The Alarmists (13 page)

As he placed the Ruger back in the drawer, he chuckled at the thought. When she was alive, she’d served as his sounding board, listening, withholding judgment, providing necessary insight. He missed that more than anything. But now, as she tried to speak to him through one of the few things he had left of her, he wouldn’t listen. He wondered, as he picked up the most recent stack of financials, if that was what Alan was doing.

He thought there were things Alan wasn’t telling him, and that was his own mistake. He’d selected Alan because of his stellar track record, his ability to maintain a cool head despite the nature of any conflagration that raged around them, and for the man’s expendability. Van Camp’s mistake, as he now saw it, was allowing Alan too much freedom. Such a loose reporting structure left the company vulnerable should Van Camp’s man in charge of Project: Night House find the stresses of the position too much to bear.

Yet there were reasons for the current arrangement, and the need for that phrase that politicians tossed around: plausible deniability. Without the proper checks in place to make certain that Alan was acting within the established policies of the company, Van Camp would be able to tell a prosecutor, a grand jury, or whoever else might ask that Alan had acted outside of the scope of his duties, and that the man having access to company funds sufficient to finance such an endeavor was an oversight Van Camp would correct. He hoped it never came to that; he hoped it in the same fashion he considered the use of the Ruger in the drawer.

The problem was that Alan wasn’t returning his calls. To be fair, Van Camp had left only two messages, and Alan had a number of irons in the fire. But he also knew Alan had stopped by the office recently, taking two appointments and then leaving.

He understood the stresses the man must be facing, considering his wife’s condition. He of all people did not begrudge Alan the time he needed to get his head straight. However, everything they’d worked for over the last two years would culminate in a matter of days. Alan’s crisis at home had come at a most inopportune time.

Among the standard reports on his desk were a number of papers that, when not in his immediate possession, resided in only one place: the large safe in the Buckhead home. Along with the files he’d procured a 1945 Mouton from the wine cellar. Of all the wines in his possession, the Mouton was most suited for the upcoming occasion. After securing the two items and then spending a few minutes with the key members of his staff, Van Camp left the house, leaving his staff wondering how much time would pass until he returned.

The file in front of him now—the one he hadn’t reviewed in months, as the contents were firmly fixed in his memory—was a skeleton really. A combination of his first hasty notes and a subsequent fleshing out of the plan. Most of it preceded Alan’s involvement, although several key features bore the man’s mark. Among these was the Antarctica project.

Shackleton concerned Van Camp more than any other element, for the concrete reason that, at this point, he should have had the detonator in his hands, the one that would separate the ice shelf from the continent. According to the figures Alan had gathered, the result of such an activity would be catastrophic to the financial sector. Van Camp Enterprises stood to make more than $43 billion by this man-made “act of God,” from a mixture of stock speculation, anticipated changes in commercial fishing patterns, and above all, a heightened interest in national security.

There was also the human element to consider. According to every model they had run, the separation of the ice shelf would produce a tsunami that would potentially strike China’s coast. The researchers who had worked through the available data put the odds at forty-three percent. Not included in that scenario was the number of small islands—some of them inhabited—that fell inside the affected area. There was a part of him that did not think it inappropriate to offer a heartfelt prayer for those souls, or to ask his wife to speak in his stead. And should she choose not to do so, he would deal with it on his own.

Right now he had to consider the possibility of a different kind of tsunami, one that Alan had the potential to unleash. If that were to happen, Van Camp would find a way to deal with that too.

December 13, 2012, 1:09 P.M.

The thing about Tucson, Albert thought as he crawled out from beneath the 1972 Charger, was that it wasn’t always hot. That revelation had come as something of a disappointment to him. After all, he’d selected Arizona because it was supposed to be hot. He wanted a heat that, without the proper sunglasses, would bake his eyeballs in their sockets. A heat that made breathing uncomfortable, that let him fry the proverbial egg on the sidewalk. But now, in mid-December, the temperature got down to the mid-forties at night. When he woke up in the morning he didn’t want to have to put on a jacket to retrieve the newspaper from the end of the driveway. He wanted air-conditioning blasting 24/7 in defiance of a merciless sun. What he got, instead, was sweater weather in the morning and a pleasant breeze in the afternoon.

Albert had had a lot of time to think since the helicopter lifted him from a place colder than anything he’d imagined and ferried him to a small island, where they’d loaded him on a plane and sent him to Miami. Miami was warm; he should have stayed there. But something about the desert appealed to him.

He was forty-six and had spent thirty of those years in some of the coldest spots on the planet, drilling holes deep into frozen ground. For three decades his world was composed of bitter cold and screaming metal. He supposed that after a while, the body’s ability to retain heat vanished like a battery that would no longer hold a charge.

He grabbed a rag and rubbed the oil from his hands as best he could. The Charger was one of three cars in his yard—the front yard, so that he was sure to tick off the neighbors—and the one that he loved working on most.

After they’d pulled him from the ice sheet, he’d taken to thinking about the direction his life had taken, how he’d contented himself with bearing up under the assault of the elements on the chance that he would be part of something big—something that would result in his never having to work again. Flying over icebergs with a mangled leg did much to put things in perspective for a man. He was almost grateful for the mishap that had severed some of the muscles in his calf, leaving him with a permanent limp. A clarifying moment, he called it.

He tossed the rag onto the hood of the car and thought about what to do next. The Charger needed a good deal of work still, but nothing like dropping a new engine into it last week. Everything from this point on was a walk in the park by comparison. In truth, anything short of getting an auger drill working in sub-zero temperatures was akin to a picnic.

He heard the screen door open.

“Albert,” his wife called. “Someone’s on the phone for you.”

He raised his hand in acknowledgment. Since relocating to Tucson two months ago, he’d fielded the occasional call from his former company. They wanted him back in the field, and with the understanding that most of his former mates were now working for someone else, the money they’d dangled in front of him had been substantial. Still, nothing they’d said—or promised—had been powerful enough to present a serious threat to his airborne epiphany: that money didn’t matter if you were too cold to enjoy it.

He took in a deep breath of air that, though cooler than he’d imagined, was a good deal more palatable than what he’d inhaled in Alaska or Antarctica. Then he went inside. She’d left the phone lying next to the cradle and he scooped it up.

“Yeah?”

“Albert?” came the voice from the other end. “Is this Albert?”

The thing that struck him right off was that, whoever owned the voice, it wasn’t someone who worked for Sheffield Petroleum.

“It is,” he said. “And you are?”

“Albert, this is Ruth. I’m Ben’s wife. Ben Robinski?”

“Oh sure,” Albert said. “How is old Ben?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line and Albert thought the phone might have cut out on him. They’d been having problems with the phone service the last few months. In some ways, it reminded him of growing up in Adelaide. They’d lost service a lot there.

“That’s why I’m calling, Albert,” Ruth said. “I haven’t heard from Ben in months.”

Albert took that in, along with the worry in the woman’s voice. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. From what I remember, the job we were on was supposed to last until the end of the month. You should hear from him anytime now.”

His attempt at encouragement was greeted with silence.

Finally, she said, “I’ve called fifteen people. You’re the first person to even acknowledge my husband was on a team somewhere.”

Albert was a man accustomed to dealing with simple things. It was cold outside so one wore a coat. The drill broke so one fixed it. But women were complicated, hence he seldom engaged them in conversation. He’d gotten lucky in that his Andrea wasn’t complicated. She liked the same simple things he did.

“Look,” he said. “I don’t know what to tell you. I ain’t with the team anymore because my leg was ripped up in one of the drills. But I remember Ben talking about you all the time. He’ll come back, you’ll see.”

“Albert, if there’s anything you can do to help me find out where Ben is . . .”

Through the phone he heard what sounded like crying.

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll make a call or two, alright?”

After several seconds of silence, Ruth thanked him, gave him a number where she could be reached, then said good-bye.

Albert hung up the phone and turned around to see Andrea staring at him.

“What was that about? Not another woman with her eye on my Albert, is it?”

He grinned. “So what if it is?”

They spent the rest of the afternoon addressing that question, and somewhere along the way, Albert forgot about Ben Robinski.

—

They were cleared to head home.

Maddy, her wound bandaged and her arm held in a sling to keep from aggravating the injury, hadn’t argued when Brent removed her luggage from her free hand and carried it along with his own to the chopper, where he helped her climb aboard.

Now they were waiting again, but rather than the single unit of marines surrounding the hospital, in the neighborhood of a thousand officers occupied the base, providing Brent and Maddy with what the professor thought was sufficient protection to guard against a second attack.

When they first arrived at the base, a doctor removed the bandages applied by their Afghan counterparts and gave the army captain a thorough examination, using equipment not available to indigenous medical personnel. According to Maddy, who relayed the results to Brent, the base doctors had conceded a grudging respect for the work of the locals.

They would take a military transport back to the States—an enormous Airbus that Brent could see through the windows of the waiting area. He hoped that he and Maddy wouldn’t be the only passengers.

Maddy, who seemed to have intuited Brent’s thoughts, said, “It may go back empty, but it’ll return fully loaded. It won’t be a wasted trip.”

Feeling fidgety over the events of the last twenty-four hours, Brent had taken to pacing the room. Now he stopped and glanced over at his traveling companion. The captain was sitting down with her head tilted back, eyes closed.

“You can stop doing that,” he said with mock gruffness. “The only one allowed inside my head is me.”

Maddy smiled but didn’t open her eyes.

“It takes you ten steps to cross the room,” she said. “And you’ve been pacing for so long that I’ve gotten used to the rhythm.” She opened her eyes and straightened her head. “Since you started, you’ve only stopped twice. The first time was at five steps, which would have put you right in front of the windows, at which point you said the same thing that everyone who sees an A400M for the first time says: ‘It’s big.’ Not very original.”

At Brent’s frown she offered a wink.

“The second time you stopped was just now, again at five steps, which means you were watching out the window again.”

Brent nodded in acknowledgment. Then he crossed his arms and said, “Okay, so you knew I was looking at the plane. How did you know I was thinking about what a waste it is to fly something that big across the ocean just for the two of us?”

Maddy gave the professor a smug look. “You drink a lot of soda, but I haven’t once seen you throw a can in the trash—always the recycle bin. I’ve seen you hold onto an empty can until you can find a bin to put it in. Then there’s your paper usage. You use almost all of it—even the margins once both sides are full.” She chuckled. “A guy who will carry around an empty Mountain Dew can with him for an hour would definitely have an issue with the amount of fuel it’s going to require to get us home.”

Brent had no response for several ticks of the loud clock hanging on the wall next to a battered vending machine. Then he released a genuine laugh and, once he was done, shook his head.

“The observational skills of a true scientist,” he said.

“No, the observational skills of a bored woman who is just a little buzzed on whatever painkiller they gave me before I left,” she answered.

Brent slipped into the seat next to her. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Pretty good, actually.”

For the last day—except for the time spent developing his new theory, sharing the details with Colonel Richards over the phone so his team could begin researching while they were in transit—Brent found himself thinking a lot about Amy Madigan. An experience like the firefight had a tendency to create an emotional bond where one might not have normally existed. Yet he believed it to be more than that. For some reason, the army captain was insinuating herself into his thoughts—and he didn’t know if he liked that or not.

She’d gone quiet, and Brent thought she might be falling asleep, so it surprised him when she spoke again.

“Why did you choose your father’s path instead of your mother’s?”

Brent didn’t understand the question right away and wondered if the medication Maddy mentioned might now be kicking in. Then it came to him, and when he understood what the question referred to, he fielded dueling responses: irritation, and gratitude that she cared enough to ask.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “Except that we both know the answer.”

When she returned a puzzled look, he explained.

“You’re a Christian because your parents were. It’s all you knew when you were a kid.”

It looked as if she was about to object, but Brent cut her off.

“Has it ever occurred to you to wonder why the odds that a person embraces Christianity depend almost entirely on where that person is born?” he asked. “If you’re born in Saudi Arabia, the chances of your embracing Christianity are next to none, but it’s pretty certain that you’ll practice Islam. It’s the same no matter where you go. That’s social dynamics. Religion is more cultural than mystical.”

He hadn’t meant for any of this to come out with the edge he suspected it had, and he gave Maddy an apologetic smile, even if he wasn’t sorry for his beliefs.

“It just seems pretty telling that all over the world people practice different religions, and all of those people think they have it right. It’s the height of arrogance to claim that your religion is the right one and everyone else is wrong.”

Maddy smiled. “You haven’t answered my question. Even if you’re right, and a person’s faith depends on where they were born and grew up, why did you pass on it?”

Brent had to concede that he hadn’t answered her question, even though he thought he’d made a pretty good argument for a logical dismissal of not just Christianity but any faith. He felt a wave of combativeness rising in him, the same as when one of his believing family members raised the topic. There hadn’t been a single instance in which he felt he’d lost a religious debate. But now, in a foreign country and in the company of Amy Madigan, he realized he didn’t want to have an argument. Instead, he wanted her to understand.

Just then a soldier entered the waiting area, and seeing a civilian and an officer from another branch of the military, he hesitated and then offered a cordial nod before slipping coins into the vending machine. A candy bar fell, was scooped up, and the man was gone.

In the intervening silence Brent looked over at Maddy, only to find that she’d again closed her eyes. He almost used that as a cue to let the matter drop, but he found that he didn’t want to do that.

“I think I was eight,” he said, glad to see Maddy’s eyes open when he spoke. “My father was watching a program on PBS—one of those where a cameraman and some guy who’s an expert in something spend a few weeks with a tribe native to somewhere that seems really far away when you’re in third grade.”

“I like those,” Maddy said with a nod.

“My dad did too,” Brent said, smiling at the memory. Then he frowned and looked her in the eye. “Did I tell you my father was a sociologist?”

She shook her head. “No, but it was in your file.”

Her response gave Brent pause as he wondered what else might be in that file, but he shook it off.

“I remember sitting down on the couch next to him and watching it for a while. And the thing I remember about the show was a ceremony the cameraman got to shoot. It was an elevation ritual. Normally it’s a pretty private affair, yet for some reason this tribe let this British team in and they taped the whole thing. There was some witch doctor guy with a very large knife, doing what, at eight years old, I couldn’t imagine a human being doing to another.”