The Green Trap

by Ben Bova

  “Damned if I know,” he said, raising his voice enough to be heard over the noise. “He was going to show me but I got there too late.”

  Sandoval sipped at her sake, then said, “No, I mean in general. You said he was some sort of biologist.”

  “Microbiology. He dealt with algae and bacteria.”

  “Cyanobacteria.”

  “You remembered.”

  “What’s so special about them?”

  The kimono-clad blond waitress brought their trays. Cochrane realized he was hungry and picked up his chopsticks.

  “Cyanobacteria?” Sandoval prompted.

  “I’m not a biologist,” Cochrane muttered as he fumbled his first try at snaring a piece of eel roll.

  She gave him that dimpled smile again. “You’re a scientist. You know more about this kind of thing than I do.”

  Finally stuffing the rice-wrapped piece of eel into his mouth, Cochrane chewed fast, swallowed hard, then answered, “Cyanobacteria are very ancient forms of life. Billions of years old. If I remember correctly, they were one of the first organisms to use chlorophyll.”

  “Like green plants.”

  “Right. But cyanobacteria are one-celled creatures. Bacteria.”

  “Your brother was working with them?”

  “Far’s I know. Yes.”

  She picked up a piece of sushi expertly, then took another sip of sake.

  “You said that these bugs produce oxygen?” she asked.

  Cochrane pushed his glasses back up his nose. “They changed the earth’s atmosphere. Several billion years ago this planet’s atmosphere was mostly carbon dioxide. Unbreathable. But cyanobacteria and other chlorophyll-bearing organisms put out so much oxygen that our atmosphere eventually changed to what we have now: oxygen and nitrogen.”

  “There’s still carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, isn’t there? Isn’t that what causes the greenhouse effect?”

  Cochrane started talking about carbon dioxide and greenhouse warming and global air pollution. But in the back of his mind he remembered the poster tacked up on Mike’s office door. Melvin Calvin, he thought. Who the hell is Melvin Calvin? The name was faintly familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Then it hit him. Calvin Research Center. Of course.

  By the time they’d finished dinner, Cochrane had told her every bit of information he knew about cyanobacteria and the earth’s atmosphere. She insisted on paying the check and then drove the Infiniti back to their hotel. Cochrane felt slightly uncomfortable, as if he were a kept man. He wasn’t accustomed to having a fine-looking woman pay for his dinner.

  They got into the elevator together. Cochrane punched the button for the second floor; she hit three. When the elevator doors slid open, she gave him a peck on the cheek and whispered, “See you tomorrow, Paul.”

  He found himself standing in the empty hotel hallway, wondering what would happen if he went up to the next floor and tapped on her door. Nothing, he told himself. Nothing but disappointment. Shrugging, he went instead to his own room.

  The lights were on and a stranger was sitting on the sofa, hunched over Cochrane’s open laptop. He looked up as Cochrane entered, then swiftly got to his feet.

  “Ah, Mr. Cochrane.” He bowed slightly.

  “Who the hell are you? What are you doing with my computer?”

  The man was Asian, youthful-looking, with broad cheekbones, hooded dark eyes, and a wisp of a mustache. He was barely as tall as Cochrane’s chin, but chunky, solidly built. He wore a thin royal blue windbreaker over a T-shirt and faded jeans. There was a motto of some sort on the T-shirt, but Cochrane couldn’t make out the words.

  “My name’s Arashi,” he said, with a cocky grin. “Sorry to intrude on your privacy—”

  “Get the hell out of here before I call security,” Cochrane snapped.

  Arashi raised both hands. “Whoa, hold on. Let me explain myself.”

  Pushing past him to where his laptop lay open on the coffee table, Cochrane saw that the display screen listed his incoming e-mail messages.

  Arashi said, “I represent some people who have a vital interest in your late brother’s work. My condolences, by the way, on your loss.”

  Cochrane felt like punching the guy’s lights out.

  “I didn’t know your brother personally, but I hear he was a top-flight research scientist.”

  “Who’s interested in my brother’s work?”

  “The people I represent are willing to pay some heavy bread for any information you might give me about his research.”

  “I just went over that with Sandoval.”

  “Sandoval?” Arashi’s brows rose. “Elena Sandoval?”

  “You know her?”

  “We’ve… eh, met.”

  “She’s here in this hotel. I could call her. She’s a federal agent and you’re a goddamned burglar.”

  Arashi broke into a soft chuckle. “Hey, man, I’m no burglar. And Elena Sandoval is sure not a federal agent.”

  Cochrane heard himself gasp. “She’s not?”

  “No way. I suppose she’s been asking you about the research your brother was doing.”

  Sagging into the sofa, Cochrane murmured, “Yeah, that’s right.”

  Arashi perched himself on the arm of the easy chair at the end of the coffee table. “Like I said, I’m authorized to pay you for the information my people are looking for.”

  “I don’t know anything about my brother’s research.”

  “But you could find out, couldn’t you? You’re a scientist. You understand this stuff.”

  Impulsively, Cochrane reached for the phone on the end table. He asked the operator for Elena Sandoval’s room. Arashi sat on the front two inches of the chair’s arm, watching him with slightly amused eyes.

  As soon as she picked up he said, “Elena, it’s me.”

  “Hello, Paul.” Sandoval’s voice sounded throaty, sexy.

  “I’ve got a visitor down here. A guy named Arashi.”

  “Arashi?” For the first time he heard anxiety in her voice. “I’ll be right down. Don’t tell him anything!”

  The phone clicked dead.

  Cochrane put the phone down and looked at Arashi, who was smiling faintly.

  “She’s coming down here,” he said.

  “Yeah, I’ll bet she is,” said Arashi. “Before she gets here, listen to this: I can offer you fifty thousand dollars for pertinent information about your brother’s work. Maybe even a little more.”

  Cochrane shook his head, grumbling to himself, How many times do I have to tell these people I don’t have any more notion of what Mike was working on than they do? But then a new thought struck him: Maybe I can find out about it. Mike must have left some information with the people he worked with. Maybe I can learn about his research from them.

  A light tap on the door. Cochrane got to his feet and went to it. He opened the door and Sandoval stepped into the room, still wearing the slacks and blouse she’d worn at dinner.

  Arashi stood up. “Hello, Elena.”

  “Mitsuo,” she said. “What brings you here?”

  Arashi smiled. “Don’t play games. You know damned well why I’m here.”

  Closing the door, Cochrane said sharply, “He claims you’re not a federal agent.”

  “She’s not.”

  “I’m not,” Sandoval admitted, going to the sofa. “I didn’t like to mislead you, Paul, but I needed your trust and that seemed the easiest way to get it.”

  “And all this is about my brother’s work?”

  Arashi perched on the armchair again as Sandoval sat on the end of the sofa as far away from him as possible.

  “The information must be in his computer,” Arashi said to her.

  “It’s gone missing,” she replied.

  “The police…?”

  “They don’t have it. I asked that Sergeant Purvis about it. There wasn’t any laptop at the murder scene.”

  “His home?”

  She shook her head. “Paul checked. It was
n’t there, either.”

  “Then whoever killed him must have it.”

  “Most likely.”

  “That’s not good,” Arashi muttered. “Not good at all.”

  They both turned toward Cochrane.

  He looked at each of them in turn, then said, “I guess I can ask his colleagues at the Calvin Center. Maybe they can tell us something about it.”

  PALO ALTO:

  CALVIN RESEARCH CENTER

  Arashi breezed out of Cochrane’s mini-suite as soon as Cochrane agreed to try to find out what his brother had been working on.

  As the door closed behind Arashi, Sandoval got up from the sofa, too.

  “Wait a minute,” Cochrane said, reaching for her arm. “If you’re not a federal agent, just who in hell are you?”

  She looked distressed, her lips pressed into a thin worried line. “Paul, I can’t tell you. Not yet. Please believe me, it’s much too urgent. I wouldn’t have lied to you if it hadn’t been so urgent.”

  Before he could reply, she hurried to the door and left him standing alone in the mini-suite, feeling confused, puzzled, and more than a little annoyed at her elusiveness.

  If they don’t know what Mike was doing, why are they so damned spooled up about it?

  Cochrane slept poorly, haunted by nightmares of his brother’s battered, bloody face. He woke up depressed, worn out. Mike’s funeral, he knew. This is going to be a truly shitty day. He showered and shaved and then phoned Sandoval. She’d already checked out, the desk clerk told him, and paid for his room as well. Surprised, irritated, he called his sister-in-law to lamely ask her if she could send somebody over to the hotel to pick him up.

  “What’s the matter,” Irene asked, with a hint of acid in her voice, “did your romance break up?”

  “I don’t really know,” he had to admit.

  Where’s she gone? he kept asking himself. What in hell is this all about?

  Within a half hour Cochrane was picked up by Irene’s two brothers: bulky, swarthy men in dark suits that seemed about to split at the seams. Aside from a brief hello, they said nothing to Cochrane; they drove him in brooding silence to the church where Mike’s funeral was being held. There were pitifully few mourners at the church. The service was mercifully brief; the minister stumbled over Mike’s name twice. Obviously Michael had been no more of a churchgoer than Cochrane himself—or their parents, for that matter.

  At the cemetery he saw Sandoval standing alone on the fringes of the tiny gathering, dressed in a black sheath. Cochrane had brought his only dark suit, which he hadn’t worn since he’d left Massachusetts. It felt uncomfortably heavy, stifling. Irene was with her plump, black-dressed mother and her two beefy-looking brothers, both hefty enough to fell teams of oxen. He hadn’t seen them since Mike’s wedding; they’d grown even bulkier over the years. Both the brothers had their wives with them, and a half dozen small children, all of them fidgeting but quiet, looking solemn and almost frightened. They’re the only family Mike had, Cochrane realized. Except for me. The rest of the small group were strangers, mostly men, somber, almost embarrassed; they introduced themselves as co-workers from Mike’s lab. No sign of Arashi, but there was another stranger hovering on the grass about a hundred yards away, a big-shouldered man wearing dark sunglasses and looking like a cop. Not Purvis or McLain, though, Cochrane was certain of that.

  The sunshine was warm and there wasn’t any kind of a breeze at all. Cochrane began to perspire in his wool suit. The minister went through his ritual and then Cochrane followed his sister-in-law to the closed coffin, took a red rose from the hand of the somber funeral director, and laid it tenderly on the burnished mahogany.

  He turned away, the photo of his brother’s battered face filling his mind. Christ, what a way to die. Then Sandoval appeared before him, her face a perfect picture of sadness and sympathy. She’s an actress, Cochrane found himself thinking. A goddamned actress.

  He said goodbye to Irene and her family, then followed Sandoval to her Infiniti. As she drove toward the Calvin Research Center, he asked, “So just who the hell is this Arashi? What’s he after?”

  Her eyes flicked from the road to his face and back again. “He’s a… facilitator, of sorts.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “He works out business deals, smoothes the way for big corporations, international corporations. Sometimes government agencies, as well.”

  “Why’s he interested in Mike’s work? Why are you interested, for that matter?”

  “I’m interested because Arashi is. He doesn’t show up on the scene unless there’s a lot of money involved.”

  Cochrane thought that over for a few minutes, decided that the information content of what she’d told him was pretty close to zero.

  Sandoval pulled the gold Infiniti into the Calvin Center’s driveway and parked it in a visitor’s slot. She turned off the engine, took the key out of the ignition, and opened the door on her side. Cochrane didn’t move.

  “Aren’t you getting out?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Not until you tell me what this is all about.”

  “Paul, I can’t. Not now. Not yet.”

  “Arashi offered me fifty thousand bucks.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “And what did you say?”

  “Are you working with him or against him?”

  “Not with him.”

  “So who are you working with? Who are you, anyway? What’s your interest in this?”

  She let the driver’s-side door click shut again, fiddled with the car key, still in her hand.

  “I’m not budging until I get some answers,” Cochrane said, folding his arms across his chest.

  “Paul, you’ve got to trust me.”

  “Why? Who the hell are you? What’s so fucking important about my brother’s work?”

  “That’s just it! I don’t know! I’m trying to find out. Very powerful people are after that information. That’s why Arashi’s involved.”

  “Who are you working for?”

  She hesitated a moment. “Myself.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m a freelancer. I sell information to people who pay for it. You’d call it industrial espionage, I suppose.”

  “Elena, I don’t think there’s a goddamned single word of truth in what you’re telling me.”

  Strangely, she smiled at that. “More than one word, Paul. But you’re right: not all of it’s true.”

  With that, she opened the car door and got out. Cochrane sat there for all of ten seconds, then got out of the car and trotted after her to the smoked-glass double doors of the Calvin Research Center’s entrance. She’s like a snake charmer, he said to himself. And I’m the goddamned snake.

  The center’s director was Jason Tulius, a burly, barrel-chested man with thick white hair and a full white beard fringing his face. His light gray eyes seemed guarded, almost suspicious. Give him an eye patch and he’d look just like an old-time pirate, Cochrane thought. Then he corrected himself: No, he looks more like a tired-out, unhappy Santa Claus.

  “It’s a terrible tragedy,” he said after shaking hands with Sandoval and Cochrane. “A terrible tragedy.”

  Tulius wore a brown tweed jacket over an open-collared pale green shirt. His top-floor office was spacious and airy, with broad windows giving a sweeping view of the hills on the far side of the highway. Instead of sitting at his desk, Tulius directed his visitors to the round table in the far corner of the office. His executive assistant carried in a tray bearing a stainless steel coffee urn, three mugs decorated with the CRC logo, and a plate of muffins.

  “My one vice,” Tulius said, reaching for the mug as the young man who’d brought it in silently left the room. Then he eyed Sandoval and smiled. “Well, one of my two vices.”

  She smiled back at him as he poured steaming coffee into one of the mugs. He offered coffee to her and Cochrane; both shook their heads.

  Cochrane
got them down to business. “Ms. Sandoval thinks that Mike was murdered because of the research he was undertaking. Others apparently do, as well.”

  Tulius’s shaggy brows hiked up. “His research? He was working on photosynthesis, just like most of my staff.”

  “He called me a couple of days before he died,” Cochrane said. “He told me that what he was doing will bring him millions. Tens of millions.”

  With a patient sigh, Tulius replied, “Michael was always a… an enthusiast. He was always overly optimistic about his work. Two years ago he started tinkering with genetic engineering, trying to modify certain strains of bacteria to produce a form of oil that could be used as fuel.”

  “Didn’t Calvin himself work in that area?” Sandoval asked, surprising Cochrane.

  “Yes, he did.” Tulius nodded vigorously. “But he never succeeded. Neither did Michael, despite his enthusiasm. After eighteen months with no positive results, I had to order him to give it up.”

  “What could he have been doing that might be worth tens of millions?” Sandoval asked.

  Tulius took a long sip of coffee from his steaming mug. “I can’t imagine,” he said. “I simply cannot imagine.”

  “There must be something,” she insisted.

  ”If Mike’s death is really connected with his work,” Cochrane muttered, thinking of Irene and her two buffalo-sized brothers.

  “It is,” Sandoval said flatly.

  “His widow thinks he was having an affair, possibly with someone working here.”

  “No!” Tulius snapped, looking almost angry at the very idea.

  “How can you be sure?” asked Cochrane.

  Shaking his head, Tulius said, “This is a small organization, Mr. Cochrane. Slightly less than two hundred people. We’re a pretty tight-knit group, almost like a family. When a couple of my people start fooling around, I hear about it.”

  “Do you? Every time?”

  “They can’t keep that kind of thing a secret for very long,” Tulius replied.

  “And you didn’t hear anything about Mike?”

  “Never. Oh, he might have had a fling or two, but not with anyone here at the lab. I’m certain of that.”