Though his concentration was fully focused on keeping the Cayman glued to the asphalt, he still could mull over ideas about what exactly the Corporation had stumbled into. It was a secret Pytor Kenin was willing to kill for, he knew that much. Yuri, Karl Petrovski, and the old man Yusuf were dead because of it. From what Cabrillo knew of Admiral Kenin, this had to be tied to some Russian defense project. If Yuri supplemented his meager naval pay by selling off military technology, he was quite certain Kenin was doing it too. The other fact he was reasonably certain of was that this technology was based on something Nikola Tesla had invented more than a century ago.

He put little stock in Mark Murphy’s teleportation theory, despite Max’s limp endorsement, or at least not outright rejection of the idea. Juan felt sure that their research would turn up a more plausible explanation as to how George Westinghouse’s yacht ended up halfway around the globe.

Montpelier sits in a bowl of mountains along the banks of the Winooski River, Vermont’s central artery. Crossing the river on one of the numerous bridges that serviced the city of eight thousand, Cabrillo quickly found himself facing the impressive Greek Revival statehouse building, with its granite façade and gilded domed roof. A little farther along he found himself in a downtown district out of a Norman Rockwell painting. There were no buildings of more than four stories, and each had exacting architectural details. He pitied any modern developer having to face design-review committees.

When he was still two streets shy of his destination, he parked in the lot of a small apartment building and used the hood of the car to shield him while he slipped on a shoulder holster and then shrugged into a black single-breasted blazer tailored to hide the telltale bulge of the FN Five-seveN semiautomatic pistol. Beneath it he wore a white broadcloth oxford with the collar open. He clicked the holster’s lower loop around his belt to secure it in place and carefully closed the Porsche’s hood.

A minute later, he rolled up to a Queen Anne–style house that was all brightly painted gingerbread, narrow dormered roofs, and peaked turrets. Had it actually been made of gingerbread, he wouldn’t have been surprised. The hundred-year-old house had an attached garage that was an obvious add-on, but whoever had done the work had strived to match the original building’s delicate architecture. In a word, the place was “charming.” And it looked to be the perfect hole-up for a retired MIT professor.

Cabrillo slid from his seat and walked across the stone path to the front porch and the door. There was an electronic bell, but it felt right to use the ornate brass knocker instead.

“One moment,” a muffled voice called from within.