CHAPTER 2

The noise of the crowded bar faded as Claudia navigated the narrow cobblestone streets of the resort village. Bright red white and blue lights were stretched overhead, across the walkway, giving the village a perpetual holiday flavor. The familiar smells of ethnic food and burning logs mixed with the crisp mountain air and filled her senses. The night temperature had almost dropped to zero, and the burn in her lungs reminded her of her early morning adventure. The excitement she felt was not because of her day on the hill or any of the majestic geography that surrounded her. Consumed by her work, she was excited because she just sent her final treatise off to Professor Rodney Blackstone, a world renowned physicist; a man who had been close to her late foster parents and an integral part of her life growing up. The treatise she sent the elderly professor contained a revolutionary conclusion: a new theory governing the fundamental nature of physics, solving the puzzle of something generally known among physicists as the illusive “unified field theory,” tying together a logistical hole in what physicists believed was the nature of matter.

She hoped Blackstone, her mentor, would agree.

The light dimmed as she passed the remaining commercial spots. The crunch of her boots in snow became the only sound. Her head was swimming with the notes she had transformed onto the bar napkin that she carried in her purse. Perhaps that was the reason she failed to notice the burly man hidden in the dark shadows of a nearby building, watching her.

Continuing along past several condominiums, she decided to turn right and walk closer to the lifts. The snow cats, appearing like giant bugs with two bright headlights, roared across the lift staging areas, moving mounds of snow in their path. Claudia waved to one of the snow cat pilots who recognized her and waved back.

Claudia turned back toward the multi-level parking garage and entered through a small vertical stairway. The click-clock of her steps echoed across the concrete floor. The barren structure was filled with the snow-covered vehicles of new arrivals. Claudia was alone in the garage. Or at least she thought she was. A noise startled the young physicist as she approached her Jeep. She looked quickly to her left and thought she saw a shadow. Self-confident and comfortable in her space, Claudia mumbled to herself about being “a paranoid wuss.” She reached for her keys, opened the door and tossed in her purse. A quick twist of the ignition and the engine came to life. The interior of the Jeep was ice cold. She flipped the heater to full capacity. After waiting a moment for the Jeep to warm up, she flicked on the headlights and backed out of the parking space. Driving the length of the garage, she paused, waiting for the wooden barrier to lift, oblivious to the muscular man who emerged from the shadows, watching her.

The barrier rose slowly.

Claudia released the clutch and moved forward, exiting the garage. She turned left, gave it too much gas and broke the Jeep into a free slide on the icy road. Without flinching, she turned the wheel in the direction of the spin and engaged the four-wheel-drive. The Jeep responded as directed. Reaching the resort exit, she turned right, away from the busy interstate and went south on a single-lane blacktop road.

The headlights illuminated the dense darkness of the isolated mountain road ahead of her. Slight flickers of snow danced across the high beam projections, reminding her of a young Albert Einstein. Claudia smiled as she recalled one story where the sixteen-year-old Einstein had projected himself running at the speed of light, keeping pace with a light beam. The light shot out into space, she remembered, just like the headlight beam of the Jeep. Einstein, the story went, had imagined himself running parallel with the beam as he examined its nature.

Claudia thought she understood what had motivated a young Einstein, especially when he was in his twenties, a time when most historians believed he had produced his greatest works. Like Claudia, he had not conducted his “thought experiments” at a university. He had been a patent clerk, working in Bern Switzerland. She imagined him staring out his apartment window at the Thirteenth Century Clock Tower, a historic structure in Bern, coming up with his theories of special relativity and time dilation. As a teenager, Claudia’s studies had been greatly influenced by Albert Einstein. She had read everything ever written by or about the famous physicist.

Thoughts continued to swirl inside her head as she turned right off the highway and onto a twisting narrow passageway, a rock-filled mountain road that led to her cabin. When she first rented the small one bedroom structure, the realtor, a middle-aged woman sporting almost an inch of foundation and loud lipstick, questioned her about being a single woman living alone in such a remote location. Claudia smiled in response and pointed to Kaiser, her golden Labrador, saying he was all she needed. But it was more than that. Claudia Kohl was comfortable in what she called her own “space and time,” a subtle reference to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. She needed the isolation of the cabin to finish her work.

And now that the first draft of the treatise was complete, all Claudia could think about were the revisions.

The twist of the mountain road straightened onto a clearing with the small cabin in the background. The mountain road initially appeared more level than it was, the altitude much higher than expected. The clearing was in the center of a bowl, an above tundra location that gave Claudia the illusion of being on top of the world. It was a celestial hideout that gave her the freedom and isolation to create, uninhibited. Surrounded by towering grey walls, Claudia’s cabin was a small log structure, located in the center of a gulch that had once been an old mining claim.

The Jeep struggled through a short drift of snow, over a small bridge and frozen creek. By this time the vehicle’s heater was cooking hot. Claudia had taken off her gloves and put them on top of the short Jeep dashboard, an automatic act that toasted the gloves, rewarding her hands with warmth and comfort when she stepped into the sub-zero temperatures.

The headlights lit up the front of the cabin and Claudia could hear the distinct bark of her companion. The barking increased when she shut the motor down. Claudia opened the driver door and the slight metallic creak echoed across the dead silence that engulfed the cabin. Slipping on the toasty warm gloves, she gathered her things and headed for the cabin.

Claudia unlocked the front door and was attacked by her golden-haired companion. She fell to her knees and tried to hug him, but the velocity of his tail thumps was formidable, knocking her off balance.

“Kaiser! What’s doing, boy?”

More hugs.

She laughed as he jumped at her. “So how come you’re the only male I get along with, huh?”

The dog lathered her face with kisses she tried to avoid. “Hey, cut it out.” Claudia pulled him tight, rubbing his coat with her warm gloves. “My last man didn’t work out as well as you… But that’s okay because you’re perfect, huh boy?”

More kisses.

Claudia stood and entered the cabin, putting her purse on the table. She held the front door wide.

“Go ahead.”

Kaiser bolted out like a coiled spring into the snow and headed for the woods. Claudia closed the door behind him. She reached over to an adjacent shelf and squeezed the button on a remote switch. A gas fireplace roared to life.

Claudia opened her purse and took out the bar napkin with the notes she had made. She walked to the stove and put on a kettle of water, reaching for a box of tea bags. Claudia surveyed the cabin interior. Stacked everywhere were notes, books and several state-of-the-art computers. Against the far wall was a blackboard covered with mathematical formulae. She stood for a moment and reviewed the napkin notes. Strolling to the blackboard as she continued to examine what she had written, she erased part of board and chalked in new notes from the napkin.

A red light blinked on her answering machine. Noticing it, she pressed the button and the electronic voice told her she had one message. Another push of the button and there was a male voice with a thick Japanese accent.

“Ms. Kohl, this is Professor Takashina, Director of Theoretical Physics at Tokyo University. We communicated several months ago, after I received your email and suggestions on our dilemma. Professor Blackstone gave me your home telephone number – I hope you don’t mind. I thought you were part of a University physics program somewhere… but I couldn’t locate you. Professor Blackstone tells me that you dropped out of school, and that you now work alone.”

“I find that amazing… but anyway, I just wanted to say thank you by phone, instead of sending you another email. Your help pointed us in the right direction and saved us months of work. Your insight was invaluable, and some of the best syllogistic logic I have ever seen applied to a statistical wave theory. …And probably the most incisive mathematical logic I have ever had the pleasure of seeing.”

The Japanese scientist paused, as if to gather his thoughts.

“…I guess the real reason for my call is that I wanted to let you know… if you are ever looking for a university position, I would like to extend an invitation for you to come visit us in Tokyo and see if –”

Claudia clicked off the answer machine. “You’re welcome.” She smiled and mocked him in a nerdy, nasally voice. “But the answer wasn’t mine – it was inspired by the early work of Dr. Hilbert, the mathematician whose covariant equations helped Einstein prove his General Relativity, and the shift in Mercury’s orbit. …The answer was right in front of you, silly rabbit.”

She looked up at the clock. “Sorry Professor, it’s late and I have a lot of work to do and no, I don’t want to speak with you tonight, nor do I want to live in Tokyo… Although I have read some nice things about Japanese resorts in Ski Magazine…”

She laughed and returned to the blackboard, struck by a new thought as she chalked some changes into the formula she had just copied from the bar napkin.

Outside the cabin, Kaiser was bounding across the snow when he caught a foreign scent. He froze in place, the hair on his back rigid, his growl deep. He looked at the dark woods surrounding the cabin, but could see nothing. The scent was unmistakable. He paused another minute, did his nightly business and rushed back to the front door of the cabin.

Claudia put down her chalk when she heard her roommate scratching and opened the front door. She looked down at him. “That was fast. You must be a little hungry, huh?” Kaiser forgot about the predatory scent and banged his tail against the kitchen cabinets as his master took out his bowl and filled it. Claudia ran a spoon through the food and placed the bowl on the floor. Kaiser promptly attacked it. Claudia massaged the top of his head as he ate and returned to the blackboard. She made some additional notes, walked around a desk and switched on a computer.

Kaiser was busy eating when the familiar scent reappeared. He stopped and raised his snout, assuring himself of its presence. He bared his fangs and emitted a deep guttural growl. He looked at his master to see if she detected the smell.

Typing away on the keyboard, Claudia failed to notice his agitation.

***

Hidden in the dark woods, a distance from the illuminated cabin and dressed in all-weather military garb was an unknown man on cross country skis. Standing with a military bearing, the watcher adjusted his state-of-the-art night vision goggles, bringing into focus the isolated mountain cabin. Shadowed in the technical orange-dimmed light, the dual circles of the binoculars revealed Claudia Kohl, sitting beside the cabin window, typing away on her computer. Unaware that she was being watched, the young physicist paused to ponder an equation. Reaching down, she gently stroked Kaiser’s back, now lying with his belly across her bare feet.

The man continued his watch into the night, occasionally lifting a radio to his lips, communicating with an unknown source,

…waiting.