his craft in the minor
tournaments, netting himself a cabinet-full of trophies and a healthy bank
account of prize money, he had got to realise his dream of competing in the ASP
World Championships. The tour had taken in Brazil, Fiji, French Polynesia,
France, Portugal, Hawaii, America and his final destination – the Gold Coast,
Queensland, Australia.

It was here, after a particular late night and an even later
morning, that he switched on the TV in his hotel room to discover that an alert
had been put out by the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC) of an
earthquake off the west coast of Vanuatu. Although the islands themselves had
received little damage from the tremors, the displacement of the sea floor had
generated a huge tsunami, which was heading for the east coast of Australia. A
clock on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen indicated the estimated time
of impact – 48 minutes and 10 seconds… 9 seconds… 8 seconds… 7 seconds…

He’d looked out of his bedroom window to see a slow-moving,
almost stationary, line of traffic heading inland, away from the coast. His
first thought was to join them, then he considered moving to the top floor of
the hotel. Finally, he decided on his current course of action. If he was going
to die, he wanted to do so doing something he loved, not trapped in a car like
a rat in a box, or crushed to death by falling masonry.

He’d raised the comatose form that had slept beside him with
a gentle shake of the shoulders before telling her the good news. It had taken
the images on the TV and a trip to the window before she finally believed what
he was telling her. Her first reaction was to panic; she ran around the room,
screaming and gathering the clothes she had discarded on the floor the night
before. Chad had to physically restrain her before she calmed down enough to
take in her option. Being a non-surfer, her best bet would be to get to the
roof of the hotel and tie herself onto something stable. She dutifully agreed
and left the room in a state of shock, having only managed to put on half her
clothes.

Chad had donned his wet suit and made his way to the
underground car park, where his rented Subaru Outback was parked, his surfboard
having been secured to the roof rack with bungee cords. It was a relatively
easy journey to the beach – his side of the road being devoid of all vehicles.
He was amazed at the variety of hand gestures, facial expressions and signals
that people used to try to tell him he was going the wrong way. Only once, at a
police checkpoint, did they try to physically turn him back; but, when he
explained that he’d left his younger sister playing on the beach, they let him
through.

All that was left for him to do was choose any one of the
deserted parking slots by the beach, unclip his board from the roof, paddle out
to sea, and wait.

***

If the countdown on the TV was accurate, he figured he
wouldn’t have much longer to wait. He ran through his strategy in his mind one
last time. If the urban myths were to be believed, the first indication of the
wave approaching would be the ‘drawback’, where the shoreline recedes
dramatically, exposing the normally submerged seabed for hundreds of feet. To
counter being stranded, like so many fish would be, he had paddled far out to
sea.

He looked back over his shoulder at the beach and could see
the sun glinting off the roof of the solitary vehicle, some half a mile away in
the distance. He would be carried along with the retreating tide, taking him
further out to sea, towards the horizon, powerless to fight against the
currents sucking him towards the unstoppable wall of water.