208. A physicist, a chemist and a priest

“A physicist, a chemist and a priest. Sounds like a bad joke,” Einstein says.

“Curious you should make the assumption the joke will be bad,” Bohr replies. “Have your perchance empirically found the Germans to have no sense of humour?”

It is an innocent enough remark, but decades-long friendships have turned before on phrases like these. And the young priest Lemaître, the third party at the table at Hôtel Métropole, senses immediately electricity is in the air.

Einsteins retorts that no, he has not found indubitable evidence of Germany’s lack of humour, but that unquestionable proof against quantum theorem is definitely round the corner.

“Are you one hundred percent sure of that?” Bohr – ever the witty Dane – strikes back, knowing Einsteine’s disdain for Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.

The moustached German immediately lambasts Bohr’s ideas with mathematical high-wire work. This is why Lemaître admires Einstein so much. This is why he uses his formulas to unshackle the beginning of the universe.

But Bohr proves a formidable opponent. He sees Einstein’s mathematical prowess and raises it with a dazzling display of theoretical physics so advanced, Lemaître feels like a student again.

This goes on for about half an hour, until Einstein sniffs defeat and brings out his trump card.

“My friend, God does not play dice.”

It’s an argument-stopper and Bohr knows it. In a final act of despair he turns to the third person at the table, the one he’s almost forgotten about.

“You’re a priest, Georges. Does God play dice?”

Lemaître is between a rock and a hard place. Which Nobel Prize winner’s side will he take? And how to do it without committing blasphemy?

Luckily inspiration strikes just in time to please everyone involved.

“Perhaps we should stop telling God what he can or cannot do.”

 

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114. An open and shut case

“An open and shut case, don’t you think?”

The consulting detective had only been on the crime scene for two seconds when he uttered those words. It wasn’t the first time he’d said them but he’d never said them this soon.

 

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86. Quentin hated the king

Quentin hated the king. He hated his guts.

There was no particular reason. He just did. He even paid in small change as to avoid using the banknotes which had the king’s image prominently printed on them. Sure, the change sported the likeness of the previous monarch but at least he was dead.

So when it transpired the king would visit his town, Quentin set out to annihilate the despot. Over the course of a year he assembled an vast arsenal of gunpowder. He also gathered a motley crew of king-haters who would help him execute the treacherous plot.

The day of the king’s arrival everything went according to plan. The gunpowder was moved to the hidden cavern below town hall where the monarch would hobnob with local aristocracy. The five-minute fuse was lit and gave the conspirators ample time to escape to the other end of town square, from where they’d have first-row seats to the downfall of a monarch. Sipping a warm ale the king-haters looked forward to town hall being blown to smithereens, the blast killing everyone inside.

But that was not how it panned out. There was no blast, just a flurry of police officers springing from all over the place, clubbing the conspirators. Apparently Quentin had not gone about quietly in his scheme, even going as far as bragging about it in the pub during most of his near-daily brawls.

Yet even as he was beaten into a bloody mess Quentin’s smile never disappeared. He knew the yeomen of the Tower of London would be finding the royal ravens dead any time now, poisoned, the result of a cunning side-operation he had purposely nót bragged about.

Remember, remember the fifth of November, Quentin muttered.

Every citizen of the First Republic would, for centuries to come.

 

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71. Why not nuke Belgium?

Why not nuke Belgium?

Bouncing through the mind it seemed a preposterous proposition. But spoken aloud by the Chief of Staff at the height of the crisis there was some logic to it.

The war room debated the issue under duress. Armed warheads were flying across the Bering Strait as they were speaking, half of them towards the commies, the other half bound for the American mainland. Time to find a solution for the accidental stand-off was running out. And so the rank and file gave the option of Belgian annihilation due attention.

Would it persuade the Soviets to break off their counterattack? The answer, they all agreed on, would be a resounding yes. NATO had its headquarters in Brussels so the red party leader would be able to sell it as a great victory against the capitalist pigs.

But how would the West react? Would Belgium be considered an appropriate sacrifice for the American cock-up that had led to this conundrum? If we vaguely inform them of the circumstances the world will comprehend, the Secretary of State concluded. During international summits he had found that most of the world leaders didn’t even know Belgium existed. And those who did thought it was either part of France or found it to be an annoying little shithole. There would be some people’s protests, but they should be quelled by going to war with Vietnam, an operation that was in the pipeline anyway and this way would gain some much-needed legitimacy.

The President was the lone hold-out. He was an avid Tintin fan and feared the irreparable loss of cultural heritage. Then again, how much would be lost if both New York and Moscow were wiped out?

“Mister party leader,” he finally spoke into the red telephone. “I have a suggestion.”

 

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40. The atheist extremists league

The atheist extremists league were officially called the Guardians Of Deity-free Society though for obvious acronymical reasons they never wholly adopted that moniker in public. The group first caught the public’s attention with their ‘Die, fidel, die’ campaign in the early sixties, a needlessly confusing name that according to recently declassified documents played no small part in Fidel Castro granting permission to station Soviet rockets on Cuba.

 

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