In the darkness, he touched her arm and said, "Stay here." She did not move, just waited. The smell of salt water was strong. She heard the faint gurgle of water.
Then the lights came on, reflecting off the surface of a large open tank, perhaps fifty meters long and twenty meters wide. It might have been an indoor swimming pool, except for all the electronic equipment that surrounded it.
And the very strange device at the far end of the pool.
Jonathan Marshall came back to her, grinning like an idiot. "Qu'estce que tu penses?" he said, though he knew his pronunciation was terrible. "What do you think?"
"It is magnificent," the girl said. When she spoke English, her accent sounded exotic. In fact, everything about her was exotic, Jonathan thought. With her dark skin, high cheekbones, and black hair, she might have been a model. And she strutted like a model in her short skirt and spike heels. She was half Vietnamese, and her name was Marisa. "But no one else is here?" she said, looking around.
"No, no," he said. "It's Sunday. No one is coming."
Jonathan Marshall was twenty-four, a graduate student in physics from London, working for the summer at the ultra-modern Laboratoire Ondulatoirethe wave mechanics laboratoryof the French Marine Institute in Vissy, just north of Paris. But the suburb was mostly the residence of young families, and it had been a lonely summer for Marshall. Which was why he could not believe his good fortune at meeting this girl. This extraordinarily beautiful and sexy girl.
"Show me what it does, this machine," Marisa said. Her eyes were shining. "Show me what it is you do."
"My pleasure," Marshall said. He moved to the large control panel and began to switch on the pumps and sensors. The thirty panels of the wave machine at the far end of the tank clicked, one after another.
He glanced back at her, and she smiled at him. "It is so complicated," she said. She came and stood beside him at the control panel. "Your research is recorded on cameras?"
"Yes, we have cameras in the ceiling, and on the sides of the tank. They make a visual record of the waves that are generated. We also have pressure sensors in the tanks that record pressure parameters of the passing wave."
"These cameras are on now?"
"No, no," he said. "We don't need them; we're not doing an experiment."
"Perhaps we are," she said, resting her hand on his shoulder. Her fingers were long and delicate. She had beautiful fingers.
She watched for a minute, then said, "This room, everything is so expensive. You must have great security, no?"
"Not really," he said. "Just cards to get in. And only one security camera." He gestured over his shoulder. "That one back in the corner."
She turned to look. "And that is turned on?" she said.
"Oh yes," he said. "That's always on."
She slid her hand to caress his neck lightly. "So is someone watching us now?"
"Afraid so."
"Then we should behave."
"Probably. Anyway, what about your boyfriend?"
"Him." She gave a derisive snort. "I have had enough of him."
Earlier that day, Marshall had gone from his small apartment to the cafй on rue Montaigne, the cafй he went to every morning, taking a journal article with him to read as usual. Then this girl had sat down at the next table, with her boyfriend. The couple had promptly fallen into an argument.
In truth, Marshall felt that Marisa and the boyfriend didn't seem to belong together. He was American, a beefy, red-faced fellow built like a footballer, with longish hair and wire-frame glasses that did not suit his thick features. He looked like a pig trying to appear scholarly.
His name was Jim, and he was angry with Marisa, apparently because she had spent the previous night away from him. "I don't know why you won't tell me where you were," he kept repeating.
"It is none of your business, that's why."
"But I thought we were going to have dinner together."
"Jimmy, I told you we were not."
"No, you told me you were. And I was waiting at the hotel for you. All night."
"So? No one made you. You could go out. Enjoy yourself."
"But I was waiting for you."
"Jimmy, you do not own me." She was exasperated by him, sighing, throwing up her hands, or slapping her bare knees. Her legs were crossed, and the short skirt rode up high. "I do as I please."
"That's clear."
"Yes," she said, and at that moment she turned to Marshall and said, "What is that you are reading? It looks very complicated."
At first Marshall was alarmed. She was clearly talking to him to taunt the boyfriend. He did not want to be drawn into the couple's dispute.
"It's physics," he said briefly, and turned slightly away. He tried to ignore her beauty.
"What kind of physics?" she persisted.
"Wave mechanics. Ocean waves."
"So, you are a student?"
"Graduate student."
"Ah. And clearly intelligent. You are English? Why are you in France?"
And before he knew it, he was talking to her, and she introduced the boyfriend, who gave Marshall a smirk and a limp handshake. It was still very uncomfortable, but the girl behaved as if it were not.
"So you work around here? What sort of work? A tank with a machine? Really, I can't imagine what you say. Will you show me?"
And now they were here, in the wave mechanics laboratory. And Jimmy, the boyfriend, was sulking in the parking lot outside, smoking a cigarette.
"What shall we do about Jimmy?" she said, standing beside Marshall while he worked at the control panel.
"He can't smoke in here."
"I will see that he does not. But I don't want to make him more angry. Can I let him in, do you think?"
Marshall felt disappointment flood through him. "Sure. I guess."
Then she squeezed his shoulder. "Don't worry, he is busy later with other business of his."
She went and opened the door at the back of the lab, and Jimmy came in. Marshall glanced back and saw him hanging back, hands in his pockets. Marisa came up to stand beside Marshall again, at the control panel.
"He's all right," she said. "Now show me."
The electric motors at the far end of the tank whirred, and the wave paddles generated the first wave. It was a small wave, and it rippled smoothly down the length of the tank, to splash on a slanted panel at the near end.
"So, this is a tidal wave?" she said.
"It is a simulation of a tsunami, yes," Marshall said, his fingers tapping the keyboard. On the control panel, displays showed temperature and pressure, generated false-color images of the wave.
"A simulation," she said. "Meaning what?"
"We can make waves up to one meter high in this tank," Marshall said. "But the real tsunamis are four, eight, ten meters high. Occasionally even more."
"A wave in the ocean that is ten meters?" Her eyes widened. "Really?" She was looking toward the ceiling, trying to imagine it.
Marshall nodded. That would be over thirty feet high, the height of a three-story building. And it would be moving at eight hundred kilometers an hour, roaring up to the shore.
"And when it comes to the shore?" she said. "Is that the slope at this end? It looks like a pebble texture on it. Is that the shore?"
"That's right," Marshall said. "How high the wave goes up the shore is a function of the angle of the slope. We can adjust the slope to any angle."
The boyfriend came forward, moving closer to the tank, but still he hung back. He never said a word.
Marisa was excited. "You can adjust it? How?"
"It is motorized."
"To any angle?" She giggled. "Show me vingt-sept degrees. Twenty-seven."
"Coming up." Marshall typed at the keyboard. With a slight grinding sound, the slope of the shore angled higher.
The American boyfriend went closer to the tank to look, drawn by the activity. It was fascinating, Marshall thought. Anybody would be interested. But the guy never spoke. He just stood and watched the pebbled surface tilt. Soon it stopped.
"So that is the slope?" she said.
"Yes," Marshall said. "Although in point of fact, twenty-seven degrees is fairly steep, more than the average shoreline in the real world. Maybe I should set it to"
Her dark hand closed over his. "No, no," she said. Her skin was soft. "Leave it. Show me a wave. I want to see a wave."
Small waves were being generated every thirty seconds. They rippled along the length of the tank, with a slight whoosh. "Well, I first have to know the shape of the shoreline. Right now, it's flat beach, but if it was an inlet of some kind amp;"
"Will it change to make an inlet?"
"Of course."
"Really? Show me."
"What kind of inlet do you want? A harbor, a river, a bay amp;"
"Oh," she said, shrugging, "make a bay."
He smiled. "Fine. How big?"
With the whir of electric motors, the shoreline began to sink into a curve, the slope indenting into a bowl.
"Fantastic," she said. "Come on, Jonathan, show me the wave."
"Not yet. How big is the bay?"
"Oh amp;" She gestured in the air. "One mile. A bay of one mile. Now will you show me?" She leaned toward him. "I do not like to wait. You should know this."
He smelled her perfume. He typed quickly. "Here it comes," he said. "A big wave, coming into a one-mile bay, with a twenty-seven-degree slope."
There was a much louder whoosh as the next wave was generated at the far end of the tank, and then it rippled smoothly toward them, a raised line of water about six inches high.
"Oh!" Marisa pouted. "You promised me it would be big."
"Just wait," he said.
"It will grow?" she said, giggling. She put her hand on his shoulder again. Then the American glanced back, and gave her a dirty look. She jerked her chin in the air, defiant. But when he looked back at the tank, she took her hand away.
Marshall felt despondent again. She was just using him, he was a pawn in this game between them.
"You said it will grow?" she said.
"Yes," Marshall said, "the wave will grow as it comes to the shore. In deep water a tsunami is small, but in shallow water it builds. And the inlet will concentrate its power, so it goes higher."
The wave rose higher, and then smashed against the curved shore at the near end. It foamed white, and sloshed up the sides of the shore. It came up about five feet, he guessed.
"So it comes high," she said. "In the real world?"
"That's about forty, fifty feet," he said. "Fifteen meters."
"Ooh la la," she said, pursing her lips. "So a person cannot run away from this."
"Oh no," Marshall said. "You can't outrun a tidal wave. There was a wave in Hilo, Hawaii, in 1957, came right down the streets of the town, tall as the buildings, people ran from it but"
"So that's it?" the American said. "That's all it does?" His voice was growly, like he needed to clear his throat.
"Don't mind him," she said quietly.
"Yes, that's what we do here," Marshall said. "We generate waves"
"Jesus fucking A," the American said. "I could do that in my bathtub when I was six months old."
"Well," Marshall said, gesturing to the control panel, and the monitors displaying data, "we generate a lot of databases for researchers around the world who are"
"Yeah, yeah. That's enough. Boring as whale shit. I'm leaving. You coming, Marisa, or not?" He stood and glared at her.
Marshall heard her suck in her breath.
"No," she said. "I am not."
The American turned and walked off, slamming the door loudly as he left.
Her apartment was just across the river from Notre Dame, and from the balcony in the bedroom he had a beautiful view of the cathedral, which was lighted at night. It was ten o'clock, but there was still a deep blue in the sky. He looked down at the street below, the lights of the cafйs, the crowds walking on the streets. It was a busy and glamorous scene.
"Don't worry," she said, behind him. "If you're looking for Jimmy, he won't come here."
Actually, the thought hadn't occurred to him, until she mentioned it. "No?"
"No," she said. "He will go elsewhere. Jimmy has many women." She took a sip of red wine, then set the glass down on the bedside table. Unceremoniously, she pulled her top over her head and dropped her skirt. She was wearing nothing beneath.
Still in her high heels, she walked toward him. He must have seemed surprised, because she said, "I told you: I do not like to wait," and threw her arms around him and kissed him hard, fiercely, almost angrily. The next moments were awkward, trying to kiss while she tore off his clothes. She was breathing hard, almost panting. She never spoke. She was so passionate she seemed almost angry, and her beauty, the physical perfection of her dark body, intimidated him, but not for long.
Afterward she lay against him, her skin soft but her body taut beneath the surface. The bedroom ceiling had a soft glow from the church faзade opposite. He was relaxed, but she seemed, if anything, to be energized, restless after making love. He wondered if she had really come, despite her moans and her final cries. And then abruptly, she got up.
"Anything wrong?"
She took a sip of wine. "To the toilet," she said, and turned away, passing through a door. She had left her wineglass. He sat up and took a sip, seeing the delicate pattern of her lipstick on the rim.
He looked at the bed and saw the dark streaks on the sheets from her heels. She had not taken them off until midway through their love-making. Now the heels were tossed away, coming to a stop beneath the window. Signs of their passion. He still felt, even now, as if he were in a dream. He had never been with a woman like this. Beautiful like this, living in a place like this. He wondered how much this apartment cost, the wood paneling, the perfect location amp; He took another sip of wine. He could get used to this, he thought.
He heard water running in the bathroom. A humming sound, a tuneless song.
With a bang! the front door slammed open and three men burst into the bedroom. They were wearing dark raincoats and hats. Terrified, Marshall set the wineglass on the tableit felland dived for his clothes beside the bed to cover himself, but in an instant the men were on him, grabbing him with gloved hands. He yelled in alarm and panic as they threw him over, shoving him facedown on the bed. He was still yelling as they pushed his face into a pillow. He thought they were going to suffocate him, but they didn't. One man hissed, "Be quiet. Nothing will happen if you are quiet."
He didn't believe him, so he struggled, calling out again. Where was Marisa? What was she doing? It was happening so fast. One man was sitting on his back, knees digging into his spine, his cold shoes on Marshall's bare buttocks. He felt the man's hand on his neck, shoving him into the bed.
"Be quiet!" the man hissed again.
The other men had each taken one of his wrists, and they were pulling his arms wide, spread-eagling him on the bed. They were getting ready to do something to him. He felt terrified and vulnerable. He moaned, and somebody hit him on the back of the head. "Quiet!"
Everything was happening quickly, it was all impressionistic. Where was Marisa? Probably hiding in the bathroom, and he couldn't blame her. He heard a sloshing sound and saw a plastic baggie and something white in it, like a golf ball. They were placing the baggie under his armpit, on the fleshy part of his arm.
What the hell were they doing? He felt the water cold against his under-arm, and he struggled but they held him tight, and then inside the water, something soft pressed against the arm, and he had a sticky sensation, like sticky chewing gum, something sticky and tugging against the flesh of his arm, and then he felt a little pinch. Nothing, hardly noticeable, a momentary sting.
The men were moving quickly, the baggie was removed, and at that moment he heard two surprisingly loud gunshots and Marisa was screaming in rapid French"Salaud! Salopard! Bouge-toi le cul!"and the third man had tumbled off Marshall's back and fallen to the ground, then scrambled up, and Marisa was still screaming, there were more shots, and he could smell powder in the air, and the men fled. The door slammed, and she came back, stark naked, babbling in French he could not understand, something about vacherie, which he thought was a cow but he wasn't thinking straight. He was starting to tremble on the bed.
She came over and threw her arms around him. The barrel of the gun was hot and he yelled, and she set it aside. "Oh Jonathan, I am so sorry, so sorry." She cradled his head against her shoulder. "Please, you must forgive me, it is all right now, I promise you."
Gradually his trembling stopped, and she looked at him. "Did they hurt you?"
He shook his head, no.
"Good. I did not think so. Idiots! Friends of Jimmy, they think they make a joke, to scare you. And me I am sure. But you are not hurt?"
He shook his head again. He coughed. "Perhaps," he said, finding his voice at last. "Perhaps I should be going."
"Oh, no," she said. "No, no, you cannot do this to me."
"I don't feel"
"Absolutely no," she said. She pushed closer to him, so her body was touching his. "You must stay a while."
"Should we call the police?"
"Mais non. The police will do nothing. A quarrel of lovers. In France we do not do this, call the police."
"But they broke in amp;"
"They are gone now," she said, whispering in his ear. He felt her breath. "There is only us, now. Only us, Jonathan." Her dark body slid down his chest.
It was after midnight when he was finally dressed and standing at the window, looking out at Notre Dame. The streets were still crowded.
"Why will you not stay?" she said, pouting prettily. "I want you to stay. Don't you want to please me?"
"I'm sorry," he said. "I have to go. I don't feel very well."
"I will make you feel better."
He shook his head. In truth, he really did not feel well. He was experiencing waves of dizziness, and his legs felt oddly weak. His hands were trembling as he gripped the balcony.
"I'm sorry," he said again. "I have to leave."
"All right, then I will drive you."
Her car, he knew, was parked on the other side of the Seine. It seemed far to walk. But he just nodded numbly. "All right," he said.
She was in no rush. They strolled arm in arm, like lovers, along the embankment. They passed the houseboat restaurants tied up to the side, brightly lit, still busy with guests. Above them, on the other side of the river, rose Notre Dame, brilliantly lit. For a while, this slow walk, with her head on his shoulder, the soft words she spoke to him, made him feel better.
But soon he stumbled, feeling a kind of clumsy weakness coursing through his body. His mouth was very dry. His jaw felt stiff. It was difficult to speak.
She did not seem to notice. They had moved past the bright lights now, under one of the bridges, and he stumbled again. This time he fell on the stone embankment.
"My darling," she said, worried and solicitous, and helped him to his feet.
He said, "I think amp;I think amp;"
"Darling, are you all right?" She helped him to a bench, away from the river. "Here, just sit here for a moment. You will feel better in a moment."
But he did not feel better. He tried to protest, but he could not speak. In horror he realized he could not even shake his head. Something was very wrong. His whole body was growing weak, swiftly and astonishingly weak, and he tried to push up from the bench, but he could not move his limbs, he could not move his head. He looked at her, sitting beside him.
"Jonathan, what is wrong? Do you need a doctor?"
Yes, I need a doctor, he thought.
"Jonathan, this is not right amp;"
His chest was heavy. He was having trouble breathing. He looked away, staring straight ahead. He thought in horror: I am paralyzed.
"Jonathan?"
He tried to look at her. But now he could not even move his eyes. He could only look straight forward. His breathing was shallow.
"Jonathan?"
I need a doctor.
"Jonathan, can you look at me? Can you? No? You cannot turn your head?"
Somehow, her voice did not sound concerned. She sounded detached, clinical. Perhaps his hearing was affected. There was a rushing sound in his ears. It was harder and harder to breathe.
"All right, Jonathan, let's get you away from here."
She ducked her head under his arm and with surprising strength got him to his feet. His body was loose and floppy, sagging around her. He could not control where he looked. He heard the clicking of footsteps approaching and thought, Thank God. He heard a man's voice say in French, "Mademoiselle, do you need help?"
"Thank you, but no," she said. "Just too much to drink."
"Are you sure?"
"He does this all the time."
"Yes?"
"I can manage."
"Ah. Then I wish you bonne nuit."
"Bonne nuit," she said.
She continued on her way, carrying him. The footsteps became fainter. Then she paused, turned to look in all directions. And now amp;she was moving him toward the river.
"You are heavier than I thought," she said, in a conversational tone.
He felt a deep and profound terror. He was completely paralyzed. He could do nothing. His own feet were scraping over the stone.
Toward the river.
"I am sorry," she said, and she dropped him into the water.
It was a short fall, and a stunning sense of cold. He plunged beneath the surface, surrounded by bubbles and green, then black. He could not move, even in the water. He could not believe this was happening to him, he could not believe that he was dying this way.
Then slowly, he felt his body rise. Green water again, and then he broke the surface, on his back, turning slowly.
He could see the bridge, and the black sky, and Marisa, standing on the embankment. She lit a cigarette and stared at him. She had one hand on her hip, one leg thrust forward, a model's pose. She exhaled, smoke rising in the night.
Then he sank beneath the surface again, and he felt the cold and the blackness close in around him.
At three o'clock in the morning the lights snapped on in the Laboratoire Ondulatoire of the French Marine Institute, in Vissy. The control panel came to life. The wave machine began to generate waves that rolled down the tank, one after another, and crashed against the artificial shore. The control screens flashed three-dimensional images, scrolled columns of data. The data was transmitted to an unknown location somewhere in France.
At four o'clock, the control panel went dark, and the lights went out, and the hard drives erased any record of what had been done.
PAHANG TUESDAY, MAY 11 11:55 A.M.
The twisting jungle road lay in shadow beneath the canopy of the Malay rain forest. The paved road was very narrow, and the Land Cruiser careened around the corners, tires squealing. In the passenger seat, a bearded man of forty glanced at his watch. "How much farther?"
"Just a few minutes," the driver said, not slowing. "We're almost there."
The driver was Chinese but he spoke with a British accent. His name was Charles Ling and he had flown over from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur the night before. He had met his passenger at the airport that morning, and they had been driving at breakneck speed ever since.
The passenger had given Ling a card that read "Allan Peterson, Seismic Services, Calgary." Ling didn't believe it. He knew perfectly well that there was a company in Alberta, ELS Engineering, that sold this equipment. It wasn't necessary to come all the way to Malaysia to see it.
Not only that, but Ling had checked the passenger manifest on the incoming flight, and there was no Allan Peterson listed. So this guy had come in on a different name.
Furthermore, he told Ling he was a field geologist doing independent consulting for energy companies in Canada, mostly evaluating potential oil sites. But Ling didn't believe that, either. You could spot those petroleum engineers a mile off. This guy wasn't one.
So Ling didn't know who the guy was. It didn't bother him. Mr. Peterson's credit was good; the rest was none of Ling's business. He had only one interest today, and that was to sell cavitation machines. And this looked like a big sale: Peterson was talking about three units, more than a million dollars in total.
He turned off the road abruptly, onto a muddy rut. They bounced through the jungle beneath huge trees, and suddenly came out into sunlight and a large opening. There was a huge semicircular gash in the ground, exposing a cliff of gray earth. A green lake lay below.
"What's this?" Peterson said, wincing.
"It was open-face mine, abandoned now. Kaolin."
"Which is amp;?"
Ling thought, this is no geologist. He explained that kaolin was a mineral in clay. "It's used in paper and ceramics. Lot of industrial ceramics now. They make ceramic knives, incredibly sharp. They'll make ceramic auto engines soon. But the quality here was too low. It was abandoned four years ago."
Peterson nodded. "And where is the cavitator?"
Ling pointed toward a large truck parked at the edge of the cliff. "There." He drove toward it.
"Russians make it?"
"The vehicle and the carbon-matrix frame are Russian made. The electronics come from Taiwan. We assemble ourselves, in Kuala Lumpur."
"And is this your biggest model?"
"No, this is the intermediate. We don't have the largest one to show you."
They pulled alongside the truck. It was the size of a large earthmover; the cab of the Land Cruiser barely reached above the huge tires. In the center, hanging above the ground, was a large rectangular cavitation generator, looking like an oversize diesel generator, a boxy mass of pipes and wires. The curved cavitation plate was slung underneath, a few feet above the ground.
They climbed out of the car into sweltering heat. Ling's eyeglasses clouded over. He wiped them on his shirt. Peterson walked around the truck. "Can I get the unit without the truck?"
"Yes, we make transportable units. Seagoing containers. But usually clients want them mounted on vehicles eventually."
"I just want the units," Peterson said. "Are you going to demonstrate?"
"Right away," Ling said. He gestured to the operator, high up in the cab. "Perhaps we should step away."
"Wait a minute," Peterson said, suddenly alarmed. "I thought we were going to be alone. Who is that?"
"That's my brother," Ling said smoothly. "He's very trustworthy."
"Well amp;"
"Let's step away," Ling said. "We can see better from a distance."
The cavitation generator fired up, chugging loudly. Soon the noise blended with another sound, a deep humming that Ling always seemed to feel in his chest, in his bones.
Peterson must have felt it, too, because he moved back hastily.
"These cavitation generators are hypersonic," Ling explained, "producing a radially symmetric cavitation field that can be adjusted for focal point, rather like an optical lens, except we are using sound. In other words, we can focus the sound beam, and control how deep the cavitation will occur."
He waved to the operator, who nodded. The cavitation plate came down, until it was just above the ground. The sound changed, becoming deeper and much quieter. The earth vibrated slightly where they were standing.
"Jesus," Peterson said, stepping back.
"Not to worry," Ling said. "This is just low-grade reflection. The main energy vector is orthogonal, directed straight down."
About forty feet below the truck, the walls of the canyon suddenly seemed to blur, to become indistinct. Small clouds of gray smoke obscured the surface for a moment, and then a whole section of cliff gave way, and rumbled down into the lake below, like a gray avalanche. The whole area filled with smoke and dust.
As it began to clear, Ling said, "Now we will show how the beam is focused." The rumbling began again, and this time the cliff blurred much farther down, two hundred feet or more. Once again the gray sand gave way, this time sliding rather quietly into the lake.
"And it can focus laterally as well?" Peterson said.
Ling said it could. A hundred yards north of the truck, the cliff was shaken free, and again tumbled down.
"We can aim it in any direction, and any depth."
"Any depth?"
"Our big unit will focus at a thousand meters. Although no client has any use for such depths."
"No, no," Peterson said. "We don't need anything like that. But we want beam power." He wiped his hands on his trousers. "I've seen enough."
"Really? We have quite a few other techniques to demon"
"I'm ready to go back." Behind his sunglasses, his eyes were unreadable.
"Very well," Ling said. "If you are sure"
"I'm sure."
Driving back, Peterson said, "You ship from KL or Hong Kong?"
"From KL."
"With what restrictions?"
Ling said, "How do you mean?"
"Hypersonic cavitation technology in the US is restricted. It can't be exported without a license."
"As I said, we use Taiwanese electronics."
"Is it as reliable as the US technology?"
Ling said, "Virtually identical." If Peterson knew his business, he would know that the US had long ago lost the capacity to manufacture such advanced chipsets. The US cavitation chipsets were manufactured in Taiwan. "Why do you ask? Are you planning to export to the US?"
"No."
"Then there is no difficulty."
"What's your lead time?" Peterson said.
"We need seven months."
"I was thinking of five."
"It can be done. There will be a premium. For how many units?"
"Three," Peterson said.
Ling wondered why anyone would need three cavitation units. No geological survey company in the world owned more than one.
"I can fill that order," Ling said, "upon receipt of your deposit."
"You will have it wired to you tomorrow."
"And we are shipping where? Canada?"
"You will receive shipping instructions," Peterson said, "in five months."
Directly ahead, the curved spans of the ultra-modern airport designed by Kurokawa rose into the sky. Peterson had lapsed into silence. Driving up the ramp, Ling said, "I hope we are in time for your flight."
"What? Oh yes. We're fine."
"You're heading back to Canada?"
"Yes."
Ling pulled up at the international terminal, got out, and shook Peterson's hand. Peterson shouldered his day bag. It was his only luggage. "Well," Peterson said. "I'd better go."
"Safe flight."
"Thank you. You, too. Back to Hong Kong?"
"No," Ling said. "I have to go to the factory, and get them started."
"It's nearby?"
"Yes, in Pudu Raya. Just a few kilometers."
"All right, then." Peterson disappeared inside the terminal, giving a final wave. Ling got back in the car and drove away. But as he was heading down the ramp, he saw that Peterson had left behind his cell phone on the car seat. He pulled over to the curb, glancing back over his shoulder. But Peterson was gone. And the cell phone in his hand was lightweight, made of cheap plastic. It was one of those prepaid-card phones, the disposable ones. It couldn't be Peterson's main phone.
It occurred to Ling that he had a friend who might be able to trace the phone and the card inside it. Find out more about the purchaser. And Ling would like to know more. So he slipped the phone into his pocket and drove north, to the factory.
Richard Mallory looked up from his desk and said, "Yes?"
The man standing in the doorway was pale-complected, slender, and American-looking, with a blond crew cut. His manner was casual, his dress nondescript: dirty Adidas running shoes and a faded navy tracksuit. He looked as if he might be out for a jog and had stopped by the office for a moment.
And since this was Design/Quest, a hot graphics shop located on Butler's Wharf, a refurbished warehouse district below London's Tower Bridge, most of the employees in the office were casually dressed. Mallory was the exception. Since he was the boss, he wore slacks and a white shirt. And wingtip shoes that hurt his feet. But they were hip.
Mallory said, "Can I help you?"
"I've come for the package," the American said.
"I'm sorry. What package?" Mallory said. "If it's a DHL pickup, the secretary has it up front."
The American looked annoyed. "Don't you think you're overdoing it?" he said. "Just give me the fucking package."
"Okay, fine," Mallory said, getting up from behind the desk.
Apparently the American felt he had been too harsh, because in a quieter tone he said, "Nice posters," and pointed to the wall behind Mallory. "You do 'em?"
"We did," Mallory said. "Our firm."
There were two posters, side by side on the wall, both stark black with a hanging globe of the Earth in space, differing only in the tag line. One said "Save the Earth" and beneath it, "It's the Only Home We Have." The other said "Save the Earth" and beneath that, "There's Nowhere Else to Go."
Then off to one side was a framed photograph of a blond model in a T-shirt: "Save the Earth" and the copy line was "And Look Good Doing It."
"That was our Save the Earth' campaign," Mallory said. "But they didn't buy it."
"Who didn't?"
"International Conservation Fund."
He went past the American and headed down the back stairs to the garage. The American followed.
"Why not? They didn't like it?"
"No, they liked it," Mallory said. "But they got Leo as a spokesman, and used him instead. Campaign went to video spots."
At the bottom of the stairs, he swiped his card, and the door unlocked with a click. They stepped into the small garage beneath the building. It was dark except for the glare of daylight from the ramp leading to the street. Mallory noticed with annoyance that a van partly blocked the ramp. They always had trouble with delivery vans parking there.
He turned to the American. "You have a car?"
"Yes. A van." He pointed.
"Oh good, so that's yours. And somebody to help you?"
"No. Just me. Why?"
"It's bloody heavy," Mallory said. "It may just be wire, but it's half a million feet of it. Weighs seven hundred pounds, mate."
"I can handle it."
Mallory went to his Rover and unlocked the boot. The American whistled, and the van rumbled down the ramp. It was driven by a tough-looking woman with spiked hair, dark makeup.
Mallory said, "I thought you were alone."
"She doesn't know anything," the American said. "Forget her. She brought the van. She just drives."
Mallory turned to the open boot. There were stacked white boxes marked "Ethernet Cable (Unshielded)." And printed specifications.
"Let's see one," the American said.
Mallory opened a box. Inside was a jumble of fist-sized coils of very thin wire, each in shrink-wrap plastic. "As you see," he said, "it's guide wire. For anti-tank missiles."
"Is it?"
"That's what they told me. That's why it's wrapped that way. One coil of wire for each missile."
"I wouldn't know," the American said. "I'm just the delivery man." He went and opened the back of his van. Then he began to transfer the boxes, one at a time. Mallory helped.
The American said, "This guy tell you anything else?"
"Actually, he did," Mallory said. "He said somebody bought five hundred surplus Warsaw Pact rockets. Called Hotfire or Hotwire or something. No warheads or anything. Just the rocket bodies. The story is they were sold with defective guide wire."
"I haven't heard that."
"That's what he said. Missiles were bought in Sweden. Gothenburg, I think. Shipped out from there."
"Sounds like you're worried."
"I'm not worried," Mallory said.
"Like you're afraid you're mixed up in something."
"Not me."
"Sure about that?" the American said.
"Yes, of course I'm sure."
Most of the boxes were transferred to the van. Mallory started to sweat. The American seemed to be glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. Openly skeptical. He said, "So, tell me. What'd he look like, this guy?"
Mallory knew better than to answer that. He shrugged. "Just a guy."
"American?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know whether he was American or not?"
"I couldn't be sure of his accent."
"Why is that?" the American said.
"He might have been Canadian."
"Alone?"
"Yeah."
"Because I hear talk about some gorgeous woman. Sexy woman in high heels, tight skirt."
"I would have noticed a woman like that," Mallory said.
"You wouldn't be amp;leaving her out?" Another skeptical glance. "Keeping her to yourself?" Mallory noticed a bulge on the American's hip. Was it a gun? It might be.
"No. He was alone."
"Whoever the guy was."
"Yes."
"You ask me," the American said, "I'd be wondering why anybody needed half a million feet of wire for anti-tank missiles in the first place. I mean, for what?"
Mallory said, "He didn't say."
"And you just said, Right, mate, half a million feet of wire, leave it to me,' with never a question?"
"Seems like you're asking all the questions," Mallory said. Still sweating.
"And I have a reason," the American said. His tone turned ominous. "I got to tell you, pal. I don't like what I am hearing."
The last of the boxes were stacked in the van. Mallory stepped back. The American slammed the first door shut, then the second. As the second door closed, Mallory saw the driver standing there. The woman. She had been standing behind the door.
"I don't like it either," she said. She was wearing fatigues, army surplus stuff. Baggy trousers and high-laced boots. A bulky green jacket. Heavy gloves. Dark glasses.
"Now wait a minute," the American said.
"Give me your cell phone," she said. Holding out her hand for it. Her other hand was behind her back. As if she had a gun.
"Why?"
"Give it to me."
"Why?"
"I want to look at it, that's why."
"There's nothing unusual"
"Give it to me."
The American pulled the cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. Instead of taking it, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him toward her. The cell phone clattered to the ground. She brought her other hand from around her back and quickly gripped the side of his neck with her gloved hand. She held him with both hands around his neck, as if she were strangling him.
For a moment he was stunned; then he began to struggle. "What the fuck are you doing?" he said. "What are youhey!" He knocked her hands away and jumped back as if he had been burned. "What was that? What did you do?"
He touched his neck. A tiny trickle of blood ran down, just a few drops. There was red on his fingertips. Almost nothing.
"What did you do?" he said.
"Nothing." She was stripping off her gloves. Mallory could see she was doing it carefully. As if something were in the glove. Something she did not want to touch.
"Nothing?" the American said. "Nothing? Son of a bitch!" Abruptly, he turned and began to run up the ramp toward the street outside.
Calmly, she watched him go. She bent over, picked up the cell phone, and put it in her pocket. Then she turned to Mallory. "Go back to work."
He hesitated.
"You did a good job. I never saw you. You never saw me. Now go."
Mallory turned and walked to the back-stairs door. Behind him, he heard the woman slam the van door, and when he glanced back, he saw the van racing up the ramp into the glare of the street. The van turned right, and was gone.
Back in his office, his assistant, Elizabeth, came in with a mockup for the new ultralight computer ads for Toshiba. The shoot was tomorrow. These were the finals to go over. He shuffled through the boards quickly; Mallory had trouble concentrating.
Elizabeth said, "You don't like them?"
"No, no, they're fine."
"You look a little pale."
"I just, um amp;my stomach."
"Ginger tea," she said. "That's best. Shall I make some?"
He nodded, to get her out of the office. He looked out the window. Mallory's office had a spectacular view of the Thames, and the Tower Bridge off to the left. The bridge had been repainted baby blue and white (was that traditional or just a bad idea?), but to see it always made him feel good. Secure somehow.
He walked closer to the window, and stood looking at the bridge. He was thinking that when his best friend had asked if he would lend a hand in a radical environmental cause, it had sounded like something fun. A bit of secrecy, a bit of dash and derring-do. He had been promised that it would not involve anything violent. Mallory had never imagined he would be frightened.
But he was frightened now. His hands were shaking. He stuck them in his pockets as he stared out the window. Five hundred rockets? he thought. Five hundred rockets. What had he gotten himself into? Then, slowly, he realized that he was hearing sirens, and there were red lights flashing on the bridge railings.
There had been an accident on the bridge. And judging from the number of police and rescue vehicles, it was a serious accident.
One in which someone had died.
He couldn't help himself. Feeling a sense of panic, he left the office, went outside to the quay, and with his heart in his throat, hurried toward the bridge.
From the upper level of the red double-decker bus, the tourists were staring down, covering their mouths in horror. Mallory pushed through the crowd clustered near the front of the bus. He got close enough to see a half-dozen paramedics and police crouched around a body lying in the street. Above them stood the burly bus driver, in tears. He was saying that there was nothing he could have done, the man had stepped in front of the bus at the last moment. He must have been drunk, the driver said, because he was wobbling. It was almost as if he fell off the curb.
Mallory could not see the body; the policemen blocked his view. The crowd was nearly silent, just watching. Then one of the policemen stood, holding a red passport in his handsa German passport. Thank God, Mallory thought, feeling a flood of relief that lasted until a moment later, when one of the paramedics stepped away and Mallory saw one leg of the victima faded black tracksuit and a dirty Adidas running shoe, now soaked with blood.
He felt a wave of nausea, and turned away, pushing back through the crowd. The faces stared past him, impassive or annoyed. But nobody even glanced at him. They were all looking at the body.
Except for one man, dressed like an executive in a dark suit and tie. He was looking directly at Mallory. Mallory met his eyes. The man nodded slightly. Mallory made no response. He just pushed through the last of the crowd and fled, hurrying back down the stairs to his office, and realizing that somehow, in some way that he did not understand, his life had changed forever.
IDEC, the International Data Environmental Consortium, was located in a small brick building adjacent to the campus of Keio Mita University. To the casual observer, IDEC was part of the university, and even showed the coat of arms ("Calamus Gladio Fortior"), but in fact it was independent. The center of the building consisted of a small conference room with a podium and two rows of five chairs facing a screen at the front.
At ten in the morning, IDEC director Akira Hitomi stood at the podium and watched as the American came in and took a seat. The American was a large man, not so tall but thick in the shoulders and chest, like an athlete. For such a large man he moved easily, quietly. The Nepali officer entered right behind him, dark-skinned and watchful. He took a seat behind the American and off to one side. At the podium, Hitomi nodded to them and said nothing.
The wood-paneled room darkened slowly, to allow eyes to adjust. On all sides, the wood panels slid silently away, exposing huge flat-panel screens. Some of the screens moved smoothly out from the walls.
At last, the main door closed and locked with a click. Only then did Hitomi speak.
"Good morning, Kenner-san." On the main screen it said "Hitomi Akira" in English and Japanese. "And good morning, Thapa-san." Hitomi flipped open a very small, very thin silver laptop. "Today I will present data from the last twenty-one days, correct up to twenty minutes ago. These will be findings from our joint project, Akamai Tree."
The two visitors nodded. Kenner smiled in anticipation. As well he should, Hitomi thought. Nowhere else in the world could he see such a presentation, for Hitomi's agency was the world leader in the accumulation and manipulation of electronic data. Now images on the screens came up, glowing one after another. They showed what appeared to be a corporate logo: a green tree on a white background, and the lettering AKAMAI TREE DIGITAL NETWORK SOLUTIONS.
This name and image had been chosen for their similarity to actual Internet companies and their logos. For the last two years, Akamai Tree's network of servers actually consisted of carefully designed traps. They incorporated multilevel quad-check honeynets established in both business and academic domains. This enabled them to track backward from servers to user with an 87 percent success rate. They had baited the net starting last year, first with ordinary feed and then with increasingly juicy morsels.
"Our sites mirrored established geology, applied physics, ecology, civil engineering, and biogeography sites," Hitomi said. "To attract deep divers, typical data included information on the use of explosives in seismic recordings, the tests of the stability of structures to vibration and earthquake damage, and in our oceanographic sites, data on hurricanes, rogue waves, tsunamis, and so forth. All this is familiar to you."
Kenner nodded.
Hitomi continued: "We knew we had a disseminated enemy, and a clever one. Users often operate behind netnanny firewalls, or used AOL accounts with teen ratings, to imply they are juvenile pranksters or kiddie scripters. But they are nothing of the sort. They are well organized, patient, and unrelenting. In recent weeks, we have begun to understand more."
The screen changed, showing a list.
"Out of a mix of sites and discussion groups, our sys progs found the deep divers clustered on the following category topics:
Aarhus, Denmark
Argon/Oxygen Drives
Australian Military History
Caisson Seawalls
Cavitation (Solid)
Cellular Encryption
Controlled Demolition
Flood Mitigation
High-Voltage Insulators
Hilo, Hawaii
Mid-Ocean Relay Network (MORN)
Missionary Diaries of the Pacific National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC) National Environmental Resource Fund (NERF) Network Data Encryption Potassium Hydroxide Prescott, Arizona Rain Forest Disease Foundation (RFDF) Seismic Signatures, Geological Shaped Explosives (Timed) Shinkai 2000 Solid Rocket Propellant Mixtures Toxins and Neurotoxins Wire-guided Projectiles "An impressive, if mysterious list," Hitomi said. "However, we have filters to identify smees and high-performance clients. These are individuals attacking firewalls, setting trojans, wild spiders, and so forth. Many of them are looking for credit card lists. But not all." He tapped his little computer, and the images changed.
"We added each of these topics into the honeynet with increasing stickiness, finally including hints of forthcoming research data, which we exposed as e-mail exchanges among scientists in Australia, Germany, Canada, and Russia. We drew a crowd and watched the traffic. We eventually sorted a complex nodal North AmericaToronto, Chicago, Ann Arbor, Montrealwith spines to both American coasts, as well as England, France, and Germany. This is a serious Alpha extremist group. They may already have killed a researcher in Paris. We're awaiting data. But the French authorities can be amp;slow."
Kenner spoke for the first time. "And what's the current delta cellular?"
"Cellular traffic is accelerating. E-mail is heavily encrypted. STF rate is up. It is clear there is a project under wayglobal in scope, immensely complicated, extremely expensive."
"But we don't know what it is."
"Not yet."
"Then you'd better follow the money."
"We are doing it. Everywhere." Hitomi smiled grimly. "It is only a matter of time before one of these fishes takes the hook."
Nat Damon signed the paper with a flourish. "I've never been asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement before."
"I'm surprised," the man in the shiny suit said, taking the paper back. "I would have thought it was standard procedure. We don't want our proprietary information to be disclosed." He was a lawyer accompanying his client, a bearded man with glasses, wearing jeans and a work shirt. This bearded man said he was a petroleum geologist, and Damon believed him. He certainly looked like the other petroleum geologists he had dealt with.
Damon's company was called Canada Marine RS Technologies; from a tiny, cramped office outside Vancouver, Damon leased research submarines and remote submersibles to clients around the world. Damon didn't own these subs; he just leased them. The subs were located all over the worldin Yokohama, Dubai, Melbourne, San Diego. They ranged from fully operational fifty-foot submersibles with crews of six, capable of traveling around the globe, to tiny one-man diving machines and even smaller remote robotic vehicles that operated from a tender ship on the surface.
Damon's clients were energy and mining companies who used the subs for undersea prospecting or to check the condition of offshore rigs and platforms. His was a specialized business, and his little office at the back of a boat repair yard did not receive many visitors.
Yet these two men had come through his door just before closing time. The lawyer had done all of the talking; the client merely gave Damon a business card that said Seismic Services, with a Calgary address. That made sense; Calgary was a big city for hydrocarbon companies. Petro-Canada, Shell, and Suncor were all there, and many more. And dozens of small private consulting firms had sprung up there to do prospecting and research.
Damon took a small model down from the shelf behind him. It was a tiny white snub-nosed submarine with a bubble top. He set it on the table in front of the men.
"This is the vehicle I would recommend for your needs," he said. "The RS Scorpion, built in England just four years ago. Two-man crew. Diesel and electric power with closed cycle argon drive. Submerged, it runs on twenty percent oxygen, eighty percent argon. Solid, proven technology: potassium hydroxide scrubber, two-hundred-volt electrical, operational depth of two thousand feet, and 3.8 hours dive time. It's the equivalent of the Japanese Shinkai 2000, if you know that one, or the DownStar 80, of which there are four in the world, but they're all on long leases. The Scorpion is an excellent submarine."
The men nodded, and looked at each other. "And what kind of external manipulators are there?" the bearded man said.
"That's depth dependent," Damon said. "At lesser depths"
"Let's say at two thousand feet. What external manipulators are there?"
"You want to collect samples at two thousand feet?"
"Actually, we're placing monitoring devices on the bottom."
"I see. Like radio devices? Sending data to the surface?"
"Something like that."
"How large are these devices?"
The bearded man held his hands two feet apart. "About so big."
"And they weigh what?"
"Oh, I don't know exactly. Maybe two hundred pounds."
Damon concealed his surprise. Usually petroleum geologists knew precisely what they were going to place. Exact dimensions, exact weight, exact specific gravity, all that. This guy was vague. But perhaps Damon was just being paranoid. He continued. "And these sensors are for geological work?"
"Ultimately. First we need information on ocean currents, flow rates, bottom temperatures. That kind of thing."
Damon thought: For what? Why did they need to know about currents? Of course, they might be sinking a tower, but nobody would do that in two thousand feet of water.
What were these guys intending to do?
"Well," he said, "if you want to place external devices, you have to secure them to the exterior of the hull prior to the dive. There are lateral shelves on each side" he pointed to the model "for that purpose. Once you're at depth, you have a choice of two remote arms to place the devices. How many devices are you talking about?"
"Quite a few."
"More than eight?"
"Oh yes. Probably."
"Well, then you're talking about multiple dives. You can only take eight, maybe ten external devices on any given dive." He talked on for a while, scanning their faces, trying to understand what lay behind the bland looks. They wanted to lease the sub for four months, starting in August of that year. They wanted the sub and the tender ship transported to Port Moresby, New Guinea. They would pick it up there.
"Depending on where you go, there are some required marine licenses"
"We'll worry about that later," the lawyer said.
"Now, the crew"
"We'll worry about that later, too."
"It's part of the contract."
"Then just write it in. However you do it."
"You'll return the tender to Moresby at the end of the lease period?"
"Yes."
Damon sat down in front of the desktop computer and began to fill in the estimate forms. There were, all in all, forty-three categories (not including insurance) that had to be filled out. At last he had the final number. "Five hundred and eighty three thousand dollars," he said.
The men didn't blink. They just nodded.
"Half in advance."
They nodded again.
"Second half in escrow account prior to your taking delivery in Port Moresby." He never required that with his regular customers. But for some reason, these two made him uneasy.
"That will be fine," the lawyer said.
"Plus twenty percent contingency, payable in advance."
That was simply unnecessary. But now he was trying to make these guys go away. It didn't work.
"That will be fine."
"Okay," Damon said. "Now, if you need to talk to your contracting company before you sign"
"No. We're prepared to proceed now."
And then one of them pulled out an envelope and handed it to Damon.
"Tell me if this is satisfactory."
It was a check for $250,000. From Seismic Services, payable to Canada Marine. Damon nodded, and said it was. He put the check and the envelope on his desk, next to the submarine model.
Then one of the men said, "Do you mind if I make a couple of notes?" and picked up the envelope and scribbled on it. And it was only after they were gone that Damon realized they had given him the check and taken back the envelope. So there would be no fingerprints.
Or was he just being paranoid? The following morning, he was inclined to think so. When he went to Scotiabank to deposit the check, he stopped by to see John Kim, the bank manager, and asked him to find out if there were sufficient funds in the Seismic Services account to cover the check.
John Kim said he would check right away.
Christ, it was cold, George Morton thought, climbing out of the Land Cruiser. The millionaire philanthropist stamped his feet and pulled on gloves, trying to warm himself. It was three o'clock in the morning, and the sky glowed red, with streaks of yellow from the still-visible sun. A bitter wind blew across the Sprengisandur, the rugged, dark plain in the interior of Iceland. Flat gray clouds hung low over the lava that stretched away for miles. The Icelanders loved this place. Morton couldn't see why.
In any case, they had reached their destination: directly ahead lay a huge, crumpled wall of dirt-covered snow and rock, stretching up to the mountains behind. This was Snorrajцkul, one tongue of the huge Vatnajцkull glacier, the largest ice cap in Europe.
The driver, a graduate student, climbed out and clapped his hands with delight. "Not bad at all! Quite warm! You are lucky, it's a pleasant August night." He was wearing a T-shirt, hiking shorts, and a light vest. Morton was wearing a down vest, a quilted windbreaker, and heavy pants. And he was still cold.
He looked back as the others got out of the backseat. Nicholas Drake, thin and frowning, wearing a shirt and tie and a tweed sport coat beneath his windbreaker, winced as the cold air hit him. With his thinning hair, wire-frame glasses, and pinched, disapproving manner, Drake conveyed a scholarly quality that in fact he cultivated. He did not want to be taken for what he was, a highly successful litigator who had retired to become the director of the National Environmental Resource Fund, a major American activist group. He had held the job at NERF for the last ten years.
Next, young Peter Evans bounced out of the car. Evans was the youngest of Morton's attorneys, and the one he liked best. Evans was twenty-eight and a junior associate of the Los Angeles firm of Hassle and Black. Now, even late at night, he remained cheerful and enthusiastic. He pulled on a Patagonia fleece and stuck his hands in his pockets, but otherwise gave no sign that the weather bothered him.
Morton had flown all of them in from Los Angeles on his Gulfstream G5 jet, arriving in Keflavнk airport at nine yesterday morning. None of them had slept, but nobody was tired. Not even Morton, and he was sixty-five years old. He didn't feel the slightest sense of fatigue.
Just cold.
Morton zipped up his jacket and followed the graduate student down the rocky hill from the car. "The light at night gives you energy," the kid said. "Dr. Einarsson never sleeps more than four hours a night in the summer. None of us does."
"And where is Dr. Einarsson?" Morton asked.
"Down there." The kid pointed off to the left.
At first, Morton could see nothing at all. Finally he saw a red dot, and realized it was a vehicle. That was when he grasped the enormous size of the glacier.
Drake fell into step with Morton as they went down the hill. "George," he said, "you and Evans should feel free to go on a tour of the site, and let me talk to Per Einarsson alone."
"Why?"
"I expect Einarsson would be more comfortable if there weren't a lot of people standing around."
"But isn't the point that I'm the one who funds his research?"
"Of course," Drake said, "but I don't want to hammer that fact too hard. I don't want Per to feel compromised."
"I don't see how you can avoid it."
"I'll just point out the stakes," Drake said. "Help him to see the big picture."
"Frankly, I was looking forward to hearing this discussion," Morton said.
"I know," Drake said. "But it's delicate."
As they came closer to the glacier, Morton felt a distinct chill in the wind. The temperature dropped several degrees. They could see now the series of four large, tan tents arranged near the red Land Cruiser. From a distance, the tents had blended into the plain.
From one of the tents a very tall, blond man appeared. Per Einarsson threw up his hands and shouted, "Nicholas!"
"Per!" Drake raced forward.
Morton continued down the hill, feeling distinctly grouchy about being dismissed by Drake. Evans came up to walk alongside him. "I don't want to take any damn tour," Morton said.
"Oh, I don't know," Evans said, looking ahead. "It might be more interesting than we think." Coming out of one of the other tents were three young women in khakis, all blond and beautiful. They waved to the newcomers.
"Maybe you're right," Morton said.
Peter Evans knew that his client George Morton, despite his intense interest in all things environmental, had an even more intense interest in pretty women. And indeed, after a quick introduction to Einarsson, Morton happily allowed himself to be led away by Eva Jуnsdуttir, who was tall and athletic, with short-cropped white blond hair and a radiant smile. She was Morton's type, Evans thought. She looked rather like Morton's beautiful assistant, Sarah Jones. He heard Morton say, "I had no idea so many women were interested in geology," and Morton and Eva drifted away, heading toward the glacier.
Evans knew he should accompany Morton. But perhaps Morton wanted to take this tour alone. And more important, Evans's firm also represented Nicholas Drake, and Evans had a nagging concern about what Drake was up to. Not that it was illegal or unethical, exactly. But Drake could be imperious, and what he was going to do might cause embarrassment later on. So for a moment Evans stood there, wondering which way to go, which man to follow.
It was Drake who made the decision for him, giving Evans a slight, dismissive wave of his hand as he disappeared into the big tent with Einarsson. Evans took the hint, and ambled off toward Morton and the girl. Eva was chattering on about how 12 percent of Iceland was covered in glaciers, and how some of the glaciers had active volcanoes poking out from the ice.
This particular glacier, she said, pointing upward, was of the type called a surge glacier, because it had a history of rapid advances and retreats. At the moment, she said, the glacier was pushing forward at the rate of one hundred meters a daythe length of a football field, every twenty-four hours. Sometimes, when the wind died, you could actually hear it grinding forward. This glacier had surged more than ten kilometers in the last few years.
Soon they were joined by Бsdнs Sveinsdуttir, who could have been Eva's younger sister. She paid flattering attention to Evans, asking him how his trip over had been, how he liked Iceland, how long he was staying in the country. Eventually, she mentioned that she usually worked in the office at Reykjavнk, and had only come out for the day. Evans realized then that she was here doing her job. The sponsors were visiting Einarsson, and Einarsson had arranged for the visit to be memorable.
Eva was explaining that although surge-type glaciers were very commonthere were several hundred of them in Alaskathe mechanism of the surges was not known. Nor was the mechanism behind the periodic advances and retreats, which differed for each glacier. "There is still so much to study, to learn," she said, smiling at Morton.
That was when they heard shouts coming from the big tent, and considerable swearing. Evans excused himself, and headed back to the tent. Somewhat reluctantly, Morton trailed after him.
Per Einarsson was shaking with anger. He raised his fists. "I tell you, no!" he yelled, and pounded the table.
Standing opposite him, Drake was very red in the face, clenching his teeth. "Per," he said, "I am asking you to consider the realities."
"You are not!" Einarsson said, pounding the table again. "The reality is what you do not want me to publish!"
"Now, Per"
"The reality," he said, "is that in Iceland the first half of the twentieth century was warmer than the second half, as in Greenland.* The reality is that in Iceland, most glaciers lost mass after 1930 because summers warmed by.6 degrees Celsius, but since then the climate has become colder. The reality is that since 1970 these glaciers have been steadily advancing. They have regained half the ground that was lost earlier. Right now, eleven are surging. That is the reality, Nicholas! And I will not lie about it."
"No one has suggested you do," Drake said, lowering his voice and glancing at his newly arrived audience. "I am merely discussing how you word your paper, Per."
Einarsson raised a sheet of paper. "Yes, and you have suggested some wording"
"Merely a suggestion"
"That twists truth!"
"Per, with due respect, I feel you are exaggerating"
"Am I?" Einarsson turned to the others and began to read. "This is what he wants me to say: The threat of global warming has melted glaciers throughout the world, and in Iceland as well. Many glaciers are shrinking dramatically, although paradoxically others are growing. However, in all cases recent extremes in climate variability seem to be the cause amp;blah amp;blah amp;blah amp;og svo framvegis.' " He threw the paper down. "That is simply not true."
"It's just the opening paragraph. The rest of your paper will amplify."
"The opening paragraph is not true."
"Of course it is. It refers to extremes in climate variability.' No one can object to such vague wording."
"Recent extremes. But in Iceland these effects are not recent."
"Then take out recent.'"
"That is not adequate," Einarsson said, "because the implication of this paragraph is that we are observing the effects of global warming from greenhouse gases. Whereas in fact we are observing local climate patterns that are rather specific to Iceland and are unlikely to be related to any global pattern."
"And you can say so in your conclusion."
"But this opening paragraph will be a big joke among Arctic researchers. You think Motoyama or Sigurosson will not see through this paragraph? Or Hicks? Watanabe? Нsaksson? They will laugh and call me compromised. They will say I did it for grants."
"But there are other considerations," Drake said soothingly. "We must all be aware there are disinformation groups funded by industrypetroleum, automotivewho will seize on the report that some glaciers are growing, and use it to argue against global warming. That is what they always do. They snatch at anything to paint a false picture."
"How the information is used is not my concern. My concern is to report the truth as best I can."
"Very noble," Drake said. "Perhaps not so practical."
"I see. And you have brought the source of funding right here, in the form of Mr. Morton, so I do not miss the point?"
"No, no, Per," Drake said hastily. "Please, don't misunderstand"
"I understand only too well. What is he doing here?" Einarsson was furious. "Mr. Morton? Do you approve of what I am being asked to do by Mr. Drake?"
It was at that point that Morton's cell phone rang, and with ill-concealed relief, he flipped it open. "Morton. Yes? Yes, John. Where are you? Vancouver? What time is it there?" He put his hand over the mouthpiece. "John Kim, in Vancouver. Scotiabank."
Evans nodded, though he had no idea who that was. Morton's financial operations were complex; he knew bankers all over the world. Morton turned and walked to the far side of the tent.
An awkward silence fell over the others as they waited. Einarsson stared at the floor, sucking in his breath, still furious. The blond women pretended to work, giving great attention to the papers they shuffled through. Drake stuck his hands in his pockets, looked at the roof of the tent.
Meanwhile, Morton was laughing. "Really? I hadn't heard that one," he said, chuckling. He glanced back at the others, and turned away again.
Drake said, "Look, Per, I feel we have gotten off on the wrong foot."
"Not at all," Einarsson said coldly. "We understand each other only too well. If you withdraw your support, you withdraw your support."
"Nobody is talking about withdrawing support amp;"
"Time will tell," he said.
And then Morton said, "What? They did what? Deposited to what? How much money are we? Jesus Christ, John. This is unbelievable!" And still talking, he turned and walked out of the tent.
Evans hurried after him.
It was brighter, the sun now higher in the sky, trying to break through low clouds. Morton was scrambling up the slope, still talking on the phone. He was shouting, but his words were lost in the wind as Evans followed him.
They came to the Land Cruiser. Morton ducked down, using it as a shield against the wind. "Christ, John, do I have legal liability there? I meanno, I didn't know a thing about it. What was the organization? Friends of the Planet Fund?"
Morton looked questioningly at Evans. Evans shook his head. He'd never heard of Friends of the Planet. And he knew most of the environmental organizations.
"Based where?" Morton was saying. "San Jose? California? Oh. Jesus. What the hell is based in Costa Rica?" He cupped his hand over the phone. "Friends of the Planet Fund, San Josй, Costa Rica."
Evans shook his head.
"I never heard of them," Morton said, "and neither has my lawyer. And I don't rememberno, Ed, if it was a quarter of a million dollars, I'd remember. The check was issued where? I see. And my name was where? I see. Okay, thanks. Yeah. I will. Bye." He flipped the phone shut.
He turned to Evans.
"Peter," he said. "Get a pad and make notes."
Morton spoke quickly. Evans scribbled, trying to keep up. It was a complicated story that he took down as best he could.
John Kim, the manager of Scotiabank, Vancouver, had been called by a customer named Nat Damon, a local marine operator. Damon had deposited a check from a company called Seismic Services, in Calgary, and the check had bounced. It was for $300,000. Damon was nervous about whoever had written the check, and asked Kim to look into it.
John Kim could not legally make inquiries in the US, but the issuing bank was in Calgary, and he had a friend who worked there. He learned that Seismic Services was an account with a postal box for an address. The account was modestly active, receiving deposits every few weeks from only one source: The Friends of the Planet Foundation, based in San Josй, Costa Rica.
Kim placed a call down there. Then, about that time, it came up on his screen that the check had cleared. Kim called Damon and asked him if he wanted to drop the inquiry. Damon said no, check it out.
Kim had a brief conversation with Miguel Chavez at the Banco Credito Agricola in San Josй. Chavez said he had gotten an electronic deposit from the Moriah Wind Power Associates via Ansbach (Cayman) Ltd., a private bank on Grand Cayman island. That was all he knew.
Chavez called Kim back ten minutes later to say he had made inquiries at Ansbach and had obtained a record of a wire transfer that was paid into the Moriah account by the International Wilderness Preservation Society three days before that. And the IWPS transfer noted in the comment field, "G. Morton Research Fund."
John Kim called his Vancouver client, Nat Damon, to ask what the check was for. Damon said it was for the lease of a small two-man research submarine.
Kim thought that was pretty interesting, so he telephoned his friend George Morton to kid him a bit, and ask why he was leasing a submarine. And to his surprise, Morton knew absolutely nothing about it.
Evans finished taking down notes on the pad. He said, "This is what some bank manager in Vancouver told you?"
"Yes. A good friend of mine. Why are you looking at me that way?"
"Because it's a lot of information," Evans said. He didn't know the banking rules in Canada, to say nothing of Costa Rica, but he knew it was unlikely that any banks would freely exchange information in the way Morton had described. If the Vancouver manager's story was true, there was more to it that he wasn't telling. Evans made a note to check into it. "And do you know the International Wilderness Preservation Society, which has your check for a quarter of a million dollars?"
Morton shook his head. "Never heard of them."
"So you never gave them two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"
Morton shook his head. "I'll tell you what I did do, in the last week," he said. "I gave two hundred and fifty grand to Nicholas Drake to cover a monthly operating shortfall. He told me he had some problem about a big contributor from Seattle not coming through for a week. Drake's asked me to help him out before like that, once or twice."
"You think that money ended up in Vancouver?"
Morton nodded.
"You better ask Drake about it," Evans said.
"I have no idea at all," Drake said, looking mystified. "Costa Rica? International Wilderness Preservation? My goodness, I can't imagine."
Evans said, "You know the International Wilderness Preservation Society?"
"Very well," Drake said. "They're excellent. We've worked closely with them on any number of projects around the worldthe Everglades, Tiger Tops in Nepal, the Lake Toba preserve in Sumatra. The only thing I can think is that somehow George's check was mistakenly deposited in the wrong account. Or amp;I just don't know. I have to call the office. But it's late in California. It'll have to wait until morning."
Morton was staring at Drake, not speaking.
"George," Drake said, turning to him. "I'm sure this must make you feel very strange. Even if it's an honest mistakeas I am almost certain it isit's still a lot of money to be mishandled. I feel terrible. But mistakes happen, especially if you use a lot of unpaid volunteers, as we do. But you and I have been friends for a long time. I want you to know that I will get to the bottom of this. And of course I will see that the money is recovered at once. You have my word, George."
"Thank you," Morton said.
They all climbed into the Land Cruiser.
The vehicle bounced over the barren plain. "Damn, those Icelanders are stubborn," Drake said, staring out the window. "They may be the most stubborn researchers in the world."
"He never saw your point?" Evans said.
"No," Drake said, "I couldn't make him understand. Scientists can't adopt that lofty attitude anymore. They can't say, I do the research, and I don't care how it is used.' That's out of date. It's irresponsible. Even in a seemingly obscure field like glacier geology. Because, like it or not, we're in the middle of a wara global war of information versus disinformation. The war is fought on many battlegrounds. Newspaper op-eds. Television reports. Scientific journals. Websites, conferences, classroomsand courtrooms, too, if it comes to that." Drake shook his head. "We have truth on our side, but we're outnumbered and out-funded. Today, the environmental movement is David battling Goliath. And Goliath is Aventis and Alcatel, Humana and GE, BP and Bayer, Shell and Glaxo-Wellcomehuge, global, corporate. These people are the implacable enemies of our planet, and Per Einarsson, out there on his glacier, is irresponsible to pretend it isn't happening."
Sitting beside Drake, Peter Evans nodded sympathetically, though in fact he took everything Drake was saying with a large grain of salt. The head of NERF was famously melodramatic. And Drake was pointedly ignoring the fact that several of the corporations he had named made substantial contributions to NERF every year, and three executives from those companies actually sat on Drake's board of advisors. That was true of many environmental organizations these days, although the reasons behind corporate involvement were much debated.
"Well," Morton said, "maybe Per will reconsider later on."
"I doubt it," Drake said gloomily. "He was angry. We've lost this battle, I'm sorry to say. But we do what we always do. Soldier on. Fight the good fight."
It was silent in the car for a while.
"The girls were damn good looking," Morton said. "Weren't they, Peter?"
"Yes," Evans said. "They were."
Evans knew that Morton was trying to lighten the mood in the car. But Drake would have none of it. The head of NERF stared morosely at the barren landscape, and shook his head mournfully at the snow-covered mountains in the distance.
Evans had traveled many times with Drake and Morton in the last couple of years. Usually, Morton could cheer everybody around him, even Drake, who was glum and fretful.
But lately Drake had become even more pessimistic than usual. Evans had first noticed it a few weeks ago, and had wondered at the time if there was illness in the family, or something else that was bothering him. But it seemed there was nothing a miss. At least, nothing that anyone would talk about. NERF was a beehive of activity; they had moved into a wonderful new building in Beverly Hills; fund-raising was at an all-time high; they were planning spectacular new events and conferences, including the Abrupt Climate Change Conference that would begin in two months. Yet despite these successesor because of them?Drake seemed more miserable than ever.
Morton noticed it, too, but he shrugged it off. "He's a lawyer," he said. "What do you expect? Forget about it."
By the time they reached Reykjavнk, the sunny day had turned wet and chilly. It was sleeting at Keflavнk airport, obliging them to wait while the wings of the white Gulfstream jet were de-iced. Evans slipped away to a corner of the hangar and, since it was still the middle of the night in the US, placed a call to a friend in banking in Hong Kong. He asked about the Vancouver story.
"Absolutely impossible," was the immediate answer. "No bank would divulge such information, even to another bank. There's an STR in the chain somewhere."
"An STR?"
"Suspicious transfer report. If it looks like money for drug trafficking or terrorism, the account gets tagged. And from then on, it's tracked. There are ways to track electronic transfers, even with strong encryption. But none of that tracking is ever going to wind up on the desk of a bank manager."
"No?"
"Not a chance. You'd need international law-enforcement credentials to see that tracking report."
"So this bank manager didn't do all this himself?"
"I doubt it. There is somebody else involved in this story. A policeman of some kind. Somebody you're not being told about."
"Like a customs guy, or Interpol?"
"Or something."
"Why would my client be contacted at all?"
"I don't know. But it's not an accident. Does your client have any radical tendencies?"
Thinking of Morton, Evans wanted to laugh. "Absolutely not."
"You quite sure, Peter?"
"Well, yes amp;"
"Because sometimes these wealthy donors amuse themselves, or justify themselves, by supporting terrorist groups. That's what happened with the IRA. Rich Americans in Boston supported them for decades. But times have changed. No one is amused any longer. Your client should be careful. And if you're his attorney, you should be careful, too. Hate to visit you in prison, Peter."
And he hung up.
The flight attendant poured Morton's vodka into a cut-glass tumbler. "No more ice, sweetie," Morton said, raising his hand. They were flying west, over Greenland, a vast expanse of ice and cloud in pale sun beneath them.
Morton sat with Drake, who talked about how the Greenland ice cap was melting. And the rate at which the Arctic ice was melting. And Canadian glaciers were receding. Morton sipped his vodka and nodded. "So Iceland is an anomaly?"
"Oh yes," Drake said. "An anomaly. Everywhere else, glaciers are melting at an unprecedented rate."
"It's good we have you, Nick," Morton said, putting his hand on Drake's shoulder.
Drake smiled. "And it's good we have you, George," he said. "We wouldn't be able to accomplish anything without your generous support. You've made the Vanutu lawsuit possibleand that's extremely important for the publicity it will generate. And as for your other grants, well amp;words fail me."
"Words never fail you," Morton said, slapping him on the back.
Sitting across from them, Evans thought they really were the odd couple. Morton, big and hearty, dressed casually in jeans and a workshirt, always seeming to burst from his clothes. And Nicholas Drake, tall and painfully thin, wearing a coat and tie, with his scrawny neck rising from the collar of a shirt that never seemed to fit.
In their manner, too, they were complete opposites. Morton loved to be around as many people as possible, loved to eat, and laugh. He had a penchant for pretty girls, vintage sports cars, Asian art, and practical jokes. His parties drew most of Hollywood to his Holmby Hills mansion; his charity functions were always special, always written up the next day.
Of course, Drake attended those functions, but invariably left early, sometimes before dinner. Often he pleaded illnesshis own or a friend's. In fact, Drake was a solitary, ascetic man, who detested parties and noise. Even when he stood at a podium giving a speech, he conveyed an air of isolation, as if he were alone in the room. And, being Drake, he made it work for him. He managed to suggest that he was a lone messenger in the wilderness, delivering the truth the audience needed to hear.
Despite their differences in temperament, the two men had built a durable friendship that had lasted the better part of a decade. Morton, the heir to a forklift fortune, had the congenital uneasiness of inherited wealth. Drake had a good use for that money, and in return provided Morton with a passion, and a cause, that informed and guided Morton's life. Morton's name appeared on the board of advisors of the Audubon Society, the Wilderness Society, the World Wildlife Fund, and the Sierra Club. He was a major contributor to Greenpeace and the Environmental Action League.
All this culminated in two enormous gifts by Morton to NERF. The first was a grant of $1 million, to finance the Vanutu lawsuit. The second was a grant of $9 million to NERF itself, to finance future research and litigation on behalf of the environment. Not surprisingly, the NERF board had voted Morton their Concerned Citizen of the Year. A banquet in his honor was scheduled for later that fall, in San Francisco.
Evans sat across from the two men, idly thumbing through a magazine. But he had been shaken by the Hong Kong call, and found himself observing Morton with some care.
Morton still had his hand on Drake's shoulder, and was telling him a jokeas usual, trying to get Drake to laughbut it seemed to Evans that he detected a certain distance on Morton's part. Morton had withdrawn, but didn't want Drake to notice.
This suspicion was confirmed when Morton stood up abruptly and headed for the cockpit. "I want to know about this damn electronic thing," he said. Since takeoff, they had been experiencing the effects of a major solar flare that rendered satellite telephones erratic or unusable. The pilots said the effect was heightened near the poles, and would soon diminish as they headed south.
And Morton seemed eager to make some calls. Evans wondered to whom. It was now four a.m. in New York, one a.m. in Los Angeles. Who was Morton calling? But of course it could concern any of his ongoing environmental projectswater purification in Cambodia, reforestation in Guinea, habitat preservation in Madagascar, medicinal plants in Peru. To say nothing of the German expedition to measure the thickness of the ice in Antarctica. Morton was personally involved in all these projects. He knew them in detail, knew the scientists involved, had visited the locations himself.
So it could be anything.
But somehow, Evans felt, it wasn't just anything.
Morton came back. "Pilots say it's okay now." He sat by himself in the front of the plane, reached for his headset, and pulled the sliding door shut for privacy.
Evans turned back to his magazine.
Drake said, "You think he's drinking more than usual?"
"Not really," Evans said.
"I worry."
"I wouldn't," Evans said.
"You realize," Drake said, "we are just five weeks from the banquet in his honor, in San Francisco. That's our biggest fund-raising event of the year. It will generate considerable publicity, and it'll help us launch the conference on Abrupt Climate Change."
"Uh-huh," Evans said.
"I'd like to ensure that the publicity focuses on environmental issues, and not anything else. Of a personal nature, if you know what I mean."
Evans said, "Isn't this a conversation you should be having with George?"
"Oh, I have. I only mention it to you because you spend so much time with him."
"I don't, really."
"You know he likes you, Peter," Drake said. "You're the son he never had orhell, I don't know. But he does like you. And I'm just asking you to help us, if you can."
"I don't think he'll embarrass you, Nick."
"Just amp;keep an eye on him."
"Okay. Sure."
At the front of the plane, the sliding door opened. Morton said, "Mr. Evans? If you please."
Peter got up and went forward.
He slid the door shut behind him.
"I have been on the phone to Sarah," Morton said. Sarah Jones was his assistant in LA.
"Isn't it late?"
"It's her job. She's well paid. Sit down." Evans sat in the chair opposite. "Have you ever heard of the NSIA?"
"No."
"The National Security Intelligence Agency?"
Evans shook his head. "No. But there are twenty security agencies."
"Ever heard of John Kenner?"
"No amp;"
"Apparently he's a professor at MIT."
"No," Evans said. "Sorry. Does he have something to do with the environment?"
"He may. See what you can find out."
Evans turned to the laptop by his seat, and flipped open the screen. It was connected to the Internet by satellite. He started to type.
In a few moments he was looking at a picture of a fit-looking man with prematurely gray hair and heavy horn-rim glasses. The attached biography was brief. Evans read it aloud. "Richard John Kenner, William T. Harding Professor of Geoenvironmental Engineering."
"Whatever that means," Morton said.
"He is thirty-nine. Doctorate in civil engineering from Caltech at age twenty. Did his thesis on soil erosion in Nepal. Barely missed qualifying for the Olympic ski team. A JD from Harvard Law School. Spent the next four years in government. Department of the Interior, Office of Policy Analysis. Scientific advisor to the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee. Hobby is mountain climbing; he was reported dead on Naya Khanga peak in Nepal, but he wasn't. Tried to climb K2, driven back by weather."
"K2," Morton said. "Isn't that the most dangerous peak?"
"I think so. Looks like he's a serious climber. Anyway, he then went to MIT, where I'd say his rise has been spectacular. Associate professor in '93. Director of the MIT Center for Risk Analysis in '95. William T. Harding Professor in '96. Consultant to the EPA, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Defense, the government of Nepal, God knows who else. Looks like a lot of corporations. And since 2002, on faculty leave."
"Meaning what?"
"It just says he's on leave."
"For the last two years?" Morton came and looked over Evans's shoulder. "I don't like it. The guy burns up the track at MIT, goes on leave, and never comes back. You think he got into trouble?"
"I don't know. But amp;" Evans was calculating the dates. "Professor Kenner got a doctorate from Caltech at twenty. Got his law degree from Harvard in two years instead of three. Professor at MIT when he's twenty-eight amp;"
"Okay, okay, so he's smart," Morton said. "I still want to know why he's on leave. And why he's in Vancouver."
Evans said, "He's in Vancouver?"
"He's been calling Sarah from Vancouver."
"Why?"
"He wants to meet with me."
"Well," Evans said, "I guess you'd better meet with him."
"I will," Morton said. "But what do you think he wants?"
"I have no idea. Funding? A project?"
"Sarah says he wants the meeting to be confidential. He doesn't want anybody to be told."
"Well, that's not hard. You're on an airplane."
"No," Morton said, jerking his thumb. "He specifically doesn't want Drake to be told."
"Maybe I'd better attend this meeting," Evans said.
"Yes," Morton said. "Maybe you should."
The iron gates swung open, and the car drove up the shaded driveway to the house that slowly came into view. This was Holmby Hills, the wealthiest area of Beverly Hills. The billionaires lived here, in residences hidden from the street by high gates and dense foliage. In this part of town, security cameras were all painted green, and tucked back unobtrusively.
The house came into view. It was a Mediterranean-style villa, cream colored, and large enough for a family of ten. Evans, who had been speaking to his office, flipped his cell phone shut and got out as the car came to a stop.
Birds chirped in the ficus trees. The air smelled of the gardenia and jasmine that bordered the driveway. A hummingbird hung near the purple bougainvillea at the garage. It was, Evans thought, a typical California moment. Evans had been raised in Connecticut and schooled in Boston; even after five years in California, the place still seemed exotic to him.
He saw that another car was parked in front of the house: a dark gray sedan. It had government license plates.
From out of the front door came Morton's assistant, Sarah Jones, a tall blond woman of thirty, as glamorous as any movie star. Sarah was dressed in a white tennis skirt and pink top, her hair pulled back in a pony tail. Morton kissed her lightly on the cheek. "You playing today?"
"I was. My boss came back early." She shook Evans's hand and turned back to Morton. "Good trip?"
"Fine. Drake is morose. And he won't drink. It gets tiresome."
As Morton started toward the door, Sarah said, "I think I ought to tell you, they're here right now."
"Who is?"
"Professor Kenner. And another guy with him. Foreign guy."
"Really? But didn't you tell them they had to"
"Make an appointment? Yes, I did. They seem to think that doesn't apply to them. They just sat down and said they'd wait."
"You should have called me"
"They got here five minutes ago."
"Huh. Okay." He turned to Evans. "Let's go, Peter."
They went inside. Morton's living room looked out on the garden in back of the house. The room was decorated with Asian antiques, including a large stone head from Cambodia. Sitting erectly on the couch were two men. One was an American of middle height, with short gray hair and glasses. The other was very dark, compact, and very handsome despite the thin scar that ran down the left side of his face in front of his ear. They were dressed in cotton slacks and lightweight sport coats. Both men sat on the edge of the couch, very alert, as if they might spring up at any moment.
"Look military, don't they?" Morton muttered, as they went into the room.
The two men stood. "Mr. Morton, I'm John Kenner from MIT, and this is my colleague, Sanjong Thapa. A graduate student from Mustang. In Nepal."
Morton said, "And this is my colleague, Peter Evans."
They shook hands all around. Kenner's grip was firm. Sanjong Thapa gave a very slight bow as he shook hands. He spoke softly, with a British accent. "How do you do."
"I didn't expect you," Morton said, "so soon."
"We work quickly."
"So I see. What's this about?"
"I'm afraid we need your help, Mr. Morton." Kenner smiled pleasantly at Evans and Sarah. "And unfortunately, our discussion is confidential."
"Mr. Evans is my attorney," Morton said, "and I have no secrets from my assistant"
"I'm sure," Kenner said. "You may take them into your confidence whenever you choose. But we must speak to you alone."
Evans said, "If you don't mind, I'd like to see some identification."
"Of course," Kenner said. Both men reached for wallets. Evans was shown Massachusetts driver's licenses, MIT faculty cards, and passports. Then they handed out business cards.
John Kenner, PhD
Center for Risk Analysis
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 454 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 Sanjong Thapa, PhD Research Associate Department of Geoenvironmental Engineering Building 4-C 323 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 02138 There were telephone numbers, fax, e-mail. Evans turned the cards over. It all looked straightforward.
Kenner said, "Now, if you and Miss Jones will excuse us amp;"
They were outside, in the hallway, looking into the living room through the large glass doors. Morton was sitting on one couch. Kenner and Sanjong were on the other. The discussion was quiet. In fact, it looked to Evans just like one more of the endless investment meetings that Morton endured.
Evans picked up the hall phone and dialed a number. "Center for Risk Analysis," a woman said.
"Professor Kenner's office, please."
"One moment." Clicking. Another voice. "Center for Risk Analysis, Professor Kenner's office."
"Good afternoon," Evans said. "My name is Peter Evans, and I'm calling for Professor Kenner."
"I'm sorry, he is not in the office."
"Do you know where he is?"
"Professor Kenner is on extended leave."
"It is important that I reach him," Evans said. "Do you know how I could do that?"
"Well, it shouldn't be hard, since you are in Los Angeles and so is he."
So she had seen the caller ID, Evans thought. He would have imagined Morton had a blocked ID. But evidently not. Or perhaps the secretary in Massachusetts had a way to unblock it.
"Well," Evans said, "can you tell me"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Evans," she said, "but I'm not able to help you further."
Click.
Sarah said, "What was that about?"
Before Evans could answer, a cell phone rang in the living room. He saw Kenner reach into his pocket, and answer briefly. Then he turned, looked at Evans, and waved.
Sarah said, "His office called him?"
"Looks like it."
"So I guess that's Professor Kenner."
"I guess it is," Evans said. "And we're dismissed."
"Come on," Sarah said. "I'll give you a ride home."
They walked past the open garage, the row of Ferraris glinting in the sun. Morton owned nine vintage Ferraris, which he kept in various garages. These included a 1947 Spyder Corsa, a 1956 Testa Rossa, and a 1959 California Spyder, each worth more than a million dollars. Evans knew this because he reviewed the insurance every time Morton bought another one. At the far end of the line was Sarah's black Porsche convertible. She backed it out, and he climbed in beside her.
Even by Los Angeles standards, Sarah Jones was an extremely beautiful woman. She was tall, with a honey-colored tan, shoulder-length blond hair, blue eyes, perfect features, very white teeth. She was athletic in the casual way that California people were athletic, generally showing up for work in a jogging suit or short tennis skirt. She played golf and tennis, scuba dived, mountain biked, skied, snowboarded, and God knew what else. Evans felt tired whenever he thought about it.
But he also knew that she had "issues," to use the California word. Sarah was the youngest child of a wealthy San Francisco family; her father was a powerful attorney who had held political office; her mother was a former high fashion model. Sarah's older brothers and sisters were all happily married, all successful, and all waiting for her to follow in their footsteps. She found her family's collective success a burden.
Evans had always wondered why she chose to work for Morton, another powerful and wealthy man. Or why she had come to Los Angeles at all, since her family regarded any address south of the Bay Bridge to be hopelessly tawdry. But she was good at her job, and devoted to Morton. And as George often said, her presence was aesthetically pleasing. And the actors and celebrities who attended Morton's parties agreed; she had dated several of them. Which further displeased her family.
Sometimes Evans wondered if everything she did was rebellion. Like her drivingshe drove quickly, almost recklessly, shooting down Benedict Canyon, heading into Beverly Hills. "Do you want to go to the office, or your apartment?"
"My apartment," he said. "I have to pick up my car."
She nodded, swerved around a slow-moving Mercedes, then cut left down a side street. Evans took a deep breath.
"Listen," she said. "Do you know what netwar is?"
"What?" He wasn't sure he had heard her over the sound of the wind.
"Netwar."
"No," he said. "Why?"
"I heard them talking about it, before you showed up. Kenner and that Sanjong guy."
Evans shook his head. "Doesn't ring a bell. You sure it wasn't netware?"
"Might have been." She sped across Sunset, running a yellow light, and then downshifted as she came to Beverly. "You still on Roxbury?"
He said he was. He looked at her long legs, protruding from the short white skirt. "Who were you going to play tennis with?"
"I don't think you know him."
"It's not, uh amp;"
"No. That's over."
"I see."
"I'm serious, it's over."
"Okay, Sarah. I hear you."
"You lawyers are all so suspicious."
"So, it's a lawyer you're playing with?"
"No, it is not a lawyer. I don't play with lawyers."
"What do you do with them?"
"As little as possible. Like everybody else."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Except you, of course," she said, giving him a dazzling smile.
She accelerated hard, making the engine scream.
Peter Evans lived in one of the older apartment buildings on Roxbury Drive in the flats of Beverly Hills. There were four units in his building, across the street from Roxbury Park. It was a nice park, a big green expanse, always busy. He saw Hispanic nannies chatting in groups while they minded the children of rich people, and several oldsters sitting in the sun. Off in a corner, a working mother in a business suit had taken off lunch to be with the kids.
The car screeched to a stop. "Here you are."
"Thanks," he said, getting out.
"Isn't it time to move? You've been here five years."
"I'm too busy to move," he said.
"Got your keys?"
"Yeah. But there's always one under the doormat." He reached in his pocket, jingled metal. "All set."
"See you." And she raced off, squealed around the corner, and was gone.
Evans walked through the little sunlit courtyard, and went up to his apartment, on the second floor. As always, he had found Sarah slightly distressing. She was so beautiful, and so flirtatious. He always had the feeling that she kept men at a distance by keeping them off balance. At least, she kept him off balance. He could never tell if she wanted him to ask her out or not. But considering his relationship with Morton, it was a bad idea. He would never do it.
As soon as he walked in the door, the phone began to ring. It was his assistant, Heather. She was going home early because she felt sick. Heather frequently felt sick toward the afternoon, in time to beat rush hour traffic. She tended to call in sick on Fridays or Mondays. Yet the firm showed a surprising reluctance to fire her; she had been there for years.
Some said she had had a relationship with Bruce Black, the founding partner, and that, ever since, Bruce lived in constant dread that his wife would find out, since she had all the money. Others claimed Heather was seeing another of the firm's partners, always unspecified. A third story was that she had been on the scene when the firm moved offices from one Century City skyscraper to another, in the course of which she stumbled on some incriminating documents, and copied them.
Evans suspected the truth was more mundane: that she was a clever woman who had worked in the firm long enough to know everything about wrongful termination suits, and now carefully gauged her repeated infractions against the cost and aggravation of their firing her. And in this way worked about thirty weeks a year.
Heather was invariably assigned to the best junior associate in the firm, on the assumption that a really good attorney wouldn't be hampered by her inconstancy. Evans had tried for years to get rid of her. He was promised a new assistant next year. He saw it as a promotion.
"I'm sorry you don't feel well," he told Heather dutifully. One had to go along with her pretense.
"It's just my stomach," she said. "I have to see the doctor."
"Are you going today?"
"Well, I'm trying to get an appointment amp;"
"All right, then."
"But I wanted to tell you they just set a big meeting for the day after tomorrow. Nine o'clock in the big conference room."
"Oh?"
"Mr. Morton just called it. Apparently ten or twelve people are called."
"You know who?"
"No. They didn't say."
Evans thought: Useless. "Okay," he said.
"And don't forget you have the arraignment for Morton's daughter next week. This time it's Pasadena, not downtown. And Margo Lane's calling about her Mercedes lawsuit. And that BMW dealer still wants to go forward."
"He still wants to sue the church?"
"He calls every other day."
"Okay. Is that it?"
"No, there's about ten others. I'll try to leave the list on your desk if I feel well enough amp;"
That meant she wouldn't. "Okay," he said.
"Are you coming in?"
"No, it's too late. I need to get some sleep."
"Then I'll see you tomorrow."
He realized he was very hungry. There was nothing to eat in the refrigerator except a container of yogurt of indeterminate age, some wilted celery, and a half-finished bottle of wine left over from his last date, about two weeks earlier. He had been seeing a girl named Carol who did product liability at another firm. They'd picked each other up in the gym and had begun a desultory, intermittent affair. They were both busy, and not especially interested in each other, to tell the truth. They met once or twice a week, had passionate sex, and then one of them would plead a breakfast appointment the next day and go home early. Sometimes they went to dinner as well, but not usually. Neither of them wanted to take the time.
He went into the living room to check his answering machine. There was no message from Carol, but there was a message from Janis, another girl he sometimes saw.
Janis was a trainer in the gym, the possessor of one of those LA bodies, perfectly proportioned and rock hard. Sex for Janis was an athletic event, involving multiple rooms, couches, and chairs, and it always left Evans feeling vaguely inadequate, as if his body fat weren't low enough for her. But he continued to see her, feeling vaguely proud that he could have a girl who looked so astonishing, even if the sex wasn't that good. And she was often available on short notice. Janis had a boyfriend who was older, a producer for a cable news station. He was out of town a lot, and she was restless.
Janis had left a message the night before. Evans didn't bother to call her back. With Janis it was always that night, or forget it.
Before Janis and Carol, there had been other women, more or less the same. Evans told himself he should find a more satisfying relationship. Something more serious, more adult. More suited to his age and station in life. But he was busy, and just took things as they came.
Meanwhile he was hungry.
He went back down to his car and drove to the nearest drive-in, a hamburger joint on Pico. They knew him there. He had a double cheeseburger and a strawberry shake.
He went home, intending to go to bed. Then he remembered that he owed Morton a call.
"I'm glad you called," Morton said, "I've just been going over some things withgoing over some things. Where are we now on my donations to NERF? The Vanutu lawsuit, all that?"
"I don't know," Evans said. "The papers are drawn and signed, but I don't think anything's been paid yet."
"Good. I want you to hold off payments."
"Sure, no problem."
"Just for a while."
"Okay."
"There's no need to say anything to NERF."
"No, no. Of course not."
"Good."
Evans hung up. He went into the bedroom to get undressed. The phone rang again.
It was Janis. The exercise instructor.
"Hey," she said. "I was thinking about you, and I wondered what you were doing."
"As a matter of fact, I was going to go to bed."
"Oh. Pretty early for that."
"I just got in from Iceland."
"So you must be tired."
"Well," he said. "Not that tired."
"Want company?"
"Sure."
She giggled and hung up.
Evans awoke to the sound of rhythmic gasping. He flung his hand across the bed, but Janis wasn't there. Her side of the bed was still warm. He raised his head slightly, yawning. In the warm morning light he saw one slender, perfectly formed leg rise above the foot of the bed, to be joined by the other leg. Then both legs slowly descended. Gasping. Then legs up again.
"Janis," he said, "what are you doing?"
"I have to warm up." She stood, smiling, naked and at ease, confident of her appearance, every muscle outlined. "I have a class at seven."
"What time is it?"
"Six."
He groaned, and buried his head in the pillow.
"You really should get up now," she said. "It shortens your lifespan to sleep in."
He groaned again. Janis was full of health information; it was her job. "How can it possibly shorten my life to sleep?"
"They did studies on rats. They didn't let them sleep, and you know what? They lived longer."
"Uh-huh. Would you mind turning on the coffee?"
"Okay," she said, "but you really should give up coffee amp;" She drifted out of the room.
He swung his feet onto the floor and said, "Haven't you heard? Coffee prevents strokes."
"It does not," she said, from the kitchen. "Coffee has nine hundred twenty-three different chemicals in it, and it is not good for you."
"New study," he said. It was true, too.
"Besides, it causes cancer."
"That's never been shown."
"And miscarriages."
"Not a concern for me."
"And nervous tension."
"Janis, please."
She came back, crossing her arms across her perfect breasts as she leaned against the doorjamb. He could see the veins in her lower abdomen, running down to her groin. "Well, you are nervous, Peter. You have to admit it."
"Only when I look at your body."
She pouted. "You don't take me seriously." She turned back into the kitchen, showing him her perfect, high glutes. He heard her open the refrigerator. "There's no milk."
"Black is fine."
He stood, and headed for the shower.
"Did you have any damage?" she said.
"From what?"
"From the earthquake. We had a little one, while you were gone. About 4.3."
"Not that I know."
"Well, it sure moved your TV."
He stopped in mid-stride. "What?"
"It moved your TV. Look for yourself."
The morning sunlight that slanted through the window clearly showed the faint outline where the base of the television had compressed the carpet. The TV had been moved about three inches from its former position. It was an old thirty-two-inch monitor, and damned heavy. It didn't move easily. Looking at it now gave Evans a chill.
"You're lucky," she said. "You have all those glass things on your mantel. They break all the time, even in a small quake. Do you have an insurance policy?"
He didn't answer. He was bent over, looking behind the television at the connections. Everything looked normal. But he hadn't looked behind his TV for about a year. He wouldn't really know.
"By the way," she said, "this is not organic coffee. You should at least drink organic. Are you listening to me?"
"Just a minute." He had crouched down in front of the television, looking for anything unusual beneath the set. He could see nothing out of the ordinary.
"And what is this?" she said.
He looked over. She was holding a donut in her hand. "Peter," Janis said severely, "do you know how much fat's in these things? You might as well just eat a stick of butter."
"I know amp;I should give them up."
"Well, you should. Unless you want to develop diabetes later in life. Why are you on the floor?"
"I was checking the TV."
"Why? Is it broken?"
"I don't think so." He got to his feet.
"The water is running in your shower," she said. "That's not environmentally conscious." She poured coffee, handed it to him. "Go and take your shower. I've got to get to my class."
When he came out of the shower, she was gone. He pulled the covers up over the bed (as close as he ever came to making it) and went into the closet to dress for the day.
The law firm of Hassle and Black occupied five floors of an office building in Century City. They were a forward-looking, socially aware firm. They represented many Hollywood celebrities and wealthy activists who were committed to environmental concerns. The fact that they also represented three of the biggest land developers in Orange County was less often publicized. But as the partners said, it kept the firm balanced.
Evans had joined the firm because of its many environmentally active clients, particularly George Morton. He was one of four attorneys who worked almost full-time for Morton, and for Morton's pet charity, the National Environmental Resource Fund, NERF.
Nevertheless, he was still a junior associate, and his office was small, with a window that looked directly at the flat glass wall of the skyscraper across the street.
Evans looked over the papers on his desk. It was the usual stuff that came to junior attorneys. There was a residential sublet, an employment agreement, written interrogatories for a bankruptcy, a form for the Franchise Tax Board, and two drafted letters threatening lawsuits on behalf of his clientsone for an artist against a gallery refusing to return his unsold paintings, and one for George Morton's mistress, who claimed that the parking attendant at Sushi Roku had scratched her Mercedes convertible while parking it.
The mistress, Margaret Lane, was an ex-actress with a bad temper and a propensity for litigation. Whenever George neglected herwhich, in recent months, was increasingly oftenshe would find a reason to sue somebody. And the suit would inevitably land on Evans's desk. He made a note to call Margo; he didn't think she should proceed with this suit, but she would take convincing.
The next item was a spreadsheet from a Beverly Hills BMW dealer who claimed that the "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign had hurt his business because it denigrated luxury cars. Apparently his dealership was a block from a church, and some parishioners had come around after services and harangued his sales staff. The dealer didn't like that, but it looked to Evans as if his sales figures were higher this year than last. Evans made a note to call him, too.
Then he checked his e-mails, sorting through twenty offers to enlarge his penis, ten offers for tranquilizers, and another ten to get a new mortgage now before rates started to rise. There were only a half-dozen e-mails of importance, the first from Herb Lowenstein, asking to see him. Lowenstein was the senior partner on Morton's account; he did mostly estate management, but handled other aspects of investments as well. For Morton, estate management was a full-time job.
Evans wandered down the hall to Herb's office.
Lisa, Herb Lowenstein's assistant, was listening on the phone. She hung up and looked guilty when Evans entered. "He's talking to Jack Nicholson."
"How is Jack?"
"He's good. Finishing a picture with Meryl. There were some problems."
Lisa Ray was a bright-eyed twenty-seven-year-old, and a dedicated gossip. Evans had long ago come to rely on her for office information of all sorts.
"What's Herb want me for?"
"Something about Nick Drake."
"What's this meeting about tomorrow at nine?"
"I don't know," she said, sounding amazed. "I can't find out a thing.
"Who called it?"
"Morton's accountants." She looked at the phone on her desk. "Oh, he's hung up. You can go right in."
Herb Lowenstein stood and shook Evans's hand perfunctorily. He was a pleasant-faced balding man, mild-mannered and slightly nerdy. His office was decorated with dozens of pictures of his family, stacked three and four deep on his desk. He got on well with Evans, if only because these days, whenever Morton's thirty-year-old daughter got arrested for cocaine possession, it was Evans who went downtown at midnight to post her bail. Lowenstein had done it for many years, and now was glad to sleep through the night.
"So," he said, "how was Iceland?"
"Good. Cold."
"Is everything okay?"
"Sure."
"I mean, between George and Nick. Everything okay there?"
"I think so. Why?"
"Nick is worried. He called me twice in the last hour."
"About what?"
"Where are we on George's NERF donation?"
"Nick's asking that?"
"Is there a problem about it?"
"George wants to hold off for a while."
"Why?"
"He didn't say."
"Is it this Kenner guy?"
"George didn't say. He just said, hold off." Evans wondered how Lowenstein knew about Kenner.
"What do I tell Nick?"
"Tell him it's in the works and we don't have a date for him yet."
"But there's not a problem with it, is there?"
"Not that I've been told," Evans said.
"Okay," Lowenstein said. "In this room. Tell me: Is there a problem?"
"There might be." Evans was thinking that George rarely held up charitable donations. And there had been a certain tension in the brief talk he had with him the night before.
"What's this meeting about tomorrow morning?" Lowenstein said. "The big conference room."
"Beats me."
"George didn't tell you?"
"No."
"Nick is very upset."
"Well, that's not unusual for Nick."
"Nick has heard of this Kenner guy. He thinks he's a troublemaker. Some kind of anti-environmental guy."
"I doubt that. He's a professor at MIT. In some environmental science."
"Nick thinks he's a troublemaker."
"I couldn't say."
"He overheard you and Morton talking about Kenner on the airplane."
"Nick should stop listening at keyholes."
"He's worried about his standing with George."
"Not surprising," Evans said. "Nick screwed up on a big check. Got deposited in the wrong account."
"I heard about that. It was an error by a volunteer. You can't blame Nick for that."
"It doesn't build confidence."
"It was deposited to the International Wilderness Preservation Society. A great organization. And the money is being transferred back, even as we speak."
"That's fine."
"Where are you in this?"
"Nowhere. I just do what the client says."
"But you advise him."
"If he asks me. He hasn't asked."
"It sounds like you've lost confidence yourself."
Evans shook his head. "Herb," he said. "I'm not aware of any problem. I'm aware of a delay. That's all."
"Okay," Lowenstein said, reaching for the phone. "I'll calm Nick down."
Evans went back to his office. His phone was ringing. He answered it. "What are you doing today?" Morton said.
"Not much. Paperwork."
"That can wait. I want you to go over and see how that Vanutu lawsuit is coming."
"Jeez, George, it's still pretty preliminary. I think the filing is several months away."
"Pay them a visit," Morton said.
"Okay, they're in Culver City, I'll call over there and"
"No. Don't call. Just go."
"But if they're not expecting"
"That's right. That's what I want. Let me know what you find out, Peter."
And he hung up.
The Vanutu litigation team had taken over an old warehouse south of Culver City. It was an industrial area, with potholes in the streets. There was nothing to see from the curb: just a plain brick wall, and a door with the street number in battered metal numerals. Evans pushed the buzzer and was admitted to a small walled-off reception area. He could hear the low murmur of voices from the other side of the wall, but he could see nothing at all.
Two armed guards stood on either side of the far door, leading into the warehouse itself. A receptionist sat at a small desk. She gave him an unfriendly look.
"And you are?"
"Peter Evans, Hassle and Black."
"To see?"
"Mr. Balder."
"You have an appointment?"
"No."
The receptionist looked disbelieving. "I will buzz his assistant."
"Thank you."
The receptionist talked on the phone in a low voice. He heard her mention the name of the law firm. Evans looked at the two guards. They were from a private security firm. They stared back at him, their faces blank, unsmiling.
The receptionist hung up and said, "Ms. Haynes will be out in a moment." She nodded to the guards.
One of them came over and said to Evans, "Just a formality, sir. May I see some identification?"
Evans gave him his driver's license.
"Do you have any cameras or recording equipment on your person?"
"No," Evans said.
"Any disks, drives, flash cards, or other computer equipment?"
"No."
"Are you armed, sir?"
"No."
"Would you mind raising your arms for a moment?" When Evans gave him a strange look, the guard said, "Just think of it like airport security," and he patted him down. But he was also clearly feeling for wires. He ran his fingers over the collar of Evans's shirt, felt the stitching in his jacket, ran his finger around his waistband, and then asked him to take off his shoes. Finally he passed an electronic wand over him.
"You guys are serious," Evans said.
"Yes we are. Thank you, sir."
The guard stepped away, resuming his place at the wall. There was no place to sit, so Evans just stood there and waited. It was probably two minutes before the door opened. An attractive but tough-looking woman in her late twenties, with short dark hair and blue eyes, wearing jeans and a white shirt, said, "Mr. Evans? I'm Jennifer Haynes." Her handshake was firm. "I work with John Balder. Come this way."
They went inside.
They were in a narrow corridor, with a locked door at the far end. Evans realized it was a security locktwo doors to get inside.
"What was that all about?" he said, indicating the guards.
"We've had a little trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
"People want to know what's going on here."
"Uh-huh amp;"
"We've learned to be careful."
She held her card against the door, and it buzzed open.
They entered an old warehousea vast, high-ceilinged space, separated into large rooms by glass partitions. Immediately to his left, behind glass, Evans saw a room filled with computer terminals, each manned by a young person with a stack of documents beside their keyboard. In big lettering on the glass it said, "data-raw."
To his right, there was a matching conference room labeled "satellites/radiosonde." Evans saw four people inside that room, busily discussing huge blowups of a graph on the wall, jagged lines on a grid.
Farther along there was another room marked "general circulation models (gcms)." Here the walls were plastered with large maps of the world, graphical representations in many colors.
"Wow," Evans said. "Big operation."
"Big lawsuit," Jennifer Haynes replied. "These are all our issue teams. They're mostly graduate students in climate science, not attorneys. Each team is researching a different issue for us." She pointed around the warehouse. "The first group does raw data, meaning processed data from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University, in New York, from the USHCN at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and from Hadley Center in East Anglia, England. Those are the major sources of temperature data from around the world."
"I see," Evans said.
"Then the group over there works on satellite data. Orbiting satellites have recorded temperatures of the upper atmosphere since 1979, so there is more than a twenty-year record. We're trying to figure out what to do about it."
"What to do about it?"
"The satellite data's a problem," she said.
"Why?"
As though she hadn't heard him, she pointed to the next room. "The team there is doing comparative analyses of GCMsmeaning the computer-generated climate modelsfrom the 1970s to the present. As you know, these models are immensely complex, manipulating a million variables or more at once. They are by far the most complex computer models ever created by man. We're dealing with American, British, and German models, primarily."
"I see amp;" Evans was starting to feel overwhelmed.
"And the team down there is doing sea-level issues. Around the corner is paleoclimate. Those're proxy studies, of course. And the final team is dealing with solar irradiance and aerosols. Then we have an off-site team at UCLA that is doing atmospheric feedback mechanisms, primarily focusing on cloud cover as it varies with temperature change. And that's about all of it." She paused, seeing the confusion on Evans's face. "I'm sorry. Since you work with George Morton, I assumed you were familiar with all this stuff."
"Who said I work with George Morton?"
She smiled. "We know our job, Mr. Evans."
They passed a final glass-walled room that had no label. It was filled with charts and huge photographs, and three-dimensional models of the earth set inside plastic cubes. "What's this?" he said.
"Our AV team. They prepare visuals for the jury. Some of the data is extremely complex, and we're trying to find the simplest and most forceful way to present it."
They walked on. Evans said, "Is it really that complicated?"
"That's correct," she said. "The island nation of Vanutu is actually four coral atolls in the southern Pacific, which have a maximum elevation of twenty feet above sea level. The eight thousand inhabitants of those islands are at risk of being flooded out by rising sea levels caused by global warming."
"Yes," Evans said. "I understand that. But why do you have so many people working on the science?"
She looked at him oddly. "Because we're trying to win the case."
"Yes amp;"
"And it's not an easy case to win."
"What do you mean?" Evans said. "This is global warming. Everybody knows that global warming is"
A voice boomed from the other end of the warehouse. "Is what?"
A bald, bespectacled man came toward them. He had an ungainly gait, and looked like his nickname: the Bald Eagle. As always, John Balder was dressed all in blue: a blue suit, a blue shirt, and a blue tie. His manner was intense, his eyes narrowed as he looked at Evans. In spite of himself, Evans was intimidated to meet the famous litigator.
Evans extended his hand. "Peter Evans, Hassle and Black."
"And you work with George Morton?"
"Yes sir, I do."
"We are indebted to Mr. Morton's generosity. We strive to be worthy of his support."
"I'll tell him that, sir."
"I'm sure you will. You were speaking of global warming, Mr. Evans. Is it a subject that interests you?"
"Yes, sir, it does. And every concerned citizen of the planet."
"I certainly agree. But tell me. What is global warming, as you understand it?"
Evans tried to conceal his surprise. He hadn't expected to be quizzed. "Why do you ask?"
"We ask everybody who comes here. We're trying to get a feel for the general state of knowledge. What's global warming?"
"Global warming is the heating up of the earth from burning fossil fuels."
"Actually, that is not correct."
"It's not?"
"Not even close. Perhaps you'd try again."
Evans paused. It was obvious he was being interrogated by a fussy and precise legal mind. He knew the type only too well, from law school. He thought for a moment, choosing his words carefully. "Global warming is, uh, the heating up of the surface of the earth from the excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that is produced by burning fossil fuels."
"Again, not correct."
"Why not?"
"Several reasons. At a minimum, I count four errors in the statement you just made."
"I don't understand," Evans said. "My statementthat's what global warming is."
"In fact, it is not." Balder's tone was crisp, authoritative. "Global warming is the theory"
"hardly a theory, anymore"
"No, it is a theory," Balder said. "Believe me, I wish it were otherwise. But in fact, global warming is the theory that increased levels of carbon dioxide and certain other gases are causing an increase in the average temperature of the earth's atmosphere because of the so-called greenhouse effect.'"
"Well, okay," Evans said. "That's a more exact definition, but amp;"
"Mr. Evans, you yourself believe in global warming, I take it?"
"Of course."
"Believe in it strongly?"
"Sure. Everybody does."
"When you have a strongly held belief, don't you think it's important to express that belief accurately?"
Evans was starting to sweat. He really felt like he was back in law school. "Well, sir, I guess¬ really, in this case. Because when you refer to global warming, everybody knows what you are talking about."
"Do they? I suspect that even you don't know what you are talking about."
Evans felt a burst of hot anger. Before he could check himself, he had blurted, "Look, just because I may not be expressing the fine details of the science"
"I'm not concerned about details, Mr. Evans. I'm concerned about the core of your strongly held beliefs. I suspect you have no basis for those beliefs."
"With all due respect, that's ridiculous." He caught his breath. "Sir."
"You mean you do have such a basis?"
"Of course I do."
Balder looked at him thoughtfully. He seemed pleased with himself. "In that case, you can be a great help to this lawsuit. Would you mind giving us an hour of your time?"
"Uh amp;I guess so."
"Would you mind if we videotaped you?"
"No, but amp;why?"
Balder turned to Jennifer Haynes, who said, "We're trying to establish a baseline for what a well-informed person such as yourself knows about global warming. To help us refine our jury presentation."
"Sort of a mock jury of one?"
"Exactly. We've interviewed several people already."
"Okay," Evans said. "I guess I could schedule that at some point."
"Now is a good time," Balder said. He turned to Jennifer. "Get your team together in room four."
"Of course I'd like to help," Evans said, "but I came here to get an overview"
"Because you've heard there are problems with the lawsuit? There aren't. But there are significant challenges," Balder said. He glanced at his watch. "I'm about to go into a meeting," he said. "You spend some time with Ms. Haynes, and when you're done, we'll talk about the litigation as I see it. Is that all right with you?"
There was nothing Evans could do but agree.
They put him in a conference room at the end of a long table, and aimed the video camera at him from the far end. Just like a deposition, he thought.
Five young people drifted into the room and took seats at the table. All were casually dressed, in jeans and T-shirts. Jennifer Haynes introduced them so quickly that Evans didn't catch their names. She explained that they were all graduate students in different scientific disciplines.
While they were setting up, Jennifer slipped into a chair beside his and said, "I'm sorry John was so rough on you. He's frustrated and under a lot of pressure."
"From the case?"
"Yes."
"What kind of pressure?"
"This session may give you some idea what we're dealing with." She turned to the others. "Are we ready?"
Heads nodded, notebooks flipped open. The camera light came on. Jennifer said, "Interview with Peter Evans, of Hassle and Black, on Tuesday, August twenty-fourth. Mr. Evans, we'd like to go over your views about the evidence that supports global warming. This isn't a test; we'd just like to clarify how you think about the issue."
"Okay," Evans said.
"Let's begin informally. Tell us what you know about the evidence for global warming."
"Well," Evans said, "I know that temperatures around the globe have risen dramatically in the last twenty or thirty years as a result of increases in carbon dioxide that is released by industry when fossil fuels are burned."
"Okay. And by a dramatic rise in temperature, you mean how much?"
"I think about a degree."
"Fahrenheit or Celsius?"
"Fahrenheit."
"And this rise has occurred over twenty years?"
"Twenty or thirty, yes."
"And earlier in the twentieth century?"
"Temperatures went up then, too, but not as fast."
"Okay," she said. "Now I am going to show you a graph amp;" She pulled out a graph* on foam core backing:
Global Temperature 18802003 "Does this look familiar to you?" she asked.
"I've seen it before," Evans said.
"It's taken from the NASAGoddard data set used by the UN and other organizations. Do you consider the UN a trustworthy source?"
"Yes."
"So we can regard this graph as accurate? Unbiased? No monkey business?"
"Yes."
"Good. Do you know what this graph represents?"
Evans could read that much. He said, "It's the mean global temperature from all the weather stations around the world for the last hundred years or so."
"That's right," she said. "And how do you interpret this graph?"
"Well," he said, "it shows what I was describing." He pointed to the red line. "World temperatures have been rising since about 1890, but they start to go up steeply around 1970, when industrialization is most intense, which is the real proof of global warming."
"Okay," she said. "So the rapid increase in temperature since 1970 was caused by what?"
"Rising carbon dioxide levels from industrialization."
"Good. In other words, as the carbon dioxide goes up, the temperature goes up."
"Yes."
"All right. Now you mentioned the temperature started to rise from 1890, up to about 1940. And we see here that it did. What caused that rise? Carbon dioxide?"
"Um amp;I'm not sure."
"Because there was much less industrialization back in 1890, and yet look how temperatures go up. Was carbon dioxide rising in 1890?"
"I'm not sure."
"Actually, it was. Here is a graph showing carbon dioxide levels and temperature."
Global Temperature 18802003 "Okay," Evans said. "Just what you would expect. Carbon dioxide goes up, and makes temperatures go up."
"Good," she said. "Now I want to direct your attention to the period from 1940 to 1970. As you see, during that period the global temperature actually went down. You see that?"
"Yes amp;"
Global Temperature vs CO2 19401970 "Let me show you a closeup of that period." She took out another chart.
"This is a thirty-year period. One third of a century during which temperatures declined. Crops were damaged by frost in summer, glaciers in Europe advanced. What caused the decline?"
"I don't know."
"Was carbon dioxide rising during that period?"
"Yes."
"So, if rising carbon dioxide is the cause of rising temperatures, why didn't it cause temperatures to rise from 1940 to 1970?"
"I don't know," Evans said. "There must have been another factor. Or it could be an anomaly. There are anomalies within broad secular trends. Just look at the stock market."
"Does the stock market have anomalies that last thirty years?"
He shrugged. "Or it could have been soot. Or particulate matter in the air. There were a lot of particulates back then, before environmental laws took effect. Or maybe some other factor."
"These graphs show that carbon dioxide rose continuously, but temperature did not. It rose, then fell, then rose again. Even so, I take it you remain convinced that carbon dioxide has caused the most recent temperature rise?"
"Yes. Everybody knows that's the cause."
"Does this graph trouble you at all?"
"No," Evans said. "I admit it raises some questions, but then not everything is known about the climate. So, no. The graph doesn't trouble me."
"Okay, good. I'm glad to hear it. Let's move on. You said this graph was the average of weather stations around the world. How reliable is that weather data, do you think?"
"I have no idea."
"Well, for example, in the late nineteenth century, the data were generated by people going out to a little box and writing down the temperature twice a day. Maybe they forgot for a few days. Maybe somebody in their family was sick. They had to fill it in later."
"That was back then."
"Right. But how accurate do you think weather records are from Poland in the 1930s? Or Russian provinces since 1990?"
"Not very good, I would guess."
"And I would agree. So over the last hundred years, a fair number of reporting stations around the world may not have provided high-quality, reliable data."
"That could be," Evans said.
"Over the years, which country do you imagine has the best-maintained network of weather stations over a large area?"
"The US?"
"Right. I think there is no dispute about that. Here is another graph."
US Temperature 18802000 "Does this graph look like the first one we saw of world temperatures?"
"Not exactly."
"What is the change in temperature since 1880?"
"Looks like, uh, a third of a degree."
A third of a degree Celsius in a hundred and twenty years. Not very dramatic." She pointed to the graph. "And what was the warmest year of the last century?"
"Looks like 1934."
"Does this graph indicate to you that global warming is occurring?"
"Well. The temperature is going up."
"For the last thirty years, yes. But it went down for the previous thirty years. And current temperatures in the US are roughly the same as they were in the 1930s. So: Does this graph argue for global warming?"
"Yes," Evans said. "It's just not as dramatic in the US as it is in the rest of the world, but it's still happening."
"Does it trouble you that the most accurate temperature record shows the least warming?"
"No. Because global warming is a global phenomenon. It's not just the US."
"If you had to defend these graphs in a court of law, do you think you could persuade a jury of your position? Or would a jury look at the graph and say, this global warming stuff is nothing serious?"
"Leading the witness," he said, laughing.
In fact, Evans was feeling slightly uneasy. But only slightly. He'd heard such claims before, at environmental conferences. Industry hacks could slap together data that they had massaged and twisted, and give a convincing, well-prepared speech, and before Evans knew it, he'd start to doubt what he knew.
As if she were reading his mind, Jennifer said, "These graphs show solid data, Peter. Temperature records from Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University. Carbon dioxide levels from Mauna Loa and the Law Dome ice cores in Antarctica.* All generated by researchers who believe firmly in global warming."
"Yes," he said. "Because the overwhelming consensus of scientists around the world is that global warming is happening and it is a major worldwide threat."
"Okay, good," she said smoothly. "I'm glad that none of this changes your views. Let's turn to some other questions of interest. David?"
One of the graduate students leaned forward. "Mr. Evans, I'd like to talk to you about land use, the urban heat island effect, and satellite data on the temperature of the troposphere."
Evans thought, Oh Jesus. But he just nodded. "Okay amp;"
"One of the issues we're trying to address concerns how surface temperatures change with land use. Are you familiar with that issue?"
"Not really, no." He looked at his watch. "Frankly, you people are working at a level of detail that is beyond me. I just listen to what the scientists say"
"And we're preparing a lawsuit," Jennifer said, "based on what scientists say. This level of detail is where the suit will be fought."
"Fought?" Evans shrugged. "Who's going to fight it? Nobody with any stature. There isn't a reputable scientist in the world who doesn't believe in global warming."
"On that point, you are wrong," she said. "The defense will call full professors from MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Duke, Virginia, Colorado, UC Berkeley, and other prestigious schools. They will call the former president of the National Academy of Sciences. They may also call some Nobel Prize winners. They will bring in professors from England, from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, from Stockholm University in Sweden. These professors will argue that global warming is at best unproven, and at worst pure fantasy."
"Their research paid for by industry, no doubt."
"A few. Not all."
"Arch-conservatives. Neocons."
"The focus in litigation," she said, "will be on the data."
Evans looked at them and saw the concern on their faces. And he thought, They really believe they might lose this thing.
"But this is ridiculous," Evans said. "All you have to do is read the newspapers, or watch television"
"Newspapers and television are susceptible to carefully orchestrated media campaigns. Lawsuits are not."
"Then forget mass media," Evans said, "and just read the scientific journals"
"We do. They're not necessarily helpful to our side. Mr. Evans, we have a lot to go over. If you'd hold your protestations, we can get on with the issues."
It was at that moment that the phone buzzed, and Balder delivered him from his torment. "Send the guy from Hassle and Black into my office," he said. "I have ten minutes for him."
Balder was ensconced in a glass-walled office, with his feet up on a glass desk, working his way through a stack of briefs and research papers. He didn't take his feet down as Evans came in.
"You find it interesting?" he said. He meant the interrogation.
"In a way," Evans said. "But if you'll pardon my saying so, I get the sense they're worried they might lose."
"I have no doubt that we will win this case," Balder said. "No doubt whatsoever. But I don't want my people thinking that way! I want them worried as hell. I want my team running scared before any trial. And especially this one. We are bringing this suit against the EPA, and in anticipation of that, the agency has retained outside counsel in the person of Barry Beckman."
"Whew," Evans said. "Big guns."
Barry Beckman was the most famous litigator of his generation. A professor at Stanford Law School at twenty-eight, he left the university in his early thirties to go into private practice. He had already represented Microsoft, Toyota, Phillips, and a host of other multinationals. Beckman had an incredibly agile mind, a charming manner, a quick sense of humor, and a photographic memory. Everyone knew that when he argued before the Supreme Court (as he had done three times already) he cited document page numbers as he answered the Justices' questions. "Your honor, I believe you will find that in footnote 17 on the bottom of page 237." Like that.
"Barry has his faults," Balder said. "He has so much information at his fingertips that he can easily slip into irrelevance. He likes to hear himself talk. His arguments drift. I have beaten him once. And lost to him, once. But one thing is sure: We can expect an extremely well-prepared opposition."
"Isn't it a little unusual to hire an attorney before you've even filed?"
"It's a tactic," Balder said. "The current administration doesn't want to defend this lawsuit. They believe they will win, but they don't want the negative publicity that will accompany their brief against global warming. So they hope to intimidate us into dropping the case. And of course we never would. Especially now that we are fully funded, thanks to Mr. Morton."
"That's good," Evans said.
"At the same time, the challenges are significant. Barry will argue that there is insufficient evidence for global warming. He will argue that the supporting science is weak. He will argue that the predictions from ten and fifteen years ago have already been shown to be wrong. And he will argue that even leading proponents of global warming have publicly expressed doubts about whether it can be predicted, whether it is a serious problemand indeed, whether it's occurring at all."
"Leading proponents have said that?"
Balder sighed. "They have. In journals."
"I've never read anything of that sort."
"The statements exist. Barry will dig them out." He shook his head. "Some experts have expressed different views at different times. Some have said rising carbon dioxide isn't a big problem; now they say it is. So far, we don't have a single expert witness that can't be turned. Or made to look very foolish on cross."
Evans nodded sympathetically. He was familiar with this circumstance. One of the first things you learned in law school was that the law was not about truth. It was about dispute resolution. In the course of resolving a dispute, the truth might or might not emerge. Often it did not. Prosecutors might know a criminal was guilty, and still be unable to convict him. It happened all the time.
"That's why," Balder said, "this case is going to hinge on the sea-level records in the Pacific. We are collecting all available data records now."
"Why does the case hinge on that?"
"Because I believe," Balder said, "that this is a case we should bait and switch. The case is about global warming, but that's not where the emotional impact is for a jury. Juries aren't comfortable reading graphs. And all this talk about tenths of a degree Celsius goes right over their heads. It's technical detail; it's the quibbles of experts; and it's incredibly boring for normal people.
"No, the jury will see this as a case about helpless, victimized, impoverished people being flooded out of their ancestral homelands. A case about the terror of sea levels rising precipitouslyand inexplicably with no conceivable cause unless you accept that something extraordinary and unprecedented has affected the entire world in recent years. Something that is causing the sea levels to rise and to threaten the lives of innocent men, women, and children."
"And that something is global warming."
Balder nodded. "The jury will have to draw their own conclusions. If we can show them a convincing record of rising sea levels, we will be on very strong ground. When juries see that damage has been done, they are inclined to blame somebody."
"Okay." Evans saw where Balder was going. "So the sea-level data is important."
"Yes, but it needs to be solid, irrefutable."
"Is that so hard to obtain?"
Balder cocked an eyebrow. "Mr. Evans, do you know anything about the study of sea levels?"
"No. I just know that sea levels are rising around the world."
"Unfortunately, that claim is in considerable dispute."
"You're joking."
"It is well known," Balder said, "that I have no sense of humor."
"But sea level can't be disputed," Evans said. "It's too simple. You put a mark on a dock at high tide, measure it year after year, watch it go up amp;I mean, how difficult can it be?"
Balder sighed. "You think sea level is simple? Trust me, it's not. Have you ever heard of the geoid? No? The geoid is the equipotential surface of the earth's gravitational field that approximates the mean sea surface. That help you?"
Evans shook his head.
"Well, it is a core concept in the measurement of sea levels." Balder flipped through the stack of papers in front of him. "How about glacio-hydro-isostatic modeling? Eustatic and tectonic effects on shoreline dynamics? Holocene sedimentary sequences? Intertidal foraminifera distributions? Carbon analysis of coastal paleoenvironments? Aminostratigraphy? No? Not ringing a bell? Let me assure you, sea level is a fiercely debated specialty." He tossed the last of the papers aside. "That's what I'm working through now. But the disputes within the field give added importance to finding an unimpeachable set of data."
"And you are obtaining this data?"
"Waiting for them to arrive, yes. The Australians have several sets. The French have at least one in Moorea and perhaps another in Papeete. There is a set that was funded by the V. Allen Willy Foundation, but it may be of too short a duration. And other sets as well. We will have to see."
The intercom buzzed. The assistant said, "Mr. Balder, it's Mr. Drake on the line, from NERF."
"All right." Balder turned to Evans, extended a hand. "Nice talking with you, Mr. Evans. Again, our thanks to George. Tell him any time he wants to have a look around, he can drop by. We are always hard at work here. Good luck to you. Close the door on your way out."
Balder turned away, picking up the phone. Evans heard him say, "Well, Nick, what the fuck is going on at NERF? Are you going to fix this for me, or not?"
Evans closed the door.
He walked out of Balder's office with a sense of nagging unease. Balder was one of the most persuasive men on the planet. He had known Evans was there on behalf of George Morton. He knew Morton was on the verge of making a huge contribution to the lawsuit. Balder should have been totally upbeat, radiating confidence. And he had, indeed, begun that way.
I have no doubt we will win this lawsuit.
But then, Evans had heard:
The challenges are significant.
I do not have a single expert witness who can't be turned.
This is a case we should bait and switch.
This case will hinge on sea-level records.
Sea level is a fiercely debated specialty.
We will have to see.
It certainly wasn't a conversation calculated to raise Evans's level of confidence. Neither, for that matter, was the video session he'd had with Jennifer Haynes, discussing the scientific problems the lawsuit would face.
But then, as he considered it, he decided that these expressions of doubt were actually a sign of confidence on the part of the legal team. Evans was an attorney himself; he had come to learn the issues surrounding the trial, and they had been forthright with him. It was a case they would win, even though it would not be easy, because of the complexity of the data and the short attention span of the jury.
So: would he recommend that Morton continue?
Of course he would.
Jennifer was waiting for him outside Balder's office. She said, "They're ready for you back in the conference room."
Evans said, "I'm really sorry, I can't. My schedule amp;"
"I understand," she said, "we'll do it another time. I was wondering if your schedule was really tight, or whether there was time for you and me to have lunch."
"Oh," Evans said, without missing a beat, "my schedule isn't that tight."
"Good," she said.
They had lunch in a Mexican restaurant in Culver City. It was quiet. There were a handful of film editors in the corner, from nearby Sony Studios. A couple of high school kids necking. A group of older women in sunhats.
They sat in a corner booth and both ordered the special. Evans said, "Balder seems to think the sea-level data is key."
"That's what Balder thinks. Frankly, I'm not so sure."
"Why is that?"
"Nobody's seen all the data. But even if it's high quality, it needs to show a substantial sea-level rise to impress a jury. It may not."
"How could it not?" Evans said. "With glaciers melting, and breaking off Antarctica"
"Even so, it may not," she said. "You know the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean? They were concerned about flooding, so a team of Scandinavian researchers came in to study sea levels. The scientists found no rise in several centuriesand a fall in the last twenty years."
"A fall? Was that published?"
"Last year," she said. The food came; Jennifer gave a dismissive wave of her hand: enough shop talk for now. She ate her burrito with gusto, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. He saw a jagged white scar running from her palm down the underside of her forearm. She said, "God, I love this food. You can't get decent Mexican food in DC."
"Is that where you're from?"
She nodded. "I came out to help John."
"He asked you?"
"I couldn't turn him down." She shrugged. "So I see my boyfriend on alternate weekends. He comes out here, or I go back there. But if this trial goes forward, it will be a year, maybe two years. I don't think our relationship will make it."
"What does he do? Your boyfriend."
"Attorney."
Evans smiled. "Sometimes I think everyone's an attorney."
"Everyone is. He does securities law. Not my thing."
"What's your thing?"
"Witness prep and jury selection. Psychological analysis of the pool. That's why I'm in charge of the focus groups."
"I see."
"We know that most people we might put on the jury will have heard of global warming, and most will probably be inclined to think it is real."
"Jesus, I'd hope so," Evans said. "I mean, it's been an established fact for the last fifteen years."
"But we need to determine what people will believe in the face of contrary evidence."
"Such as?"
"Such as the graphs I showed you today. Or the satellite data. You know about the satellite data?"
Evans shook his head.
"The theory of global warming predicts that the upper atmosphere will warm from trapped heat, just like a greenhouse. The surface of the Earth warms later. But since 1979 we've had orbiting satellites that can continuously measure the atmosphere five miles up. They show that the upper atmosphere is warming much less than the ground is."
"Maybe there's a problem with the data"
"Trust me, the satellite data have been re-analyzed dozens of times," she said. "They're probably the most intensely scrutinized data in the world. But the data from weather balloons agree with the satellites. They show much less warming than expected by the theory." She shrugged. "Another problem for us. We're working on it."
"How?"
"We think it'll prove too complex for a jury. The details of MSUsmicrowave-sounding units, cross-track scanners with four-channel radiance analysisand the questions about whether channel 2 has been corrected for diurnal drifts and inter-satellite offsets, time-varying nonlinear instrumental responses amp;We hope it will make them throw up their hands. Anyway. Enough of all that." She wiped her face with her napkin and again he saw the white scar that ran down the underside of her arm.
"How'd you get that?" he said.
She shrugged. "In law school."
"And I thought my school was tough."
"I taught an inner-city karate class," she said. "Sometimes it went late. You want any more of these chips?"
"No," he said.
"Shall we get the check?"
"Tell me," he said.
"There's not a lot to tell. One night, I got in my car to drive home, and a kid jumped in the passenger seat and pulled a gun. Told me to start driving."
"Kid from your class?"
"No. An older kid. Late twenties."
"What'd you do?"
"I told him to get out. He told me to drive. So I started the car, and as I put it in gear I asked him where he wanted me to go. And he was stupid enough to point, so I hit him in the windpipe. I didn't hit him hard enough, and he got off a round, blew out the windshield. Then I hit him again with my elbow. Couple, three times."
"What happened to him?" he said.
"He died."
"Jesus," Evans said.
"Some people make bad decisions," she said. "What're you staring at me like that for? He was six-two and two-ten and had a record from here to Nebraska. Armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted rapeyou name it. You think I should feel sorry for him?"
"No," Evans said quickly.
"You do, I can see it in your eyes. A lot of people do. They go, He was just a kid, how could you do that? Let me tell you, people don't know what the hell they're talking about. One of us was going to get killed that night. I'm glad it wasn't me. But of course, it still bothers me."
"I'll bet."
"Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat. Seeing the gunshot blow the windshield in front of my face. Realizing how close I came to dying. I was stupid. I should have killed him the first time."
Evans paused. He didn't know what to say.
"You ever had a gun at your head?" she said.
"No amp;"
"Then you have no idea how it feels, do you?"
"Was there trouble about it?" he said.
"You bet your ass there was trouble. For a while I thought I wasn't going to be able to practice law. They claimed I led him on. Do you believe that shit? I never saw the guy in my life. But then a very good attorney came to my rescue."
"Balder?"
She nodded. "That's why I'm here."
"And what about your arm?"
"Ah hell," she said, "the car crashed and I cut it on the broken glass." She signaled to the waitress. "What do you say we get the check?"
"I'll do that."
Minutes later they were back outside. Evans blinked in the milky midday light. They walked down the street. "So," Evans said. "I guess you're pretty good at karate."
"Good enough."
They came to the warehouse. He shook her hand.
"I'd really like to have lunch again some time," she said. She was so direct about it, he wondered whether it was personal, or whether she wanted him to know how the lawsuit was going. Because like Balder, much of what she had said was not encouraging.
"Lunch sounds great," he said.
"Not too long?"
"Deal."
"Will you call me?"
"Count on it," he said.
It was almost dark when he went home to his apartment and parked in the garage facing the alley. He was going up the back stairs when the landlady poked her head out the window. "You just missed them," she said.
"Who?"
"The cable repair people. They just left."
"I didn't call any cable repair people," he said. "Did you let them in?"
"Of course not. They said they would wait for you. They just left."
Evans had never heard of cable repair people waiting for anyone. "How long did they wait?"
"Not long. Maybe ten minutes."
"Okay."
He got up to the second-floor landing. A tag was hooked on his door-knob. "Sorry We Missed You." There was a check box to "Call again to reschedule service."
Then he saw the problem. The address was listed as 2119 Roxbury. His address was 2129 Roxbury. But the address was on the front door, not the back door. They'd just made a mistake. He lifted his doormat to check on the key he kept there. It was right where he'd left it. It hadn't been moved. There was even a ring of dust around it.
He unlocked the door and went inside. He went to the refrigerator, and saw the old container of yogurt. He needed to go to the supermarket but he was too tired. He checked the messages to see if Janis or Carol had called. They hadn't. Now of course there was the prospect of Jennifer Haynes, but she had a boyfriend, she lived in DC, and amp;he knew it would never work.
He thought of calling Janis, but decided not to. He took a shower, and was considering calling for pizza delivery. He lay down on the bed to relax for a minute before he called. And he fell immediately asleep.
The meeting was held in the big conference room on the fourteenth floor. Morton's four accountants were there; his assistant Sarah Jones; Herb Lowenstein, who did estate planning; a guy named Marty Bren, who did tax work for NERF, and Evans. Morton, who hated all financial meetings, paced restlessly.
"Let's get to it," he said. "I am supposedly giving ten million dollars to NERF, and we have signed papers, is that right?"
"Right," Lowenstein said.
"But now they want to attach a rider to the agreement?"
"Right," Marty Bren said. "It's pretty standard boilerplate for them." He shuffled through his papers. "Any charity wants to have full use of the money they receive, even when it is earmarked for a particular purpose. Maybe that purpose costs more or less than predicted, or it is delayed, or mired in litigation, or set aside for some other reason. In this case, the money has been earmarked for the Vanutu lawsuit, and the relevant phrase NERF wants to add is "said moneys to be used to defray the cost of the Vanutu litigation, including fees, filing, and copying costs amp;blah blah amp;or for other legal purposes, or for such other purposes as NERF shall see fit in its capacity as an environmental organization."
Morton said, "That's the phrase they want?"
"Boilerplate, as I said," Bren said.
"It's been in my previous donation agreements?"
"I don't recall offhand."
"Because," Morton said, "it sounds to me like they want to be able to pull the plug on this lawsuit, and spend the money elsewhere."
"Oh, I doubt that," Herb said.
"Why?" Morton said. "Why else would they want this boilerplate? Look, we had a signed deal. Now they want a change. Why?"
"It's not really a change," Bren said.
"It sure as hell is, Marty."
"If you look at the original agreement," Bren said calmly, "it says that any money not spent on the lawsuit goes to NERF for other purposes."
"But that's only if there's money left after the lawsuit ends," Morton said. "They can't spend it on anything else until the suit is decided."
"I think they imagine there may be long delays here."
"Why should there be delays?" Morton turned to Evans. "Peter? What is going on over there in Culver City?"
"It looks like the suit is going forward," Evans said. "They have a large operation. There must be forty people working on that one case. I don't think they plan to give it up."
"And are there problems with the suit?"
"There are certainly challenges," Evans said. "It's complicated litigation. They face strong opposing counsel. They're working hard."
"Why am I not convinced here?" Morton said. "Six months ago Nick Drake told me this damn lawsuit was a slam dunk and a great publicity opportunity, and now they want a bail-out clause."
"Maybe we should ask Nick."
"I got a better idea. Let's audit NERF."
Murmurs in the room. "I don't think you have that right, George."
"Make it part of the agreement."
"I'm not sure you can do that."
"They want a rider. I want a rider. What's the difference?"
"I'm not sure you can audit their entire operation"
"George," Herb Lowenstein said. "You and Nick are friends of long standing. You're their Concerned Citizen of the Year. Auditing them seems a little out of character for your relationship."
"You mean it looks like I don't trust them?"
"Put bluntly, yes."
"I don't." Morton leaned on the table and looked at everyone sitting there. "You know what I think? They want to blow off the litigation and spend all the money on this conference on abrupt climate change that Nick is so excited about."
"They don't need ten million for a conference."
"I don't know what they need. He already misplaced two hundred and fifty thousand of my money. It ended up in fucking Vancouver. I don't know what he is doing anymore."
"Well, then you should withdraw your contribution."
"Ah ah," Marty Bren said. "Not so fast. I think they've already made financial commitments based on the reasonable expectation that the money was coming."
"Then give them some amount, and forget the rest."
"No," Morton said. "I'm not going to withdraw the grant. Peter Evans here says the litigation is going forward, and I believe him. Nick says that the two hundred and fifty grand was a mistake, and I believe him. I want you to ask for an audit and I want to know what happens. I will be out of town for the next three weeks."
"You will? Where?"
"I'm taking a trip."
"But we'll have to be able to reach you, George."
"I may be unreachable. Call Sarah. Or have Peter here get in touch with me."
"But George"
"That's it, guys. Talk to Nick, see what he says. We'll be in contact soon."
And he walked out of the room, with Sarah hurrying after him.
Lowenstein turned to the others. "What the hell was that all about?"
Thunder rumbled ominously. Looking out the front windows of his office, Nat Damon sighed. He had always known that that submarine lease would mean trouble. After the check bounced, he had canceled the order, hoping that that would be the end of it. But it wasn't.
For weeks and weeks he had heard nothing, but then one of the men, the lawyer in the shiny suit, had come back unexpectedly to poke a finger in his face and tell him that he had signed a nondisclosure agreement and could not discuss any aspect of the submarine lease with anybody, or risk a lawsuit. "Maybe we'll win, and maybe we'll lose," the lawyer said. "But either way, you're out of business, friend. Your house is mortgaged. You're in debt for the rest of your life. So, think it over. And keep your mouth shut."
All during this, Damon's heart was pounding. Because the fact was, Damon had already been contacted by some sort of revenue service guy. A man named Kenner, who was coming to Damon's office that very afternoon. To ask a few questions, he had said.
Damon had been afraid that this Kenner would show up while the lawyer was still in his office, but now the lawyer was driving away. His car, a nondescript Buick sedan with Ontario plates, drove through the boatyard, and was gone.
Damon started to clean up the office, getting ready to go home. He was toying with the idea of leaving before Kenner arrived. Kenner was some revenue agent. Damon had done nothing wrong. He didn't have to meet any revenue agent. And if he did, what would he do, say he couldn't answer questions?
The next thing, he'd be subpoenaed or something. Dragged into court.
Damon decided to leave. There was more thunder, and the crack of distant lightning. A big storm was moving in.
As he was closing up, he saw that the lawyer had left his cell phone on the counter. He looked out to see if the lawyer was coming back for it. Not yet, but surely he would realize he had left it, and come back. Damon decided to leave before he showed up.
Hastily, he slipped the cell phone in his pocket, turned out the lights, and locked the office. The first drops of rain were spattering the pavement as he went to his car, parked right in front. He opened the door and was climbing into the car when the cell phone rang. He hesitated, not sure what to do. The phone rang insistently.
A jagged bolt of lightning crashed down, striking the mast of one of the ships in the boatyard. In the next instant there was a burst of light by the car, a blast of furious heat that knocked him to the ground. Dazed, he tried to get up.
He was thinking that his car had exploded, but it hadn't; the car was intact, the door blackened. Then he saw that his trousers were on fire. He stared stupidly at his own legs, not moving. He heard the rumble of thunder and realized that he had been struck by lightning.
My God, he thought. I was hit by lightning. He sat up and slapped at his trousers, trying to put out the fire. It wasn't working, and his legs were beginning to feel pain. He had a fire extinguisher inside the office.
Staggering to his feet, he moved unsteadily to his office. He was unlocking the door, his fingers fumbling, when there was another explosion. He felt a sharp pain in his ears, reached up, touched blood. He looked at his bloody fingertips, fell over, and died.
Under normal circumstances, Peter Evans spoke to George Morton every day. Sometimes twice a day. So after a week went by without hearing from him, Evans called his house. He spoke to Sarah.
"I have no idea what is going on," she said. "Two days ago he was in North Dakota. North Dakota! The day before that he was in Chicago. I think he might be in Wyoming today. He's made noises about going to Boulder, Colorado, but I don't know."
"What's in Boulder?" Evans said.
"I haven't a clue. Too early for snow."
"Has he got a new girlfriend?" Sometimes Morton disappeared when he was involved with a new woman.
"Not that I know," Sarah said.
"What's he doing?"
"I have no idea. It sounds like he has a shopping list."
"A shopping list?"
"Well," she said, "sort of. He wanted me to buy some kind of special GPS unit. You know, for locating position? Then he wanted some special video camera using CCD or CCF or something. Had to be rush-ordered from Hong Kong. And yesterday he told me to buy a new Ferrari from a guy in Monterey, and have it shipped to San Francisco."
"Another Ferrari?"
"I know," she said. "How many Ferraris can one man use? And this one doesn't seem up to his usual standards. From the e-mail pictures it looks kind of beat up."
"Maybe he's going to have it restored."
"If he was, he'd send it to Reno. That's where his car restorer is."
He detected a note of concern in her voice. "Is everything okay, Sarah?"
"Between you and me, I don't know," she said. "The Ferrari he bought is a 1972 365 GTS Daytona Spyder."
"So?"
"He already has one, Peter. It's like he doesn't know. And he sounds weird when you talk to him."
"Weird in what way?"
"Just amp;weird. Not his usual self at all."
"Who's traveling with him?"
"As far as I know, nobody."
Evans frowned. That was very odd. Morton hated being alone. Evans's immediate inclination was to disbelieve it.
"What about that guy Kenner and his Nepali friend?"
"Last I heard, they were going to Vancouver, and on to Japan. So they're not with him."
"Uh huh."
"When I hear from him, I'll let him know you called."
Evans hung up, feeling dissatisfied. On an impulse, he dialed Morton's cell phone. But he got the voice mail. "This is George. At the beep." And the quick beep.
"George, this is Peter Evans. Just checking in, to see if there's anything you need. Call me at the office if I can help."
He hung up, and stared out the window. Then he dialed again.
"Center for Risk Analysis."
"Professor Kenner's office, please."
In a moment he got the secretary. "This is Peter Evans, I'm looking for Professor Kenner."
"Oh yes, Mr. Evans. Dr. Kenner said you might call."
"He did?"
"Yes. Are you trying to reach Dr. Kenner?"
"Yes, I am."
"He's in Tokyo at the moment. Would you like his cell phone?"
"Please."
She gave him the number, and he wrote it down on his yellow pad. He was about to call when his assistant, Heather, came in to say that something at lunch had disagreed with her, and she was going home for the afternoon.
"Feel better," he said, sighing.
With her gone, he was obliged to answer his own phone, and the next call was from Margo Lane, George's mistress, asking where the hell George was. Evans was on the phone with her for the better part of half an hour.
And then Nicholas Drake walked into his office.
"I am very concerned," Drake said. He stood at the window, hands clasped behind his back, staring at the office building opposite.
"About what?"
"This Kenner person that George is spending so much time with."
"I don't know that they're spending time together."
"Of course they are. You don't seriously believe George is alone, do you?"
Evans said nothing.
"George is never alone. We both know that. Peter, I don't like this situation at all. Not at all. George is a good manI don't have to tell you thatbut he is susceptible to influence. Including the wrong influence."
"You think a professor at MIT is the wrong influence?"
"I've looked into Professor Kenner," Drake said, "and there are a few mysteries about him."
"Oh?"
"His rйsumй says he spent a number of years in government. Department of the Interior, Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, and so on."
"Yes?"
"The Department of the Interior has no record of his working there."
Evans shrugged. "It was more than ten years ago. Government records being what they are amp;"
"Possibly," Drake said. "But there is more. Professor Kenner comes back to MIT, works there for eight years, very successfully. Consultant to the EPA, consultant to Department of Defense, God knows what elseand then he suddenly goes on extended leave, and no one seems to know what happened to him since. He just fell off the radar."
"I don't know," Evans said. "His card says he is Director of Risk Analysis."
"But he's on leave. I don't know what the hell he is doing these days. I don't know who supports him. I take it you've met him?"
"Briefly."
"And now he and George are great pals?"
"I don't know, Nick. I haven't seen or spoken to George in more than a week."
"He's off with Kenner."
"I don't know that."
"But you know that he and Kenner went to Vancouver."
"Actually, I didn't know."
"Let me lay it out for you plainly," Drake said. "I have it on good authority that John Kenner has unsavory connections. The Center for Risk Analysis is wholly funded by industry groups. I needn't say more. In addition, Mr. Kenner spent a number of years advising the Pentagon and in fact was so involved with them that he even underwent some sort of training for a period of time."
"You mean military training?"
"Yes. Fort Bragg and Harvey Point, in North Carolina," Drake said. "There is no question the man has military connections as well as industry connections. And I am told he is hostile toward mainstream environmental organizations. I hate to think of a man like that working on poor George."
"I wouldn't worry about George. He can see through propaganda."
"I hope so. But frankly I do not share your confidence. This military man shows up, and the next thing we know, George is trying to audit us. I mean, my God, why would he want to do that? Doesn't George realize what a waste of resources that involves? Time, money, everything? It would be a tremendous drag on my time."
"I wasn't aware an audit was going forward."
"It's being discussed. Of course, we have nothing to hide, and we can be audited at any time. I have always said so. But this is an especially busy time, with the Vanutu lawsuit starting up, and the conference on Abrupt Climate Change to be planned for. All that's in the next few weeks. I wish I could speak to George."
Evans shrugged. "Call his cell."
"I have. Have you?"
"Yes."
"He call you back?"
"No," Evans said.
Drake shook his head. "That man," he said, "is my Concerned Citizen of the Year, and I can't even get him on the phone."
Morton sat at a sidewalk table outside a cafй on Beverly Drive at eight in the morning, waiting for Sarah to show up. His assistant was ordinarily punctual, and her apartment was not far away. Unless she had taken up with that actor again. Young people had so much time to waste on bad relationships.
He sipped his coffee, glancing at the Wall Street Journal without much interest. He had even less interest after an unusual couple sat down at the next table.
The woman was petite and strikingly beautiful, with dark hair and an exotic look. She might have been Moroccan; it was hard to judge from her accent. Her clothing was chic and out of place in casual Los Angelestight-fitting skirt, spike heels, Chanel jacket.
The man who accompanied her could not have been more different. He was a red-faced, beefy American, with slightly piggish features, wearing a sweater, baggy khakis, and running shoes. He was as big as a football player. He slumped at the table and said, "I'll have a latte, sweetheart. Nonfat. Grande."
She said, "I thought you would get one for me, like a gentleman."
"I'm not a gentleman," he said. "And you're no fucking lady. Not after you didn't come home last night. So we can forget about ladies and gentlemen, okay?"
She pouted. "Chйri, do not make a scene."
"Hey. I asked you to get a fucking latte. Who's making a scene?"
"But chйri"
"You going to get it, or not?" He glared at her. "I've really had it with you, Marisa, you know that?"
"You don't own me," she said. "I do as I please."
"You've made that obvious."
During this conversation, Morton's paper had been slowly drifting downward. Now he folded it flat, set it on his knee, and pretended to read. But in fact he could not take his eyes off this woman. She was extremely beautiful, he decided, although not very young. She was probably thirty-five. Her maturity somehow made her more overtly sexual. He was captivated.
She said to the football player, "William, you are tiresome."
"You want me to leave?"
"Perhaps it is best."
"Oh, fuck you," he said, and slapped her.
Morton could not restrain himself. "Hey," he said, "take it easy there."
The woman gave him a smile. The beefy man stood up, fists bunched. "Mind your own fucking business!"
"You don't hit the lady, pal."
"How about just you and me?" he said, shaking his fist.
At that moment, a Beverly Hills cruiser drove by. Morton looked at it, and waved. The cruiser came over to the curb. "Everything all right?" one of the cops said.
"Just fine, officer," Morton said.
"Fuck this noise," the football player said, and turned away. He stalked off up the street.
The dark woman smiled at Morton. "Thank you for that."
"No problem. Did I hear you say you wanted a latte?"
She smiled again. She crossed her legs, exposing brown knees. "If you would be so kind."
Morton was standing to get it when Sarah called to him, "Hey, George! Sorry to be late." She came jogging up in a tracksuit. As always, she looked very beautiful.
Anger flashed across the dark woman's features. It was fleeting, but Morton caught it and he thought, Something is wrong here. He didn't know this woman. She had no reason to be angry. Probably, he decided, she had wanted to teach the boyfriend a lesson. Even now the guy was hanging around at the end of the block, pretending to look in a shop window. But at this early hour, all the shops were closed.
"Ready to go?" Sarah said.
Morton made brief apologies to the woman, who made little gestures of indifference. He had the feeling now that she was French.
"Perhaps we will meet again," he said.
"Yes," she said, "but I doubt it. I am sorry. Зa va."
"Have a nice day."
As they walked off, Sarah said, "Who was that?"
"I don't know. She sat down at the next table."
"Spicy little number."
He shrugged.
"Did I interrupt something? No? That's good." She handed Morton three manila folders. "This one's your contributions to NERF to date. This one is the agreement for the last contribution, so you have the language. And this one is the cashier's check you wanted. Be careful with that. It's a big number."
"Okay. It's not a problem. I'm leaving in an hour."
"You want to tell me where?"
Morton shook his head. "It's better you don't know."
Evans had heard nothing from Morton for almost two weeks. He could not remember ever having gone so long without contact with his client. He had lunch with Sarah, who was visibly anxious. "Do you hear from him at all?" he said.
"Not a word."
"What do the pilots say?"
"They're in Van Nuys. He's rented a different plane. I don't know where he is."
"And he's coming back amp;"
She shrugged. "Who knows?"
And so it was with considerable surprise that he received Sarah's call that day. "You better get going," she said. "George wants to see you right away."
"Where?"
"At NERF. In Beverly Hills."
"He's back?"
"I'll say."
It was a ten-minute drive from his offices in Century City to the NERF building. Of course the National Environmental Resource Fund was headquartered in Washington, DC, but they had recently opened a west coast office, in Beverly Hills. Cynics claimed that NERF had done it to be closer to the Hollywood celebrities who were so essential to their fund-raising. But that was just gossip.
Evans half expected to find Morton pacing outside, but he was nowhere in sight. Evans went into the reception area and was told that Morton was in the third-floor conference room. He walked up to the third floor.
The conference room was glass-walled on two sides. The interior was furnished with a large, boardroom-style table and eighteen chairs. There was an audiovisual unit in the corner for presentations.
Evans saw three people in the conference room, and an argument in progress. Morton stood at the front of the room, red-faced, gesticulating. Drake was also standing, pacing back and forth, pointing an angry finger at Morton, and shouting back at him. Evans also saw John Henley, the saturnine head of PR for NERF. He was bent over, making notes on a yellow legal pad. It was clearly an argument between Morton and Drake.
Evans was not sure what to do, so he stood there. After a moment, Morton saw him and made a quick jabbing motion, indicating that Evans should sit down outside. He did. And watched the argument through the glass.
It turned out there was a fourth person in the room as well. Evans hadn't seen him at first because he was hunched down behind the podium, but when that person stood, Evans saw a workman in clean, neatly pressed overalls carrying a briefcase-style toolbox and with a couple of electronic meters clipped to his belt. On his chest pocket a logo read av network systems.
The workman looked confused. Apparently Drake didn't want the workman in the room during the argument, whereas Morton seemed to like an audience. Drake wanted the guy to go; Morton insisted he stay. Caught in the middle, the workman looked uncomfortable, and ducked down out of sight again. But soon after, Drake prevailed, and the workman left.
As the workman walked past him, Evans said, "Rough day?"
The workman shrugged. "They got a lot of network problems in this building," he said. "Myself, I think it's bad Ethernet cable, or the routers are overheating amp;" And he walked on.
Back inside, the argument raged, fiercer than ever. It continued for another five minutes. The glass was almost entirely soundproof, but from time to time, when they shouted, Evans could hear a phrase. He heard Morton yell, "God damn it, I want to win!" and he heard Drake reply, "It's just too risky." Which made Morton even angrier.
And later Morton said, "Don't we have to fight for the most important issue facing our planet?" And Drake answered something about being practical, or facing reality. And Morton said, "Fuck reality!"
At which point the PR guy, Henley, glanced up and said, "My sentiments exactly." Or something like that.
Evans had the distinct impression that this argument concerned the Vanutu lawsuit, but it seemed to range over a number of other subjects as well.
And then, quite abruptly, Morton came out, slamming the door so hard that the glass walls shook. "Fuck those guys!"
Evans fell into step with his client. Through the glass, he saw the other two men huddle, whispering together.
"Fuck 'em!" George said loudly. He paused and looked back. "If we have right on our side, shouldn't we be telling the truth?"
Inside, Drake just shook his head sorrowfully.
"Fuck 'em," Morton said again, walking off.
Evans said, "You wanted me here?"
"Yes." Morton pointed. "You know who that other guy was?"
"Yes," he said. "John Henley."
"Correct. Those two guys are NERF," George said. "I don't care how many celebrity trustees they have on their letterhead. Or how many lawyers they keep on staff. Those two run the show, and everyone else rubberstamps. None of the trustees really knows anything about what is going on. Otherwise they wouldn't be a part of this. And let me tell you, I'm not going to be a part of this. Not anymore."
They started walking down the stairs.
"Meaning what?" Evans said to him.
"Meaning," Morton said, "I'm not giving them that ten-million-dollar grant for the lawsuit."
"You told them that?"
"No," he said, "I did not tell them that. And you will not tell them that either. I think I'll let it be a surprise, for later." He smiled grimly. "But draw up the papers now."
"Are you sure about this, George?"
"Don't piss me off, kid."
"I'm just asking"
"And I said draw up the papers. So do it."
Evans said he would.
"Today."
Evans said he would do it at once.
Evans waited until they got to the parking garage before he spoke again. He walked Morton to his waiting town car. His driver, Harry, opened the door for him. Evans said, "George, you have that NERF banquet honoring you next week. Is that still going ahead?"
"Absolutely," Morton said. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
He got in the car, and Harry closed the door.
"Good day, sir," Harry said to Evans.
And the car drove off into the morning sunlight.
He called from his car: "Sarah."
"I know, I know."
"What is going on?"
"He won't tell me. But he's really angry, Peter. Really angry."
"I got that impression."
"And he just left again."
"What?"
"He left. Said he would be back in a week. In time to fly everybody up to San Francisco for the banquet."
Drake called Evans's cell phone. "What is going on, Peter?"
"I have no idea, Nick."
"The man's demented. The things he was saying amp;could you hear him?"
"No, actually."
"He's demented. I really am worried about him. I mean as a friend. To say nothing of our banquet next week. I mean, is he going to be all right?"
"I think so. He's taking a planeload of friends up there."
"Are you sure?"
"That's what Sarah says."
"Can I talk to George? Can you set something up?"
"My understanding," Evans said, "is that he just went out of town again."
"It's that damn Kenner. He's behind all this."
"I don't know what's going on with George, Nick. All I know is, he's coming to the banquet."
"I want you to promise me you'll deliver him."
"Nick," Evans said. "George does what he wants."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
Flying up on his Gulfstream, Morton brought several of the most prominent celebrity supporters of NERF. These included two rock stars, the wife of a comedian, an actor who played the president on a television series, a writer who had recently run for governor, and two environmental lawyers from other firms. Over white wine and smoked salmon canapйs, the discussion became quite lively, focusing on what the United States, as the world's leading economy, should be doing to promote environmental sanity.
Uncharacteristically, Morton did not join in. Instead, he slumped in the back of the plane, looking irritable and gloomy. Evans sat beside him, keeping him company. Morton was drinking straight vodka. He was already on his second.
"I brought the papers cancelling your grant," Evans said, taking them out of his briefcase. "If you still want to do this."
"I do." Morton scribbled his signature, hardly looking at the documents. He said, "Keep those safe until tomorrow." He looked back at his guests, who were now trading statistics on species loss as the rain forests of the world were cut down. Off to one side, Ted Bradley, the actor who played the president, was talking about how he preferred his electric carwhich, he pointed out, he had owned for many years nowto the new hybrids that were so popular. "There's no comparison," he was saying. "The hybrids are nice, but they're not the real thing."
At the center table, Ann Garner, who sat on the boards of environmental organizations, was arguing that Los Angeles needed to build more public transportation so that people could get out of their cars. Americans, she said, belched out more carbon dioxide than any other people on the planet, and it was disgraceful. Ann was the beautiful wife of a famous attorney, and always intense, especially on environmental issues.
Morton sighed. He turned to Evans. "Do you know how much pollution we're creating right this minute? We'll burn four hundred fifty gallons of aviation fuel to take twelve people to San Francisco. Just by making this trip, they're generating more pollution per capita than most people on the planet will generate in a year."
He finished his vodka, and rattled the ice in the glass irritably. He handed the glass to Evans, who dutifully signaled for more.
"If there's anything worse than a limousine liberal," Morton said, "it's a Gulfstream environmentalist."
"But George," Evans said. "You're a Gulfstream environmentalist."
"I know it," Morton said. "And I wish it bothered me more. But you know what? It doesn't. I like flying around in my own airplane."
Evans said, "I heard you were in North Dakota and Chicago."
"I was. Yes."
"What'd you do there?"
"I spent money. A lot of money. A lot."
Evans said, "You bought some art?"
"No. I bought something far more expensive than art. I bought integrity."
"You've always had integrity," Evans said.
"Oh, not my integrity," Morton said. "I bought somebody else's."
Evans didn't know what to say to that. For a minute he thought Morton was joking.
"I was going to tell you about it," Morton continued. "I got a list of numbers, kid, and I want you to get it to Kenner. It is very muchfor later. Hello, Ann!"
Ann Garner was coming toward them. "So, George, are you back for a while? Because we need you here now. The Vanutu lawsuit, which thank God you are backing, and the climate change conference that Nick has scheduled, and it's so importantmy God, George. This is crunch time."
Evans started to stand to let Ann take his seat, but Morton pushed him back down again.
"Ann," he said, "I must say you look more lovely than ever, but Peter and I are having a small business discussion."
She glanced at the papers, and Evans's open briefcase. "Oh. I didn't know I was interrupting."
"No, no, if you'd just give us a minute."
"Of course. I'm sorry." But she lingered. "This is so unlike you, George, doing business on the plane."
"I know," Morton said, "but, if you must know, I am feeling quite unlike myself these days."
That made her blink. She didn't know how to take it, so she smiled, nodded, and moved away. Morton said, "She looks wonderful. I wonder who did her work."
"Her work?"
"She's had more, in the last few months. I think eyes. Maybe chin. Anyway," he said, waving his hand, "about the list of numbers. You are to tell this to no one, Peter. No one. Not anyone in the law firm. And especially not anyone at"
"George, damn it, why are you hiding back there?" Evans looked over his shoulder and saw Ted Bradley coming toward them. Ted was already drinking heavily, though it was only noon. "It hasn't been the same without you, George. My God, the world without Bradley is a boring world. Oops! I mean, without George Morton, is a boring world. Come on, George. Get up out of there. That man is a lawyer. Come and have a drink."
Morton allowed himself to be led away. He glanced over his shoulder at Evans. "Later," he said.
The Grand Ballroom of the Mark Hopkins Hotel was darkened for the after-dinner speeches. The audience was elegant, the men in tuxedos, the women in ball gowns. Beneath the ornate chandeliers, the voice of Nicholas Drake boomed from the podium.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it is no exaggeration to say that we face an environmental crisis of unprecedented proportions. Our forests are disappearing. Our lakes and rivers are polluted. The plants and animals that make up our biosphere are vanishing at unprecedented rates. Forty thousand species become extinct every year. That's fifty species every single day. At present rates, we will lose half of all species on our planet in the next few decades. It is the greatest extinction in the history of earth.
"And what is the texture of our own lives? Our food is contaminated with lethal pesticides. Our crops are failing from global warming. Our weather is growing worse, and more severe. Flooding, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes. All around the globe. Our sea levels are risingtwenty-five feet in the next century, and possibly more. And most fearsome of all, new scientific evidence points to the specter of abrupt climate change, as a result of our destructive behavior. In short, ladies and gentlemen, we are confronted by a genuine global catastrophe for our planet."
Sitting at the center table, Peter Evans looked around at the audience. They were staring down at their plates, yawning, leaning over and talking to one another. Drake wasn't getting a lot of attention.
"They've heard it before," Morton growled. He shifted his heavy frame and gave a soft belch. He had been drinking steadily through the evening, and was now quite drunk.
" amp;Loss of biodiversity, shrinking of habitat, destruction of the ozone layer amp;"
Nicholas Drake appeared tall and ungainly, his tuxedo ill-fitting. The collar of his shirt was bunched up around his scrawny neck. As always, he gave the impression of an impoverished but dedicated academic, a latter-day Ichabod Crane. Evans thought no one would ever guess that Drake was paid a third of a million dollars a year to head the Fund, plus another hundred thousand in expenses. Or that he had no science background at all. Nick Drake was a trial attorney, one of five who had started NERF many years before. And like all trial attorneys, he knew the importance of not dressing too well.
" amp;the erosion of bio-reservoirs, the rise of ever more exotic and lethal diseases amp;"
"I wish he'd hurry up," Morton said. He drummed his fingers on the table. Evans said nothing. He had attended enough of these functions to know that Morton was always tense if he had to speak.
At the podium, Drake was saying " amp;glimmers of hope, faint rays of positive energy, and none more positive and hopeful than the man whose lifelong dedication we are here to honor tonight amp;"
"Can I get another drink?" Morton said, finishing the last of his martini. It was his sixth. He set the glass on the table with a thud. Evans turned to look for the waiter, raising his hand. He was hoping the waiter wouldn't come over in time. George had had enough.
" amp;for three decades has dedicated his considerable resources and energy to making our world a better, healthier, saner place. Ladies and gentlemen, the National Environmental Resource Fund is proud amp;"
"Ah screw, never mind," Morton said. He tensed his body, ready to push back from the table. "I hate making a fool of myself, even for a good cause."
"Why should you make a fool of" Evans began.
" amp;my good friend and colleague and this year's concerned citizen amp;Mr. George Morton!"
The room filled with applause, and a spotlight hit Morton as he stood and headed toward the podium, a hunched bear of a man, physically powerful, solemn, head down. Evans was alarmed when Morton stumbled on the first step, and for a moment he feared his boss would fall backward, but Morton regained his balance, and as he stepped to the stage he seemed all right. He shook hands with Drake and moved to the podium, gripping it on both sides with his large hands. Morton looked out at the room, turning his head from side to side, surveying the audience. He did not speak.
He just stood there, and said nothing.
Ann Garner, sitting beside Evans, gave him a nudge. "Is he all right?"
"Oh yes. Absolutely," Evans said, nodding. But in truth, he wasn't sure.
Finally George Morton began to speak. "I'd like to thank Nicholas Drake and the National Environmental Resource Fund for this award, but I don't feel I deserve it. Not with all the work that remains to be done. Do you know, my friends, that we know more about the moon than we do about the Earth's oceans? That's a real environmental problem. We don't know enough about the planet we depend on for our very lives. But as Montaigne said three hundred years ago, Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known.'"
Evans thought: Montaigne? George Morton quoting Montaigne?
In the glare of the spotlight, Morton was distinctly weaving back and forth. He was gripping the podium for balance. The room was absolutely silent. People were not moving at all. Even the waiters had stopped moving between the tables. Evans held his breath.
"All of us in the environmental movement," Morton said, "have seen many wonderful victories over the years. We have witnessed the creation of the EPA. We have seen the air and water made cleaner, sewage treatment improved, toxic dumps cleaned up, and we have regulated common poisons like lead for the safety of all. These are real victories, my friends. We take justifiable pride in them. And we know more needs to be done."
The audience was relaxing. Morton was moving onto familiar ground.
"But will the work get done? I am not sure. I know my mood has been dark, since the death of my beloved wife, Dorothy."
Evans sat bolt upright in his chair. At the next table, Herb Lowenstein looked shocked, his mouth open. George Morton had no wife. Or rather, he had six ex-wivesnone named Dorothy.
"Dorothy urged me to spend my money wisely. I always thought I did. Now I am less sure. I said before that we don't know enough. But I fear that today, the watchword of NERF has become, We don't sue enough."
You could hear breath sucked in sharply all around the room.
"NERF is a law firm. I don't know if you realize that. It was started by lawyers and it is run by lawyers. But I now believe money is better spent on research than litigation. And that is why I am withdrawing my funding for NERF, and why I am"
For the next few moments Morton could not be heard above the excited jabber of the crowd. Everyone was talking loudly. There were scattered boos; some guests got up to leave. Morton continued to talk, seemingly oblivious to the effect he was having. Evans caught a few phrases: " amp;one environmental charity is under FBI investigation amp; complete lack of oversight amp;"
Ann Garner leaned over and hissed, "Get him off there."
"What do you want me to do?" Evans whispered.
"Go and get him. He's obviously drunk."
"That may be, but I can't"
"You have to stop this."
But on the stage, Drake was already moving forward, saying "All right, thank you, George"
"Because to tell the truth right now"
"Thank you, George," Drake said again, moving closer. He was actually pushing against Morton's bulk, trying to shove him away from the podium.
"Okay, okay," Morton said, clinging to the podium. "I said what I did for Dorothy. My dear dead wife"
"Thank you, George." Drake was applauding now, holding his hands up at head height, nodding to the audience to join with him. "Thank you."
" amp;who I miss desperately amp;"
"Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking"
"Yeah, okay, I'm leaving."
To muted applause, Morton shambled off the stage. Drake immediately stepped up to the podium and signaled the band. They started into a rousing rendition of Billy Joel's "You May Be Right," which someone had told them was Morton's favorite song. It was, but it seemed a poor choice under the circumstances.
Herb Lowenstein leaned over from the next table and grabbed Evans by the shoulder, pulling him close. "Listen," he whispered fiercely. "Get him out of here."
"I will," Evans said. "Don't worry."
"Did you know this was going to happen?"
"No, I swear to God."
Lowenstein released Evans just as George Morton returned to the table. The assembled group was stunned. But Morton was singing cheerfully with the music, "You may be right, I may be crazy amp;"
"Come on, George," Evans said, standing up. "Let's get out of here."
Morton ignored him. " amp;But it just may be a loo-natic you're looking for amp;"
"George? What do you say?" Evans took him by the arm. "Let's go."
" amp;Turn out the light, don't try to save me amp;"
"I'm not trying to save you," Evans said.
"Then how about another damn martini?" Morton said, no longer singing. His eyes were cold, a little resentful. "I think I fucking earned it."
"Harry will have one for you in the car," Evans said, steering Morton away from the table. "If you stay here, you'll have to wait for it. And you don't want to wait for a drink right now amp;" Evans continued talking, and Morton allowed himself to be led out of the room.
" amp;too late to fight," he sang, "too late to change me amp;"
Before they could get out of the room, there was a TV camera with lights shining in their faces, and two reporters shoving small tape recorders in front of Morton. Everybody was yelling questions. Evans put his head down and said, "Excuse us, sorry, coming through, excuse us amp;"
Morton never stopped singing. They made their way through the hotel lobby. The reporters were running in front of them, trying to get some distance ahead, so they could film them walking forward. Evans gripped Morton firmly by the elbow as Morton sang:
"I was only having fun, wasn't hurting anyone, and we all enjoyed the weekend for a change amp;"
"This way," Evans said, heading for the door.
"I was stranded in the combat zone amp;"
And then at last they were through the swinging doors, and outside in the night. Morton stopped singing abruptly when the cold air hit him. They waited for his limousine to pull around. Sarah came out, and stood beside Morton. She didn't say anything, she just put her hand on his arm.
Then the reporters came out, and the lights came on again. And then Drake burst through the doors, saying "God damn it, George"
He broke off when he saw the cameras. He glared at Morton, turned, and went back inside. The cameras remained on, but the three of them just stood there. It was awkward, just waiting. After what seemed like an eternity, the limousine pulled up. Harry came around, and opened the door for George.
"Okay, George," Evans said.
"No, not tonight."
"Harry's waiting, George."
"I said, not tonight."
There was a deep-throated growl in the darkness, and a silver Ferrari convertible pulled up alongside the limousine.
"My car," Morton said. He started down the stairs, lurching a bit.
Sarah said, "George, I don't think"
But he was singing again: "And you told me not to drive, but I made it home alive, so you said that only proves that I'm in-sayyy-nnne."
One of the reporters muttered, "He's insane, all right."
Evans followed Morton, very concerned. Morton gave the parking attendant a hundred dollar bill, saying "A twenty for you, my good man." He fumbled with the Ferrari door. "These crummy Italian imports." Then he got behind the wheel of the convertible, gunned the engine, and smiled. "Ah, a manly sound."
Evans leaned over the car. "George, let Harry drive you. Besides," he added, "don't we need to talk about something?"
"We do not."
"But I thought"
"Kid, get out of my way." The camera lights were still on them. But Morton moved so that he was in the shadow cast by Evans's body. "You know, the Buddhists have a saying."
"What saying?"
"Remember it, kid. Goes like this: All that matters is not remote from where the Buddha sits.'"
"George, I really think you should not be driving."
"Will you remember what I just said to you?"
"Yes."
"Wisdom of the ages. Good-bye, kid."
And he accelerated, roaring out of the parking lot as Evans jumped back. The Ferrari squealed around the corner, ignoring a stop sign, and was gone.
"Peter, come on."
Evans turned, and saw Sarah standing by the limousine. Harry was getting in behind the wheel. Evans got in the back seat with Sarah, and they drove off after Morton.
The Ferrari turned left at the bottom of the hill, disappearing around the corner. Harry accelerated, handling the huge limousine with skill.
Evans said, "Do you know where he's going?"
"No idea," she said.
"Who wrote his speech?"
"He did."
"Really?"
"He was working in the house all day yesterday, and he wouldn't let me see what he was doing amp;"
"Jesus," Evans said. "Montaigne?"
"He had a book of quotations out."
"Where'd he come up with Dorothy?"
She shook her head. "I have no idea."
They passed Golden Gate Park. Traffic was light; the Ferrari was moving fast, weaving among the cars. Ahead was the Golden Gate Bridge, brightly lit in the night. Morton accelerated. The Ferrari was going almost ninety miles an hour.
"He's going to Marin," Sarah said.
Evans's cell phone rang. It was Drake. "Will you tell me what the hell that was all about?"
"I'm sorry, Nick. I don't know."
"Was he serious? About withdrawing his support?"
"I think he was."
"That's unbelievable. He's obviously suffered a nervous breakdown."
"I couldn't say."
"I was afraid of this," Drake said. "I was afraid something like this might happen. You remember, on the plane coming back from Iceland? I said it to you, and you told me I shouldn't worry. Is that your opinion now? That I shouldn't worry?"
"I don't know what you're asking, Nick."
"Ann Garner said he signed some papers on the plane."
"That's right. He did."
"Are they related to this sudden and inexplicable withdrawal of support for the organization that he loved and cherished?"
"He seems to have changed his mind about that," Evans said.
"And why didn't you tell me?"
"He instructed me not to."
"Fuck you, Evans."
"I'm sorry," Evans said.
"Not as sorry as you will be."
The phone went dead. Drake had hung up. Evans flipped the phone shut.
Sarah said, "Drake is mad?"
"Furious."
Off the bridge, Morton headed west, away from the lights of the freeway, onto a dark road skirting the cliffs. He was driving faster than ever.
Evans said to Harry, "Do you know where we are?"
"I believe we're in a state park."
Harry was trying to keep up, but on this narrow, twisting road, the limousine was no match for the Ferrari. It moved farther and farther ahead. Soon they could see only the taillights, disappearing around curves a quarter mile ahead.
"We're going to lose him," Evans said.
"I doubt it, sir."
But the limousine fell steadily behind. After Harry took one turn too fastthe big rear end lost traction and swung wide toward a cliff's edgethey were obliged to slow down even more. They were in a desolate area now. The night was dark and the cliffs deserted. A rising moon put a streak of silver on the black water far below.
Up ahead, they no longer saw any taillights. It seemed they were alone on the dark road.
They came around a curve, and saw the next curve a hundred yards aheadobscured by billowing gray smoke.
"Oh no," Sarah said, putting her hand to her mouth.
The Ferrari had spun out, struck a tree, and flipped over. It now lay upside down, a crumpled and smoking mass. It had very nearly gone off the cliff itself. The nose of the car was hanging over the edge.
Evans and Sarah ran forward. Evans got down on his hands and knees and crawled along the cliff's edge, trying to see into the driver's compartment. It was hard to see much of anythingthe front windshield was flattened, and the Ferrari lay almost flush to the pavement. Harry came over with a flashlight, and Evans used it to peer inside.
The compartment was empty. Morton's black bow tie was dangling from the doorknob, but otherwise he was gone.
"He must have been thrown."
Evans shone the light down the cliff. It was crumbling yellow rock, descending steeply for eighty feet to the ocean below. He saw no sign of Morton.
Sarah was crying softly. Harry had gone back to get a fire extinguisher from the limousine. Evans swung his light back and forth over the rock face. He did not see George's body. In fact, he did not see any sign of George at all. No disturbance, no path, no bits of clothing. Nothing.
Behind him he heard the whoosh of the fire extinguisher. He crawled away from the cliff's edge.
"Did you see him, sir?" Harry said, his face full of pain.
"No. I didn't see anything."
"Perhaps amp;over there." Harry pointed toward the tree. And he was right; if Morton had been thrown from the car by the initial impact, he might be twenty yards back, on the road.
Evans walked back, and shone his flashlight down the cliff again. The battery was running down, the beam was weakening. But almost immediately, he saw a glint of light off a man's patent leather slipper, wedged among the rocks at the edge of the water.
He sat down in the road and put his head in his hands. And cried.
By the time the police were finished talking with them, and a rescue team had rappelled down the cliff to recover the shoe, it was three o'clock in the morning. They found no other sign of the body, and the cops, talking among themselves, agreed that the prevailing currents would probably carry the body up the coast to Pismo Beach. "We'll find him," one said, "in about a week or so. Or at least, what's left by the great whites."
Now the wreck was being cleared away, and loaded onto a flatbed truck. Evans wanted to leave, but the highway patrolman who had taken Evans's statement kept coming back to ask for more details. He was a kid, in his early twenties. It seemed he had not filled out many of these forms before.
The first time he came back to Evans, he said, "How soon after the accident would you say you arrived on the scene?"
Evans said, "I'm not sure. The Ferrari was about half a mile ahead of us, maybe more. We were probably going forty miles an hour, so amp;maybe a minute later?"
The kid looked alarmed. "You were going forty in that limo? On this road?"
"Well. Don't hold me to it."
Then he came back and said, "You said you were the first on the scene. You told me you crawled around at the edge of the road?"
"That's right."
"So you would have stepped on broken glass, on the road?"
"Yes. The windshield was shattered. I had it on my hands, too, when I crouched down."
"So that explains why the glass was disturbed."
"Yes."
"Lucky you didn't cut your hands."
"Yes."
The third time he came back, he said, "In your estimation, what time did the accident occur?"
"What time?" Evans looked at his watch. "I have no idea. But let me see amp;" He tried to work backward. The speech must have started about eight-thirty. Morton would have left the hotel at nine. Through San Francisco, then over the bridge amp;"Maybe nine-forty-five, or ten at night."
"So, five hours ago? Roughly?"
"Yes."
The kid said, "Huh." As if he were surprised.
Evans looked over at the flatbed truck, which now held the crumpled remains of the Ferrari. One cop was standing on the flatbed, beside the car. Three other cops were on the street, talking with some animation. There was another man there, wearing a tuxedo. He was talking to the cops. When the man turned, Evans was surprised to see that it was John Kenner.
"What's going on?" Evans asked the kid.
"I don't know. They just asked me to check on the time of the accident."
Then the driver got into the flatbed truck, and started the engine. One of the cops yelled to the kid, "Forget it, Eddie!"
"Never mind, then," the kid said to Evans. "I guess everything's okay."
Evans looked over at Sarah, to see if she had noticed Kenner. She was leaning on the limousine, talking on the phone. Evans looked back in time to see Kenner get into a dark sedan driven by the Nepali guy, and drive off.
The cops were leaving. The flatbed turned around and headed up the road, toward the bridge.
Harry said, "Looks like it's time to go."
Evans got into the limousine. They drove back toward the lights of San Francisco.
Morton's jet flew back to Los Angeles at noon. The mood was somber. All the same people were on board, and a few more, but they sat quietly, saying little. The late-edition papers had printed the story that millionaire philanthropist George Morton, depressed by the death of his beloved wife, Dorothy, had given a disjointed speech (termed "rambling and illogical" by the San Francisco Chronicle) and a few hours later had died in a tragic automobile crash while test-driving his new Ferrari.
In the third paragraph, the reporter mentioned that single-car fatalities were frequently caused by undiagnosed depression and were often disguised suicides. And this, according to a quoted psychiatrist, was the likely explanation for Morton's death.
About ten minutes into the flight, the actor Ted Bradley said, "I think we should drink a toast in memory of George, and observe a minute of silence." And to a chorus of "Hear, hear," glasses of champagne were passed all around.
"To George Morton," Ted said. "A great American, a great friend, and a great supporter of the environment. We, and the planet, will miss him."
For the next ten minutes, the celebrities on board remained relatively subdued, but slowly the conversation picked up, and finally they began to talk and argue as usual. Evans was sitting in the back, in the same seat he had occupied when they flew up. He watched the action at the table in the center, where Bradley was now explaining that the US got only 2 percent of its energy from sustainable sources and that we needed a crash program to build thousands of offshore wind farms, like England and Denmark were doing. The talk moved on to fuel cells, hydrogen cars, and photovoltaic households running off the grid. Some talked about how much they loved their hybrid cars, which they had bought for their staff to drive.
Evans felt his spirits improve as he listened to them. Despite the loss of George Morton, there were still lots of people like thesefamous, high-profile people committed to changewho would lead the next generation to a more enlightened future.
He was starting to drift off to sleep when Nicholas Drake dropped into the seat beside his. Drake leaned across the aisle. "Listen," he said. "I owe you an apology for last night."
"That's all right," Evans said.
"I was way out of line. And I want you to know I'm sorry for how I behaved. I was upset, and very worried. You know George has been acting weird as hell the last couple of weeks. Talking strangely, picking fights. I guess in retrospect he was beginning to have a nervous breakdown. But I didn't know. Did you?"
"I am not sure it was a nervous breakdown."
"It must have been," Drake said. "What else could it have been? My God, the man disowns his life's work, and then goes out and kills himself. By the way, you can forget about any documents that he signed yesterday. Under the circumstances, he obviously was not in his right mind. And I know," he added, "that you wouldn't argue the point differently. You're already conflicted enough, doing work both for him and for us. You really should have recused yourself and seen to it that any papers were drawn up by a neutral attorney. I'm not going to accuse you of malpractice, but you've shown highly questionable judgment."
Evans said nothing. The threat was plain enough.
"Well, anyway," Drake said, resting his hand on Evans's knee, "I just wanted to apologize. I know you did your best with a difficult situation, Peter. And amp;I think we're going to come out of this all right."
The plane landed in Van Nuys. A dozen black SUV limos, the latest fashion, were lined up on the runway, waiting for the passengers. All the celebrities hugged, kissed air, and departed.
Evans was the last to leave. He didn't rate a car and driver. He climbed into his little Prius hybrid, which he'd parked there the day before, and drove through the gates and onto the freeway. He thought he should go to the office, but unexpected tears came to his eyes as he negotiated the midday traffic. He wiped them away and decided he was too damned tired to go to the office. Instead, he would go back to his apartment to get some sleep.
He was almost home when his cell phone rang. It was Jennifer Haynes, at the Vanutu litigation team. "I'm sorry about George," she said. "It's just terrible. Everybody here is very upset, as you can imagine. He pulled the funding, didn't he?"
"Yes, but Nick will fight it. You'll get your funding."
"We need to have lunch," she said.
"Well, I think"
"Today?"
Something in her voice made him say, "I'll try."
"Phone me when you're here."
He hung up. The phone rang again almost immediately. It was Margo Lane, Morton's mistress. She was angry. "What the fuck is going on?"
"How do you mean?" Evans said.
"Was anybody going to fucking call me?"
"I'm sorry, Margo"
"I just saw it on TV. Missing in San Francisco and presumed dead. They had pictures of the car."
"I was going to call you," Evans said, "when I got to my office." The truth was, she had completely slipped his mind.
"And when would that have been, next week? You're as bad as that sick assistant of yours. You're his lawyer, Peter. Do your fucking job. Because, you know, let's face it, this is not a surprise. I knew this was going to happen. We all did. I want you to come over here."
"I have a busy day."
"Just for a minute."
"All right," he said. "Just for a minute."
Margo Lane lived on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise apartment building in the Wilshire Corridor. The doorman had to call up before Evans was allowed in the elevator. Margo knew he was coming up, but she still answered the door wrapped in a towel. "Oh! I didn't realize you'd be here so soon. Come in, I just got out of the shower." She frequently did something like this, flaunting her body. Evans came into the apartment and sat on the couch. She sat opposite him. The towel barely covered her torso.
"So," she said, "what's all this about George?"
"I'm sorry," Evans said, "but George crashed his Ferrari at very high speed and was thrown from the car. He fell down a cliffthey found a shoe at the bottomand into the water. His body hasn't been recovered but they expect it to turn up in a week or so."
With her love of drama, he was sure Margo would start to cry, but she didn't. She just stared at him. "That's bullshit," she said.
"Why do you say that, Margo?"
"Because. He's hiding or something. You know it."
"Hiding? From what?"
"Probably nothing. He'd become completely paranoid. You know that."
As she said it, she crossed her legs. Evans was careful to keep his eyes on her face.
"Paranoid?" he asked.
"Don't act like you didn't know, Peter. It was obvious."
Evans shook his head. "Not to me."
"The last time he came here was a couple of days ago," she said. "He went right to the window and stood back behind the curtain, looking down onto the street. He was convinced he was being followed."
"Had he done that before?"
"I don't know. I hadn't seen him much lately; he was traveling. But whenever I called him and asked when he was coming over, he said it wasn't safe to come here."
Evans got up and walked to the window. He stood to one side and looked down at the street below.
"Are you being followed, too?" she said.
"I don't think so."
Traffic on Wilshire Boulevard was heavy, the start of afternoon rush hour. Three lanes of cars moving fast in each direction. He could hear the roar of the traffic, even up there. But there was no place to park, to pull out from the traffic. A blue Prius hybrid had pulled to the curb across the street, and traffic was backing up behind it, honking. After a moment, the Prius started up again.
No place to stop.
"Do you see anything suspicious?" she asked.
"No."
"I never did either. But George didor thought he did."
"Did he say who was following him?"
"No." She shifted again. "I thought he should have medication. I told him."
"And what did he say to that?"
"He said I was in danger, too. He told me I should leave town for a while. Go visit my sister in Oregon. But I won't."
Her towel was coming loose. Margo tightened it, lowering it across her firm, enhanced breasts. "So I'm telling you, George went into hiding," she said. "And I think you better find him fast, because the man needs help."
"I see," Evans said. "But I suppose it's possible he isn't in hiding, that he really crashed his car amp;. In which case, there are things you need to do now, Margo."
He explained to her that if George remained missing, his assets could be ordered frozen. Which meant that she ought to withdraw everything from the bank account into which he put money for her every month. So she would be sure to have money to live on.
"But that's silly," she protested. "I know he'll be back in a few days."
"Just in case," Evans said.
She frowned. "Do you know something you're not telling me?"
"No," Evans said. "I'm just saying, it could be a while before this thing gets cleared up."
"Look," she said. "He's sick. You're supposed to be his friend. Find him."
Evans said that he would try. When he left, Margo was flouncing off to the bedroom to get dressed before going to the bank.
Outside, in the milky afternoon sunlight, fatigue overwhelmed him. All he wanted to do was go home and go to sleep. He got in his car and started driving. He was within sight of his apartment when his phone rang again.
It was Jennifer, asking where he was.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't come today."
"It's important, Peter. Really."
He said he was sorry, and would call her later.
Then Lisa, Herb Lowenstein's secretary, called to say that Nicholas Drake had been trying to reach him all afternoon. "He really wants to talk to you."
"Okay," Evans said, "I'll call."
"He sounds pissed."
"Okay."
"But you better call Sarah first."
"Why?"
His phone went dead. It always did in the back alley of his apartment; it was a dead spot in the cellular net. He slipped the phone into his shirt pocket; he'd call in a few minutes. He drove down the alley, and pulled into his garage space.
He walked up the back stairs to his apartment and unlocked the door.
And stared.
The apartment was a mess. Furniture torn apart, cushions slashed open, papers all over the place, books tumbled out of the bookshelves and lying scattered on the floor.
He stood in the entrance, stunned. After a moment he walked into the room, straightened one of the toppled chairs and sat down in it. It occurred to him that he had to call the police. He got up, found the phone on the floor, and dialed them. But almost immediately the cell phone in his pocket began to ring. He hung up on the police and answered the cell phone. "Yes."
It was Lisa. "We got cut off," she said. "You better call Sarah right away."
"Why?"
"She's over at Morton's house. There was a robbery there."
"What?"
"I know. You better call her," she said. "She sounded upset."
Evans flipped the phone shut. He stood and walked into the kitchen. Everything was a mess there, too. He glanced into the bedroom. Everything was a mess. All he could think was the maid wasn't coming until next Tuesday. How could he ever clean this up?
He dialed his phone.
"Sarah?"
"Is that you, Peter?"
"Yes. What happened?"
"Not on the phone. Have you gone home yet?"
"Just got here."
"So amp;did it happen to you too?"
"Yes. Me too."
"Can you come here?"
"Yes."
"How soon?" She sounded frightened.
"Ten minutes."
"Okay. See you." She hung up.
Evans turned the ignition of his Prius and it hummed to life. He was pleased to have the hybrid; the waiting list in Los Angeles to get one was now more than six months. He'd had to take a light gray one, which wasn't his preferred color, but he loved the car. And he took a quiet satisfaction in noticing how many of them there were on the streets these days.
He drove down the alley to Olympic. Across the street he saw a blue Prius, just like the one he had seen below Margo's apartment. It was electric blue, a garish color. He thought he liked his gray better. He turned right, and then left again, heading north through Beverly Hills. He knew there would be rush hour traffic starting at this time of day and he should get up to Sunset, where traffic moved a little better.
When he got to the traffic light at Wilshire, he saw another blue Prius behind him. That same ugly color. Two guys in the car, not young. When he made his way to the light at Sunset, the same car was still behind him. Two cars back.
He turned left, toward Holmby Hills.
The Prius turned left, too. Following him.
Evans pulled up to Morton's gate and pressed the buzzer. The security camera above the box blinked on. "Can I help you?"
"It's Peter Evans for Sarah Jones."
A momentary pause, and then a buzz. The gates swung open slowly, revealing a curving roadway. The house was still hidden from view.
While he waited, Evans glanced down the road to his left. A block away, he saw the blue Prius coming up the road toward him. It passed him without slowing down, and disappeared around a curve.
So. Perhaps he was not being followed after all.
He took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.
The gates swung wide, and he drove inside.
It was almost four o'clock as Evans drove up the driveway to Morton's house. The property was crawling with security men. There were several searching among the trees near the front gate, and more in the driveway, clustered around several vans marked anderson security service.
Evans parked next to Sarah's Porsche. He went to the front door. A security man opened it. "Ms. Jones is in the living room."
He walked through the large entryway and past the staircase that curved up to the second floor. He looked into the living room, prepared to see the same disarray that he'd witnessed at his own apartment, but here everything seemed to be in its place. The room appeared exactly as Evans remembered it.
Morton's living room was arranged to display his extensive collection of Asian antiquities. Above the fireplace was a large Chinese screen with shimmering gilded clouds; a large stone head from the Angkor region of Cambodia, with thick lips and a half-smile, was mounted on a pedestal near the couch; against one wall stood a seventeenth-century Japanese tansu, its rich wood glowing. Extremely rare, two hundred-year-old wood-cuts by Hiroshige hung on the back wall. A standing Burmese Buddha, carved in faded wood, stood at the entrance to the media room, next door.
In the middle of the room, surrounded by these antiquities, Sarah sat slumped on the couch, staring blankly out the window. She looked over as Evans came in. "They got your apartment?"
"Yes. It's a mess."
"This house was broken into, too. It must have happened last night. All the security people here are trying to figure out how it could have happened. Look here."
She got up and pushed the pedestal that held the Cambodian head. Considering the weight of the head, the pedestal moved surprisingly easily, revealing a safe sunk in the floor. The safe door stood open. Evans saw neatly stacked manila folders inside.
"What was taken?" he said.
"As far as I can tell, nothing," she said. "Seems like everything is still in its place. But I don't know exactly what George had in these safes. They were his safes. I rarely went into them."
She moved to the tansu, sliding open a center panel, and then a false back panel, to expose a safe in the wall behind. It, too, was open. "There are six safes in the house," she said. "Three down here, one in the second-floor study, one in the basement, and one up in his bedroom closet. They opened every one."
"Cracked?"
"No. Someone knew the combinations."
Evans said, "Did you report this to the police?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I wanted to talk to you first."
Her head was close to his. Evans could smell a faint perfume. He said, "Why?"
"Because," she said. "Someone knew the combinations, Peter."
"You mean it was an inside job."
"It had to be."
"Who stays in the house at night?"
"Two housekeepers sleep in the far wing. But last night was their night off, so they weren't here."
"So nobody was in the house?"
"That's right."
"What about the alarm?"
"I armed it myself, before I went to San Francisco yesterday."
"The alarm didn't go off?"
She shook her head.
"So somebody knew the code," Evans said. "Or knew how to bypass it. What about the security cameras?"
"They're all over the property," she said, "inside the house and out. They record onto a hard drive in the basement."
"You've played it back?"
She nodded. "Nothing but static. It was scrubbed. The security people are trying to recover something, but amp;" She shrugged. "I don't think they'll get anywhere."
It would take pretty sophisticated burglars to know how to wipe a hard drive. "Who has the alarm codes and safe combinations?"
"As far as I know, just George and me. But obviously somebody else does, too."
"I think you should call the police," he said.
"They're looking for something," she said. "Something that George had. Something they think one of us has now. They think George gave it to one of us."
Evans frowned. "But if that's true," he said, "why are they being so obvious? They smashed my place so I couldn't help notice. And even here, they left the safes wide open, to be sure you'd know you'd been robbed amp;"
"Exactly," she said. "They want us to know what they're doing." She bit her lip. "They want us to panic, and rush off to retrieve this thing, whatever it is. Then they'll follow us, and take it."
Evans thought it over. "Do you have any idea what it could be?"
"No," she said. "Do you?"
Evans was thinking of the list George had mentioned to him, on the airplane. The list he never got around to explaining, before he died. But certainly the implication was that Morton had paid a lot of money for some sort of list. But something made Evans hesitate to mention it now.
"No," he said.
"Did George give you anything?"
"No," he said.
"Me neither." She bit her lip again. "I think we should leave."
"Leave?"
"Get out of town for a while."
"It's natural to feel that way after a robbery," he said. "But I think the proper thing to do right now is to call the police."
"George wouldn't like it."
"George is no longer with us, Sarah."
"George hated the Beverly Hills police."
"Sarah amp;"
"He never called them. He always used private security."
"That may be, but amp;"
"They won't do anything but file a report."
"Perhaps, but amp;"
"Did you call the police, about your place?"
"Not yet. But I will."
"Okay, well you call them. See how it goes. It's a waste of time."
His phone beeped. There was a text message. He looked at the screen. It said: n. drake come to office immed. urgent.
"Listen," he said. "I have to go see Nick for a bit."
"I'll be fine."
"I'll come back," he said, "as soon as I can."
"I'll be fine," she repeated.
He stood, and she stood, too. On a sudden impulse he gave her a hug. She was so tall they were almost shoulder to shoulder. "It's going to be okay," he said. "Don't worry. It'll be okay."
She returned the hug, but when he released her, she said, "Don't ever do that again, Peter. I'm not hysterical. I'll see you when you get back."
He left hastily, feeling foolish. At the door, she said, "By the way, Peter: Do you have a gun?"
"No," he said. "Do you?"
"Just a 9-millimeter Beretta, but it's better than nothing."
"Oh, okay." As he went out the front door, he thought, so much for manly reassurances for the modern woman.
He got in the car, and drove to Drake's office.
It was not until he had parked his car and was walking in the front door to the office that he noticed the blue Prius parked at the end of the block, with two men sitting inside it.
Watching him.
"No, no, no!" Nicholas Drake stood in the NERF media room, surrounded by a half-dozen stunned-looking graphic designers. On the walls and tables were posters, banners, flyers, coffee mugs, and stacks of press releases, and media kits. All were emblazoned with a banner that went from green to red, with the superimposed words: "Abrupt Climate Change: The Dangers Ahead."
"I hate it," Drake said. "I just fucking hate it."
"Why?"
"Because it's boring. It sounds like a damn PBS special. We need some punch here, some pizzazz."
"Well, sir," one of the designers said, "if you remember, you originally wanted to avoid anything that looked like overstatement."
"I did? No, I didn't. Henley wanted to avoid overstatement. Henley thought it should be made to look exactly like a normal academic conference. But if we do that, the media will tune us out. I mean, shit, do you know how many climate change conferences there are every year? All around the world?"
"No sir, how many?"
"Well, um, forty-seven. Anyway, that's not the point." Drake rapped the banner with his knuckles. "I mean look at this, Dangers.' It's so vague; it could refer to anything."
"I thought that's what you wantedthat it could refer to anything."
"No, I want Crisis' or Catastrophe.' The Crisis Ahead.' The Catastrophe Ahead.' That's better. Catastrophe' is much better."
"You used Catastrophe' for the last conference, the one on species extinction."
"I don't care. We use it because it works. This conference must point to a catastrophe."
"Uh, sir," one said, "with all due respect, is it really accurate that abrupt climate change will lead to catastrophe? Because the background materials we were given"
"Yes, God damn it," Drake snapped, "it'll lead to a catastrophe. Believe me, it will! Now make the damn changes!"
The graphic artists surveyed the assembled materials on the table. "Mr. Drake, the conference starts in four days."
"You think I don't know it?" Drake said. "You think I fucking don't know it?"
"I'm not sure how much we can accomplish"
"Catastrophe! Lose Danger,' add Catastrophe'! That's all I'm asking for. How difficult can it be?"
"Mr. Drake, we can redo the visual materials and the banners for the media kits, but the coffee mugs are a problem."
"Why are they a problem?"
"They're made for us in China, and"
"Made in China? Land of pollution? Whose idea was that?"
"We always have the coffee mugs made in China for"
"Well, we definitely can't use them. This is NERF, for Christ's sake. How many cups do we have?"
"Three hundred. They're given to the media in attendance, along with the press kit."
"Well get some damn eco-acceptable mugs," Drake said. "Doesn't Canada make mugs? Nobody ever complains about anything Canada does. Get some Canadian mugs and print Catastrophe' on them. That's all."
The artists were looking at one another. One said, "There's that supply house in Vancouver amp;"
"But their mugs are cream-colored amp;"
"I don't care if they're chartreuse," Drake said, his voice rising. "Just do it! Now what about the press releases?"
Another designer held up a sheet. "They're four-color banners printed in biodegradable inks on recycled bond paper."
Drake picked up a sheet. "This is recycled? It looks damn good."
"Actually, it's fresh paper." The designer looked nervous. "But no one will know."
"You didn't tell me that," Drake said. "It's essential that recycled materials look good."
"And they do, sir. Don't worry."
"Then let's move on." He turned to the PR people. "What's the time-line of the campaign?"
"It's a standard starburst launch to bring public awareness to abrupt climate change," the first rep said, standing up. "We have our initial press break on Sunday-morning talk shows and in the Sunday newspaper supplements. They'll be talking about the start of the conference Wednesday and interviewing major photogenic principals. Stanford, Levine, the other people who show well on TV. We've given enough lead time to get into all the major weekly newsbooks around the world, Time, Newsweek, Der Spiegel, Paris Match, Oggi, The Economist. All together, fifty news magazines to inform lead opinion makers. We've asked for cover stories, accepting banner folds with a graphic. Anything less and they didn't get us. We expect covers on at least twenty."
"Okay," Drake said, nodding.
"We start the conference on Wednesday. Well-known, charismatic environmentalists and major politicians from industrialized nations are scheduled to appear. We have delegates from around the world, so B-roll reaction shots of the audience will be satisfactorily color-mixed. Industrialized countries now include India and Korea and Japan, of course. The Chinese delegation will participate but there will be no speakers.
"Our two hundred invited television journalists will stay at the Hilton, and we will have interview facilities there as well as in the conference halls, so our speakers can spread the message to video audiences around the world. We will also have a number of print media people to carry the word to elite opinion makers, the ones that read but do not watch TV."
"Good," Drake said. He appeared pleased.
"Each day's theme will be identified by a distinctive graphic icon, emphasizing flood, fire, rising sea levels, drought, icebergs, typhoons, and hurricanes, and so on. Each day we have a fresh contingent of politicians from around the world coming to attend and give interviews explaining the high level of their dedication and concern about this newly emerging problem."
"Good, good." Drake nodded.
"The politicians will stay for only a daysome only a few hoursand they will not have time to attend the conferences beyond a brief photo-op showing them in the audience, but they are briefed and will be effective. Then we have local schoolchildren, grades four to seven, coming each day to learn about the dangerssorry, the catastrophein their futures, and we have educational kits for grade-school teachers, so they can teach their kids about the crisis of abrupt climate change."
"When do those kits go out?"
"They were going out today, but now we'll hold them for rebannering."
"Okay," Drake said. "And for high schools?"
"We have some trouble there," the PR guy said. "We showed the kits to a sample of high school science teachers and, uh amp;"
"And what?" Drake said.
"The feedback we got was they might not go over so well."
Drake's expression turned dark. "And why not?"
"Well, the high school curriculum is very college oriented, and there isn't a lot of room for electives amp;"
"This is hardly an elective amp;"
"And, uh, they felt it was all speculative and unsubstantiated. They kept saying things like, Where's the hard science here?' Just reporting, sir."
"God damn it," Drake said, "it is not speculative. It is happening!"
"Uh, perhaps we didn't get the right materials that show what you are saying amp;"
"Ah fuck. Never mind now," Drake said. "Just trust me, it's happening. Count on it." He turned, and said in a surprised voice, "Evans, how long have you been here?"
Peter Evans had been standing in the doorway for at least two minutes and had overheard a good deal of the conversation. "Just got here, Mr. Drake."
"All right." Drake turned to the others. "I think we've gone through this. Evans, you come with me."
Drake shut the door to his office. "I need your counsel, Peter," he said quietly. He walked around to his desk, picked up some papers, and slid them toward Evans. "What the fuck is this?"
Evans looked. "That is George's withdrawal of support."
"Did you draw it up?"
"I did."
"Whose idea was paragraph 3a?"
"Paragraph 3a?"
"Yes. Did you add that little bit of wisdom?"
"I don't really remember"
"Then let me refresh your memory," Drake said. He picked up the document and started to read. " In the event of any claim that I am not of sound mind, there may be an attempt to obtain injunctive relief from the terms of this document. Therefore this document authorizes the payment of fifty thousand dollars per week to NERF while awaiting the judgment of a full trial. Said monies shall be deemed sufficient to pay ongoing costs incurred by NERF and shall by said payment deny injunctive relief.' Did you write this, Evans?"
"I did."
"Whose idea was it?"
"George's."
"George is not a lawyer. He had help."
"Not from me," Evans said. "He more or less dictated that clause. I wouldn't have thought of it."
Drake snorted in disgust. "Fifty thousand a week," he said. "At that rate, it will take us four years to receive the ten-million-dollar grant."
"That's what George wanted the document to say," Evans said.
"But whose idea was it?" Drake said. "If it wasn't you, who was it?"
"I don't know."
"Find out."
"I don't know if I can," Evans said. "I mean, George is dead now, and I don't know who he might have consulted"
Drake glared at Evans. "Are you with us here, Peter, or not?" He started pacing back and forth. "Because this Vanutu litigation is undoubtedly the most significant lawsuit we have ever filed." He lapsed into his speech-making mode. "The stakes are enormous, Peter. Global warming is the greatest crisis facing mankind. You know that. I know that. Most of the civilized world knows that. We must act to save the planet, before it is too late."
"Yes," Evans said. "I know that."
"Do you?" Drake said. "We have a lawsuit, a very important lawsuit, that needs our help. And fifty thousand dollars a week will strangle it."
Evans was sure that was not true. "Fifty thousand is a lot of money," he said, "I don't see why it should strangle"
"Because it will!" Drake snapped. "Because I am telling you it will!" He seemed surprised by his own outburst. He gripped the desk, got control of himself. "Look," he said. "We can never forget about our opponents here. The forces of industry are strong, phenomenally strong. And industry wants to be left alone to pollute. It wants to pollute here, and in Mexico, and in China, and wherever else it does its business. The stakes are huge."
"I understand," Evans said.
"Many powerful forces are taking an interest in this case, Peter."
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Forces that will stop at nothing to be sure that we lose it."
Evans frowned. What was Drake telling him?
"Their influence is everywhere, Peter. They may have influence with members of your law firm. Or other people you know. People whom you believe you can trustbut you can't. Because they are on the other side, and they don't even know it."
Evans said nothing. He was just looking at Drake.
"Be prudent, Peter. Watch your back. Don't discuss what you are doing with anyonewith anyoneexcept me. Try not to use your cell phone. Avoid e-mail. And keep an eye out in case you are followed."
"Okay amp;. But actually I've already been followed," Evans said. "There's a blue Prius"
"Those were our guys. I don't know what they are doing. I called them off days ago."
"Your guys?"
"Yes. It's a new security firm we've been trying out. They're obviously not very competent."
"I'm confused," Evans said. "NERF has a security firm?"
"Absolutely. For years, now. Because of the danger we face. Please understand me: We are all in danger, Peter. Don't you understand what this lawsuit means if we win? Trillions of dollars that industry must pay in the coming years, to halt their emissions that are causing global warming. Trillions. With those stakes, a few lives don't matter. So: Be very damn careful."
Evans said that he would. Drake shook his hand.
"I want to know who told George about the paragraph," Drake said. "And I want that money freed up for us to use it as we see fit. This is all riding on you now," he said. "Good luck, Peter."
On his way out of the building, Evans ran into a young man who was sprinting up the stairs. They collided so hard that Evans was almost knocked down. The young man apologized hastily, and continued on his way. He looked like one of the kids working on the conference. Evans wondered what the crisis could be, now.
When he got back outside, he looked down the street. The blue Prius was gone.
He got into the car and drove back to Morton's, to see Sarah.
Traffic was heavy. He crept slowly along Sunset; he had plenty of time to think. The conversation with Drake left him feeling odd. There had been a funny quality to the actual meeting. As if it didn't really need to happen, as if Drake just wanted to make sure he was able to call Evans in, and Evans would come. As if he were asserting his authority. Or something like that.
Anyway, Evans felt, something was off.
And Evans also felt a little strange about the security firm. That just didn't seem right. After all, NERF was one of the good guys. They shouldn't be sneaking around and following people. And Drake's paranoid warnings were somehow not persuasive. Drake was overreacting, as he so often did.
Drake was dramatic by nature. He couldn't help it. Everything was a crisis, everything was desperate, everything was vitally important. He lived in a world of extreme urgency, but it wasn't necessarily the real world.
Evans called his office, but Heather had gone for the day. He called Lowenstein's office and spoke to Lisa. "Listen," he said, "I need your help."
Her voice was lower, conspiratorial. "Of course, Peter."
"My apartment was robbed."
"Noyou, too?"
"Yes, me, too. And I really need to talk to the police"
"Well, yes, you certainly domy goodnessdid they take anything?"
"I don't think so," he said, "but just to file a report, all thatI'm kind of busy right now, dealing with Sarah amp;it may go later into the night amp;"
"Well, of course, do you need me to deal with the police about your robbery?"
"Could you?" he said. "It would help so much."
"Why of course, Peter," she said. "Leave it to me." She paused. When she spoke again, it was almost a whisper. "Is there, ah, anything you don't want the police to find?"
"No," he said.
"I mean, it's all right with me, everybody in LA has a few bad habits, otherwise we wouldn't be here"
"No, Lisa," he said. "Actually, I don't have any drugs, if that's what you mean."
"Oh, no," she said quickly. "I wasn't assuming anything. No pictures or anything like that?"
"No, Lisa."
"Nothing, you know, underage?"
"Afraid not."
"Okay, I just wanted to be sure."
"Well, thanks for doing this. Now to get in through the door"
"I know," she said, "the key is under the back mat."
"Yes." He paused. "How'd you know that?"
"Peter," she said, sounding a little offended. "You can count on me to know things."
"All right. Well, thanks."
"Don't mention it. Now, what about Margo? How's she doing?" Lisa said.
"She's fine."
"You went to see her?"
"This morning, yes, and"
"No, I mean at the hospital. Didn't you hear? Margo was coming back from the bank today and walked in while her apartment was being robbed. Three robberies in one day! You, Margo, Sarah! What is going on? Do you know?"
"No," Evans said. "It's very mysterious."
"It is."
"But about Margo amp;?"
"Oh yes. So I guess she decided to fight these guys, which was the wrong thing to do, and they beat her up, maybe knocked her unconscious. She had a black eye, I heard, and while the cops were there interviewing her, she passed out. Got completely paralyzed and couldn't move. And she even stopped breathing."
"You're kidding."
"No. I had a long conversation with the detective who was there. He told me it just came over her, and she was unable to move and was dark blue before the paramedics showed up and took her to UCLA. She's been in intensive care all afternoon. The doctors are waiting to ask her about the blue ring."
"What blue ring?"
"Just before she became paralyzed, she was slurring her words but she said something about the blue ring, or the blue ring of death."
"The blue ring of death," Evans said. "What does that mean?"
"They don't know. She isn't able to talk yet. Does she take drugs?"
"No, she's a health nut," Evans said.
"Well, I hear the doctors say she'll be okay. It was some temporary paralysis."
"I'll go see her later," he said.
"When you do, will you call me afterward? And I'll handle your apartment, don't worry."
It was dark when he got to Morton's house. The security people were gone; the only car parked in front was Sarah's Porsche. She opened the front door when he rang. She had changed into a tracksuit. "Everything all right?" he said.
"Yes," she said. They came into the hallway, and they crossed to the living room. The lights were on, and the room was warm and inviting.
"Where are the security people?"
"They left for dinner. They'll be back."
"They all left?"
"They'll be back. I want to show you something," she said. She pulled out a wand with an electronic meter attached to it. She ran it over his body, like an airport security check. She tapped his left pocket. "Empty it."
The only thing in his pocket were his car keys. He dropped them on the coffee table. Sarah was running the wand over his chest, his jacket. She touched his right jacket pocket, gestured for him to empty it out.
"What's this about?" he said.
She shook her head, and didn't speak.
He pulled out a penny. Set it on the counter.
She waved her hand: more?
He felt again. Nothing.
She ran the wand over his car keys. There was a plastic rectangle on the chain, which unlocked his car door. She pried it open with a pocket-knife.
"Hey, listen amp;"
The rectangle popped open. Evans saw electronic circuits inside, a watch battery. Sarah pulled out a tiny bit of electronics hardly bigger than the tip of a lead pencil. "Bingo."
"Is that what I think it is?"
She took the electronic unit and dropped it into a glass of water. Then she turned to the penny. She examined it minutely, then twisted it in her fingers. To Evans's surprise, it broke in half, revealing a small electronic center.
She dropped that in the glass of water, too. "Where's your car?" she said.
"Out in front."
"We can check it later."
He said, "What's this about?"
"The security guys found bugs on me," she said. "And all over the house. The best guess is that was the reason for the robberyto plant bugs. And guess what? You have bugs, too."
He looked around. "Is the house okay?"
"The house has been electronically swept and cleared. The guys found about a dozen bugs. Supposedly it's clean now."
They sat together on the couch. "Whoever is doing all this, they think we know something," she said. "And I'm beginning to believe they're right."
Evans told her about Morton's comments about the list.
"He bought a list?" she said.
Evans nodded. "That's what he said."
"Did he say what kind of a list?"
"No. He was going to tell me more, but he never got around to it."
"He didn't say anything more to you, when you were alone with him?"
"Not that I remember."
"Going up on the plane?"
"No amp;"
"At the table, at dinner?"
"I don't think so, no."
"When you walked him to his car?"
"No, he was singing all that time. It was sort of embarrassing, to tell you the truth. And then he got in his car amp;Wait a minute." Evans sat up. "He did say one funny thing."
"What was that?"
"It was some Buddhist philosophical saying. He told me to remember it."
"What was it?"
"I don't remember," Evans said. "At least not exactly. It was something like Everything that matters is near where the Buddha sits.'"
"George wasn't interested in Buddhism," Sarah said. "Why would he say that to you?"
"Everything that matters is near where the Buddha sits," Evans said, repeating it again.
He was staring forward, into the media room adjacent to the living room.
"Sarah amp;"
Directly facing them, under dramatic overhead lighting, was a large wooden sculpture of a seated Buddha. Burmese, fourteenth century.
Evans got up and walked into the media room. Sarah followed him. The sculpture was four feet high, and mounted on a high pedestal. Evans walked around behind the statue.
"You think?" Sarah said.
"Maybe."
He ran his fingers around the base of the statue. There was a narrow space there, beneath the crossed legs, but he could feel nothing. He crouched, looked: nothing. There were some wide cracks in the wood of the statue, but nothing was there.
"Maybe move the base?" Evans said.
"It's on rollers," Sarah said.
They slid it to one side, exposing nothing but white carpet.
Evans sighed.
"Any other Buddhas around here?" he said, looking around the room.
Sarah was down on her hands and knees. "Peter," she said.
"What?"
"Look."
He crouched down. There was a roughly one-inch gap between the base of the pedestal and the floor. Barely visible in that gap was the corner of an envelope, attached to the inside of the pedestal.
"I'll be damned."
"It's an envelope."
She slid her fingers in.
"Can you reach it?"
"I amp;think so amp;got it!"
She pulled it out. It was a business-size envelope, sealed and unmarked.
"This could be it," she said, excited. "Peter, I think we may have found it!"
The lights went out, and the house was plunged into darkness.
They scrambled to their feet.
"What happened?" Evans said.
"It's okay," she said. "The emergency generator will cut in at any second."
"Actually, it won't," a voice in the darkness said.
Two powerful flashlights shone directly in their faces. Evans squinted in the harsh light; Sarah raised her hand to cover her eyes.
"May I have the envelope, please," the voice said.
Sarah said, "No."
There was a mechanical click, like the cocking of a gun.
"We'll take the envelope," the voice said. "One way or another."
"No you won't," Sarah said.
Standing beside her, Evans whispered, "Sar-ah amp;"
"Shut up, Peter. They can't have it."
"We'll shoot if we have to," the voice said.
"Sarah, give them the fucking envelope," Evans said.
"Let them take it," Sarah said defiantly.
"Sar-ah amp;"
"Bitch!" the voice screamed, and a gunshot sounded. Evans was embroiled in chaos and blackness. There was another scream. One of the flashlights bounced on the floor and rolled, pointing in a corner. In the shadows Evans saw a large dark figure attack Sarah, who screamed and kicked. Without thinking, Evans threw himself against the attacker, grabbing an arm in a leather jacket. He could smell the man's beery breath, hear him grunting. Then someone else pulled him off, slamming him to the ground, and he was kicked in the ribs.
He rolled away, banging against the furniture, and then a new, deep voice held up a flashlight and said "Move away now." Immediately the attacker stopped fighting with them, and turned to this new voice. Evans looked back to see Sarah, who was on the floor. Another man got up and turned toward the flashlight.
There was a crackling sound and the man screamed and fell backward. The flashlight swung to the man who had been kicking Peter.
"You. Down."
The man immediately lay on the carpet.
"Face down."
The man rolled over.
"That's better," the new voice said. "Are you two all right?"
"I'm fine," Sarah said, panting, staring into the light. "Who the hell are you?"
"Sarah," the voice said. "I'm disappointed you don't recognize me."
Just then, the lights came back up in the room.
Sarah said, "John!"
And to Evans's astonishment, she stepped across the body of the fallen attacker to give a grateful hug to John Kenner, professor of Geoenvironmental Engineering at MIT.
"I think I deserve an explanation," Evans said. Kenner had crouched down and was handcuffing the two men lying on the floor. The first man was still unconscious.
"It's a modulated taser," Kenner said. "Shoots a five-hundred-megahertz dart that delivers a four-millisecond jolt that inactivates cerebellar functioning. Down you go. Unconsciousness is immediate. But it only lasts a few minutes."
"No," Evans said. "I meant"
"Why am I here?" Kenner said, looking up with a faint smile.
"Yes," Evans said.
"He's a good friend of George's," Sarah said.
"He is?" Evans said. "Since when?"
"Since we all met, a while back," Kenner said. "And I believe you remember my associate, Sanjong Thapa, as well."
A compact, muscular young man with dark skin and a crew cut came into the room. As before, Evans was struck by his vaguely military bearing, and British accent. "Lights are all back on, Professor," Sanjong Thapa said. "Should I call the police?"
"Not just yet," Kenner said. "Give me a hand here, Sanjong." Together, Kenner and his friend went through the pockets of the handcuffed men. "As I thought," Kenner said, straightening at last. "No identification on them."
"Who are they?"
"That'll be a question for the police," he said. The men were beginning to cough, and wake up. "Sanjong, let's get them to the front door." They hauled the intruders to their feet, and half-led, half-dragged them out of the room.
Evans was alone with Sarah. "How did Kenner get in the house?"
"He was in the basement. He's been searching the house most of the afternoon."
"And why didn't you tell me?"
"I asked her not to," Kenner said, walking back into the room. "I wasn't sure about you. This is a complicated business." He rubbed his hands together. "Now then, shall we have a look at that envelope?"
"Yes." Sarah sat down on the couch, and tore it open. A single sheet of paper, neatly folded, was inside. She stared at it in disbelief. Her face fell.
"What is it?" Evans said.
Without a word, she handed it to him.
It was a bill from the Edwards Fine Art Display Company of Torrance, California, for construction of a wooden pedestal to support a statue of a Buddha. Dated three years ago.
Feeling dejected, Evans sat down on the couch next to Sarah.
"What?" Kenner said. "Giving up already?"
"I don't know what else to do."
"You can begin by telling me exactly what George Morton said to you."
"I don't remember exactly."
"Tell me what you do remember."
"He said it was a philosophical saying. And it was something like, Everything that matters is near where the Buddha sits.'"
"No. That's impossible," Kenner said, in a definite tone.
"Why?"
"He wouldn't have said that."
"Why?"
Kenner sighed. "I should think it's self-evident. If he was giving instructionswhich we presume he washe wouldn't be so inexact. So he must have said something else."
"That's all I remember," Evans said, defensively. Evans found Kenner's quick manner to be brusque, almost insulting. He was beginning not to like this man.
"That's all you remember?" Kenner said. "Let's try again. Where did George make this statement to you? It must have been after you left the lobby."
At first Evans was puzzled. Then he remembered: "Were you there?"
"Yes, I was. I was in the parking lot, off to one side."
"Why?" Evans said.
"We'll discuss that later," Kenner said. "You were telling me, you and George went outside amp;"
"Yes," Evans said. "We went outside. It was cold, and George stopped singing when he felt the cold. We were standing on the steps of the hotel, waiting for the car."
"Uh-huh amp;"
"And when it came, he got into the Ferrari, and I was worried he shouldn't be driving, and I asked him about that, and George said, This reminds me of a philosophical saying.' And I said, What is it?' And he said. Everything that matters is not far from where the Buddha sits.'"
"Not far?" Kenner said.
"That's what he said."
"All right," Kenner said. "And at this moment, you were amp;"
"Leaning over the car."
"The Ferrari."
"Yes."
"Leaning over. And when George told you this philosophical saying, what did you answer back?"
"I just asked him not to drive."
"Did you repeat the phrase?"
"No," Evans said.
"Why not?"
"Because I was worried about him. He shouldn't be driving. Anyway, I remember thinking it was sort of awkwardly phrased. Not remote from where the Buddha sits.'"
"Not remote?" Kenner said.
"Yes," Evans said.
"He said to you, not remote?'"
"Yes."
"Much better," Kenner said. He was moving restlessly around the room, his eyes flicking from object to object. Touching things, dropping them, moving on.
"Why is it much better?" Evans said irritably.
Kenner gestured around the room. "Look around you, Peter. What do you see?"
"I see a media room."
"Exactly."
"Well, I don't understand"
"Sit down on the couch, Peter."
Evans sat down, still furious. He crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at Kenner.
The doorbell rang. They were interrupted by the arrival of the police. Kenner said, "Let me handle this. It's easier if they don't see you," and he again walked out of the room. From the hallway, they heard several low voices discussing the two captured intruders. It sounded all very chummy.
Evans said, "Does Kenner have something to do with law enforcement?"
"Not exactly."
"What does that mean?"
"He just seems to know people."
Evans stared at her. "He knows people," he repeated.
"Different sorts of people. Yes. He sent George off to see a lot of them. Kenner has a tremendously wide range of contacts. Particularly in the environmental area."
"Is that what the Center for Risk Analysis does? Environmental risks?"
"I'm not sure."
"Why is he on sabbatical?"
"You should ask him these things."
"Okay."
"You don't like him, do you?" she said.
"I like him fine. I just think he's a conceited asshole."
"He's very sure of himself," she said.
"Assholes usually are."
Evans got up, and walked to where he could see into the hallway. Kenner was talking to the policemen, signing some documents, and turning over the intruders. The police were joking with him. Standing to one side was the dark man, Sanjong.
"And what about the little guy with him?"
"Sanjong Thapa," she said. "Kenner met him in Nepal when he was climbing a mountain there. Sanjong was a Nepali military officer assigned to help a team of scientists studying soil erosion in the Himalaya. Kenner invited him back to the States to work with him."
"I remember now. Kenner's a mountain climber, too. And he was almost on the Olympic ski team." Evans couldn't conceal his annoyance.
Sarah said, "He's a remarkable man, Peter. Even if you don't like him."
Evans returned to the couch, sat down again, folded his arms. "Well, you're right about that," he said. "I don't."
"I have the feeling you're not alone there," she said. "The list of people who dislike John Kenner is a long one."
Evans snorted, and said nothing.
They were still sitting on the couch when Kenner came bounding back into the room. He was again rubbing his hands. "All right," he said. "All the two boys have to say is that they want to talk to a lawyer, and they seem to know one. Imagine that. But we'll know more in a few hours." He turned to Peter. "So: mystery solved? Concerning the Buddha?"
Evans glared at him. "No."
"Really? It's quite straightforward."
"Why don't you just tell us," Evans said.
"Reach your right hand out to the end table," Kenner said.
Evans put his hand out. There were five remote controls on the table.
"Yes?" he said. "And?"
"What are they for?"
"It's a media room," Evans said. "I think we've established that."
"Yes," Kenner said. "But what are they for?"
"Obviously," Evans said, "to control the television, the satellite, the DVD, the VHS, all that."
"Which one does which?" Kenner said.
Evans stared at the table. And suddenly he got it. "Oh my God," he said. "You're absolutely right."
He was flipping them over, one after another.
"This one's the flat panel amp;DVD amp;satellite amp;high def amp;" He stopped. There was one more. "Looks like there are two DVD controllers." The second one was stubby and black and had all the usual buttons, but it was slightly lighter than the other.
Evans pulled open the battery compartment. Only one battery was there. In place of the other was a tightly rolled piece of paper.
"Bingo," he said.
He took the paper out.
All that matters is not remote from where the Buddha sits. That's what George had said. Which meant that this paper was all that matters.
Carefully, Evans unrolled the tiny sheet and pressed it flat on the coffee table with the heel of his hand, smoothing out the wrinkles.
And then he stared.
The paper contained nothing but columns of numbers and words:
662262
3982293
24FXE 62262 82293
TERROR
882320
4898432
12FXE 82232 54393
SNAKE
774548
9080799
02FXE 67533 43433
LAUGHER
482320
5898432
22FXE 72232 04393
SCORPION
ALT
662262
3982293
24FXE 62262 82293
TERROR
382320
4898432
12FXE 82232 54393
SEVER
244548
9080799
02FXE 67533 43433
CONCH
482320
5898432
22FXE 72232 04393
SCORPION
ALT
662262
3982293
24FXE 62262 82293
TERROR
382320
4898432
12FXE 82232 54393
BUZZARD
444548
7080799
02FXE 67533 43433
OLD MAN
482320
5898432
22FXE 72232 04393
SCORPION
ALT
662262
3982293
24FXE 62262 82293
TERROR
382320
4898432
12FXE 82232 54393
BLACK MESA
344548
9080799
02FXE 67533 43433
SNARL
482320
5898432
22FXE 72232 04393
SCORPION
Evans said, "Is this what everybody's after?"
Sarah was looking at the paper over his shoulder. "I don't get it. What does it mean?"
Evans passed the paper to Kenner. He hardly glanced at it before he said, "No wonder they were so desperate to get this back."
"You know what it is?"
"There's no doubt about what it is," Kenner said, handing the paper to Sanjong. "It's a list of geographic locations."
"Locations? Where?"
"We'll have to calculate that," Sanjong said. "They're recorded in UTM, which may mean the listing was intended for pilots." Kenner saw the blank looks on the others' faces. "The world is a globe," he said, "and maps are flat. Therefore all maps are projections of a sphere onto a flat surface. One projection is the Universal Transverse Mercator grid, which divides the globe into six-degree grids. It was originally a military projection, but some pilot charts use it."
Evans said, "So these numbers are latitude and longitude in a different form?"
"Correct. A military form." Kenner ran his finger down the page. "It appears to be several alternate sets of four locations. But in every instance the first and last locations are the same. For whatever reason amp;" He frowned, and stared off into space.
"Is that bad?" Sarah said.
"I'm not sure," Kenner said. "But it might be, yes." He looked at Sanjong.
Sanjong nodded gravely. "What is today?" he said.
"Tuesday."
"Then amp;time is very short."
Kenner said, "Sarah, we're going to need George's plane. How many pilots does he have?"
"Two, usually."
"We'll need at least four. How soon can you get them?"
"I don't know. Where do you want to go?" she said.
"Chile."
"Chile! And leave when?"
"As soon as possible. Not later than midnight."
"It'll take me some time to arrange"
"Then get started now," Kenner said. "Time is short, Sarah. Very short."
Evans watched Sarah go out of the room. He turned back to Kenner. "Okay," he said. "I give up. What's in Chile?"
"A suitable airfield, I presume. With adequate jet fuel." Kenner snapped his fingers. "Good point, Peter. Sarah," he called into the next room, "what kind of a plane is it?"
"G-five!" she called back.
Kenner turned to Sanjong Thapa, who had taken out a small handheld computer and was tapping away at it. "Are you connected to Akamai?"
"Yes."
"Was I right?"
"I've only checked the first location so far," Sanjong said. "But yes. We need to go to Chile."
"Then Terror is Terror?" Kenner said.
"I think so, yes."
Evans looked from one man to the other. "Terror is Terror?" he said, puzzled.
"That's right," Kenner said.
Sanjong said, "You know, Peter's got a point."
Evans said, "Are you guys ever going to tell me what's going on?"
"Yes," Kenner said. "But first, you have your passport?"
"I always carry it."
"Good man." Kenner turned back to Sanjong. "What point?"
"It's UTM, Professor. It's a six-degree grid."
"Of course!" Kenner said, snapping his fingers again. "What's the matter with me?"
"I give up," Evans said. "What's the matter with you?"
But Kenner didn't answer; he now seemed almost hyperactive, his fingers twitching nervously as he picked up the remote control from the table beside Peter and peered at it closely, turning it in the light. Finally, he spoke.
"A six-degree grid," Kenner said, "means that these locations are only accurate to a thousand meters. Roughly half a mile. That's simply not good enough."
"Why? How accurate should it be?"
"Three meters," Sanjong said. "About ten feet."
"Assuming they are using PPS," Kenner said, still squinting at the remote control. "In which case amp;Ah. I thought so. It's the oldest trick in the book."
He pulled the entire back of the remote off, exposing the circuit board. He lifted that away to reveal a second folded sheet of paper. It was thin, hardly more than tissue paper. It contained rows of numbers and symbols. -2147483640,8,0*x°%БgKА__^O#_QА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?_ ____________________ яяя__е -2147483640,8,0%h° в#KА_Oё__@BА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?яяяя____________________ яяя__ -2147483640,8,0г'»^$PNА_N__йxFА__cБ-aaaaaЪї____________________ яяя__В -2147483640,8,0уW»1/4_OА т°q_lMА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?яяяя____________________ яяя__Ґ -2147483640,8,0%0ж/С_LАшш_8_ФPА__cБ«aaaaaЪї?____________________ яяя__ -2147483640,8,0*x°%БgKА__^O#_QА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?_ ____________________ яяя__е -2147483640,8,0%h° в#KА_Oё__@BА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?яяяя____________________ яяя__ -2147483640,8,0уW»1/4_OА т°q_lMА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?яяяя____________________ яяя__Ґ -2147483640,8,0л{»l_-OАг°°"d,LА__cБ-aaaaaЪї____________________ яя -2147483640,8,0%0ж/С_LАшш_8_ФPА__cБ«aaaaaЪї?____________________ яяя__ -2147483640,8,0*x°%БgKА__^O#_QА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?_ ____________________ яяя__е -2147483640,8,0%h° в#KА_Oё__@BА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?яяяя____________________ яяя__ -2147483640,8,0уW»1/4_OА т°q_lMА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?яяяя____________________ яяя__Ґ -2147483640,8,0л{»l_-OАг°°"d,LА__cБ-aaaaaЪї____________________ яяя -2147483640,8,0%0ж/С_LАшш_8_ФPА__cБ«aaaaaЪ?____________________ яяя__ "All right," Kenner said. "This is more like it."
"And these are?" Evans said.
"True coordinates. Presumably for the same locations."
"Terror is Terror?" Evans said. He was starting to feel foolish.
Kenner said, "Yes. We're talking about Mount Terror, Peter. An inactive volcano. You have heard of it?"
"No."
"Well, we're going there."
"Where is it?"
"I thought you'd have guessed that by now," Kenner said. "It's in Antarctica, Peter."