I reached Geneva at four-oh-two PM. I made my way through the railway station and out to the street. There was a taxi stand nearby. I got into the first of four cars that were parked there and sat back, once I had told the driver where I was going. The Montblanc Convention Center was not far from the station. I arrived in under-ten minutes.
It was four twenty five PM in Geneva. I jammed my newspaper into the flight bag I was carrying, paid the fare and exited the cab just a few feet from the Exhibition’s main entrance.
Once inside, I couldn’t help recollecting my boyhood love of planes, helicopters and spaceships, as I meandered through the various aircraft displays in the exhibit hall. Every manufacturer from the Aerospace and Defense sectors must have had a display. There were jet engines, Night-Vision Systems, Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) systems, military helicopters, executive helicopters, and even private jets – all actual size, brought in just for the show. These were billion-dollar corporations. And they spared no expense to promote their wares.
Time being a constraint, there was simply too much to see. I opted to visit only those displays that stood out to my subjective eye. One in particular, was the booth of a corporation called StarJet. This was a lesser-known firm founded by three graduates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They were in the business of developing space propulsion systems. And had several scale models of their latest satellite launches on display. StarJet had recently gained Wall Street’s attention as having been the only company to decrease the cost of getting a satellite into orbit to below two million dollars. They were also apparently interested in the research of a particular scientist - one, Claus Vandergberg. The StarJet booth was the only one in that area of the show that advertised Doctor Vanderberg’s specific presence at a forum that was taking place that afternoon. The discussion was scheduled for four thirty PM. I checked my watch, which now read four fifty-two. . . . . .
It was one forty-five on Wednesday afternoon. I bought a calling card from a nearby newsstand and phoned Rossella - the person I had been planning to visit in Italy. I explained to her that I would be arriving later than
I entered the old café with the thousand-yard-stare of a black operative. I snapped out of my trance long enough to greet the attendant and order the coffee along with a brioche – a jam-filled croissant. Taking the food and drink to a nearby table, I sat down to an early morning breakfast, and slipped right back into reverie.
The events of the past twenty-four hours swarmed my mind. It had been a long night. I had gotten little sleep. An aerospace conference had taken place the day before in Geneva. A prominent speaker at the event had been a Dr. Claus Vanderberg. He was an astrophysicist who was well known and respected in the international scientific community. Remaining until well after the lecture had ended, I listened to the barrage of questions and remarks from skeptics that had been hurled at the man regarding his theories.
The scientist suggested that a certain isotope of the element Strontium (Sr), could be manipulated to produce a reaction he called, ‘hyperphotonic’- a burst of light which was several times more intense than a nuclear explosion. The reactor for this isotope – if made portable enough - could essentially be implemented as an engine in a spacecraft. The doctor’s final insinuation had been that a prototype for this reactor or engine as it were, could come to fruition within the next five years. And that truly was Dr. Vanderberg’s final assertion. Because by eight o’clock that evening, just an hour after giving his presentation, the astrophysicist had been found dead in his hotel suite.
Interpol, along with local law enforcement, had descended on the convention center as well as all surrounding hotels, office buildings and train stations. By nine PM, there was no way in or out of the city.
Fortunately, I hadn’t planned to stick around in Geneva after the lecture. My only purpose for attending the conference in the first place was that I happened to be in Zurich on business and while there, had become interested in a railway advertisement that caught my eye. The ad showed photos of satellites, rockets, the United States space shuttle, and renderings of what
As I had concluded my business in Zurich and already checked out of the hotel, the timing couldn’t have been better. I bought a one-way ticket on the two o’clock train to Geneva, and moved on in the direction of track seven where it would depart. The sleek machine sat humming like a jet as I approached. It’s modern white cars with black tinted windows, vanishing hundreds of feet into the distance beneath the superstructure of the Geneva Station. All the while, commuters ambled about.
I walked along until I reached one of the central cars. And, upon embarking, padded my way through the plush interior to a seat by a window. The Departure time was nearing. Low melodic tones chimed intermittently as the train’s crew performed various system checks. I glanced over an article in the newspaper that I had bought earlier, and noticed that NASA had postponed all shuttle launches indefinitely. Just then it occurred to me how mundane the public’s perception had become concerning this incredible display of man’s capability. The article itself, occupied only a small area of the fifth page.
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