by Karen Dionne
“So would I,” Ross chimed in. “I’ve read about your process. Impressive stuff.”
Ben frowned. If Zo had brought Ross in on their plan, she should have told him.
Gillette looked like he wanted to refuse. Ben supposed he could contrive to get the sample himself if he did. It wouldn’t be easy with Gillette hanging around issuing orders, but he could figure something out.
“Oh, all right,” Gillette finally said. “Anyone else? Ben? Everybody? We can make it a party.”
“That’s okay,” Ben said quickly. “We’ve seen it all.”
As the three headed for the door, Ben grinned. Not only were things going exactly according to plan, but Gillette had just given him the chance to tell his side of the story without Mr. Popular around.
Chapter 51
Too easy, Zo thought as she tugged on her helmet and turned the key. Ask “Can I come?” and the guy says yes just like that? She expected to have to argue harder. Ben implied that his boss was some kind of Machiavellian mastermind. Either Ben was wrong, or Gillette had something besides his arm up his sleeve. She opened the throttle and fell into line.
The melt zone was three miles north of the op center. The lack of a flag line made her nervous. At the moment the weather was clear, but what if a storm blew up? Three miles was more than enough room in which to get lost. Her snowmobile had a GPS on the dash, but when she’d navigated across the peninsula in the Hägglunds, there were plenty of times she’d needed both.
She thought about her camp, and her research, and her whalers’ hut. This is my ice shelf, she whispered fiercely to herself. Somewhere close by, possibly right beneath her feet, were the boreholes she had made to measure its movement.
She’d spent hours, days, tramping the surface. She knew it intimately, the way a mother recognized her baby, or a woman her lover’s contours. That raised area off to the right where the ice was piled up like alphabet blocks definitely looked familiar.
Gillette was riding blithely in the lead as though he owned the place. She would have known he was responsible for destroying her ice shelf even if Ben hadn’t told her. Ruthlessness emanated from him like a stink. Men like him ruined everything—plundering the planet, piling up profits, their utter lack of a conscience allowing them to sleep like babies.
The kind of man the world would be better off without.
The thought came to her unbidden. Full-blown. Insistent. Gillette could have an accident and no one would be the wiser. Antarctica was completely outside the law. Remote, and inaccessible. A place where anything could happen, and often did.
She clenched her teeth and sped up.
“Easy, Tiger,” Ross said.
His voice took her by surprise. She hadn’t realized her helmet with equipped with a mike. She was glad she hadn’t spoken her thoughts out loud.
Gillette stopped near a spindly-looking overhead grid. Beneath the grid was a lake of frozen water so smooth, Zo almost wished for a pair of skates.
“This is a rectenna grid,” Gillette explained. “What you’re looking at is a series of short, dipole antennas. When the satellites are turned on, a pilot beam shoots up from the center of the grid like the beam of a flashlight, then the microwaves follow the beam back down. That building”—he pointed to a red Quonset a half mile away—“is our pumphouse. We control the three submersibles in the middle of the lake from there. Over there”—he pointed to a large-diameter pipe leading off toward the west—“is our water hose. Runs out to the edge of the cliff and down to the tanker. It’s black to absorb heat from the sun and keep the water flowing. Naturally it’s insulated, too. Okay. That’s the grand tour. Not much to see, as you can tell. The real action happens up in space.” He picked up his helmet. “I’m going over to the pumphouse. Stay here or go back to the op center, whatever you want. Just remember we’re leaving in half an hour. If you’re not ready, we’re not coming back.”
Such a gracious host. As Zo watched him drive off, she wished a crevasse would swallow him up.
In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a crevasse nearby. She tried to picture the scene without Soldyne’s intrusions. Yes, the formation behind the pumphouse was the one that used to remind her of Mount Rushmore. On the other side, a dark blue line below the surface led to a crack that opened into a crevasse so deep, when she’d dropped in a handful of beach gravel, she hadn’t heard them hit the bottom. God, they were such idiots. Setting up their microwave operation in the vicinity of a crevasse was beyond stupid. If they’d melted their lake just a little deeper, or located it closer, there was no telling what would have happened. Typical. Dream up a new technology, and before they even considered the consequences, they rushed to try it.
She waited until Gillette had attained the pumphouse, then walked over to the lake. There was a narrow band of open water along the edge where the ice didn’t quite meet the shore. She took off her gloves, took a plastic bottle from her pocket, filled it, capped it, and filled another.
“If you’re that thirsty, I’ve got a water bottle in my pocket,” Ross said.
“You wouldn’t want to drink this water. Or rather, the ninety-three percent of the population that’s not diabetic wouldn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
She handed him a bottle and grinned. “The water’s contaminated, Ross. The same as ours at the station. Probably not in the identical concentration,” she added, considering the frozen expanse, “but the microbe’s in there just the same. Ben told me his crew showed signs of insulin overdose after drinking the water, and they have rats here, too. This used to be the ice shelf’s leading edge. When it broke off, some of the rats that were out hunting must have gotten trapped.”
Ross opened his mouth, said nothing, looked appalled.
“Come on, big guy. Smile. This is a good thing. Don’t you get it? Now that we have a microbe sample, we can research our discovery, demonstrate our theory, publish a paper. You’re the one who was looking for extremophiles. Now you’ve got one.”
“It’s not a good thing. This is terrible. Worse than you can possibly imagine.”
“If you’re thinking of the water in Ben’s tanker, don’t worry. One of these samples is for him. When we get back, he’ll have the tanker’s water tested. If the microbe shows up, he can get an injunction or whatever to make sure the water stays inside.” Talk about a spoilsport. Here she’d offered him a chance for fame and glory, and he couldn’t even see it.
“You don’t understand.” Ross’s face was as pale as she’d ever seen it. “Keeping the water inside the tanker isn’t going to happen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“As soon as the ship docks in the harbor, POP is going to blow a hole in the side of it.”
“What? My God, Ross! You POP people are nuts! What is it with you guys and explosions? I read about the stuff you do in the papers. Rebecca Sweet is out of her mind. I don’t understand how you can condone her behavior, let alone be a part of it. There are plenty of ways to fight for the planet and stay moral.”
“POP is moral—more moral than people like you who’d sit back and judge. They never hurt anyone, only property. At least they’re doing something besides compiling statistics.”
“Well, you’re going to have to rethink this one. Do you have any idea what could happen if that water is released into the ocean?”
“Who’s the microbiologist here? Of course I know. I’m not nearly as stupid as you give me credit for. We’ve got to get back to the op center right away. I need to call Rebecca and tell her to put her plans on hold.” He pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch. “We should just make it. The next satellite window opens in a few minutes.”
“Why the rush?”
“The tanker’s due in tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Ben said it would take at least another week.”
“Ben’s wrong. POP has been tracking the ship. I talked to Rebecca this morning.”
“You talked to Rebecca?
You’re that high up in the organization?” Zo remembered Ross’s earlier e-mails. A spy. What other critical information had he been supplying?
“I’m nobody special. I’m not even a member. Rebecca is my sister.”
Zo studied him for a long moment. For all his arrogance, his manipulative game-playing, his withholding of personal information while slyly extracting hers, she sensed that this time, he was telling the truth. She pulled on her helmet, then stopped.
“Wait a minute.” She pointed toward the frozen lake. A thick, white mist was rising from the center, hanging over the surface like fog over a field. At first, she thought it was the wind kicking up snow. Then she realized what she was seeing.
Steam.
Chapter 52
“He fired you?” Toshi said. He and the rest of the crew were sitting in an interested circle while Ben filled in the gaps in Gillette’s version. “Un-friggin-believable.”
“Hey, I’m really sorry, man,” Eugene said.
“Makes me want to quit,” Phil said. “This is total crap.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ben said. “Really. Believe it or not, I was going to quit anyway.”
“Why would you do that?” Toshi looked genuinely upset. Ben felt a twinge of pity. The kid was such an idealist. Wait till he heard what was coming next.
“I found out something about the iceberg that none of us were told. Zo—the woman you just met—was doing research on our side of the peninsula, measuring the movements of the ice shelf. She was there when the iceberg broke off. The iceberg didn’t happen on its own. It had help.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that someone blasted it off using explosives.”
“No way,” Eugene said.
“It’s true. Zo took pictures and collected some of the garbage they’d left behind.” Evidence which unfortunately had been lost when the station burned down. What Ben wouldn’t have given to be able to wave her photos at his upcoming press conference.
“And you think Soldyne was responsible?” Susan asked. “It could have been the Australians. They got to the berg first. They were probably right there waiting.”
“It was Soldyne. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Quentin will tell you himself.”
“Quentin?” Susan looked at him as though he were nuts.
Ben walked over to Quentin’s desk, opened the middle drawer, and took out a business card. “I found this in Quentin’s wallet. If Quentin wasn’t involved, why was he doing business with an explosives expert?”
“Holy cow,” Phil said. “Gonna be something when this hits the fan.”
“No kidding,” Toshi agreed.
“Who else knows about this?” Susan asked.
“Only the five of us, Ross and Zo, and Zo’s husband, Elliot. He’s in the infirmary on the ship. I imagine others at Raney knew, but they’re all gone.” He shivered.
“I’ll bet anything the detonating cord leads right back to Gillette,” Eugene said. “It’s got to. He and Quentin were tight.”
“I’m going to call a press conference when I get back to L.A.,” Ben said. “Tell the world what Soldyne did. Then I’m through.”
The others were silent. Probably wondering if they should do the same. Ben wouldn’t have minded their support; multiple resignations would make a stronger statement, but he wouldn’t fault them if they didn’t quit. It wasn’t easy to take a stand for principles when there were bills to pay.
Suddenly, Toshi’s laptop began to beep. It wasn’t a friendly “You’ve got mail” kind of chime; to Ben, it sounded more like an alarm.
“What the—” Toshi swiveled around and stared at his monitor.
“What is it?” Ben hurried over.
“It’s not possible,” Toshi muttered as he clicked the mouse and punched keys. “It can’t be.”
“What can’t be?” Ben asked. “Come on, Toshi. Fill us in.”
“It’s the satellite beam. Someone turned it on.”
“Impossible,” Susan said. “No one’s touched your computer.”
“I know that, but look.” Toshi pointed at the screen. The scrolling figures meant nothing to Ben.
“It’s an anomaly,” Susan said. “Something’s wrong with your program.”
“Or maybe it turned itself on by accident,” Phil offered.
“No way,” Toshi said. “There are controls to prevent that. The only way the beam can be turned on is if someone does so deliberately.”
Deliberately. The word hit Ben like a punch to the gut. Just like someone had deliberately broken off a section of the ice shelf? Could Gillette really be that stupid?
“Then there has to be something wrong with your program,” Susan repeated. “There’s no other explanation.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my program. Numbers don’t lie. I’m telling you the temperature’s going up. Look! It says so right there. The lake is melting.”
Eugene ran outside. A moment later, he was back. “The beam is on, all right, and you should see all the steam. The melt zone looks like a damn mushroom cloud!”
“What’s up with that?” Phil ran for the door. “The lake didn’t create steam the first time we turned the beam on.”
Toshi punched in more numbers. “The beam’s set to maximum power!”
“Goddamn,” Eugene said. “Turn it off.”
“I can’t. The program’s not responding.” Toshi looked like he was going to cry.
“Okay, we’re done here,” Ben said. “We’re not going to stick around and see what happens. I want everyone to head for the ship. Don’t take anything with you, just get the hell off. I’ll meet you on board. I’m going to warn the others.”
“But—” Susan said.
Ben silenced her with a look. She didn’t have to spell out the danger. If the beam really was set to maximum power, there were no guarantees it was confined to the melt zone. But did he have a choice?
“Get to the ship,” he repeated. “On the double. Move!”
He picked up a helmet and went out the door. Apparently, fate had once again designated him the hero.
Chapter 53
When the lights in the pumphouse flickered, dimmed, and came back up ten minutes earlier, Donald had presumed a power fluctuation and gone back to work. Now, he wasn’t so sure. The atmosphere inside the pumphouse felt strange. Charged. Crackling with static, as though the very air were on fire. He knew it was his imagination, but that didn’t prevent the hair on his arms from standing on end. He hated dark, confined spaces, and the windowless pumphouse qualified on both counts. Too many unexplained noises; too many secret shadows.
Ten minutes earlier was also when he had gotten the call from Susan with the two ominous words that had changed everything: “They know.” It was no wonder his nerves were on edge.
How Ben had found out about the explosion, Donald had no idea, but it was going to stop here and now. The knowledge couldn’t be allowed to spread. The longer the situation went on, the worse it would get, like a gyroscope spinning off-center. Action was key. Immediate. Bold. Unflinching.
Ben and the others had to be eliminated. It was that simple. If the news got out about what Donald had done, the environmentalists and politicians would have a field day. He’d done nothing wrong—the blast wasn’t illegal; no one owned Antarctica and there were no regulatory agencies to answer to and no enforcement, but it wouldn’t matter. Public opinion would crucify him. When they got through, no one on the planet would be willing to take his side except the lawyers he’d be forced to hire.