The God Particle: a Zack Starr novel

By Darwin Little

Scientists are conducting experiments with the Large Hadron Collider to discover the basic building blocks of life. This incredible machine is about to be destroyed by those who disagree with the blasphemous science, but first, some elite scientists need to die.

Zack Starr has been trying to build a business as an international detective. After two years of struggling as a local private investigator he is given his first real international assignment. His task is to protect the life of a scientist whose colleagues are being systematically murdered.

Zack is trying to keep Dr. Tina Hall alive despite the past personal history between them. The two come to an uneasy truce to focus on keeping Tina alive while discovering the reason as to why her associates are being brutally assassinated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jun 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9780228800613

Book preview

Chapter 1

Zack Starr peered through the powerful lens at his target, three hundred yards away. He applied pressure with his trigger finger. The crisp image of the motel room door was in his cross-hair sight, dead center. His breathing was even, rhythmic. He waited for the opportunity that would present itself in the next few minutes. He knew from experience, when the moment came, he would need to be calm and emotionless. Come on out, let’s get this over with. I’ve got you.

It was hot; his cotton t-shirt was stuck to his body, wet rings under each armpit. The inside of his vehicle stank of his own pungent body odor.

A bead of sweat rolled down Zack’s forehead, curled around his thick eyebrow and slid over the bridge of his nose into the corner of his right eye. He pulled away from the lens for a second and tried to blink the salt sting away. As luck would have it, that was the moment the motel door sprang open; his eye jerked back to the lens and he recovered just in time for the shot.

The shutter on his Nikon started to click away. Mr. James Buxton was leaving the rented room with a woman who was not his wife. Buxton was nothing special: oil executive, fifty years old, five foot ten, twenty pounds overweight, short gray hair, an expensive suit.

She was a little more interesting: fortyish, petite, long blond hair, and large breasts. A good-looking woman by anyone’s definition. Zack had photographed them entering the room forty-five minutes ago. The seedy motel was past its prime by thirty years. Only an accidental tourist would stay here. Normal clientele included hookers, drug users and, of course, cheating lovers who needed an hour together. Buxton didn’t need the full hour, apparently.

The two hugged each other as they walked toward Buxton’s late-model BMW M5. She was laughing about something. He grabbed her ass and gave it a gentle squeeze. The camera clicked repeatedly, capturing the moments forever. The woman slapped his hand away playfully and they got into the car. It was so sweet. The aftermath of forbidden sex. Mr. Buxton was officially in deep shit with his wife.

Zack watched them drive away and shook his head in disgust. He was sitting in a lawn chair in the back of his modified Chevrolet Suburban. The sun baked down on his truck. It was an oven. He leaned into the front seat, turned on the engine and switched the air-conditioning to high. He couldn’t chance having the vehicle running while he waiting to capture the moment for his client.

Zack had purchased the surplus truck from the Calgary Police Tactical Unit. There was a driver and passenger seat, but no other seats. The specialty glass allowed you to see out, but nobody could see in. It was perfect for surveillance. This wasn’t the way he wanted to earn a living, but it paid the bills until his real business got going.

He had started Zack Starr International Investigations two years ago, after he had resigned from his position with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). He had been working at the INTERPOL office in Lyon, France, at the time of his resignation. Before that, he had worked for CSIS at several embassies around the world and, for a brief time, on loan to Homeland Security Service in Washington, DC.

When he started his new business venture, he had thought his contacts at INTERPOL, coupled with his criminology training and military background would give him the credentials he needed to command the big money from international investigative work. Wrong.

Zack’s business plan had not come together quite as he had hoped. He hadn’t landed a single international gig since he started the business. His failure was not from lack of effort. He had spent five thousand dollars getting a cool web site going. He advertised in trade magazines. He had maintained all his contacts at CSIS and INTERPOL, but no clients or work had materialized. Not even a sniff.

He felt like he was sixteen again, trying to land his first part-time job. Nobody wanted to be the first to give him a break. Everyone wanted to know what he had done internationally since he started the business, which was nothing. He had offers for personal security jobs, but that wasn’t what he wanted to do. Baby-sitting some self-important person in a third-world country held no appeal. He wanted to be an investigator.

His dad, who was a retired City of Toronto major crimes detective, found him work through his contacts on the Calgary police force. Most of those assignments were divorce cases, surveillance work and chasing bail-bond skips. Shitty work. Boring work. Depressing work.

Zack pulled out his cell and called Mrs. Buxton. This was the part of the assignment he detested the most.

A confident voice answered on the first ring, all business. Mary Buxton speaking.

Mary, it’s Zack Starr.

The woman hesitated; he pictured her pretty face on the other end of the line. Nobody deserved this.

Do I want to hear this? she asked. Her voice tried to project confidence and a light air, but Zack knew it was just a facade. She was in love with her husband and Zack was about to break her heart with his news.

I’ll have a report for you by four this afternoon. Do you want to drop by my office, and we can go over it?

The line was quiet. He could picture Mary sagging in her expensive office chair, her world crashing in on her. He’s cheating on me, isn’t he?

Zack sighed. Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid he is.

He could hear her breathe in, a sharp inhale. Zack imagined the woman sitting at her impressive desk, eyes glassy, lip quivering, hand on her forehead. Mary was about to come apart. Her dignity was shattered. Anyone who caught their spouse cheating was forever changed. Trust would not come easy in the future; neither would love.

Mary’s voice trembled. I’ll be at your office at four o’clock. The line went dead.

Fuck, Zack said out loud. He tossed his phone onto the passenger seat. The corners of his mouth turned down. He sat brooding in the back of the truck. There was going to be a shit storm at the Buxton home tonight. Lives would change. He had done his job but he wasn’t happy about it.

This business sucked. He couldn’t keep doing this. Something had to give. He needed a real job.

•••••••

Zack sat staring at his computer screen. The printer behind him started to rattle and spit out pages. He had finished compiling his report on the Buxton surveillance. The verbiage was clinical, detached and conclusive. He had included a dozen photos, including the ass-grab. Good picture. The job could’ve been stretched into a three-day assignment, but he didn’t have the heart for it. The man was obviously cheating on his wife. Providing more pictures and details would do nothing but add time to the file. He would charge his minimum fifteen-hundred dollars and end it. He was almost embarrassed to be doing this for a living.

He was thinking about the job he had resigned from at CSIS. After Zack had left the military, he had enrolled in the criminology program at Simon Fraser University, one of the largest schools of criminology in the world. He graduated with a major in criminology and a minor in psychology. He had learned a great deal about investigative techniques and the criminal mind while attending university. There was no course on taking pictures of cheating spouses at SFU. He had learned that through trial and error.

He was thrilled when he had first been recruited by CSIS, the secretive Canadian government institution. They had interviewed him right on the SFU campus. He had done some good work at Canada’s security agency, received the recognition he wanted. He enjoyed his time traveling around Europe and working for INTERPOL. In the end, government bureaucracy had become too restrictive for him—too many rules; individual initiative was frowned upon. He quit.

He had met several international private investigators during his time in Europe and had convinced himself it was the life he wanted to live. His dad had told him he was being naïve, but he didn’t listen. Now he had to make this idea work so he didn’t have to listen to the old bastard say I told you so. He loved his dad, but the old man could be a pain in the ass sometimes; especially when he was right.

Zack gathered up the report, punched holes in the document and placed it into a binder with his business name and logo. He looked at the logo on the binder and shook his head in dismay. The international component of the business name was a bit of a stretch at this point, but he hadn’t quite given up. Maybe he should.

The doorbell rang; that would be Mary Buxton. Zack was working out of his two-bedroom townhouse in the Calgary Beltline district. It was close to downtown and worked well for the occasional meetings he was required to have. It was a man’s home: dark leather couch, leather recliner, no art on the walls, no food in the fridge, a stereo that could hurt your ears and a sixty-inch flat screen on the wall. He owned a vacuum but had never used it. A cleaning lady came every two weeks to do what needed to be done.

He pulled open the door and gave Mary a pursed smile. Hey, Mary, come in.

Her hazel eyes were puffy and red around the edges. Mary tried to put on a brave face as she pushed a strand of long, brunette hair back behind one ear and stepped through the door. She was a successful corporate lawyer for a large downtown law firm. The woman was smart and sexy as hell. Today she wore a tan skirt and blazer with a white silk blouse. The color of the shoes matched the suit perfectly. The whole outfit would have cost more than the bill Zack was presenting to her. She was thirty-five and had a stunning body. She must work out an hour a day, minimum. Although she dressed conservatively, Zack knew she would look great naked.

She moved by him and he caught a faint scent of perfume; musk oil, maybe.

Zack pointed to the couch in the living room. Have a seat, Mary. Can I get you anything to drink? I have pop, water, every kind of alcohol imaginable.

Mary shook her head slightly. She sat, crossed her legs and placed her hands in her lap. The fingers of her right hand began to pick at the clear-enameled nails of the left. In her line of work, she was used to delivering bad news, and receiving it. This was different; this was personal. She was out of her element.

Zack handed the binder to her. I followed your husband and a woman out of his office building at eleven-forty-five this morning. They took his car from the parkade. I haven’t tried to identify the woman; I don’t think there’s any real value in that.

Mary sat stoically staring at Zack and said nothing. Her lips were pulled tight together.

They went to the Calgary Homestay Motel, ten minutes from downtown. They spent forty-five minutes together in the room. If you look in the binder, you’ll see several time-stamped pictures of them entering and leaving the motel room. It wasn’t a business meeting.

Mary slowly opened the binder. She skipped past the written report and went straight to the photographs. She flinched when she saw the first picture. Her whole body seemed to droop. A hint of recognition crossed her face; she knew who the blond woman was. Tears started pouring from her eyes. Big, wet drops rolled down her cheeks and dripped onto the images she was looking at. She made no attempt to clean them off. She never made a sound as she turned the pages. Mary studied each picture as though she were looking for something special: a sign from her husband, a reason she could understand.

She sniffed and reached for the box of tissues that was strategically positioned by the couch. She wasn’t the first person to sit and cry at the news that Zack had delivered.

Mary looked at him with pleading eyes. We have sex four times a week, sometimes more. I don’t understand?

Zack hated these moments beyond measure. He knew from experience that nothing he could say would placate the woman. There was no explanation for her husband’s infidelity. Zack just needed to sit and shut up. Get her out the door as humanely as possible. She was emotionally shattered and needed time to heal.

I don’t suppose you’re in the business of killing people? she asked, staring at the last picture in the binder. She looked up from the picture, a forced smile on her face.

Zack gave a little grin. No, he may deserve it, but you need to let it go. I know this seems like the end of the world, Mary, but in time, you’ll forget about this asshole. You’re not the first good woman to choose the wrong man. I’ve seen this too many times before. You’ll get over it.

I know. Big, black streaks of mascara ran from her eyes to her chin. She pinched the bridge of her nose with her slender fingers. She then spread her fingers across her eyes, further smudging her mascara. She was beginning to look like a raccoon.

Zack grabbed some tissue from the box. He sat down beside her and tried to clean the mascara off her face. She couldn’t leave looking like this. She was a mess.

Maybe you could help me get even with him, if nothing else. She looked at Zack with a sad but hopeful look in her eyes.

Zack nodded once and gave her a determined look. He stopped wiping her face. If it’s not illegal, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.

Mary hesitated; she seemed unsure of what to say. "You know, I had a strong suspicion you would confirm he was cheating when I hired you. I’ve been thinking about this eventuality, planning for it. What would I do if you confirmed my suspicions? How should I react? I don’t need his money; I make more than he does. We have no children. Divorce won’t hurt him. He has an ego the size of this room. He seems to get more narcissistic by the day. He’ll move from my bed to someone else’s and not think twice about it.

There’s only one thing that would hurt him: do to him what he is doing to me—cheat on him. I never have, but I want him to believe I had an affair with someone before he discovers what I know about him. It would devastate him to know I did not love him unconditionally.

Zack grinned mischievously at her and nodded his head in approval. Sounds like a great idea. What can I do to help?

She held up her phone. I’d like some photographs of me having sex, with you. He’s always playing with my phone. It’s only a matter of time before he discovers the pictures.

She stood up and started to remove her jacket. She kicked off her high heels.

What? Zack sat blinking at her in disbelief.

I know you find me attractive, and you’re an extremely handsome man. I don’t need pictures of your face. I just want photos of you inside me, in every position. You’ll enjoy this, I promise. Her tailored skirt fell to the floor. A bright blue, lace thong was positioned a foot in front of Zack’s face.

Zack’s eyes bulged; he looked up at Mary’s coy expression. He rose from the couch, and held up his hands in front of him.

Mary, put your clothes on. I...I can’t do this. You’re an intelligent, beautiful woman, but this isn’t right. Maybe we could go for dinner sometime, dancing maybe, and get to know each other better? He nodded at her, hoping to evoke agreement. This is a just knee-jerk reaction to some very bad news. Everything will seem better tomorrow. I promise.

Mary tilted her head to the side and gave a sly grin. She pulled open the blouse and released perfect, creamy breasts from her lacy bra. The blouse and bra dropped to the floor with a twitch of her shoulders.

Zack stood motionless, his arms spread and palms turned upward; speechless. A bewildered look pasted on his face.

That was when Bill Starr walked in. He had followed Zack out to Calgary two years ago when Zack had decided that this was where he wanted to settle. Bill wanted to live close to his only child.

Bill stood in the doorway, looking at his son and the near-naked woman. Everyone was frozen in position; no one said a word for several seconds. Bill nodded his head thoughtfully. Zack’s eyes darted back and forth between his father and Mary, waiting for the inevitable.

Most people in this situation would excuse the intrusion and beat a hasty retreat. Zack’s dad wasn’t like most people. He seemed to be fighting an explosion of laughter. Zack could see the delight in his dad’s eyes.

This must be your new client, Bill said, deadpan.

Zack tilted his head as he looked at his dad; he knew he would never hear the end of this. His dad just loved getting in the middle of a tense situation, and then pretending like nothing was wrong. Mary closed her eyes; her face turned a crimson red. Zack wasn’t sure if it was possible but he thought her breasts were turning pink too. He tried not to stare at her great breasts.

Bill pulled his eyebrows together and crossed his arms over his chest. I hope my son didn’t tell you that you had to be nude for him to present his final report. That’s not normally a requirement, as far as I’m aware. Of course, he does have a criminology degree, which I don’t have. This may be somethin’ they teach at university.

Dad. Shut up. Please. Zack’s eyes pleaded with his father.

Mary reached an arm across her chest to cover herself. She crouched down and began picking articles of clothing off the floor with her other hand. Bill’s eyes lit up at the sight of Mary’s rear end which was pointed in his direction.

Could I use your washroom? Mary asked politely.

Zack nodded and pointed at the bathroom door. Zack and Bill followed Mary with their eyes as she tiptoed to the bathroom. The door closed and Zack immediately held up his hand for his dad to stop. The old man grinned from ear to ear and gave a double thumbs-up. He then started to dance a stupid little jig and tried to get Zack to laugh. Zack did his best to suppress a grin and shook his head at his father. Bill Starr liked to tell stories. This story was going to be told more times than the birth of Christ.

The two men stood in silence, waiting. The bathroom door opened and Mrs. Buxton stepped out. The mascara was cleaned from her face; she looked dignified again. With a practiced elegance, Mary moved into the living room and picked up her report.

I believe I paid you fifteen-hundred dollars up front. Are there any additional expenses? She wasn’t looking directly at either man as she spoke.

No. You’re paid in full, Zack replied.

And a little extra, Bill chimed in.

Mary bristled. Zack gave his father an angry glance.

She turned to Bill and smiled contritely. I need to go now. She glided past him and silently departed.

The door closed and Bill started to open his mouth. Zack held his finger to his lips in the universal sign of shut the fuck up for a second. He didn’t need Mary to hear anything that would humiliate her any further.

Bill looked out the curtain. Okay, she’s gone. He was grinning like a little kid at Christmas.

Zack shook his head and sat down on the couch. He put his head in his hands. The poor woman. Don’t you ever knock, Dad?

This is a place of business—why would I knock? What business are you in, exactly? Is this what international investigators do, or are you changing professions? A light obviously went on in Bill’s brain; he pointed at Zack. He had a smile on his face from ear to ear. You’re starting to act just like James Bond. This is a good sign. He nodded with conviction. You’ll be getting a call from ‘M’ very soon with your first international assignment. Pack your bags, son; this is what you’ve been waiting for.

Zack rolled his eyes and started to laugh. What are the chances of us pretending this never happened?

None. His dad thrust out his chin and began to laugh uncontrollably. He fell onto the couch and slapped his knee; his eyes sparkled with life. She had great tits.

Zack grinned back at his dad and shook his head. He needed a real job.

Chapter 2

Dr. Larry Tungsten stood behind the podium and surveyed the crowd of faces in the lecture hall of the James Clerk Maxwell Building. Tonight he was giving an introductory talk about the University of Edinburgh’s particle physics program.

The room was about half full, thirty rows of seats tiered so that each had a clear line of sight to the front of the theater; a clear line of sight to him. Most of those gathered would be students new to the university, trying to decide if a career in particle physics was right for them.

A few in the crowd were older—late twenties or early thirties. These would be graduate students, sucking up in hopes they might be accepted to the physics doctoral program at Edinburgh. The older faces were much more attentive; they wanted something from him. He knew all of these older candidates, all except for one. He tried to be nonchalant as his eyes moved below her desktop to scope out the long, sculpted legs that extended from her short white skirt. He had the best seat in the house. They were looking down at him; he was looking up at them.

He guessed the woman was about thirty-five years old. The tight, blue-knit sweater hugged the curves of her torso and accentuated her well-endowed breasts. Her long, auburn hair hung past her shoulders, the ends curling naturally in all directions. She had high cheekbones, a small, thin nose and an angular face. She could have been a model; maybe she was a model. Her eyes met his and she gave him a seductive smile. He froze; he felt the heat of his body rise and his face flush. It was fine to take a casual look, but getting caught ogling a student was a good way to get reprimanded by the Dean. No more looking at her.

•••••••

Candace watched the professor leering at her, and smiled to herself. This just might work. She had come to the lecture early and sat front and center, in the third row up. She wanted him to get a very good look at what she had to offer. With all these young girls in here, Candace had thought getting his attention would be a challenge. Now she knew he had noticed her; whether he would fall for the trap was still in question.

Her target wore a black t-shirt and blue jeans. He was fifty but dressing as though he were twenty-five, desperately trying to cling to his youth. Some men of his age bracket grew old gracefully, accepting the natural progression of time, even embracing it. These types of men had an air of confidence. They could attract women without effort, despite their age.

Dr. Tungsten didn’t fall into the category of a sexy older man. He seemed more desperate than confident. He had a round paunch that made him look five months’ pregnant. Steel-rimmed glasses were pulled too close to his oval face. The lenses magnified his eyes and made him look like some kind of reptile. His tongue continually poked in and out of his mouth, moistening his thin lips. He had a slight build and weighed maybe one hundred and sixty pounds. What