Painter fought to make sense of this news. He was familiar with nanowires and nanotubes. Both were by-products of modern nanotechnology. Carbon nanotubes—artificially created cylinders of carbon atoms—demonstrated extraordinary strength and were already being incorporated in commercial products from crash helmets to body armor. Likewise, nanowires were long, single chains of atoms that showed unique electrical properties and promised coming breakthroughs in microelectronics and computer-chip development. Already the nanotech industry had grown into a multibillion-dollar industry and was continuing to expand at a blistering pace.
All of which raised a question in Painter’s mind. He pointed to the strange dagger. “Are you suggesting these medieval sword makers were capable of manipulating matter at the atomic level, that they’d cracked the nanotech code way back in the Middle Ages?”
Denton nodded. “Possibly. Or at least, someone knew something. Other traces of ancient nanotechnology have been found. Take, for example, the stained-glass windows found in medieval churches. Some of the ruby-colored glass in those old churches can’t be replicated today, and now we know why. Examination of the glass at the atomic level reveals the presence of gold nanospheres, whose creation still defies modern science. Other such examples have been discovered, too.”
Painter struggled to put this all together in his head. He picked up the knife. “If you’re right about all of this, how could this dagger be found here in America, buried among bodies dated to the twelfth century?”
He noted a shared glance between Denton and Kanosh. The Indian historian gave the smallest shake of his head toward the physicist. The man seemed anxious to say more, his face reddening with the effort to remain silent. Eventually he glanced away. Painter recalled the angry words he’d overheard as he entered the lab: This may be the very proof we’ve been looking for! Why are you so obstinate?
It seemed the two scientists had further speculations on the matter, but for the moment they were reluctant to share them with an outsider. Painter didn’t press the subject. He had a more immediate question to broach first.
Turning, he faced Kai. “So tell me more about the men who were hunting you. The ones in the helicopter. Why do you think they were trying to kill you?”
Kai seemed to shrink into herself. She glanced to the professor, who gave her a kindly nod of reassurance. When she spoke, there remained an edge of defiance in her voice.
“I think it’s because of what I stole,” she said. “From the burial cave.”
“Show him,” Kanosh said.
From inside her jacket, she slipped out two gold tablets, each about eight inches square and a quarter inch thick. One of the pair appeared to be freshly polished; the other remained coated in a black tarnish. Painter noted some writing inscribed on the surface of the plates.
Kanosh explained. “There appeared to be hundreds of such tablets in the cave, secured in stone boxes and wrapped in juniper bark. Kai stole three of the plates as she made her escape.”
“But there are only two here.”
“That’s right. She dropped one as she fled the cave, in full view of the cameras.”
Painter let that sink in. “You think someone saw it. And they came looking to see if she had more gold.”
“If it is gold,” the physics professor added.
Painter turned to Denton.
“Like the dagger, I examined one of the plates under the electron microscope. While the tablets appear gold in color, the metal is harder than it should be. Much harder. Normally, gold is a relatively soft, pliable metal, but these tablets are as hard as gemstones. Microscopic analysis of the metal revealed an unusually dense atomic structure, made up of macromolecular structures of gold atoms fitted tightly together like a jigsaw puzzle. And the whole matrix seems to be held in place by the same cementite nanowires found in the dagger.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Their value is incalculable.”
“And apparently worth killing for,” Painter added.
With those words, the lights suddenly went out. Everyone froze, holding their breaths. A few battery-powered emergency signs glowed from the hallway, but cast little light into the laboratory. A low canine growl rose from underneath the table, raising the hairs on Painter’s arms. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he spotted a stocky, shadowy shape slip around the foot of Kanosh’s chair, keeping guard.
“Hush, Kawtch,” the professor warned in a soft voice. “It’s all right, boy.”
Kowalski let out a loud huff. “Sorry, Doc. But this time I think you should be listening to your dog. There ain’t nothing right about any of this.”
Kai crept from her own seat and circled to stand in Painter’s shadow. He reached back and took hold of her wrist. Under his fingertips, he felt her pulse quicken as something loud crashed off in the direction of the stairwell, echoing down the corridors.
The dog, Kawtch, growled again.
Painter whispered to the physics professor. “Is there another way out of here? An emergency exit.”
“No,” came his hushed, scared response. “The lab is underground for a reason. All exits are by the stairwell and lead up to the main building.”
So we’re trapped.
Chapter 12
May 31, 1:12 A.M.
Takoma Park, Maryland
“Take the next left,” Gray instructed the cabdriver.
To Seichan, Gray’s anxiety was plain to read. After getting that frantic call from his mother, he remained wound up tight.
Leaning forward from the back and pointing with an outthrust arm, he looked like he wanted to climb over the seat and take the wheel himself. His other hand still clutched his cell phone. He’d tried calling his parents’ house several times during the ride from D.C. out to the Maryland suburbs, but there had been no answer, which only set him further on edge.
“Turn on Cedar,” he ordered. “It’s faster.”
As he perched on the edge of his seat, Seichan stared out the window. The taxi sidled past the Takoma Park library and swung into a shadowy maze of narrow streets lined by small Queen Anne–style cottages and stately Victorians. A heavy canopy of oaks and maples turned the roads into leafy tunnels, whose bowers muffled the glow of the occasional streetlamp.
She watched the dark houses and tried to imagine the lives of the people inside, but such an existence was foreign to her. She remembered little of her own childhood in Vietnam. She had no memory of her father, and what she remembered of her mother she wished she could forget: of being ripped from her arms, of her mother being dragged out a door, bloody-faced and screaming, by men in military uniforms. Afterward, Seichan spent her childhood in a series of squalid orphanages, half starved most of the time, maltreated the rest.