The God Particle (2 page)

The question from Göring was thrown out to the table. A
resolute shaking of heads was his reply. ‘In that case, gentlemen, I’d like to
thank you for your time and wish you all a good day.’ He got up from his chair,
stood to attention and saluted the picture on the far wall. ‘Heil Hitler!’
Everybody in the room followed his lead, but only one man was holding his
breath.

The alarm sounded in Reactor 5, as it had done dozens of
times before. However, only one person heard it this time and he knew it wasn’t
a drill.

It had been over twenty-six hours since Katashi’s shift had
started and he had only managed to grab a thirty-minute nap during that time.
He was exhausted but, fuelled by adrenalin and caffeine, he was still able to
focus on the job in hand.

The initial shockwave had wiped out the power supply to the
reactors, causing them to shut down immediately. Without power, the reactors
would overheat, causing a meltdown. The backup diesel generators had kicked in,
as they were programmed to do in such an event, pumping around thousands of
gallons of water to cool the residual heat in the reactors. As long as the
pumps maintained the flow, the fuel rods would cool down over several hours,
making them safe.

Unfortunately, the tsunami had put paid to that idea. An
hour after the initial seismic tremor, the twenty-foot wave had breached the
compound’s outer walls and flooded the diesel generators.

***

Katashi Negano was in charge of the Containment of Hazardous
Materials Team (CHMT) based on-site at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant. His
father had worked at the plant from when it had first been commissioned in
1971, but had to give up work through ill health. He now lived with his wife,
Hikari, and their four-year-old daughter, Kimiko, in the coastal town of Soma.
Katashi’s mother had died when he was still a child, but he’d had an abundance
of aunties to supplement his upbringing by his father.

He joined the Fukushima Power Corporation after graduating
from Kyoto University with a master’s degree in nuclear engineering. Because of
his imperturbable, analytical nature, Katashi progressed rapidly through the
company and joined the CHMT as second-in-command, being promoted to team leader
three years later, when his superior retired. He was trained to deal with all conceivable
man-made and natural disasters; unfortunately, the magnitude of the earthquake
that hit the plant, and subsequent tsunami which followed, were outside the
conceivable boundaries that the safety systems were designed for.

The initial earthquake siren instigated the deployment of
the six-man CHMT, whose first task was to evacuate all nonessential personnel
from the plant. Roll calls were taken and employees were loaded onto waiting
coaches, to be ferried to the designated ‘safe’ town of Yonezawa, some thirty
miles away, which was protected from the plant by the mountain range of Nishi
Agatsuma.

Katashi had been through these measures several times
before, but only as a training exercise. It wasn’t exactly routine to him, but
the constant enactments of ‘what if’ scenarios had ingrained the procedures
into his, and his team’s, psyche. He was regarded as a firm but fair
taskmaster, practising emergency drills over and over again, until each member
of his team knew their role and what was expected of them.

Whilst the evacuees were being boarded, Katashi and a
three-man detail donned white, all-in-one protective suits with full head
visors and breathing equipment, and went to ascertain what damage had been
sustained to the three operational reactors. Luckily, only two days before,
reactors 2, 4 and 6 had been closed down for routine maintenance. He would have
had a communiqué from the control room if there had been a problem, but it was
in his nature to check and double-check.

They arrived at the first reactor building, a forty-foot
high, pre-fabricated construction made entirely of corrugated iron sheets. The
surprisingly flimsy structure was originally designed simply to keep the
weather out and would offer no protection from anything generated during a
nuclear reaction. Inside the building, the reactor core itself was encased in a
thick steel vessel, capable of withstanding high pressures. This, in turn, was
housed in a hermetically-sealed concrete and steel structure, known as the
containment chamber.

After a thorough inspection of the outside of the building,
Katashi was satisfied that there had been no external damage during the
earthquake, probably due to the flexibility of the materials it was made from.

‘All clear, we’re going in!’ Katashi gestured to the small
door at the side of the building. Putting on his mask and breathing equipment,
he led the team through the entrance.

The reactor building itself had no windows and was wholly
lit by florescent tubes. The air smelt of diesel from the generators, which
were producing the power to perform the crucial task of pumping water, through
a series of pipes in the reactor core, to cool it down.

The noise generated by the massive turbines made
communicating in such a confined area very difficult. In front of them was the
containment chamber itself, a massive conical structure, with walls over six
feet in depth, resembling a giant white beehive. The only way in was through a
two-foot thick, lead-lined steel door.

Tamotsu, the youngest member of the CHMT, held a Geiger
counter out in front of him. Katashi had a soft spot for Tamotsu; he reminded
him of himself. He had only been with the company six months, but he was eager
to learn. Qualified in Engineering Science, this was his first job since
leaving university and he was keen to make an impression. Unlike Katashi, who
had spent time in every department on the plant learning the ropes, Tamotsu had
applied directly to fill the vacant position that became available when Katashi
was promoted. His psychometric and aptitude tests weren’t that outstanding, but
it was down to Katashi to decide who he wanted in his team and, after
interviewing Tamotsu for several hours, he had made up his mind. Tamotsu had
the one thing crucial trait needed in this role: a cool head.

As Tamotsu surveyed the area around the outer building for
radiation leaks, the others inspected the external surfaces of the containment
chamber with flashlights for any damage.

‘No sign of any radiation leaks, so far,’ Tamotsu shouted to
his superior.

The visibility in their masks was limited; not having full
peripheral vision meant they had to turn their whole bodies in the direction
they wanted to see, which slowed them down. Katashi was aware they had another
two reactors to inspect after this one, but he wasn’t prepared to cut corners;
the slightest crack in any of the walls of the containment chamber could spell
disaster, not just for the people in the plant, but for miles around.

With a series of hand gestures and nods, Katashi indicated
that the inspection of the outer area was complete and that he and Tamotsu
should go through the reinforced door to inspect the containment chamber,
whilst the other two waited outside. He walked up the few steps to the entrance
and placed his chin on the shelf, just below the retinal scanner. Staring down
the lens he heard a hiss as the heavy door parted a fraction, breaking the seal
between the purified air of the chamber and the polluted air outside.

Tamotsu, who had followed Katashi up the steps, was the
first into the chamber. The door opened with surprising ease, given its size
and weight. Inside, the chamber was brightly-lit and clinically white. A panel
on the side wall indicated the status, temperature, pressure and output
capacity of the reactor, through a series of green, amber and red lights. At
that moment, it indicated that the core was in shut-down mode, but the
temperature and pressure were still about half of its normal operating levels.

Tamotsu panned the room with his Geiger counter, but again
it did not register any radiation, other than the small amount expected as a
background reading, which was no more than an X-ray would deliver in a
hospital. The steel-encased core had withstood one of the most violent earthquakes
in Japan’s history. Theoretically, the buildings were constructed to withstand
twice the magnitude of the quake they had just experienced, a phenomena that,
to date, had never occurred.

‘All clear in reactor one. No signs of damage.’ Katashi
relayed the message to the control room via his walkie-talkie. ‘Moving on to reactor
three.’ With that, he led Tamotsu out of the chamber, closing the heavy door
behind them, to meet up with the other two members of the team who were waiting
outside.

As Katashi stepped out into the open air, he was immediately
struck by an eerie stillness. His first thought was that the loudness of the
generators had dulled his hearing; however, as he strained, he could hear a low
rumble in the distance, that grew louder and louder.

Thinking it was the aftershocks from the initial earthquake,
he ordered his men out into the open, away from the building and any possible
falling debris. As he turned, he could feel the air being sucked from around
him; he had to brace himself against the unseen force for fear of it pulling
him along, too.

And then he saw it. A huge wall of water came crashing into
the compound, carrying with it remnants from its destructive path: uprooted
trees and telegraph poles bobbed along like matchsticks down a storm drain;
cars being driven remotely, turning, reversing and crashing into each other,
like some macabre funfair ride; sections of houses, roofs, windows, doors and
porches, all being swept along, incessantly, by millions of gallons of water.
The perimeter of the compound offered no resistance to the sheer power of the
wave, its walls dissolving instantly, like chalk, into the murky depths of the
tsunami.

With no time to act, Takashi steeled himself for the
inevitable. The second before the wave hit him, he sucked in a lungful of air
from his respirator and held his breath. However, nothing could have prepared
him for the solid mass of water that engulfed him, knocking him off his feet
and tumbling him over and over. His only thought was to swim upwards, out of
the maelstrom and ride with the wave; he knew it would be pointless to swim
against the tide. He was so disoriented, and the visibility was so limited,
that he couldn’t work out which direction he was facing. As he was being
carried along, at an incredible rate of knots, he could see shadows, but
couldn’t make out what objects they were.

For an instant, he thought he could see daylight and kicked
as hard as he could towards the light, his protective suit giving him added
buoyancy. He broke the surface, narrowly missing an upturned car which floated
past just inches from his face, before being dragged back down by the
undercurrent. He kicked out for the surface again, this time managing to grab
hold of a thin branch which, fortunately, was still attached to a floating
tree. He hauled himself up onto the trunk, exhausted. All he could do now was
hope and pray.

Over six thousand miles away, wearing an almost identical
protective suit, Professor Erik Morantz finished inspecting the thermal shields
in Atlas, one of four particle detectors equispaced around CERN’s Large Hadron
Collider (LHC).

This was the first time the collider had been fired up in
over a year and everybody was, justifiably, on edge. During that occasion, a
catastrophe was narrowly averted by the quick-thinking actions of one of the
maintenance crew, who noticed a build-up of condensation around a pipe leading
to one of the helium coolant tanks which supplied the heat shields. He quickly
deduced that the only way this could happen would be if the supercooled helium
was escaping. He raised the alarm and the collider was immediately shut down.
If the leak had gone undetected, the gigantic magnetic coils at the heart of
the collider would have overheated, endangering the lives of the two thousand
people working there.

‘The heat shields are working fine,’ Professor Morantz spoke
into the microphone in his helmet. ‘Increase the power to seventy per cent
capacity.’

Normally, Professor Erik Morantz would be directing
operations from his office, in the control centre, but this time he was taking
a personal interest. The publicity surrounding the numerous breakdowns of the
collider was jeopardising his position as Director General and he couldn’t afford
to have another failure on his hands so soon after the last one.

‘They’re holding. Increase power to maximum.’ He could tell
by the computerised console on the side of Atlas that the thermal shields were
functioning correctly. ‘Okay, release the proton beams.’

The two beams were positioned in opposite directions around
the 27-kilometre circular tunnel, which made up the particle accelerator. The
theory was that the protons would increase speed as they passed through a
series of superconducting radio frequency (RF) cavities, located around the
tunnel. Just like pushing a child’s swing, these RF cavities would give the
particles a push each time they passed, steadily increasing the energy of the
particles, until they reached the speed of light. The aftermath of the
particles collision would be recorded by Atlas, or one of the other three
detectors.

‘How long do you want us to run the experiment for,
Professor?’ The voice of Deiter Weiss, Professor Morantz’s second-in-command,
came through his headset.

‘Give it another fifteen minutes and then reduce power to
fifty per cent,’ Morantz responded. ‘I’m on my way back to the control room
now.’

He climbed into the white golf buggy, which was the
preferred mode of transport in the tunnels, the alternatives being bicycles or
walk. It would take him fifteen minutes to cover the three-mile journey back to
the control room, through the service tunnels that ran parallel to the
collider; enough time to contemplate his position at CERN.

He was one of the original founding members and had joined
the project to identify the God particle when it was first conceived in 1984,
at a symposium in Lausanne, Switzerland. It took a further ten years of
lobbying to convince CERN that the Large Hadron Collider was a viable project;
however, with the support of twenty countries, they finally gave their approval
for the construction.

For the next fourteen years, Professor Morantz worked
alongside architects, civil engineers, scientists, accountants and pen-pushers,
to build the world’s largest machine. Officially, he was employed by the
Department of Quantum Physics at CERN, but he reported directly to the
governing council. When it was time to choose a Director General to oversee all
experiments associated with the LHC, there really was only one candidate.
Morantz had lived and breathed what he referred to as ‘The Creator’ for
practically a third of his life, shunning any and all social or family
commitments, in the pursuit of knowledge. The knowledge consisted of one thing:
the definitive proof that the God particle – or, to give it its scientific
name, the Higgs boson – existed.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t had his fair share of female
admirers when he was younger. Now in his early sixties, his portly stature had
only developed over the last few years; prior to that, he’d had a lean and
compact frame, which he was lucky enough not to have had to work at
maintaining. The numerous times he had laboured through the night, on projects
that had so engrossed him, that he’d lost all track of time, were now showing
as deep furrows across his forehead. The copious hours of studying in dimly-lit
rooms had etched lines around his eyes. His once full head of wavy black hair
was now wispy, unkempt and silver-grey. But the one feature that hadn’t changed
over time, and was responsible for attracting so much female attention as a
young man, was his piercing blue eyes. They were as bright and sparkly as they
had ever been.

He arrived at the control room entrance, still debating as
to whether he should step down from the project and let someone else take the
helm. He wasn’t getting any younger, and the amount of pressure he was under
from the council, because of the negative publicity surrounding the previous
breakdowns, was making him reconsider whether the role of Director General was
right for him.

He was a scientist, not a politician, which invariably
accounted for the abrasive relationship he had with the press. Whenever they
asked him a direct question regarding the collider’s lack of performance, he
would tell them, honestly, that he didn’t know why these failures were
occurring, but he would look into it and report back to them when he had
conclusive evidence. Unfortunately, this never happened; the breakdowns seemed
unrelated and random, isolated incidences of leaks, power surges and
malfunctions.

If he were more politically-minded, like Deiter, he would
have been able to put a more positive spin on the situation at the press
conferences. ‘Yes, everything’s under control. These are minor setbacks, and we
are making giant strides forward into new scientific frontiers.’ But that just
wasn’t in his nature.

Deiter, on the other hand, was a totally different
scientific animal. He was about ten years younger than Morantz. He hadn’t
really taken the time to get to know the man. In fact, he didn’t actually care
much for Deiter. He had been appointed at the same time as Morantz, by the
council, and was everything that his boss wasn’t. He was articulate and
charismatic, self-assured to the point of arrogant, and meticulously groomed,
from his tightly-cropped salt and pepper hair to his manicured fingernails. He
wore silver-rimmed spectacles that gave him a scholarly look. He spoke English
with a clipped German accent. He was very much the archetypal corporate
scientist, the one seen espousing the virtues of a newly-formulated ingredient
in a shampoo commercial.

Perhaps this is what the project needed, mused Morantz,
somebody like Deiter to head it up. But, then again, Deiter lacked the passion,
commitment and dedication that Morantz brought to the role. No, he concluded,
Deiter was far too superficial and self-serving to carry the mantle of such a
momentous chapter in scientific history forward to the next level. He would
continue as Director General, but appoint Deiter as his spokesperson; that way,
he could concentrate on what he considered to be the all-important task of
finding the God particle and let Deiter deal with the minor distractions of the
press.

He swiped his security card in the card reader on the wall
and the door to the control room slid open.

‘Any issues?’ shouted Morantz, to nobody in particular, as
he took off his protective suit.

‘We’re still checking the data from Atlas, but at the moment
everything seems normal.’ It was Serena Mayer that was the first to respond.
Serena had been on the team for just over a year and was responsible for
analysing the output from the four particle detectors.

‘Great! Deiter, can you organise a press conference? It’s
about time we gave them some good news.’

‘OK. Do you want to do it on-site or in town?’ Deiter
queried.

‘Neither. I want you to take this one. I’m always delivering
bad news, so I think it would be good for the project to have a new
spokesperson.’

Deiter looked surprised, but pleased. ‘Of course, I’ll
organise it immediately.’ With that, he picked up the phone and dialled the
switchboard.

‘Put me through to the science desk at CNN.’

The operator keyed in the request on her computer and was
instantly connected to the switchboard at CNN. However, instead of the polite
American operative she usually spoke to, asking which extension she required,
the operator received a busy signal. She tried again, with the same result.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m getting an engaged tone. Do you want me
to keep trying?’

‘No. Try the BBC,’ Deiter replied.

This time she got through to the main switchboard. ‘Hi, I
have a call from the research facility at CERN for the science editor. Can you
put me through, please?’

‘I’m afraid I have several calls holding. Can you phone back
later?’ came a clipped response from the BBC receptionist.

The operator disconnected the call without answering. ‘The
BBC seems to be very busy, also. Is there anybody else you would like me to
try?’

Puzzled, Dieter asked to be put through to the local news
station.

‘Hello, I have a Dr Weiss, from CERN, on the line,’ said the
operator. ‘Can you put me through to the producer, please?’

‘Hold the line please. I’ll try to connect you.’ There was a
short pause, and then a different voice spoke.

‘Hello, Peter Lintz here. Thank you for returning my call.’

‘I think there’s been a misunderstanding,’ Deiter replied.
‘I’m not returning your call. I’m trying to organise a press conference.’

‘Oh, I thought you were calling to give CERN’s reaction to
the earthquake?’ Lintz responded.

‘What earthquake?’ Deiter queried.

‘The one off the coast of Japan, measuring 8.9 on the
Richter scale. Have you not seen the news?’

Deiter put the phone down.

‘What’s the problem?’ Morantz asked.

‘Apparently, there’s been a massive earthquake off the coast
of Japan,’ Deiter replied. ‘Can somebody switch the news on?’

The television screens around the control room blinked and
then came to life. Helicopter images of the devastation caused by the tsunami
were being commentated on by a news anchorman in the studio.

‘We still don’t have a clear picture of the devastation
caused by either the earthquake or the tsunami. From what we gather, the
earthquake, which measured almost nine on the Richter scale, set off a tsunami,
which hit the northeast shoreline of Japan, at three o’clock in the afternoon,
local time. Officials say six hundred and fifty people are dead and about
fifteen hundred missing, but it is feared the final death toll will be much
higher.’

Morantz shot Deiter an angry glance. ‘Give the order to shut
down immediately and then I want to see you in my office!’

Deiter joined Morantz in his office a few minutes later,
closing the door behind him.

‘It’s just a coincidence,’ Deiter was the first to speak.

‘That’s what you said the last time,’ Morantz countered.

‘It’s Japan, they get earthquakes all the time.’

‘Yes, but not on this scale,’ Morantz said solemnly. ‘I
can’t take the risk. What if it’s not a coincidence? What if the collider is
causing these disasters? I have to let the Council know immediately and let
them decide what to do.’

Serena Mayer watched the television screen intently as the
cameraman in the helicopter panned the devastated landscape. The news anchorman
in the studio was now discussing the impact of the earthquake on the nuclear
power plant at Fukushima, with a so-called ‘expert on these matters’.

‘What are the consequences if the nuclear reactors go into
meltdown?’ the anchorman asked the expert.

‘Well, if we look at what happened at Chernobyl, for
example,’ replied the expert, ‘an entire reactor exploded, sending up a massive
fireball and radioactive plume that dispersed radiation over a wide area.
People living near Chernobyl were killed instantly; but, as the radioactive
cloud spread, several thousand more died within a few weeks from radiation
poisoning. Over the long-term, tens of thousands more people were put at risk
from cancer.’

‘Are you saying that we could be witnessing a disaster of
this magnitude?’ the anchorman spoke slowly for dramatic effect.

‘We can only base our conclusions on what has happened
historically...’

Serena’s attention switched from the television screen to
Morantz’s office, in the corner of the control room. She could see, through the
window, the animated figure of Professor Morantz as he stood inches from Dr
Weiss, waving his arms. She knew there was no love lost between these two, but
they rarely argued and certainly never with this much ardour. Even though the
door was closed and the voices muffled, if she strained her hearing she could
make out snippets of the conversation between the two men.

‘...I can’t let you... responsibility... wait for
another...’ was all she managed to decipher from what Deiter was saying.

‘...it’s too late... can’t stop me... this afternoon...’ was
what she picked out from Morantz’s response.

‘...never... you have no idea what... it’s bigger than...’
came Deiter’s reply.

Suddenly, the office door flew open and out stormed Deiter.
He strode across the control room, head down, hands buried in the pockets of
his white lab coat, and stormed out.

Serena cautiously approached the open door of Morantz’s
office. The professor was now sitting behind his desk, his head in his hands,
staring down at the phone.

‘Can I help at all?’ Serena timidly enquired.

Startled, Morantz looked up and then visibly relaxed as he
recognised the stealth-like figure of his assistant, framed in the doorway.