The Genius Experiment Read online

  “To her uncle’s place,” said Mr. Kennedy.

  Then he belched. His breath smelled of garlic shrimp and cold noodles swimming in peanut sauce.

  “And where is that?” demanded Dr. Zimm. His large teeth and pinched-tight skin made him look like a bald skull with eyeballs. “Where is her uncle’s place?”

  “Not one hundred percent sure,” said Mr. Kennedy.

  Dr. Zimm nodded at Mr. Murphy and Mr. Jimenez. They tightened their grips on Mr. Kennedy’s arms.

  “Whoa. Ease up, there, brother…”

  “Tell me what I need to know, Mr. Kennedy, and my associates will immediately loosen their grips,” said Dr. Zimm. “We have no interest in hurting you. We simply need to find the girl.”

  “Why? Who’s she to you?”

  Dr. Zimm grinned. “One of my lost sheep.”

  “Huh?”

  Dr. Zimm waved the homeless man off. “Miss Einstein is a very valuable asset. She represents an incredible investment of time and money—”

  “You know Max?”

  Dr. Zimm pursed his lips. He’d already said more than he should have.

  He forced another smile onto his face. “I intend to offer Maxine an amazing opportunity.”

  Mr. Kennedy eyed him suspiciously. “Is that right?”

  “Indeed so. A mind such as Miss Einstein’s should not be wasted here, hiding in a horse stable or gallivanting around the country with her ‘family.’” He said the word as if he didn’t believe the man who took Max away from the stables was in any way related to her. “Now then, I will ask you one more time, Mr. Kennedy: Where did Maxine’s ‘uncle’ take her?”

  “Like I told you, mister. I don’t know.”

  “Fine.” He turned to Jimenez. “Go grab the old lady, Mrs. Rabinowitz. Maybe, with some encouragement, her memory will prove sharper than Mr. Kennedy’s.”

  “Wait,” said Kennedy. “Hang on. I might be remembering something here. Yeah. Milwaukee.”

  “I beg your pardon?” said Dr. Zimm, his eyes sparkling.

  “It just came back to me. Her uncle took her to Milwaukee.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Definitely, man. See, I was enjoying some cold noodles with sesame sauce and Peking duck. The uncle, Mr. Einstein, he says, ‘Oh, just you wait until you taste the Chinese food back home in Milwaukee, Max. It’s even better than what you folks have here in New York.’”

  Mr. Murphy let go of Kennedy’s arm and whipped out a phone. He swiped and tapped the screen.

  “There’s a nine thirty-three direct flight to Milwaukee out of Newark, New Jersey,” he reported. “If we hurry, we can make it.”

  “Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Kennedy,” said Dr. Zimm. “If I were you, I would forget all about our brief encounter.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry,” said Mr. Kennedy. “I already have. In fact, I don’t think you and I have ever met.”

  “Excellent. One more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If we don’t find Max in Milwaukee, remember this: we know how to find you.”

  18

  Isabl drove (under the speed limit) to a private airfield in New Jersey.

  Max could see small corporate jets parked on the far side of a chain-link fence topped with coils of barbed wire.

  “So, I guess we’re not flying to Jerusalem on one of the major airlines, huh?” she said.

  “We need to fly you in under the radar,” said Charl from the front of the car.

  That made Max shiver a little. Flying under the radar would mean doing something called nap-of-the-earth aviation (or NOE)—a type of very low-altitude flying used by military aircraft to avoid detection by the enemy’s radar sensors. It’s also called “ground-hugging” or “hedgehopping.” It means you’re flying just above the treetops!

  Max had never flown before.

  She didn’t want her first flight to be through a tangle of tree branches.

  “It’s just a figure of speech, dear,” said Mr. Weinstock, reading the terrified look on Max’s face. “Under the radar means we want as few people as possible to know that you are anywhere near Jerusalem or the CMI.”

  Isabl motored the car up the gravel drive. Security gates parted smoothly as she approached.

  “We are expected,” she said.

  A man who looked like a soldier in a dark-green flight suit marched up to Isabl’s window. She rolled it down.

  “Your flight plan has been filed and approved with the IDF,” said the military man. He handed Isabl an iPad shielded in a thick plastic case. It looked bulletproof.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Isabl, driving the car toward an open hangar, where Max could see a glistening white jet bathed in brilliant light. A motorcycle with a sidecar was parked next to it.

  “What’s the IDF?” asked Max, who was curious about everything.

  “Israel Defense Forces,” said Charl. “They will be expecting us.”

  “Excellent,” said Mr. Weinstock. “Unexpected visitors in Israeli airspace are often greeted by fighter jets. Have a safe flight and a productive journey, Max.”

  Isabl parked the car. Everyone piled out. Mr. Weinstock went over to the motorcycle.

  “This is where I leave you, Max,” he said. “I will miss our chess games together.”

  “You’re not coming with us?” she asked.

  Mr. Weinstock shook his head. “You don’t need me any longer. You have Charl and Isabl. And, of course, the CMI. You have been chosen.”

  “What exactly have I been chosen for?”

  “Patience, dear. All shall be revealed later, when it’s safe.”

  “But first,” said Isabl, “we need to fly to Jerusalem.”

  “Is that guy in the flight suit our pilot?” Max nodded toward the front gate.

  “No. He’s part of our ground crew.”

  “So, um, when do the pilots show up?”

  “We’re already here,” said Charl. “I’ll take the first seat for wheels up. Isabl will take over for the landing.”

  “You guys are pilots, too?”

  “Yes,” said Isabl.

  Max felt a little queasy. She hoped Isabl didn’t fly the same way she drove.

  Mr. Weinstock was straddling the motorcycle and strapping on a helmet.

  “I’m going to circle back to the stables,” he announced. “I’ll make certain Dr. Zimm didn’t do any irreparable harm when he visited your friends.”

  Max was shocked. “Dr. Zimm went to the stables?”

  “We hope he didn’t,” said Mr. Weinstock, “but we must assume that he did or that he eventually will. Not to worry. I have the keys to several lovely apartments for your squatter friends to move into this very night. Our benefactor has paid their rent for a full year.”

  “Seriously?” said Max.

  “Seriously.”

  “Well, who’s this benefactor? I want to thank him.”

  “Perhaps, at a later date, you two will meet and you’ll be able to thank him in person.” Mr. Weinstock pulled on his motorcycle helmet. “Enjoy the flight, Max. Do well and do good. Make the world a better place.” He gave a hearty wave and puttered off into the night.

  Happy that Mr. Kennedy, Mrs. Rabinowitz, and the rest would be moving into real apartments, Max was practically skipping as she followed Charl and Isabl up the steep metal stairs into the private jet.

  “We’ll be up front in the cockpit,” said Charl.

  “That means the entire cabin is yours,” added Isabl.

  “There’s food and beverages in the galley,” Charl continued. “Help yourself to anything you’d like—once we reach a comfortable cruising altitude and I turn off the fasten seat belt sign. And try to get some sleep. It’s a ten-and-a-half-hour flight. You’ll need to hit the ground running when we land in Jerusalem. The others have already arrived.”

  “The others?” said Max. “What others?”

  Isabl smiled. “All will be explained. Later.”

  Later.

  That seemed to be when a lot of stuff was going to happen.

  “This whole thing doesn’t make much sense,” she said. “And why is this Dr. Zimm after me? I don’t even know any doctors named Zimm…”

  Charl sighed. “Please be patient, Maxine. You’ll understand everything—”

  “Later, right?”

  “Right.”

  19

  Max made her way into the main cabin.

  It smelled brand new. She couldn’t believe how soft and cushiony the leather chairs were. And they reclined! Plus, there were all sorts of plump pillows and fleecy blankets. Her seat would be the most comfortable bed she’d slept in for years.

  She took a seat near a window.

  It was her first time flying. She wanted to enjoy the view.

  She wondered if her hero, Albert Einstein, had ever flown in a plane. Probably not. In all of the biographies she’d read, his trips around the world—to the United States, South America, and even Japan—had been by ship. He didn’t travel a lot after he got older and started doing research and giving lectures in Princeton, New Jersey. So, Max was pretty confident she was about to do something her hero had never done!

  Max also knew that one of Professor Einstein’s biggest flops had to do with airplanes. In 1916, he wrote a technical article proposing a new shape for airplane wings. He wanted to, basically, put a hump in the middle. He theorized it would help the airplane generate lift, the force that pulled the wings up from the earth as air flowed over them. Intrigued, German engineers built a full-size prototype of his idea—a World War I biplane with double “Einstein wings” attached.

  The test pilot took off and landed almost immediately. The plane with the humped wings was hard to control, he reported. “It waddled while flying,” he said, “mimicking the flight of a pregnant duck.”

  Einstein accepted the failure of his humped wing design with his usual good humor, writing, “That is what can happen to a man who thinks a lot, but reads little.”

  Einstein always embraced his failures. It was something Max had tried to do, too. Because, like her hero said, “Only one who does not question is safe from making a mistake.”

  Charl taxied the small jet to the end of the runway.

  “We are number one for takeoff,” he announced through the PA speaker. “See you in Israel, Max!”

  The plane powered down the long strip and gracefully lifted off.

  Max could see the twinkling lights of Manhattan. She studied the familiar landmarks and pinpointed the location of the stables, so near to the edge of the Hudson River.

  Her friends were all getting new homes. So was she. Hers would be lot farther away from the stables than theirs.

  “This is amazing!” she said out loud as the plane cleared the Statue of Liberty and passed over the necklace of tiny lights holding up the massive Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the mouth of New York Harbor.

  In a matter of minutes, they were soaring across the night sky, high above the Atlantic Ocean, heading east to Israel.

  Max knew she should close her eyes and go to sleep.

  But she was too excited. The whole day had been so magical. And scary. And exhilarating.

  Charl and Isabl seemed nice. And smart. And super skilled. Was there anything those two didn’t know how to do? She liked them. They seemed to like her. But they were, basically, total strangers—endorsed by another semi-stranger, Mr. Weinstock.

  Now Max was turning her whole life upside down because this trio of strangers had told her she needed to go to Jerusalem and join something called the CMI, even though none of them would tell her why. Sometimes, Max wished she had a real friend. Maybe someone her own age. Someone she could talk about stuff with. Someone who might understand how she was feeling because they sometimes felt that same way, too.

  “Please be patient,” Charl had said. “You’ll understand everything… later.”

  Everything?

  Did Charl and Isabl know who Max was? Did they know how she got her last name? Did they know her parents?

  Is that what this is all about?

  Max certainly hoped so.

  As the jet glided through the starlit night, Max closed her eyes and initiated another conversation with the Albert Einstein in her head.

  “When will it be later?” she asked.

  “Time is relative and flexible,” came the reply. “The dividing line between past, present, and future is an illusion—although a convincing one.”

  “So, I have to wait forever to find the answers to all my questions?”

  “The wait only seems long, Max, because you are so eager to learn the answers. That’s relativity.”

  “Huh?”

  “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a cute boy for an hour and it seems like a minute.”

  Max blushed and changed the subject. She didn’t have time for cute boys.

  She had to fly to Israel and, hopefully, find out who she really was!

  20

  The private jet landed at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, where it was met by a windowless white van near a private hangar.

  “Is this the girl?” asked a gruff woman with a thick German accent waiting beside the van. She looked to be fifty-some years old with no-nonsense hair and a stiff military bearing.

  “Yes, Tari,” said Isabl.

  “She doesn’t look all that special,” said the unsmiling woman as she sized up Max. Max was wearing a brand-new navy-blue tracksuit she had found wrapped in plastic in the cabin of the private jet. There was a “CMI” stitched into the chest.

  “Max is quite a find, I assure you, Tari,” said Charl. “One we have been working on for years. Rest assured, her presence at the CMI will add a great deal to our efforts.”

  Max smiled at the unsmiling woman. “I can’t wait to see what kind of awesome stuff you guys are up to, Tari.”

  “You are to address me as ‘Ms. Kaplan’ at all times. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am, Ms. Kaplan. I’m Max. Max Einstein.”

  “So Charl and Isabl have informed me. Tell me, Miss Einstein—is that a pseudonym? A name you decided to give yourself? Or maybe it is simply some kind of American joke?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s just my name. The only one I can remember, anyway.”

  “It is also a name we should not broadcast too loudly or widely,” said Isabl. “Dr. Zimm has ears everywhere.”

  Ms. Kaplan’s whole expression changed. It went from skeptical to terrified in a flash.

  “So, the rumors are true?”

  Charl and Isabl nodded.

  “What rumors?” asked Max.

  “Nothing you need concern yourself with,” said Isabl.

  “You’ll have enough to think about at the CMI,” added Charl. “Shall we?”

  “Yes. Of course,” said Ms. Kaplan, who was now gawking at Max like a starstruck fan. “Right this way, Miss Einstein. It’s a forty-minute drive to Jerusalem. Would you like to ride up front or in the back?”

  “Up front would be fun,” she said. “I mean if Charl and Isabl don’t mind. I’ve never been to Jerusalem before. Actually, I’ve never been anywhere except New York City and some place that I don’t remember much because I was really, really young when I left. I think it was out in the country. I remember smelling trees. Apple trees. And cows.”

  “How fascinating,” said Ms. Kaplan, bustling to the van. “Charl and Isabl, you’ll ride in the back.”

  “I can drive,” offered Isabl.

  “No, thank you,” said Ms. Kaplan. “We’re not in that big of a rush. We don’t need to be at the CMI until dinner.”

  Max practically leaped into the front passenger seat. She had a wide, picture window view of everything as they drove from the airport into the historic and holy city of Jerusalem.

  The van traveled past the glittering Dome of the Rock and the Citadel, which Charl called “The Tower of David.” Max wished she had a camera so she could take a selfie with Mount Zion in the background. Max had never taken a selfie before. Then, again, she’d never traveled halfway across the world to the Middle East before, either. She figured there was a first time for everything.

  “Traffic is thick,” sighed Ms. Kaplan. The van came to a complete stop. The highway was a parking lot.

  “That sign says Begin South,” said Max, reading a highway placard. “Do we need to start going south?”

  Charl and Isabl both laughed. “The highway is named after Menachem Begin,” said Isabl, pronouncing “begin” as “bay-gen.”

  “He was a former Prime Minister of Israel,” added Charl.

  “Oh,” said Max, who was always happy to learn new things. Her mind was like a sponge—always looking for information to soak up.

  Eventually, after crawling through the rush hour traffic, they arrived at the CMI’s headquarters, which turned out to be a nondescript, all-glass modern building. Its mirrored walls helped it blend in with all the buildings surrounding it.

  “The benefactor insists that we keep an extremely low profile,” explained Ms. Kaplan as she tapped a security code on a pad next to the main double doors. There was a very discreet “CMI” etched into their frosted glass. “Your room will be in the dormitory, just down the hall from the others.”

  “Are they students like me?” asked Max.

  “For the most part,” answered Ms. Kaplan. “A few have already graduated college. But you should get along just fine. You’re all very close in age.”

  “Even the college graduates?”

  “Actually, those two might be a little younger than you. One is eleven. The other twelve.”

  “I’m twelve, too,” mumbled Max. “Didn’t get to finish college… not yet, anyway.”

  “Don’t let it worry you,” said Charl.

  “You’re every bit as bright as the other contestants,” added Isabl.

  “Contestants?” said Max. “You guys didn’t say anything about ‘contestants.’ Is that something else that will be explained ‘later’?”

  “No,” said Charl, somewhat mischievously. “The contest will be explained now.”