The Green Trap

by Ben Bova

  “I can be there in an hour. Less, at this time of the morning.”

  Gould sank back in the yielding chair, thinking hard. Tulius has the computer drives. Whoever took them from Kensington has brought them to him. Why him? Who else is involved in this? Whoever it is, they killed Kensington and they’ve got Dr. Tulius thoroughly scared.

  “Perhaps you’d better bring the, uh, packages to me here in New York. I can send a plane—”

  “No!” Tulius snapped. “That would tip them off that I’m working with you.”

  “Them? Who?”

  “Let me call you from my office,” Tulius pleaded. “We can talk much more freely then.”

  Gould felt a gnawing anger rising in him. But he said mildly, “Very well, Dr. Tulius. In one hour.”

  “Right.”

  Gould’s computer screen went dark. Reaching for a tissue from the box on the table beside him, he dabbed at his chin and his beaded upper lip as he thought hard. Someone took those hard drives from Kensington and delivered them to Tulius. Someone who has frightened the bejeesus out of him. He wants to sell the drives to me, but more than that he needs my protection.

  Nodding to himself, Gould relaxed in the upholstered chair. Then he phoned his assistant and told him to get his private jet ready for a flight to California.

  In San Francisco, Cochrane and Sandoval were already at breakfast in the spacious kitchen of her home on Russian Hill.

  “Do you really think that Gould wants to kill me?” he asked, a spoonful of Rice Krispies halfway to his mouth.

  She nodded solemnly from across the white-painted table. “It’s a personal vendetta with him now. His ego is at stake.”

  “Then what are we going to do?” Before she could reply, Cochrane corrected himself. “No, not us. It’s me he’s sore at, not you.”

  “Us,” Sandoval said firmly. “We’re in this together.”

  “But—”

  “What happens to you happens to me, Paul.”

  He shook his head, but said nothing. After a few more crunching mouthfuls of the cereal, he asked, “Does Gould know about this house?”

  “Nobody knows about it,” Sandoval replied. “You’re the first person ever to be here, besides me.”

  “I guess we can lay low here for a couple of days.”

  Nodding, she said, “I have credit cards we can use, a California driver’s license. The house is listed under a false name, too.”

  “Good enough, I guess.”

  “For a few days.”

  “Then what?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Not yet.”

  Cochrane took a deep, sighing breath. He stared at her lovely face, so dead serious. Her sea-green eyes, so somber.

  An idea struck him. “Listen,” he said, “can you call Fiona, back in Boston?”

  “We shouldn’t go back there, Paul. Fiona’s—”

  “No, no. I don’t want to go back there. But she’s got my laptop. I left it with her. I gave Mike’s CDs to Gould, but his data is still on my laptop’s hard drive.”

  She looked horrified. “If Gould knew…”

  “Call Fiona. Ask her to FedEx my laptop to my apartment in Tucson. It’ll be there by tomorrow morning!”

  Sandoval started for the phone, but hesitated. “Then what, Paul? Once you have the laptop, then what?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Not yet. But at least we’ll have a bargaining chip to deal with Gould.”

  She looked doubtful, but went to the telephone.

  I’ll leave Elena here and zip back to Tucson to pick up the laptop, Cochrane said to himself, the plan forming in his mind. Gould’s people will be looking for the two of us together. It’ll be easier for me to get in and out without her. And then I’ll slip out of Tucson, by myself. I’ll get out and go away somewhere. Elena will be safe as long as she’s not with me. Gould’s after me, not her.

  But then he remembered that Gould wanted Elena. For himself.

  Gould was in his limousine, on his way to La Guardia Airport, when Tulius phoned him back. The image on the little screen built into the limo’s side panel was a trifle grainy, but Gould could see clearly the worry—the fright—on the scientist’s face. He’s scared, almost in a panic, Gould thought. And he’s looking to me for help. That puts me in a strong position, Gould told himself. Which is good.

  He could see that Tulius was in a spacious, well-appointed office. The Calvin Research Center, he thought. It was not yet seven A.M. in California, so the man must be alone in the building, except for whatever security guards he might have there. At any rate, Tulius was talking much more freely now.

  “And this man you’ve been dealing with,” Gould asked, “is an official at the United Nations?”

  “UNESCO,” Tulius replied.

  “He’s a Chechen?”

  “From Chechnya, yes, that’s right. He hates the Russians, wants to do whatever he can to hurt them.”

  “He’s a terrorist, then?”

  “No, no, no,” Tulius corrected. “He’s not the type to throw bombs. He’s not suicidal. He wants to cripple Russia’s oil industry.”

  “And how does he plan to accomplish that, may I ask?”

  “With Cochrane’s hydrogen process! Shifting from petroleum to hydrogen will knock the bottom out of oil prices. Just an announcement that the process works will send oil prices spiraling downward.”

  Gould nodded at the grainy image in the small screen. He’s perfectly right about that, he said to himself. That’s why there must be no announcement, no shift to hydrogen. Not until the time is exactly right.

  “If I turn these hard drives over to you, Shamil’s people will be furious. I’ll need protection from them.”

  “These are the men who killed Kensington?”

  “Of course! You told me that Kensington had the hard drives in his possession. Then these four thugs show up in my office and hand them to me. And your man Kensington was found dead.”

  “Without the hard drives,” Gould muttered.

  “I have them here. Locked in my desk.”

  The limo was pulling off the main road and onto the ramp that led to the private aviation sector of La Guardia, where Gould’s Cessna jet was waiting for him.

  “Very well,” Gould said. “I shall fly to your center this morning. Expect me there by”—he calculated mentally—”eleven o’clock your time.”

  “No!” Tulius yelped. “If they see you here they’ll know I’ve crossed them! They’ll know I’m working for you!”

  Gould held back a snappish reply. Instead he answered patiently, “My dear Dr. Tulius, it’s common knowledge that the Gould Trust has made an offer to buy your Calvin laboratories. It would be quite natural for me to make an impromptu visit to your labs, unannounced, to see what I’m paying for. Nothing to alarm anyone.”

  “They’re very touchy, suspicious—”

  “Yes, I understand. While I’m in flight I will make arrangements to have a security team provide protection for you and your wife,” Gould said. “You have children?”

  “A son. He’s at Berkeley.”

  “Then we’ll provide protection for him, too. I’ll also have my publicity people leak a story about this man Shamir in the UN—”

  “Shamil,” Tulius corrected.

  “Shamil,” said Gould. “And the FBI should be interested in the ruffians who murdered Kensington, I should think. They probably also killed your Dr. Cochrane in the first place.”

  Tulius looked shocked. “I never thought of that.”

  “We’ll have them all rounded up pretty quickly, never fear,” said Gould.

  “That would be wonderful.”

  The limousine pulled up before a large hangar. Gould saw that his Cessna was on the apron, apparently ready to go.

  “I’ll see you in about four hours,” he said to Tulius, then leaned forward in the limo’s rear seat to turn off the phone connection before Tulius could reply.

  Yes, he said to himself as the chauffeur
opened the limo door for him, the FBI can take care of the Chechen gorillas; it will be good publicity for the Bureau to round up a gang of Muslim terrorists. And they’ll lead straight to this Shamil character at the UN. Wonderfal headlines: Chechen terrorist cell headed by corrupt United Nations official. My publicity people can use their contacts to make certain the story receives attention on all the networks. Meanwhile, I will acquire the Calvin lab and Tulius along with it.

  That takes care of everything, Gould thought as he walked to his plane. Everything and everyone. Except for that man Cochrane. He laid hands on me. He threatened me at knifepoint. In front of the Sandoval woman, he made me look like a humiliated fool.

  I’ll find him. Wherever he’s hiding, I’ll find him and kill him.

  And her, too. She betrayed me. She played up to me only to protect him. I’ll find them both. They’ll be together, without doubt. He sighed deeply, remembering. It will be a shame to get rid of her, but what else can I do? They’ll both have to go.

  PALO ALTO:

  CALVIN RESEARCH CENTER

  It was a busy morning for Jason Tulius. Promptly at nine A.M. his assistant tapped gently on his office door and informed him that a team of security specialists employed by the Gould Trust had arrived in the lobby. Tulius wasted no time having all six of them brought to his office. After more than an hour’s conversation with them, he felt grateful and relieved.

  “We already have a team watching your house,” said their leader as he rose to leave. He was a tall, lanky, silver-haired man with a hawk’s beak for a nose and piercing dark eyes. “We’ll do a sweep of your building here and the grounds beyond. If they’ve got the place staked out, we’ll nab them.”

  “And my son?”

  “In Berkeley. We’re on it.”

  The other five men, standing behind their leader, nodded somberly.

  Getting to his feet, Tulius said, “Mr. Gould said something about the FBI.”

  “We often work with the Bureau. I have a meeting scheduled for this afternoon with the chief of the San Francisco office.”

  “That’s fine,” said Tulius. “Fine.” He went around his desk and shook hands with each of the six men. They certainly seemed professional and utterly competent.

  Once they left his office, Tulius went back to his desk and sat down, feeling that his situation had improved enormously. He was in good hands. Shamil and his thugs would be taken care of, as they deserved.

  He unlocked the top right drawer of his desk, pulled it open, and gazed at the three small cases of brushed aluminum. They’re worth a considerable fortune, Tulius said to himself. I wonder how much Gould will be willing to pay me for them.

  Glancing at his desktop clock, he saw that Gould would arrive within a couple of hours. He’ll pay handsomely to acquire this center, Tulius thought, but he ought to pay me a special bonus for delivering these hard drives to him. Enough to allow me to retire. Enough to set me up for life.

  His intercom buzzed.

  Slightly annoyed at the interruption, Tulius poked the keyboard. “Yes?”

  “Dr. Cochrane is in the lobby, sir, asking to see you.”

  “Cochrane?”

  “Mike’s brother,” his assistant’s voice said. “You remember, he was here right after Mike was murdered.”

  All of Tulius’s pleasant feelings of safety and a comfortable future drained out of him.

  “Shall I tell the receptionist to send him up here?” his assistant asked.

  Tugging at his beard, Tulius answered unhappily, “Yes, yes, send him in.”

  “There’s a woman with him. Elena Sandoval.”

  “Of course,” Tulius croaked. “Of course.”

  Cochrane had made up his mind by the time they’d finished breakfast.

  As he carried their cereal bowls to the kitchen sink, he said, to himself as much as to Sandoval, “The Calvin Center. We’ve got to see Dr. Tulius.”

  Still sitting at the kitchen table, Sandoval asked, “Tulius? Why him?”

  “Who else is there? Senator Bardarson’s sold out to Gould. Nobody in the government is going to lift a finger for us, Gould’s got them all under his control.”

  “But why Tulius?” she repeated.

  “He’s a scientist. He understands what’s at stake.” He turned from the sink to face her. “He’s the only guy I can think of who might be able to help us.”

  “What about the scientist you were working with from the National Science Foundation?”

  “Esterbrook?” Cochrane thought it over briefly. “Yeah, maybe. But he’s in Washington and Tulius is just a car ride away, in Palo Alto.”

  Sandoval got up from the table and carried her juice glass to the sink.

  “Paul,” she asked softly, “just what is it that you think Tulius can do for us?”

  “Get Mike’s work published,” he replied. “Get it out into the open so Gould can’t keep it to himself.”

  “What good would that do?”

  He stared at her. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand? Gould wants to keep Mike’s work secret, you told me so yourself. He wants to hold it in his own hands while oil prices keep heading for the stars and he makes all those profits. He wants to be the one who decides when and how the hydrogen process is brought out into the open. He wants to be the one who controls the shift from oil to hydrogen.”

  “So?”

  “So publishing Mike’s work will make it public,” Cochrane said, with growing fervor. “It’ll make his process common knowledge. Nobody will be able to monopolize it. Nobody will be able to take out a patent on it. Ten thousand little guys will start tinkering with the idea, start producing hydrogen cars that really work! They’ll start a new industry, hydrogen fuels. Cheap, easy hydrogen-fueled cars. Trucks. Planes. Nobody’ll need oil anymore!”

  “That’s what you want to do?”

  “That’s it. Mike’s work can be the basis for a whole new industry. Getting the whole friggin’ world off the oil teat and into clean, cheap hydrogen.”

  Sandoval shook her head sorrowfully. “Paul, all you’d be doing is giving Gould another reason to have you murdered.”

  “So what?” he snapped, full of his own vision. “He already wants to kill me. This’ll make it worth the risk.”

  She started to reply, but saw that it would be useless. With a heavy sigh, she said, “All right. Let’s drive out to the Calvin Center.”

  • • •

  Dr. Tulius did his best to appear calm and welcoming as Sandoval and Cochrane were ushered into his office. He got up from his desk, shook hands with them both, and guided them to the round conference table in the far corner of the room.

  But only after he had closed the desk drawer containing the three hard drives. And locked it again.

  “Now, then,” he said once they were all seated around the table, “what brings you here this morning? Have you learned anything about Michael’s murder? I must confess the police haven’t spoken a word to me since the funeral. I was beginning to think they’d just dropped the case altogether.”

  Cochrane could see that Tulius was edgy. The man was tugging unconsciously at his beard, glancing nervously all around his office as he chattered, looking back at his desk and the digital clock that sat next to his computer keyboard. He wouldn’t meet Cochrane’s eyes.

  Deciding to cut directly to the heart of the matter, Cochrane said, “Dr. Tulius, I have Mike’s data.”

  “You do?” Tulius’s white eyebrows rose so high his forehead wrinkled.

  “All of it.”

  “But I thought—” Tulius stopped himself.

  “You thought what?” Sandoval asked.

  Before Tulius could think of a reply, Cochrane leaned forward intently and said, “Mike’s work shows how to bioengineer a strain of cyanobacteria so they’ll produce gaseous hydrogen. Lots of hydrogen. Put a sheet of those bugs in your car and they’ll make hydrogen fuel for you. All you need to do is fill your tank with water and let the bugs split the water i
nto hydrogen and oxygen. Cheap and easy.”

  “That’s…” Tulius groped for a word. “Interesting.”

  “It’s more than interesting,” Cochrane snapped. “It can move the world off oil, off fossil fuels altogether.”

  “If it works in the real world, Dr. Cochrane. After all, laboratory data is one thing, but that doesn’t mean—”

  Sandoval interrupted, “Michael Cochrane was killed over this. You know that as well as we do.”

  “Still…”

  Earnestly, Cochrane explained, “We’ve got to publish this work, Dr. Tulius. We’ve got to get it out into the open scientific literature so that no one can claim possession of it, no one can bottle it up, suppress it.”

  “We?”

  “I’m not a biologist,” Cochrane said. “You are. You can get this work published by the top journal in your field. You can call an international news conference, even.”

  Tulius licked his lips. “I… I suppose I could.”

  “This could make you famous,” Cochrane urged. “Calvin Research Center would become a world-class organization.”

  “I would like to think that we already are.”

  “You know what I mean. Your lab would be the center of world attention. You could write your own ticket.”

  “The oil industry would not be pleased,” Tulius muttered.

  Sandoval replied, “The oil industry would have to get on the bandwagon. They’d have to! And the auto industry, too.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “No ‘perhaps’ about it,” Cochrane insisted. “This will be the biggest thing to hit the energy industry since they sank the first oil wells in Pennsylvania.”

  Tulius turned from Cochrane to Sandoval, all the while tugging nervously at his beard. Then he pushed his chair away and rose to his feet. Walking slowly back to his desk, he glanced again at the clock.

  “You’re right, of course,” he said, turning back toward his seated visitors. “Look. It’s half-past ten. Let’s have some coffee and begin to write the opening paragraphs of the paper.”

  Cochrane glanced at Sandoval, grinning. “Okay. Great.”