NH3

by Stanley Salmons

  “It’s a helluva call, Harry. I don’t know that any President’s had to face one like it, except maybe the other Harry – Truman – when they asked him to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

  “Yeah, and people still ask whether he did the right thing. Anyway, we’re not there yet; I’m still hoping the biologists can come up with something in time. Have someone earmark one of those buildings on the Florida campus for the research institute. I’ll get Maggie Ferris and Terry McKinley to take a look at it.”

  “The two Brits? Why them?”

  “Because they’ll know exactly what they need. They discovered this problem in the first place; they know more about it, and they’ve thought more about it, than anyone else. And they’re the only ones who’ve come up with realistic strategies for dealing with it. That institute is our one hope of a permanent solution.”

  “Who’s directing it?”

  “Herbert Kramer.”

  “OSTP?”

  “Yes. Advises me on science and technology policy – broad-brush stuff.”

  “He’ll be busy with his own office.”

  “That’s the idea, we only want him nominally in charge; it’s years since he was at a lab bench. He can just keep an eye on things, oversee the budget, general admin. Ferris and McKinley will be Deputy Directors. They’ll actually run the show.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Kinghorn grunted. “We have to move quickly on this, Chuck. Leak that hurricane memo the moment you get back and when it hits the media tell the university to clear the campus. As soon as that building’s available I’ll have Ferris and McKinley fly down there to size it up.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Less than a week later, Terry and Maggie had taken two rooms next to each other in the residential accommodation on campus at the University of Central Florida and the huge transfer operation had begun. From that moment the whole place had buzzed continually with activity: a constant flux of deliveries, new arrivals, people hurrying to and fro, the drone of incoming trucks, the rattle of pallets, and the shouts of workmen as equipment and materials were unloaded by forklifts. If they looked carefully they could sometimes spot the armed members of the United States Marine Corps, two inside the entrance of every building except the Research Institute, where their teams were to be based.

  The Institute was a seven-storey block, and its impressive glass frontage, which took on the colour of the blue Florida sky, was streaked with the jagged reflections of the tall palm trees that lined the avenue outside. The grass around it was littered with paper, discarded soft drink cans, and the polystyrene containers left over from fast food meals, evidence of the rapid evacuation which had just taken place.

  Only part of their time was spent on the campus. They were flying back to Washington almost daily, coordinating the movement of people and equipment. Their colleagues also wanted the rest of their research teams brought in from the host institutions. The constant pressure was beginning to take its toll on both of them.

  Kramer appeared only infrequently and seldom stayed for long. In contrast, his administrative assistants were permanently on site, busy liaising with suppliers and installation engineers, placing orders, and dealing with accounts.

  During one of the Washington trips Terry and Maggie had a short, but helpful meeting with the Vice-President in his room at the White House.

  “How’s the move going?”

  Terry took a deep breath. “Still a few glitches with equipment installation and testing but we’re almost operational now. Aren’t we, Maggie?”

  She nodded.

  Terry continued: “There were just a few things I wanted to raise with you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Okay. When the site was evacuated you decided to leave behind some key maintenance staff.”

  “Yes, they put the case for that and we thought it made sense.”

  “It does. But there’s also a supercomputer on the campus. It was left operational, pending a final decision.”

  “You want to keep it running?”

  “If we’re going to do climate modelling we’ll need access to something as big as that.”

  The Vice-President scribbled in the notebook.

  “You got it. Anything else?”

  “Thinking ahead a little, now. I think fuel will be in short supply. That’ll be a problem for everyone, but it’ll be a particular problem for us. We’ll have aircraft doing the atmospheric sampling. That could take a lot of fuel.”

  The Vice-President looked at Terry and his eyes narrowed. “You’re talking, like, six months ahead, if we have to blow the supervolcano?”

  “Yes. Obviously we hope we don’t have to, but we have to plan for it.”

  “Terry, you’ll have to manage the best you can. We anticipate that most of the Texas wells and refineries will remain in operation, and we may be able to buy some in. Get your groups to decide what would be the most effective use of the resources you’ve got. What’s next?”

  “Are we going to be all right for electricity, sir? I’m thinking of the possible fuel shortages again. We can’t afford to have computers and data banks going down in the middle of everything.”

  “I looked into that. There shouldn’t be a problem. Even if we run out of coal and oil there are three nuclear power stations in Florida and there’s also some hydroelectric power. We’ll be sure to give the campus priority call on it.”

  “Fine. Well I think that’s it for the moment.” They got up and the Vice-President came with them as far as the door. Terry turned to him. “Most of the research staff have moved in now. We’d like to get the research under way again as soon as we can. When can we brief them?”

  “Soon. But you have a bigger group with a lot of new people so there’s still a potential security problem. The President will be flying down to make an inspection. He wants to be sure his entire secondary centre of government is operational. At that point he’ll give the go-ahead and a cordon will be thrown around the entire campus.” He smiled. “Then you can tell them.”

  They shook hands and left.

  “You’ve got to admire how they’ve set this up so quickly,” said Terry. “The sheer energy and resources they’re putting into it. It reminds me a bit of the Manhattan Project.”

  “I hope we can leave the world a better legacy than the Manhattan Project.”

  Terry looked at her. “Right now, I’ll settle for leaving a world at all.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I am thoroughly and comprehensively pissed off.”

  Matt Oakley had that peculiar brand of youthfulness and energy that often characterized young, ambitious Americans. He’d grown up in a poor Bronx neighbourhood, and a prolonged stint at the Sanger Institute had neither left him with a Cambridge accent nor had refined, in any noticeable way, his speech habits. Matt, together with the other people who’d been moved out of the NIH and down to Florida, had congregated in the lounge at the Research Institute just after breakfast. His feet were on a laminate-topped table, ankles crossed, his plastic chair leaning back at an alarming angle.

  Pieter van der Rijt said. “You don’t like it here?”

  He waved a hand. “Oh it’s all very nice, Pieter, but I wasn’t exactly planning on a sunshine holiday. I’ve got work to do.”

  “Why did we have to move anyway?” Jos Wentink asked.

  “Something important has happened,” his supervisor, Ulrich Lunsdorfer, said. “This is clear.”

  “But what?” Jos said. “Maggie would not tell me.”

  Rajiv Gupta came over with a plastic beaker of coffee and pulled up a chair. “She is saying something about a heightened security situation. I think she cannot say more at the moment.”

  “I don’t know,” Matt said. “I stop everything and fly to Washington because everyone’s in a big fucking hurry. The moment we start work we’re pulled out and plonked down here. To do what? Sit around drinking coffee?”

  Silvia Mussini frowned. “Come on, Matt, you
know how hard Maggie has worked to move the research group here. She looks really exhausted. And Terry, too.”

  “Yeah, well that’s another thing, Silvia. This guy Terry. I gather he’s a planetary physicist, f’r Chrissake. What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?”

  Silvia smiled. “The price of eggs? Really, Matt.”

  Sara Tennant, her postgraduate student, said, “We’ll have to be patient, is all. They did say we’d be fully briefed once we were down here.”

  “Well,” Matt said. “We’re down here and we still know zip. They’re taking forever to install my fucking sequencer and I’m bored out of my skull. I tell you, much more of this and I’m walking out of here.”

  “I have news for you, Matt.” Matt turned his head to see Alain Laroche entering the lounge. “You will not be able to walk out. There is a cordon around the campus.”

  Other groups of staff in the lounge stopped talking and all heads turned towards Alain.

  Matt pulled his feet off the table. “You’re not fucking serious!”

  “Yes, I am. Wayne and I just tried to go into town and they turned us back.”

  “Who? Police? National Guard? The Florida mafia?”

  “Wayne recognized the uniforms. Wayne?”

  “United States Marine Corps.”

  Everyone started to talk at once.

  Matt jumped up. “Fuck this. I’m not going to be held a prisoner in my own country. Where’s Terry?”

  The lounge emptied as they all hurried downstairs. Terry was in his office on the ground floor and as usual the door was wide open. It was something they’d agreed upon even before the teams had arrived, the idea being to show that they were accessible at all times. Hearing the growing noise, he looked up, then strolled out to the foyer to see what it was about. The moment the scientists caught sight of him he was assailed by angry and indignant shouts, in which individual words and phrases could barely be distinguished. Matt’s voice was the loudest of all.

  “What’s the big idea, Terry? What the fuck’s going on?”

  Terry pushed his way through, vaulted onto the reception desk, and held out his hands. The clamour died to a rumble.

  “Okay, okay, listen. I gather the area’s been cordoned off.”

  This was greeted by another outbreak of shouting. He held up his hands again.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Look, it’s time we had a full briefing.” He glanced at his watch and tapped it with one finger. “In one hour we’ll meet in the lecture theatre, here,” he pointed to one set of doors at the back of the foyer. “One hour. It’ll all be explained then. All right?”

  He got down, crossed to the door that opened onto the corridor, and went through. As the door swung closed behind him it snuffed the voices down to an aggrieved muttering. He listened as he walked but there was no change in volume; no one was following him.

  He went straight to Maggie’s office. She was on her feet.

  “What on earth was all that about?” she said. “I heard the row.”

  “Sounds like they’ve closed off the perimeter. Some of the staff were turned back. They’re pretty mad.”

  “The President must be here. I didn’t know.”

  “No, nor me. I think they might have warned us. We’ve got to get these people settled down now. I’ve brought forward our general meeting. We’ll have it in one hour. All right?”

  She checked her watch and shrugged. “All right. I had my bit prepared anyway.”

  “Okay. We’ll go down together. I need to get a message to the President’s office, just to make sure we have the go-ahead and let them know what’s happening here. I’ll run it over myself.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The theatre was filled with noise. Terry looked up at the seats and made a rough estimate of numbers. It looked like everyone was there. He took the podium and waited for their attention. The conversations were tapering off when there was a disturbance at the door and a group of people came in. A rustle of interest passed through the audience. Voices whispered, “it’s the President!”

  Harry Kinghorn crossed over to Terry and Maggie and shook them warmly by the hand.

  Terry murmured, “Thank you for coming, sir.”

  “Saw your message,” he said. “Thought I’d drop by.”

  “That was good of you.”

  “No, this is important, Terry,” the President replied. “Have to keep these mavericks of yours in line.” He turned to Kramer, who had come in with him. “Go ahead, Herbert. You can introduce me.”

  Kramer stepped up to the microphone and said:

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome the President of the United States.”

  There was a wary scattering of applause. It died to an expectant hush.

  Terry eyed the audience. The faces were grim and resentful. Their rights had been trampled and things had been kept from them; they knew it and their anger was justified. At the same time few of them would ever have seen a head of state at close hand. They’d give him a hearing, at least. But would it satisfy them?

  The President began. It was the voice of oration: slow, resonant and emphatic; the voice heard at political rallies, at fundraising parties, at campaign stops; the voice that had sailed out into football stadia, and into people’s homes from the stately surroundings of the Oval Office; a voice that spoke of wisdom and authority.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. We have brought you here from around the world because you are the outstanding scientists of this generation. We are asking you to focus your talents on a problem, the full scale of which will now be revealed to you for the first time. You have been told that it concerns the white smogs. That is the truth, but it is only part of the truth. The situation is infinitely worse than any of you can possibly imagine. The white smogs are just the beginning. Mankind is facing the gravest threat in its entire history. We have a war on, ladies and gentlemen, a war against rogue organisms. They have spread all over this planet. They have entered oceans, rivers, and lakes. They have penetrated the very soil of the land. And they are progressively replacing our breathable atmosphere with one of ammonia.”

  He paused as a wave of astonishment and alarm spread through the audience. There’d been a good deal of speculation, but not even the wildest rumours could match the reality. He continued:

  “Now, perhaps, you can understand why we have drawn you from such diverse disciplines: molecular biology, bacteriology, marine biology, atmospheric and ocean sciences. You are our front-line troops in this conflict and you have only months,” he repeated, “months, in which to achieve victory. If you prevail, we will survive. If you fail, all life on Earth will be extinguished.”

  He waited until the buzz of conversation died down.

  “Among you there is a core group of people who had already started to work on the problem. You’ve been uprooted at short notice. I’m sorry, but it was necessary. The situation has deteriorated since you were brought in; ammonia is building up day by day and there is an imminent danger that Washington will be the next in line for a white smog. You could not be expected to work under such conditions so for your own health and welfare the entire operation has been transferred here to Florida.”

  There were murmurs from some members of the audience.

  “Now, I have come here in person to pay tribute to the two people who gathered you together: Dr. Terry McKinley and Dr. Maggie Ferris. They were the first to see the true nature of this threat; without them we would have no chance – no chance whatever – of defeating it. They will be working under the Director, Dr. Herbert Kramer, who is with me here. I want you to give all of them your full support. Scientifically we know what you’re capable of – it’s why you were invited to join us. But this is not the moment to seek individual glory; we must all work as one. If we do not, all of us will perish.”

  He paused for several seconds. The theatre had gone totally quiet. He could have waited for any length of time now and the silence would not have been broken. His tone became less strid
ent.

  “Outside of this establishment the true nature of the situation has not been made known. If we allowed it to become public knowledge there could be serious disorder, here and elsewhere around the world, and that would benefit no one. For that reason it’s vital that this operation is conducted in absolute secrecy. The United States Marine Corps is here, securing every part of this campus,” he raised a finger and wagged it from side to side, “not to infringe your civil liberties, which I, and the people of this country, have gone to war many times to defend. They are here to protect you and to make sure you are not impeded in your vital work. Temporarily – and I say temporarily – you will be asked to pay a small price for this protection. Communication with the outside world must be restricted. Land lines and cell phones will no longer operate in this area. But understand this: the survival of mankind depends on the people in this room. We would be irresponsible if we did not take every possible measure to ensure your safety and security. When, God willing, you have completed your task, all these restrictions will be lifted and you will be free to leave, and with our blessing.

  “The fate of humanity rests on your shoulders, ladies and gentlemen. If you succeed you will earn my gratitude and the gratitude of the nations of the world. The challenge that you face is immense. I am confident you will be equal to it.”

  He stepped back. The audience was still stunned. Some recovered and started to clap. The President shook hands with Kramer, then with Terry and Maggie, raised a hand to the auditorium and, without looking round, he left.

  CHAPTER 31

  As soon as the doors had closed behind the President’s entourage there was a burst of excited conversation. Terry gave Maggie a look.

  “Impressive” he said.

  “The question is, what kind of reception are they going to give us?”

  Herbert Kramer went up to the microphone and the noise died. His tone was cool.