“Would that be such a bad thing?”

“It would if the results can’t be duplicated. One lab test doesn’t solve the mysteries of the universe. Let’s rerun things and fully document every step before going to Maxwell. At least wait until after he testifies,” Bob urged.

“I suppose you’re right. We can duplicate the experiment under different scenarios just to be sure. The only limitation is our supply of ruthenium.”

“That, I’m sure, will be the least of our problems,” Bob said with a hint of prophecy.

Chapter 11

11

THE AIR CANADA JET SKIMMED HIGH OVER ON-tario, the landscape below appearing like a green patchwork comforter from the tiny fi rst-class windows. Clay Zak was oblivious to the view, focusing instead on the shapely legs of a young flight attendant pushing a drinks cart. She caught his stare and brought over a martini in a plastic cup.

“Last one I can serve you,” she said with a perky smile. “We’ll be landing in Toronto shortly.”

“I’ll savor it all the more,” he replied with a leer.

Dressed in the traveling businessman’s uniform of khaki slacks and a blue blazer, he looked like just another sales manager headed to an off-site conference. The reality was quite different.

The only child of an alcoholic single mother, he’d grown up in a ragtag section of Sudbury, Ontario, with little guidance. At fifteen, he’d dropped out of school to work in the nearby nickel mines, developing the physical strength that he still retained twenty years later. His life as a miner was short-lived, however, when he committed his first murder, driving a pickax into the ear of a fellow miner who’d taunted his family lineage.

Fleeing Ontario, he assumed a new identity in Vancouver and drifted into the drug trade. His strength and toughness were put to use as an enforcer for a major local methamphetamine trafficker named “The Swede.” The money came easily, but Zak treated it with an unusual intelligence. A self-taught man, he read voraciously, and judiciously studied business and finance. Rather than blowing his ill-gotten gains on tawdry women and fla shy cars like his cohorts did, he shrewdly invested in stocks and real estate. His lucrative drug career, however, was cut short in an ambush.

It wasn’t the police but a Hong Kong supplier looking to expand his control of the market. The Swede and his escorts were gunned down during a nighttime deal in Vancouver’s rambling Stanley Park. Zak managed to duck the fire and disappear unscathed into a maze of hedges.