by Bobby Akart
The man blocked the exit, holding the door open to continue his barrage of insults, until Chapman grabbed him by the right shoulder and pulled him backwards.
“Shut up!” he forcefully hissed at the man, which startled and frightened the rude attendee.
Chapman rushed into the hallway, which was empty compared to earlier in the day. The presentation by Dr. Trussel was the last formal event of the afternoon before the cocktail parties began. A few people were hovering around the bars in the carpeted hallway, oblivious to the reasons the French scientist had exited Hall 6 quickly.
He saw her standing near a plate-glass window overlooking a courtyard where another group had gathered to smoke cigarettes. He caught his breath and calmed his nerves as he approached her.
“Dr. Dubois,” he began before she spun around.
“Quoi?” What? she snapped, clearly in no mood to talk.
He loved her accent. This exquisite French woman somehow made being annoyed seem sexy.
He looked at her up close for the first time. She was slender and undeniably beautiful. Her olive skin, coal-black hair, sharp blue eyes and high distinct cheekbones could have easily described a Dior model walking the runway at Paris Fashion Week. Her beauty certainly didn’t fit Chapman’s stereotype of a climate scientist.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” began Chapman. He stuttered out of nervousness. “I just thought you could use a friend. They weren’t very kind in there.”
Her nerves were still raw. “They will not listen to anything that challenges their narrative. Even if I showed them my data, my findings, they would create their own study that wholly contradicts what I can prove. This is the way of the world. Dissent is silenced.”
“But you might be onto something.”
“Yes, of course I am. I would not have exposed myself to their ridicule if I was not certain in my theories. I had no intention of speaking out until someone asked a question about wobble. Wobble is a childish word. The correct term is, um, as you say, vacillate or oscillate.”
Chapman didn’t admit he was the one who asked the question, which in turn prompted the French woman to enter the fray. She still seemed a little heated, and his goal was to help her calm down, not get inflamed again.
“Yes, I understand,” he added.
“No, I am not sure you do. Neither do they. The shift involves much, much more that adjusting a compass or a global positioning device. As the magnetic field weakens for any length of time, the planet will be less protected from the high-energy particles emitted from the sun. We will be exposed to higher levels of radiation that will increase cancer, raise global temperatures, and—” She stopped, shook her head, and turned to stare out the window again. She rubbed her temples as she tried to regain her composure.
Chapman took a chance. “Are you familiar with the work of Dr. Harry Pruitt? He’s a geologist who had a theory—”
Her curiosity was piqued, so she turned to face Chapman. He noticed a slight smudge of her makeup where she’d shed a few tears.
“Yes, I know of him. He is very controversial, but his work has helped me in my research. He is quite the recluse.”
“He’s dead.”
“Oh, I am sorry to hear that. I was unaware.”
Chapman took a deep breath. “It just happened a few days ago, in Greenland. I was there, well, not when he was killed, but soon thereafter.”
“Killed? Murdered?”
“Yes, I mean, no. He was killed by—” Chapman was about to explain when Hall 6 began to empty as Dr. Trussel’s presentation ended. He immediately became protective of Dr. Dubois and positioned his body to shield her from the view of the departing attendees. He felt better when he saw them race each other to the bars that were spread equidistant throughout the exhibition hall corridors.
“They are thirsty, no?” she asked.
Chapman was now standing very close to her. Close enough to smell her enticing perfume. He lowered his voice. “Yeah, so am I.”
She allowed herself a smile, one that melted Chapman. “Let us start over. I am Dr. Isabella Dubois from Paris.” She extended her hand to shake.
Chapman gently grasped it, and in a split second, he vowed never to let it go. “I am Chapman Boone, an American in Paris.”
Isabella laughed at the obvious reference to the beloved orchestral composition by famed composer George Gershwin for the musical An American in Paris. Then she furrowed her brow. “Wait, you are the man who asked about the wobble, yes?”
Chapman playfully raised his arms. “Guilty as charged. But I didn’t know it would end up in an argument.”
“No matter, Monsieur Boone. It was an argument that needed to happen.”
Chapman felt like a young boy going through puberty talking to the senior prom queen. With every word she uttered, he wanted to melt.
“Um, maybe you have the time to discuss this further. May I buy you a glass of wine? I’m staying right down the street at the Hotel—”
She cut him off. “No, Monsieur Boone. You may not buy me a glass of wine at the budget hotels of Paris Le Bourget. I will send a car for you. We will drink and talk in the city. But not wine, please, I drink American whiskey.”
Chapman was officially in love.
Chapter 40
Riverfront Farms
Southeast Indiana
For the most part, human beings acted in a rational manner. When confronted with the unexplainable, or a controversial topic they couldn’t fully grasp, they would find ways to understand the event. In psychology and logic, rationalization was the process of taking something they didn’t fully grasp or have an explanation for, and apply their learned experiences to create a plausible, simplified interpretation.
Squire and Sarah Boone had been operating Riverfront Farms for decades. They’d seen weather patterns change for the better and, now, for the worse. There were times when it rained so much that Squire wondered if he’d ever get his seeds in the ground. Now, due to extreme drought, he prayed for any type of moisture to save his crops.
Even animals had been prone to engage in abnormal behavior over the years, but no more so than that summer. The wild hog incident that frightened their daughter-in-law, Carly, was only one example.
There had been days when the horses were so agitated that nobody was willing to go near them, much less ride them or, god forbid, clean their hooves afterwards. The other day, two donkeys, the picture of docile creatures, brayed and stomped and eventually began to kick the barn boards off their enclosure.
And now, in a first during their lifetimes, the hens stopped laying eggs. Certainly, there had been times in which some of the chickens had been stressed out while a coyote came around late at night. Or that time some idiot in Louisville had the bright idea to have speedboat races on the Ohio River in front of the farm.
However, on those rare occasions, only some of the hens were affected. Not all of them, as had been the case for the last three days.
Squire watched the news and learned that a total solar eclipse was taking place over Far East Russia, Alaska, and parts of Northern Canada. He brought his information to Sarah, and they wondered whether that might explain the odd behavior of the hens. They decided that the solar eclipse was too far away, since it was set to pass over the Arctic and wouldn’t reach this far south.
Nonetheless, they stepped out onto the porch and looked toward a cloudless sky, which had become the norm. The sun was blazing in all its glory, baking the increasingly dried-out soil on their farm. Then, suddenly, the sky began to darken as the moon unexpectedly began to cross in front of the sun.
The Boones quickly averted their eyes, heeding the warnings they’d learned as children to not look directly at the sun without eye protection. The two of them had experienced the total eclipse of 2017, known as the Great American Solar Eclipse. They recalled the last time that occurred, which was in 1776. To think another one was happening just a decade or so later was astonishing, and not predicted by anyone.
&nb
sp; After it was over, Sarah opined that the total eclipse might be affecting their hens. Squire pointed out that the last eclipse didn’t, but then he admitted he couldn’t really remember. The two shrugged it off, agreeing the seemingly unconnected occurrences to be happenstance.
The fact was, the events were connected, but not in a way Squire and Sarah understood. Chapman and Kristi would soon begin to connect the dots.
Chapter 41
Paris, France
Filled with nervous excitement, Chapman scampered back to the hotel and showered. He hadn’t been on a date in years. To be sure, the casual invitation to have a drink with a new acquaintance might not officially qualify as a date, but for a guy who was married to his career, it was a momentous occasion.
He then stood in front of the small closet in the hotel room and stared at the few hanging clothes he’d packed. He discarded his winter gear that had been mauled and bloodied by his encounter with the polar bear. He’d brought the one suit and dress shirt that he’d worn all day. All he had left was a pair of crumpled khakis and a light blue seersucker shirt. After a quick ironing of his pants, he got dressed.
Chapman checked his watch and then he checked himself in the mirror. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy as he advanced into his late thirties. He’d abandoned his Indiana farm-boy clothing years ago when he quit chasing tornados through Oklahoma and Iowa. He did not, however, let his fame as a television personality go to his head when it came to how he dressed. He was still grounded in that respect.
The sun was setting as Chapman stepped outside the entrance to the hotel. It was truly shameful that he’d traveled all the way to Paris only to stay in the French equivalent of a Budget Inn. He was at the mercy of the TWC travel scheduler, and he was only expected to be there two nights before returning to Atlanta.
The driver of a white Citroën, the French-made automobile now owned by Peugeot, beeped its horn as he pulled up to the curb. He rolled down the window and shouted, “Monsieur Boone?”
“Yes.”
“Professor Dubois has sent me. You may ride in the front seat if you wish.”
Chapman piled in the smallish vehicle that was made for navigating the busy streets of Paris. The cool evening air whipped through the open rear windows of the car as the driver zipped toward the city on the Autoroute de Nord. Traffic was light, as was the conversation. From time to time, the driver would direct Chapman’s attention to certain points of interest, acting as an unofficial tour guide for the visitor.
Traffic slowed, as a rugby match was being held at the Stade de France, the national stadium of the Western European nation. Their route took them across the Seine, a five-hundred-mile river that meandered across France, through the heart of Paris, and into the English Channel.
Once they entered the heart of Paris, their progress slowed considerably. The driver pointed out historic churches and directed Chapman’s attention to the famous Eiffel Tower in the distance.
He chatted up Chapman, obviously proud of his fluent English. “We call Paris the city of love and romance. Paris and romance go together like champagne and caviar, café and croissants. Paris has an unparalleled beauty with its grand architecture. It also has charm with cobble streets and buildings that are not too tall. I have been to the concrete jungle of New York with its buildings towering over you. It is easy to get lost there.
“Not so in Paris. Here you have history and architecture and people who are all saying je t’aime.”
“Je t’aime?” Chapman was unfamiliar with the phrase.
“Oui, monsieur. It means I love you. It is a phrase you must learn.”
Chapman cocked his head and then nodded as he took in the scenery.
Then with a strong hint of irony, he drove past the Place de la Concorde, a major public square at the end of the Champs-Elysées, one of the most well-known streets in all of Paris. The Place de la Concorde was famous for the Luxor Obelisk, a thirty-three-hundred-year-old Egyptian obelisk moved to the square in the early 1800s, and the massive, two-hundred-foot-tall Ferris wheel known as the Roue de Paris. After Seattle, Chapman could’ve gone a while before seeing another Ferris wheel.
The final turn of the Citroen took him down the Rue de Rivoli, a street lined with high-end shopping that borders the north side of the Tuileries Garden, a beautiful open space that had graced Paris since 1564.
“Here is your destination, Monsieur Boone,” the driver announced as he stopped the car in the middle of the street. “Café Rivoli Park is one of Professor Dubois’s favorites.”
“Are you going to pick her up now?” asked Chapman.
“Non, Monsieur. She lives nearby. Enjoy your evening.”
Chapman had barely closed the door when the driver sped off into traffic. He stepped onto the sidewalk and took a deep breath. The sunset was incredible, casting an orangish glow off the exquisite architecture of old Paris. When he entered the restaurant, he was relieved to see that it was casual dining. He hadn’t known what to expect, as Isabella had simply said she’d send a car for him. The bar was lively, and the food appeared to be a mix of American fare with local French favorites.
The restaurant was full, so Chapman began to push his way toward the bar in search of Isabella. He did a double take when he spotted her sitting alone and talking on her cell phone. Her white Prada bag was settled on a barstool next to her, an obvious this seat is taken signal to anyone who attempted to join her.
Chapman caught his breath as he took in her beauty. Earlier, she had been professionally dressed in a suit that exuded confidence. Tonight, she was in a simple pale yellow dress that showed off her natural beauty. Chapman had never met a woman as stunning as Isabella.
Nor could he remember ever being this happy to see someone, especially since they’d just met. Besides her obvious attractiveness, he couldn’t get over her toughness, the dogged determination she showed when going toe-to-toe with the speaker earlier in the day. Having drinks with her would help him push the events of Seattle and Greenland out of his mind, at least for now.
She was just disconnecting her call when Chapman appeared by her side.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he greeted her with his best two-dimpled smile. He was proud of his effort to address her in French.
Her adorable laugh in response was well worth the effort.
“Bienvenue dans mon Paris, Monsieur Boone.” Welcome to my Paris.
She stood and hugged him, supplying a soft kiss to each of his cheeks. Chapman had never been so warmly greeted by another human being in his life. He fought to stand as his knees became weak and his face flushed.
She motioned for him to sit. It was a good thing, as he thought he was about to collapse.
He’d been struck by the thunderbolt.
Chapter 42
Paris, France
Eventually, Chapman suppressed his lovestruck feelings and settled into an interesting conversation with Isabella. The two exchanged pleasantries, talking first about their careers and then sharing information about their families. It was relaxing and the two strangers eventually began to act like a couple. He’d make her laugh; then she’d return the favor while gently touching his arm.
They were oblivious to the fact that the restaurant was emptying out except for them. Eventually, the conversation turned to her interaction with Dr. Trussel at the conference earlier that day.
“As I said earlier, they are not interested in alternative theories to their climate-change narrative,” said Isabella. “The thought that the world is changing on its own is not an option. What bothers me the most is that historical, scientific evidence is ignored, and anyone who tries to challenge current thought is shouted down.”
Chapman disclosed what he’d learned from Dr. Pruitt’s journals. “He focused his efforts on the drift of the north pole. He points out that the magnetic poles frequently don’t line up with the pole as defined by the axis of the Earth’s rotation. His findings definitely point to a large change in the motion of the magnetic North P
ole, which has taken a great leap from the Canadian side of the geographic North Pole well into Siberia. It is now approaching Kazakhstan.”
Isabella picked up on his point. “The data I have supports his hypothesis. The geologic record shows hundreds of pole reversals have occurred throughout our planet’s history. Patches of iron atoms in Earth’s liquid outer core become reverse-aligned, like tiny magnets oriented in the opposite direction from those around them. When the reversed patches grow to the point they dominate the rest of the core, Earth’s overall magnetic field flips.”
“So you’re saying that the wobble referenced by Dr. Trussel may be real, but it’s not caused by the melting of the polar ice caps or the extraordinary thaw in Greenland. Am I right?”
“Yes, Chapman, exactly. The Earth isn’t wobbling, as he says, due to the melt off. The melt off is occurring due to the wobble, or shift in the poles. They have it backwards.”
Chapman chuckled. “No wonder they shouted you down.”
Isabella grimaced and sipped the last of her bourbon. “It was not unexpected, but rude nonetheless.”
“Dr. Trussel pointed out that the shift takes many centuries to occur. You said that this one is different. Why?”
“The science supports it. A study in your state of Nevada, at Battle Mountain, discovered magnetic minerals in fifteen-million-year-old rocks. The geologists found that the minerals preserved a geomagnetic field reversal that occurred within a hundred years or less. This was the second study of its kind, with the other being at Steens Mountain, Oregon.”
“Why wasn’t this more widely reported?”
“Neither of the findings gained acceptance in the paleomagnetism community. Part of the reason, again, in my opinion, is because it runs contrary to the climate-change narrative. I’m trying to make the case that we now have several studies that indicate a superfast magnetic change occurred in the past, and therefore, it could happen again.”