The O.D. (9 page)

The
system’s
in
place
.
It’s
foolproof
and
failsafe
and
took
several
years
to
organize
.
There’ll
be
no
shipping
anywhere
near
the
path
of
the
waves
at
the
time
in
question
.
Nor
will
there
be
a
living
creature
within
range
of
any
tsunami
anywhere
in
western
Europe
from
Biarritz
to
Bantry
Bay
…
IF
people
heed
the
warnings
.
Human
nature
will
create
it’s
own
victims
,
but
we
can’t
be
held
responsible
.

Vaalon’s text message was enough to close the subject for the time being. Pilot had no idea how the entire coastal populations of three countries could be successfully relocated, but if anyone had the resources to do it, it was the world’s 97th richest man. He pulled himself to his feet and marched towards the road, leaving his headache buried in the sand.

V

Vaalon’s idea of a limo was a two-seater Smart car, which met Pilot at Paddington station and took him to his mentor’s London home in Douro Place, South Kensington. The following morning, Forrest Vaalon and Lonnie Pilot would be flying to New York for a meeting Pilot saw as being pivotal. Much as he wanted to, he could not see their claim of sovereignty succeeding and was impatient to hear Ambassador Geirsson’s plan.

The first thing that met Pilot’s eyes outside the arrivals hall at JFK was the elongated, charcoal-grey, chauffeur-driven Lincoln Continental with tinted windows waiting at the curb. Vaalon stopped at the back door of the limo. “These are as common as black cabs in London,” he said. “An inconspicuous way to travel around Manhattan.” He pointed to the car behind – a Nissan – and began walking towards it. “That’s ours. Even more discreet.”

The driver – black-haired, stocky and a lot shorter than Pilo
t−
Vaalon introduced as Aaron Serman, one of Pilot’s American crew. “Sit in front, Lonnie. I’ll go in the back.”

Vaalon’s brownstone in the Upper West Side was as understated as his ca
r−
on the outside. The antique furniture, sculptures, carpets and paintings inside confirmed Forrest Vaalon as a man of taste and appreciation. Serman, who’d been working as the man’s New York assistant for three years and had a room on the top floor, showed Pilot to the guest suite and handed him seven take-out menus ranging from Armenian to Vietnamese. “I’ll come back for your order in half an hour,” he said, glancing at his Piaget. “Help yourself to a beer. They’re downstairs in the fridge.”

When Serman had gone, Pilot began touring his suite as if in an art gallery. An original Peter Lanyon hung over the sofa, with two Henri Rousseaus either side of a gold leaf sunburst mirror. A six foot tall by seven inch wide Giacometti sculpture stood guard between the two windows. On the wall opposite was a photo portrait by Robert Frank of a beautiful, coal-eyed young woman whose identity Pilot guessed, and confirmed on checking the back of the frame.
Ruth
Belkin
Vaalon
,
1952
. He walked into the bedroom, where two more photos of Ruth, one by Man Ray, the other by Lee Miller, continued Vaalon’s tribute to the love of his life. The en-suite bathroom was the largest Pilot had ever seen. He ran himself a bath, then lay down on the bed for twenty minutes while it cooled, imagining what it would be like to drown.

Later, over enchiladas and refried beans, Pilot and Serman began to get acquainted, Vaalon having deliberately accepted a dinner invitation on the other side of town to facilitate the two men’s bonding.

“How long have you worked for Mr. Vaalon?” Pilot asked.

Serman, dressed in loafers, white socks, navy blue corduroys and button-down Brooks Brothers shirt, crossed his legs and prepared to impress the man he considered to be his line manager. “After graduating from Columbia, I taught at Deerfield Academy for a semester. Thought it would be safer teaching in a prep school than trying to control fifty heavily armed high school students in Brooklyn. Boy, was I wrong. I couldn’t cut it. So I answered an ad in the New York Times for a personal assistant/driver. Mr. Vaalon’s only here maybe fifteen days a month and I spend the rest of the time at night school – computer technology.”

“What did you study at Columbia?”

“Statistics and Japanese.”

“Wouldn’t that have qualified you for something grander than this?”

“I tried,” Serman said with a smile. “Tried to
conform
, that is. Couldn’t.”

“In your dossier Forrest describes you as being a logistical genius.”

“I most probably am.”

Having been told by Vaalon that Aaron Serman was privy to the island’s imminent arrival, Pilot had no problem asking his next question. “Statistically speaking, Aaron, what are the chances the island will be coming up as predicted?”

Serman thought for a moment. “Well, there
are
no statistics on this, so we have to resort to the racecourse. I’ve studied the form – the science and the computer models – and I think the odds on it happening as predicted are very good. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yes, it is. Thanks, Aaron.”

Serman rose to leave. “Sleep as long as you want in the morning, Lonnie. Your meeting isn’t until two o’clock.”

At six foot three, Lonnie Pilot was taller than most people he met, apart from Forrest Vaalon, but when Fridrik Geirsson greeted them at the door of his apartment, Pilot found himself looking
up
at the underside of a grey-blond fringe. At six foot eight, Geirsson was a big man at the UN, both physically and influentially. Pilot guessed that he was in his early forties at most.

“Glad to meet you at last, Lonnie,” Geirsson said, extending a wide hand. “Forrest, you look tired. Come in and sit down.”

He led the two men down the hall and into his study, whispering something to his secretary on the way. In the centre of the coffee table was a ring binder. He offered Vaalon a comfortable armchair, motioned Pilot to a sofa and took a chair opposite him. He leaned across the table and positioned the binder in front of Pilot. “Mr. Vaalon has already seen this,” he said. “It’s a 200-page draft, substantiating and documenting your case for sovereignty over the island. Forrest told me this was a particular worry to you. We have had to be very creative in constructing our arguments.”

Geirsson opened the binder and folded his hands on the top page. “It is all built on definitions and precedents, or rather on the
lack
of precedents,” he said, drawing his forefinger back and forth under his nose as if it had been soaked in a liquid aid to concentration. “The crux of our argument is this: The moment a portion of the continental shelf breaks the surface of the sea, it ceases to be a continental shelf, under the current definition of such, and becomes an
island
. If this island surfaces
within
a country’s territorial waters, the law declares that they have outright sovereignty. This is logical. Second scenario: It surfaces
beyond
the country’s territorial sea, but still within its contiguous zone. In this case, ownership becomes less clear, but is still weighted heavily in favour of France.”

Geirsson’s secretary placed a coffee tray on the table and began pouring.

“Now, this is where it begins to get complicated,” Geirsson continued when they were alone again. “Eydos will be surfacing between 80 and a hundred miles off the French coast – well outside her territorial sea and contiguous zone, but still within her EEZ.” He pushed the binder towards Pilot while rotating it 180 degrees.

“You are welcome to read this from cover to cover, Lonnie, but it cannot leave the apartment. There is a guest room if you need to stay over.”

“I wouldn’t mind a quick read, but I’m happy with your summary.”

“Good. It might help to define the different
types
of island, because they have relevance. And the reason they have relevance is that they are
irrelevant
to your claim. Unlike all these other islands, Eydos has no precedent in modern human experience, and this is the basis of our argument. The proof is in what is
extant
, held against what is to come – or rather what, on a certain day and time in August in the Bay of Biscay, will have occurred.”

Geirsson swung the binder back to face him, located the relevant section and began paraphrasing.

“Oceanic islands are islands that do not sit on continental shelves. Most are volcanic in origin. The Mariana Islands, the Aleutian Islands and most of Tonga were formed by volcanoes arising from the subduction of one plate under another. Eydos will
not
be one of those.

“Where an oceanic rift reaches the surface, another type of volcanic oceanic island occur
s−
Iceland, for example, and Jan Mayen. Eydos will not be one of
those
.

“There are some non-volcanic oceanic islands that are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have pushed the deep ocean floor above the surface. For Eydos, we have to note the distinction between
deep
ocean
floor
and
continental
shelf
. It is all covered in here.

“A third type of volcanic oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the moving tectonic plate above it, so a chain of islands is
extruded
as the plate drifts, like the Hawaiian Islands and the Tuamotu Archipelago. Tristan da Cunha is an example of a hotspot volcano in the Atlantic Ocean, another one being my country’s own island of Surtsey, formed in 1963. Eydos will not be one of
those
, either.”

Unable to extend his long legs under the coffee table, Geirsson stood up and stretched. “Now we come to continental islands,” he said, walking around the room. “These are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a
continent
, as opposed to a particular country. Great Britain, Ireland and Sicily are all islands on the European continental shelf. There are similar examples to be found all over the world.” He resumed his seat and turned a few pages until he found what he was looking for. “Sable Island off Nova Scotia is believed to have been formed by a terminal moraine deposited on the continental shelf near the end of the last Ice Age. Again, Eydos cannot be placed in this category of island. Nor is Eydos an atoll, a microcontinental island, a seamount, an islet, a skerry, a bar or a cay. Eydos is
nothing
until it is defined. And who better to define it than the UN Commission on Maritime Law?”

Fridrik Geirsson and Forrest Vaalon both looked at Pilot with broad grins of satisfaction. Lonnie Pilot returned their smiles with interest.

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law in terms of proving ownership,” Geirsson continued. “If we are successful in establishing to the entire world your lawful claim to possession in that first hour, then we will have only the other one-tenth to contend with.”

Geirsson withdrew a single sheet of paper from the back of the binder and handed it to Pilot. “This is an outline for a declaration to be transmitted to the world the instant you make landfall.”

Pilot aimed a questioning glance at Vaalon, who took the floor.

“Both the transponder broadcasting your exact position, and the transmitter sending out your declaration, will be automatically activated on contact with the rising island,” Vaalon explained. “As a failsafe, as soon as you’re able to do so, confirm the position of your landfall by radio. Either way, within seconds and minutes, the entire world will know you’re there.”

Lonnie Pilot left Geirsson’s apartment a happy man. He hadn’t had the patience to read through the entire documen
t−
the tall Icelander’s summary had been sufficient.

The following morning, with an entire day to fill before his evening flight, Pilot decided to take up Serman’s offer of a city tour on foot. They started walking east at a purposeful gait, counting down the avenues as they went and, half an hour later, stood peering up at the sleek, slim, silvery monolith of the U.N. building as it toppled over on them, a trick of the scudding clouds behind it.

They were frisked going in and took the first available guided tour. Inside the General Assembly, Pilot tried to imagine the scene as their claim was made. As had happened at Le Conquet, his confidence was being eroded by his proximity to the actual stage in the coming play. It was not a comfortable feeling and he was relieved when the tour was over.

They left the building, turned left and began following the river down to South Street, stopping at the sight of the top third of a four-masted clipper ship visible over the wharves and warehouses. “Theme park,” Serman said. “The theme being Nineteenth Century New York Maritime.” They strolled around for half an hour then walked out to the end of the pier and sat on a bollard.

Pilot had often wondered why it was that eras, environments, ways of life, even everyday objects, were never appreciated until after their time had passed. Why, for instance, should an ordinary 19th century commode have appreciated in value a hundred fold since it was last sat upon, and today enjoy pride of place as a valuable antique in someone’s best room – never again to be used for the purpose it was created? Had nostalgia always been as strong, or was this just a symptom of civilization coming as far as it could and looking longingly back at the paths it would never again tread?

With no consideration for Serman’s understanding, Pilot launched straight from thought to expression. “It would make much more sense,” he said, “if we could live the second half of our lives backwards.”

“…
What
?”

“Then we’d be able to appreciate, through reverse nostalgia, the things that had passed us by in our past – now our futur
e−
redress the wrongs we had done and repair the people we had hurt.”

Even at the age of twenty-five, there was a lot of material in Pilot’s life that he would like to have a second go at. Like the way he had treated his mother when she said she was leaving with the man he called ‘the snake with a snakeskin briefcase’. He had made her cry, but in the intervening years had learned that the desires that move people to do such things are much more powerful forces than basic loyalties, principles and ties to their children. They could rationalize
any
behavior and could no more help themselves than could rutting deer. He should have been more understanding.