Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation: Chapter 42–Epilogue

“Meaning it's easy?” Milana asked, incredulous. “Because it's not.”

Then Hubble comes along and proves Einstein was right all along. General relativity makes sense. Einstein is vindicated.

The day hadn’t gone nearly the way he had hoped, and there were still plenty of problems to contend with, but for now, at least, it appeared that his hunch to bring Charlie aboard had paid off.

He considered Alexei's constant interpretation of events as God’s will to be mere rationalization for bad behavior.

No, he would set off a bomb somewhere remote. A desert. Or an island in the South Pacific. The same way governments had let the world know they had nuclear weapons back in the 1940s. Sure, a few people might get poisoned by the radiation, and he might decimate the local wildlife and bake the sand into glass, but you couldn’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

There were few lights in the land below, indicating they were over a sparsely populated area.

Dante was surprised that Charlie didn’t seem to be in the tiniest bit of pain, even though she had been banged around as much as he had. But then he remembered that back when he was twelve, his own body had been far more resilient.

As the plane got closer, he would get a better idea of which airport it would land at. In the meantime, the Mossad was going to hedge its bets and cover as many as possible.

They could receive several feet of snow in the winter—and in the spring this would melt and churn through dozens of precipitous ravines, some so steep and inaccessible they had still never been explored.

The only way to reach it was up a harrowing miner's trail, nine miles of dirt track hacked into the edges of sheer mountainsides.

In 1935, the Angeles Crest Highway was completed, allowing automobiles access to the observatory via a sinuous two-lane road, but even decades later, getting there wasn’t always easy.

Signs at the base of the mountain had warned of treacherous conditions. Much of the road was slick with ice, whereas other portions had crumbled into the ravines, leaving deadly gaps that had merely been marked with strands of plastic yellow police tape.

They followed it until a mile from the observatory, where they encountered a substantial roadblock. A cliff had partially collapsed, spilling boulders the size of armchairs across the road.

Gleaming white telescope domes were interspersed through the woods, as were a few support buildings: employee housing, maintenance sheds, and a small museum.

As clouds scuttled across the peak, buildings materialized out of the fog and then vanished back into it again: a solar telescope perched atop a 150-foot tower, several prefab buildings, and the CHARA Array—the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy—a series of six domed telescopes spread out over a quarter mile, linked by computers to create the same image that a single, enormous telescope would.

Halfway across the bridge was a commemorative plaque with a faded photograph of Einstein and Hubble standing in that very spot in 1931.

He was dressed haphazardly, as he had just been roused from sleep, but was an otherwise hale and athletic man.

He was dressed haphazardly, as he had just been roused from sleep, but was an otherwise hale and athletic man.

An ebullient golden retriever, whom he introduced as Quark, followed at his heels.

This entire apparatus used to be controlled with weights and pulleys.

"Well, he didn’t say it was in the dome, per se,” Charlie said.

“I think the whole event was done in jest,” Tim explained.

It was haphazardly engraved, as though a couple of renowned scientists had made it on a lark: ON THIS SPOT IN JANUARY 1931, ALBERT EINSTEIN DID HEREBY LAY THIS CORNERSTONE.

It was haphazardly engraved, as though a couple of renowned scientists had made it on a lark: ON THIS SPOT IN JANUARY 1931, ALBERT EINSTEIN DID HEREBY LAY THIS CORNERSTONE.

He ran to get it, Quark loping along beside him, and was back within two minutes, brimming with excitement.

As the last wheel locked, she felt an almost imperceptible shift inside the box, as though something had just clicked into place.

Charlie gingerly removed the envelope, realizing with awe that the last person who had touched it was Einstein himself.

She wondered what enemy faction Milana was working for and how she could have possibly switched sides, but then she realized that was wrong.

As Einstein had warned, cesium was a highly combustible element. The explosion was strong enough to knock everyone off their feet.

Dante, slinking through the telescope complex, had seen the Mossad.

The blast had snapped Einstein's envelope from Milana’s hand and tossed it into the air. It wafted through the mist now, slowly floating back to earth.

Tim Ralston was clambering out of the gully with it in his hand.

She spotted John Russo, running and shooting at the same time—and then the Mossad materializing out of the fog, firing indiscriminately at both of them.

Charlie's tracks were the only ones in the snow. John followed her easily, catching an occasional glimpse of his quarry ahead.

The earth dropped away below her vertiginously, a granite wall plummeting ninety feet into a snow-choked ravine.

“Just drop it. You’ll need both hands to pull me back up.”
John slid the gun back in his holster instead; Charlie was in no position to quibble.

Buffeted by the waves of heat, tumbling toward the edge of the cliff.

Dante warily looked over the edge of the cliff into the ravine.

Dante noticed there was a curious lilt to Milana’s voice as she spoke, like she wasn’t saddened by this news.

Milana nodded subtly toward the bottom of the ravine in the distance. Like she didn’t want to say anything out loud, because there were other CIA agents around, and any one of them could be listening.