The Green Trap

by Ben Bova

  In gasification, fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas are put through a steam process that releases hydrogen gas. But the process leaves carbon dioxide, a major factor in the greenhouse warming of the atmosphere, and other pollutants as waste products. In producing “clean” hydrogen to replace polluting fossil fuels, enormous amounts of CO2 pollution would be created.

  Moreover, burning hydrogen for energy produces water vapor, which is itself a potent greenhouse gas. Hydrogen enthusiasts claim that since the fuel comes originally from water, there is no net gain in greenhouse effects. However, if hydrogen is generated from fossil fuels, the greenhouse factor is very real. And troublesome.

  — FUTURES

  August 2005

  INTERSTATE 95:

  BRIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT

  Rain spattered the windows of the lurching Bonanza bus. Cochrane stared bleakly out the streaked window at an unbroken stream of trucks, semi trailers, cars, vans, and other buses splashing along the highway at seventy-five miles per hour and more, regardless of the downpour.

  All burning petroleum, he said to himself. All spewing carbon dioxide into the air. Greenhouse gas. Global warming. Well, once we switch to hydrogen we’ll put an end to that.

  Sandoval sat beside him, in the aisle seat, looking unhappy.

  Cochrane had made up his mind the night before to skip out on their meeting with Gould’s research scientists. Sandoval objected, tried to persuade him to go through with it, but he told her he wasn’t going to the meeting. Take it or leave it.

  She had fallen silent for several long moments, while his heart thudded against his ribs. At last she had said, “All right, Paul. If you don’t want to do it, we won’t. I’ll go with you wherever you want to go.”

  So they had allowed the liveried chauffeur to drive them from the town house to the Gould Tower, taken their meager travel bags from the limo’s trunk, and watched on the sidewalk as the limo edged back into the growling, honking stream of West Park Avenue traffic. Then Cochrane had hailed a taxi and gone to La Guardia. At the airport they had switched cabs and ridden back into Manhattan, to the Port Authority bus terminal.

  “Boston?” she had asked as he purchased two one-way tickets.

  “Boston,” he had said, glad that she didn’t ask him where in Boston he wanted to go. He didn’t know.

  But now, as they jounced past Bridgeport on 1-95 in the driving rain, Sandoval leaned close to him and said, “Gould will find us if we register at a hotel.”

  “We could use phony names,” he muttered.

  She almost smiled. “And what will we do for money? If we try to use our credit cards we’ll be giving ourselves away. Besides, all of mine are just about maxed out. We need cash, Paul.”

  “I could get cash from an ATM.”

  “You’d have to use your credit card,” she reminded him.

  “So what? Gould doesn’t have the FBI working for him.”

  “Doesn’t he?”

  He stared at her. “Well,” he temporized, “I could get us a dorm room or something at BU.”

  Sandoval shook her head slowly. “That would be what he’d expect. He’ll have Kensington on our trail by now. You won’t be able to surprise him the way you did in Tucson. He’ll be wary of you. And that makes him more dangerous.”

  Cochrane had to admit to himself that she was right. He turned and looked glumly out the bus window. Interstate 95 wound along the shoreline now. He could see yacht harbors and clustered buildings, gray and dreary in the rain.

  “I just thought,” he mumbled, “that we’d be able to hide from him in Boston long enough.”

  “Long enough for what, Paul?”

  “Long enough for me to figure out what to do.”

  “You don’t want to give your brother’s data to Gould?”

  “So he can bury it? No way.”

  “Then what?”

  “You said there were others interested.”

  “Do you think they’d want to go ahead with your brother’s work any more than Gould does? None of the major players is going to upset the industry. My god, Paul, you’re talking about the global oil industry, the automotive industry—they’re not going to allow anyone to upset their business.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Paul, they control governments! They run the world’s business! You can’t stop them. They’ll grind you to bits!”

  He felt his jaw clenching. “You think Gould really can get the FBI working for him?”

  “One way or another, yes.”

  The bus hit a pothole and bounced hard. “Sorry folks!” the driver called cheerfully. But he didn’t slow down at all.

  “Grind me to bits, eh?”

  Sandoval didn’t answer for a moment. Then she said softly, “And me, too.”

  He pulled in a deep breath. “Christ, Elena, I don’t know what to do.”

  “Give Gould what he wants,” she urged. “While you still can.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we take ten million dollars and live wherever we want to.”

  “No,” he said. “We’ll never see that money. He’ll kill us. Just like he killed Mike.”

  The rain ended as they crossed the Massachusetts border and by the time they were speeding past Springfield on the Mass Turnpike the clouds broke up and the sun shone through.

  As the towers of Boston’s skyline came into view, Sandoval said, “I know where we can stay. At least for a few days.”

  “A safe place?”

  “Completely safe. Kensington would never think of looking for us there, and we won’t need to use our credit cards to pay for anything.”

  Cochrane leaned back in the stiff plastic-covered chair and closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “Good. We need a place where nobody’ll find us.”

  But in the back of his mind he wondered how far he could trust her. She wants me to give Mike’s data to Gould. She wants that ten mil. He turned his head slowly to look at her. Sandoval seemed tense, uptight. Yet still beautiful. Gorgeous, he thought. Am I being fair to her? She’s gone along with me; even though she doesn’t agree with what I’m doing, she’s sticking right here beside me. Could she really be interested in me? A sardonic voice in his head answered, Yeah, as long as you have something in your pocket worth ten million dollars.

  • • •

  South Station looked seedy in Cochrane’s eyes. This town’s so old, he thought as they shuffled down the bus’s aisle and down the steps to the sidewalk. Not like Tucson; not like the West. Boston’s been around a long time and the town looks it.

  They retrieved their bags at the side of the bus and pushed through the crowd milling around the terminal to the taxi stand. No cabs in sight. Sandoval looked perplexed, but Cochrane grinned tightly at her and headed up the street, travel bag in hand.

  Less than two blocks from the terminal he hailed a taxi cruising along the street. The driver popped the lid of the cab’s trunk but didn’t get out to help them. Cochrane tossed his bag and then Sandoval’s into the greasy-looking trunk, slammed the lid as hard as he could, then ushered her into the taxi’s tattered back seat.

  As he got in and closed the door, the driver asked over his shoulder, “Where to?”

  “The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum,” said Sandoval.

  Cochrane felt his jaw drop open in surprise.

  The driver asked, “Ya know how to get theyeh?”

  BOSTON:

  ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER

  MUSEUM

  Cochrane laughed to himself as Sandoval began to give directions to the museum on the Fenway. Boston cabdrivers asked for directions for two reasons:

  One, they truly did not know how to navigate the area’s bewildering patchwork of independent towns and cities, all overlaid on a mad anarchy of twisting streets whose names changed arbitrarily, seemingly for no better reason than to confuse drivers. It had been said, Cochrane recalled, that the region’s street scheme was designed to puzzle the Redcoats, should George III ever
send troops once again to Massachusetts.

  The second reason was that if the passenger displayed the slightest lack of knowledge, the driver would gleefully undertake a scenic tour of eastern Massachusetts while the cab’s meter clicked away merrily.

  Cochrane was impressed all over again with Sandoval. She was giving inch-by-inch directions, telling the glumly nodding driver exactly where to turn and which streets to avoid.

  “You know Boston,” Cochrane said admiringly.

  She turned toward him and smiled. “I told you I was born and raised here. I went to school here, too.”

  “Which one?”

  “Harvard.”

  Now Cochrane was truly impressed. How the hell did she afford Harvard? he wondered. She must come from money. The best he’d been able to do was Boston College, and he had to work nights and summers to get through. It meant he’d had no social life at all: he attended classes and then rode the T to work. It was a rare night when he could have a beer at one of the local bars with his classmates.

  Despite being a native of the area, Cochrane had never been to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. He knew it was on the Fenway, within walking distance of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Not all that far from the Red Sox’ home at Fenway Park, either. When the cab pulled up and they got out, Cochrane saw a little gem of a Venetian palazzo, a stone facade so intricately designed it looked almost like lacework.

  He paid the driver and added a minimal tip. Then he pulled their bags from the grimy trunk of the cab. Cash is running low, he realized, not knowing yet what to do about the problem. The afternoon was warm and bright, with a breeze starting to blow in from the sea. They toted their bags to the museum’s front entrance.

  Inside the lobby sat a middle-aged receptionist and an overweight uniformed rent-a-cop security guard. Cochrane felt grimy, travel-weary, as he and Sandoval deposited their bags on the black-and-white squares of the marble floor.

  “We’ll be closing in less than an hour,” the gray-haired woman said, in a near-whisper.

  Sandoval gave her an understanding smile and said, in an equally hushed voice, “Actually, we’re here to see the director.”

  “Mrs. Neal? I’m not sure she’s in at this time.”

  “Could you call her, please? Tell her Elena Sandoval is here.”

  Looking doubtful, the woman picked up her phone and punched in a number. She spoke briefly, nodded once, then put the phone down.

  “Mrs. Neal will be down directly,” she said, as if she didn’t believe it.

  Cochrane saw that there were no chairs in the lobby, except the receptionist’s and a spare beside her desk on which the security guard was firmly planted. The walls had a couple of small pictures on them, nothing that looked all that artistic to him.

  “Ellie?” a woman’s voice boomed loud enough to echo off the walls. “By god, it really is you!”

  Turning, Cochrane saw a large swirl of voluminous multihued fabric sweep through the lobby and clasp Sandoval so vigorously she was nearly lifted off her feet.

  “Fee!” Sandoval managed to say, her voice muffled by the embrace, as she hugged the older woman with both arms.

  Once released from the clinch, Sandoval turned back to Cochrane. He’d never seen her grinning with such complete joy.

  “Paul, please meet Fiona Neal, my surrogate mother. Fee, this is Paul Cochrane.”

  Fiona Neal was just about six feet tall, Cochrane estimated; despite the colorful floor-length muumuu, he could see that she was large in every dimension. Her face was long, seamed with age, her hair wispy thin yet still dark. Her eyes beamed with intelligence and goodwill. She was obviously overjoyed to see Sandoval again.

  “How do you do?” Fiona Neal said solemnly, extending her hand. Fiona’s grip was solid, her skin leathery. She works with her hands, Cochrane realized.

  “Come on back to the residence,” she said, wrapping one arm around Sandoval’s shoulders. “Golly, it’s good to see you again.”

  Cochrane picked up both their bags and started to follow them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the receptionist, looking completely flabbergasted by the warmth of her boss’s greeting for these two strangers.

  Fiona led them out into an exquisite little courtyard dotted with sculptures. None of the modern lumps of unidentifiable shapes, Cochrane saw. These statues were of men and women, graceful, human, the real thing.

  The two women were both chattering away at the same time; Cochrane wondered how they could understand one another, but they seemed to be getting along just fine. They went through a door set into the far end of the courtyard without even a glance back at Cochrane. He shrugged inwardly. Obviously they had a lot of catching up to do.

  “The residence” turned out to be a two-story apartment with a spare bedroom and its own bathroom, with even a Jacuzzi tub. Twin beds, he saw, but what the hell. Beggars can’t be choosers. The apartment was comfortable and beautifully appointed. Cochrane was impressed; the museum might be dedicated to past glories of art, but Fiona Neal lived with all the modern conveniences.

  Fiona sat them in her living room and brought out a bottle of Chardonnay.

  “Can you do the cork, Paul? My wrists aren’t as strong as they used to be.”

  Cochrane got the feeling that she was stretching the truth just to give him something to do. He nodded and took the corkscrew from her hand.

  “Fee, I need a favor from you,” Sandoval said as she sat in one of the plush armchairs.

  Fiona took the wooden rocker, her bulk filling it almost to overflowing.

  “Name it,” she said.

  “Paul and I need a place to stay for a few days, a place where no one will bother us.”

  Fiona cocked an eyebrow. “Honeymoon?”

  “Not really.”

  With a grin, Fiona said, “I guess living in sin is more exciting.”

  “It’s important that nobody knows we’re here,” Sandoval said.

  Fiona’s grin disappeared. “You’re in trouble?”

  “Not with the law,” Cochrane blurted. “There’s nothing illegal involved.”

  “Except living in sin.” The older woman’s smile returned.

  Hybrid Sales Lag

  With the price of gasoline topping $7 a gallon you would think that hybrid cars, which get double the gas mileage of ordinary cars, would be the hottest sellers on the automobile market.

  Alas, sales of hybrid autos are in the doldrums, lagging far behind sales of conventional gas-powered autos.

  “They’re just not moving,” complained William French, owner of one of the nation’s largest automobile sales companies. “Sales were pretty brisk when they were first introduced, but now the hybrids are just sitting there. Nobody’s even kicking their tires anymore.”

  Industry analysts have proposed several explanations for the poor sales of hybrid cars, which run on a combination of a gasoline-powered engine and a hydrogen-powered fuel cell that generates power for an electrical engine.

  Hydrogen fuel is not easily available, for one thing. Most service stations do not provide hydrogen, making it difficult for owners of hybrids to get the hydrogen their cars’ fuel cells require. “Hydrogen is difficult to transport through ordinary pipelines,” explains Gordon Shaftoe, an engineer with Gould Energy Corporation. “The stuff leaks through ordinary gaskets and seals. You need very special equipment to pipe hydrogen cross-country. That makes it very expensive.”

  Many drivers and gas station owners are fearful of hydrogen, as well. “That’s the stuff that blew up the Hindenburg, isn’t it?” asked Maria Esposito, of Carmel, California, recalling the tragic explosion that destroyed the German dirigible in 1937, killing 33 passengers and crew.

  But Derek Copella, of Newark, New Jersey, voiced another complaint about hybrid cars: “They got no pep, no juice. Sure, they get fifty miles to the gallon, but they got no vroom-vroom.”

  — FINANCE DAILY

  BOSTON:

  TOP OF THE PRU RESTAURANT

&n
bsp; Fifty-two stories above the street, Cochrane could look through the restaurant’s big windows and all the way out to the hills of New Hampshire. The sun was setting, casting long fingers of shadows from the rows of stately brick houses lining the city’s narrow streets. To the south, across the Charles River, was MIT and, farther on, the domes and red brick buildings of Harvard’s sprawling campus. Looking north past Charlestown and the masts of Old Ironsides, the urban landscape gave way to countryside rich with trees and dotted by occasional slim white steeples. The sky was a flaming red in the west, slowly melting into deeper and deeper violet.

  They had walked to the Prudential Center complex along Boston’s busy streets, noisy with honking snarled traffic. Despite Cochrane’s misgivings, Sandoval had insisted on having dinner in the restaurant at the top of the skyscraper. Cochrane had argued that it would be too expensive for them.

  “There’s lots of cheaper places down here at ground level,” he’d said, waving an arm at the fast-food joints lining the street.

  Sandoval shook her head dismissively. “Fee gave me one of the museum’s credit cards. Dinner’s on her.”

  He frowned. “You mean dinner’s on the people who contribute to the museum.”

  “Paul, Fee is the museum. She’s Isabella Gardner’s second incarnation, really.”

  So Cochrane went with her up the whooshing elevator to the top of the tower and now they sat lingering over their cocktails: a vodka martini for Sandoval, a rum and Coke for him.

  “She actually handed you a credit card from the museum?” he asked.

  Nodding, Sandoval said, “I told you, Fee’s like my foster mother. I’ve known her since I was a teenager.”

  “And she’s willing to take us in, no questions asked.”

  “We ought to be safe for a few days, at least. Until you figure out what you want to do.”

  Cochrane picked up his drink and took a long pull. It was sticky-sweet. Not much rum in it, he thought.