Donovan stared at her. He wished he could say something that would wipe the superior grin off of her face. She’d said what he feared most and was now gloating in her revelation.
“I can tell by your expression that I’m right,” Erin said, triumphantly. “It’s hard to believe I’m sitting across the table from the Robert Huntington.
“That’s pretty far-fetched.” Donovan was having trouble getting a full breath. The tables had just turned and he felt powerless. Images of the press flew through his mind—the hordes of jackal-minded men and women clamoring outside his house in Los Angeles after Meredith was murdered. His carefully orchestrated “normal” life was going to end. He didn’t know what he felt most, sadness or anger.
“You can stop acting like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Or maybe I can refresh your memory? Let’s see…where should I start? You graduated Magna Cum Laude from your father’s alma mater of Dartmouth. A double major in business and economics—plus I believe you’re also fluent in both French and Spanish. From there you went to England and attended Oxford University where you earned another degree in international business strategies. Once you took the helm of Huntington Oil you were easily one of the top ten richest men in America. Shall I continue?”
Donovan sat motionless as the memories washed over him.
“I found pictures of you back then. The number of magazine covers you graced is quite impressive. It was years ago, and the face is somewhat different, but I’m guessing you had plastic surgery. Your eyes are the same; you have the same build. You’re him. Your body was never recovered. The entire plane crash scenario was just a ploy.”
Donovan took a measured sip of his coffee.
“Why?” Erin prodded. “You had everything. Why vanish?”
“Why do you think?” he said finally, knowing the pain and anguish were visible in his eyes. He saw Erin recoil at the change in his demeanor. “Why does everyone think that being rich erases all of life’s pain? If you’ve done your research, then you know about Meredith Barnes.”
“I’m not the enemy.” Erin leaned back and lowered her eyes. “I’m a reporter who uncovered the story of the year. Of course I know about Meredith Barnes—who doesn’t? But that’s not the story…you are.”
“No matter the cost?” Donovan felt all of his buried hatred toward the media come to the surface. “Even if you destroy something worthwhile in the process?”
“The truth is the truth.” Erin looked him in the eye. “I don’t play God, Mr. Nash. It’s not my call.”
Donovan knew he’d lost. Erin had something of immense value and nothing he could say or do would change her mind. He thought of her notes, the espionage charges, the leaked DIA report. It occurred to him that her discovery of Robert Huntington would erase all of that. Eco-Watch could go on as before. If he managed this correctly, then perhaps he would be the only victim.
“I can only guess what you are thinking,” Erin continued to press. “Please don’t try to change my mind. I can assure you, it’ll be a waste of time.”
“I’m aware of that. If you’d wanted money you’d have asked by now. I know all about people going to extreme lengths to take money from those who they think have too much.”
“I just want the story. Nothing else.”
“You’ve never lost a loved one, have you?”
Erin lowered her head. “I’m sorry for your loss. But it doesn’t change anything.”
Donovan nodded, “Okay. Here’s where I make you a deal.”
“I’ve been waiting for this part,” Erin replied quickly.
“I’ll give you the story. You can have an exclusive.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You have to give me some time to get my affairs in order. There are things I need to do, people I need to talk to before all of this comes out.”
“What assurances do I have that you won’t release the story to someone else, steal my thunder?”
“That’s what’s important to you, isn’t it? Your thunder? The fact that you’ll make the front page.”
“Up to now, I haven’t made it out of the Arts and Leisure section. I’m good at what I do and this will go a long way toward proving that to everyone.”
“You have my word,” Donovan said simply. His mind was still working on a way to minimize the damage this woman was about to inflict.
“Not good enough.” Erin shook her head.
“It’ll have to be.” Donovan gave her a piercing stare. “My cooperation doesn’t come without a price, Ms. Walker. What I want from you is the identity of the person who leaked you the classified DIA documents. We both know that neither myself nor Eco-Watch is in the business of espionage.”
Erin swallowed hard at his demand; her eyes grew large.
“You’re a dangerous man,” she said finally. “I can only guess you’ve somehow seen my notes.”
“I have my sources also, but I’m not unreasonable,” he countered, feeling he’d scored a minor victory. “Don’t you agree I’m probably not someone who needs to steal and sell classified data?”
“Perhaps not. I’ll have to think about it.”
“You do that.” Donovan pulled out a business card and jotted down the number of his cell phone.
“Here’s how you can reach me. We can start working on this the minute you agree to help me.”
“If you have as much to lose as you claim…a girl might wonder if she’s safe.” Erin took the card from his outstretched hand. “Am I?”
“Perfectly,” Donovan promised. “I wouldn’t have bothered to talk to you if that weren’t the case. I think you know by now, I’m in the business of helping people, not hurting them.”
“I had to ask.” Erin looked slightly embarrassed as well as relieved. “There are a lot of strange things going on in Washington.”
“I won’t say it’s been enjoyable.” Donovan’s voice was filled with a strange detachment.
Erin picked up her tape recorder and stood to leave. “I’ll be in touch. But we do have a deal, right? You won’t leak this story to anyone else?”
“Only if you help me.”
“I think I can arrange that.” Erin slung her purse over her shoulder.
Donovan felt hollow, but managed a nod.
“There’s really nothing in the trunk of my car is there?” She cocked her head as if finally understanding.
He shook his head. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Donovan watched as the Honda sped out of the parking lot. He left some bills on the table and went outside. He started up the Range Rover and waited for the air conditioning to make the interior livable. With the push of a button, he dialed William.
“It’s me again. Our date was cut short. She just left.”
“Did it go well?”
“No. She knows everything. How are things at your end?”
“I think we made some progress. I’ll know within the hour. Did she get our little gift?”
“Yes.” Donovan knew he was referring to the tracking device he’d put under her rear wheel well.
“Good. Now go relax, play golf. Do something except worry about what’s going to happen. I think we’ve accomplished a great deal this morning.”
“I’ll talk to you later.” Donovan felt a rush of warmth for his oldest friend. “And thank you for everything.”
“It’s my pleasure. Take care of yourself.”
Donovan hung up the phone. He felt both drained and vulnerable. The last twenty-four hours had been an emotional roller coaster. For the time being, everything was out of his hands. He thought of Lauren. What would she make of all of this? Was William right? Should he tell her everything—before she read about him in the newspaper? Feeling dejected, Donovan put the Range Rover into gear and headed away from the hotel. He wasn’t sure where he was going, only that he needed to be in motion.
CHAPTER NINE
Lauren made her way down the hallway. Since it was Sunday, the entire floor was nearly de
serted. Most of the people were in the lab watching Helena’s progress. In the last two hours the hurricane had intensified as it rotated toward the coast. Lauren finally had to leave, feeling the walls starting to close in. Her head throbbed from too many hours staring at computer monitors. She needed to find something to take or her headache would linger all day. As more data had come in, Lauren had the overwhelming impression she was watching a slow motion train wreck. Even if Helena started to dissipate right this moment, it would still impact the U.S. as a devastating storm—and everything she’d seen told her Helena was only growing stronger.
Lauren went into her office and sat wearily at her desk. She looked in her purse for some aspirin but found none. Irritated, she quickly scoured the contents of her desk and again came up empty. She slammed the last drawer shut in frustration. She leaned back and kneaded the knotted muscles in her neck. A memory of Donovan’s back rubs jumped into her consciousness. She closed her eyes and wished the uninvited images of him would stop. She thought of the research flight scheduled for early in the morning. Under any other circumstances she wouldn’t go, but being two people short, it was now a necessity. She wondered if Donovan would be flying the mission, or would he pass?
The phone on her desk erupted to life. Lauren jumped at the intrusion and quickly snatched the receiver before it could ring again.
“Dr. McKenna.”
“Lauren. Calvin here. Can you please come to my office?”
“On my way.” Lauren quietly replaced the phone. She swung out of her chair and headed down the hall.
“Doctor.” Brent called out from the door of the lab as Lauren hurried past. He had a clipboard in his hand.
“Yes?” She stopped and looked in his direction.
“We were just looking for you. The director wants you.”
“I’m on my way.”
Brent jogged to where she stood. “Here’s the latest track printout from Jonah. The steering winds have definitely accelerated. She’s picked up two knots.”
“Can I have that?” Lauren took the clipboard and scanned the data. She looked into Brent’s eager face. She knew he was trying very hard to please her. She remembered her promise to recommend him for field duty.
“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is. Thanks. I really need to go. I’ll be back in the lab as soon as I’m finished with Calvin.” She noticed him eyeing her figure.
“I’ll be at my station monitoring the storm.” Brent lowered his eyes to the floor.
Lauren turned away from him and smiled. She wondered if Brent were trying to impress her to get out of the lab, or if there were another, more personal reason for his eagerness to please. The thought was both flattering and beyond contemplation. He was a nice kid, but nearly a decade younger. Still, it was nice to be noticed, thought of as a woman instead of another labcoat. The thoughts vanished as she hurried into Calvin’s office.
“Close the door.” Calvin looked up as she arrived.
Lauren swung the heavy door until it latched. She turned and found him getting out from behind his desk. He was headed for the leather chairs, his signal that this was going to be a more relaxed dialogue instead of an official conversation. He waited until she’d settled, then sat down himself.
“What a morning! I’ve been on the phone non-stop since we last spoke. Capitol Hill and the Pentagon are pretty riled up about this storm. They’ve corroborated your estimates with the National Weather Service and NOAA, as well as with NASA. Hell, I think they’d bring in the local weather man from channel five, if they thought they could gain some insight.”
“I just told them what I thought.”
“I understand, and you did a good job. The information from Jonah is proving to be the most real-time asset we have right now in predicting the hurricane. Which makes us the lead agency as far as the White House is concerned.”
“The White House?” Lauren asked, not sure what Calvin was building up to.
“The last call I fielded was from Drew Montori. Do you know who he is?”
Lauren nodded. He was the president’s Chief of Staff. Everything that reached the Oval Office, first went through Montori.
“He was fully briefed on the situation and had just spoken with the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He gave me some numbers.”
“Damage assessment?” Lauren ventured.
Calvin nodded as he slid his glasses on, then looked down at his hastily scribbled notes.
“Up until now, hurricane Andrew has been the costliest disaster in U.S. history. Something like twenty billion dollars, almost a quarter million people left homeless. He gave me those numbers as a reference. Helena, if it comes ashore where you estimated—and by the way, everyone else’s calculations seem to be more or less in line with yours… Anyway, if Helena does what we think she’ll do, the Eastern Seaboard from the tip of Long Island down to Atlantic City will be totally destroyed. As you said, New York City will cease to function. Even being conservative, they think damage will easily run into the trillions of dollars. Loss of life will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 15,000 people.”
Lauren nodded in agreement at the grim projections.
“Millions will lose their homes and livelihoods. The White House says the long-term economic damage is off the chart. This disaster is being compared with a nuclear detonation over New York City. In their words, it’s unacceptable.”
“Tell them to get used to it. Helena is coming,” Lauren said, forcefully. She held up the clipboard Brent had given her. “And faster than we thought.”
He nodded and removed his glasses. He fidgeted in his seat.
“What’s up, Calvin?” Lauren asked, quietly. She’d known him a long time and only on rare occasions had she seen him stall.
“Your security clearance has just been upgraded. What I have to tell you is for your ears only. It will not, I repeat, not be shared with anyone. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes.” Lauren ignored the small chill that ran up and down her spine.
“There’s something the Pentagon and the White House are considering. Seems a few years back, a bright young graduate student at MIT proposed a bold plan to alter the size and energy of a hurricane.”
Lauren physically jumped in her seat. With a sinking feeling, she knew Calvin was talking about her.
“You remember, I take it?”
“Calvin.” Lauren’s body went numb. “I wrote that paper as a joke. I was sick and tired of studying hurricanes. I’d had it up to my eyeballs about their formation and structure. One night, I decided to just blow the damn thing up. I did it as a lark. My professor got a kick out of it and it was over. It was never intended to leave the classroom!”
“He got a kick out of it, all right. He forwarded it to the Pentagon. The operation is called ‘Thor’s Hammer’.”
“Oh no.” Lauren heard her voice waver. “They can’t. It’s not a reality; it’s a joke. I used all sorts of imaginary principles, starting with a bomb big enough to have an effect. This is crazy!”
“According to what Montori told me, a lot of people have honed your theory over the years. They’re convinced your original concept still holds up. The detonation of a high-yield nuclear device in the eye of a hurricane will alter the dynamics to the point the storm begins to fall in on itself.”
“Calvin.” Lauren leaned forward and used her hands for emphasis. “It would take a nuclear bomb in the 100-125 megaton class to even put a dent in Helena.”
“It’s being transported from storage to an Air Force base in Texas as we speak. It’s 115 megatons. They’re modifying a B-1 bomber to carry the device.”
Lauren jumped to her feet. “Never in my wildest dreams did I intend for my stupid little paper to become someone’s plan!”
“From what I’ve been told, it’s a brilliant theory.”
Lauren’s hands went to her temples as she processed the information. She began to pace back and forth behind her chair. �
��Calvin, the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was a measly fifteen kilotons. You’re telling me that they have a device eight-thousand times bigger lying around to use on Helena?”
“It was built years ago…for this purpose. They wanted to use it on Andrew, but as that storm formed over the Caribbean, they couldn’t get a clean shot before it hit Florida. Helena is out over the open Atlantic. It’s the perfect opportunity, as outlined in your original hypothesis.”
“Oh, screw my hypothesis!” Lauren stopped pacing and steadied herself. “I’m sorry Calvin, but my God! I feel like someone read my diary and plastered it up on a billboard. We can’t go around and nuke every bit of bad weather we find on the planet. This is the most irresponsible act I’ve ever heard of. Helena is already a product of our own doing. I truly believe that we’re moving toward a major climatic shift due to a dozen factors, not the least of which is global warming. Have they learned nothing from witnessing our past errors?”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Lauren.” Calvin removed his glasses and inspected them against the light. “Forget for a moment that this was your brainchild. I can tell you that you will in no way be named as the author of the plan. I saw to that. But our—my question to you is…will it work?”
Lauren studied Calvin. He was dead serious. Any moral reservations she might have were insignificant. At that moment she knew that the government, despite any of her reservations, was going to try to blow up Helena. She took a deep breath, put both hands on the back of the chair, and tried to collect her thoughts. Slowly, she weighed her objections against the devastation of New York City, of the horrific damage estimates she’d heard.
“They have their experts,” Lauren said, softly. “Ask them.”
“I’m asking you.” Calvin finished cleaning his wire-rim glasses and slid them on his nose.
“Why?” Lauren knew Calvin was fishing.
“They have the device. You have the knowledge of hurricanes. Plus, we have Jonah. The exact placement and altitude of the air-burst within the storm is still being debated.”
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