Last Gasp

by Trevor Hoyle

  Chase had been slow. Kenneth J. Prothero was for years chief administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency until it became moribund. He remembered Prothero had been highly active: speeches, articles, campaigning for radical change in government attitudes.

  “So what happens?” Prothero said, spreading his hands. “Everybody sees the problem as being somebody else’s, and so it ends up being nobody’s.”

  “You tried to make it everyone’s concern when you were with the EPA,” said Chase. “It didn’t come off.”

  “Made me damned unpopular into the bargain,” Prothero said with feeling. “You wouldn’t believe the crank calls, the hate mail, the abuse, the threats. Anyone would think I was trying to destroy the environment, not save it.”

  Chase smiled grimly. “I know. People get the strange notion you’re somehow personally to blame. If only you’d shut up the threat would go away.”

  “Of course, you get all that crap too.” The eyes behind the thick lenses softened a little, as if the shared experience had forged a common bond between them. “Well, that probably makes it easier for you to understand our feeling, Dr. Chase. As concerned citizens we have to act—independently of government—and try to find a way out of this mess. We have no choice, because if somebody doesn’t we might just as well walk out onto the street down there, take a couple of deep breaths, lie down in the gutter, and wait for the meat wagon.”

  “You have a son, Daniel, sixteen,” said Ingrid Van Dorn. She was watching him closely. When Chase looked at her without responding, her lips twitched in a smile. “We have investigated you in depth, Dr. Chase. Background, career, family, everything. We had to.”

  Chase continued to look at her steadily. “What has my son to do with this?”

  “I mention him simply to make the point that the only hope of survival for future generations is if people like us are prepared to take upon ourselves the responsibility that the governments of the world have abdicated. It is we who must act.”

  This sounded to Chase like part of a speech she had prepared for the General Assembly. It began to dawn on him that all this, including the informal atmosphere, had been deliberately engineered. His being here was the culmination of a long process whose aim was to achieve ... what?

  “We greatly admire the work you’ve been doing,” Prothero told him. “Earth Foundation is a most laudable concept. However, we don’t believe it can provide the solution to the problem. What’s needed is a concerted effort by a group of dedicated specialists—scientists, ecologists, engineers—and yes, even though the coinage has been debased, politicians too. People with a common goal who will do what must be done.”

  “Are you planning a world revolution?” Chase said. “Or is it something simple like overthrowing the government of the United States?”

  “This isn’t a joking matter,” Ingrid Van Dorn rebuked him, showing more of the Nordic iceberg that resided below the surface.

  “It isn’t? Then let me get this straight.” Chase raised two fingers to point to them both. “You’re proposing that a group of private individuals—specialists in their own fields—should band together to halt the slide toward ecological disaster that all the world’s governments are unable or unwilling to achieve. Is that it? Have I got it right?” The skepticism in his voice was thinly veiled.

  Prothero nodded gravely. “It’s possible, Dr. Chase. It can be done.”

  “How?”

  “You’re the scientist, you tell us. Surely it isn’t beyond the wit of man to devise the means of saving this planet from extinction? The misuse of technology has brought us to this state; therefore technology, properly applied, can rescue us. You must believe that.”

  Chase had heard, and debated, this argument many times before. He said curtly, “There’s no ‘must’ about it, Senator. Maybe it can, but there’s the very real possibility that it can’t. It could be too late.” Prothero plucked at his crisp white cuffs through force of habit. “Then we shall all perish,” he said calmly. “If what you say is true. But I believe, quite passionately, Dr. Chase, that we at least have to try. We have to find a solution.”

  “A scientific solution.”

  “Yes.”

  “Without government aid.”

  Prothero nodded, his long tanned face stiff and without expression. Chase was silent. Was this any more crazy than what was already happening to the world? In the face of governmental inertia and political funk it was clear that something had to be done. For if nothing was done, what was the alternative? He said quietly, “Have you the remotest idea of the cost of such an undertaking? The top line is a hundred million dollars, and I could go on adding noughts until you got dizzy. Have you considered that?”

  “Funding is available.” Ingrid Van Dorn smoothed her skirt and laced her slender white fingers around a blemishless knee. “We have obtained pledges and offers of support from wealthy individuals, trusts, and organizations. Money is not the problem.”

  “Then what is?”

  “You’re a scientist,” Prothero said. “You have proved organizational ability. More important, from our point of view, you are known and respected and have an international standing. You could find and recruit the right people. They’ll listen to you.”

  “You want me to head this thing?”

  They looked at him without answering.

  As for Chase, he could only gaze unseeingly at the sculptured horse/soul in the center of the table, bathed in the room’s discreet light. Did this preposterous scheme have a chance of succeeding?

  “You do realize why it would be a serious mistake to make this public knowledge,” Ingrid Van Dorn said. “The United States government would not look kindly on an independent research project on its own soil. For that reason we must proceed cautiously and in the utmost secrecy. For obvious reasons, neither the senator nor myself can be involved because of our roles as prominent public servants.”

  “Very properly you raised the matter of funding,” Prothero said. “One of the biggest items of expenditure will be a research base large enough to accommodate several hundred personnel and all the necessary facilities. Also it will have to be isolated, hidden away somewhere. That’s a pretty formidable specification,” Prothero said, though he was smiling. “It so happens we already have such a facility, courtesy of the Defense Department.”

  “They’re going to rent it out by the month?” Chase said tartly.

  “No, it’s entirely free of charge. The Desert Range Station at Wah Wah Springs in southwestern Utah. It’s part of the MX missile silo complex that was abandoned a number of years ago when the Defense Department decided to phase out nuclear weapons in favor of the environmental war strategy. The total MX program came to eighty-six billion dollars, but it was outmoded before it was even completed. They left behind workshops, maintenance bays, living quarters, and plenty of room for laboratories and other facilities. What’s more, the entire installation is buried under millions of tons of reinforced concrete in the middle of the Utah desert. The nearest town of any size is nearly a hundred miles away.”

  “You say it was abandoned, but wouldn’t they leave a small military unit behind to keep guard?”

  “As a representative of a Senate committee I toured the area in 1997,” Prothero said. “It’s an empty shell. There isn’t a soul there.”

  Ingrid Van Dorn said, “We’ve mentioned the need for secrecy, and I’m sure you appreciate the necessity. But there’s another reason, one that might not have occurred to you.”

  “Which is?”

  “You’ve heard of what the media call pyro-assassinations.”

  Chase nodded. “There was another in Paris last week. Claude Lautner.”

  “Lautner was an undersecretary in the French government with special responsibility for environmental matters. He was involved in negotiating the nine-nation Mediterranean Treaty to ban effluent discharge. The Treaty was to have been signed next month. The talks have now broken down.”

  Chase g
lanced blankly from one to the other. “What are you suggesting? Some kind of conspiracy?”

  “These assassinations aren’t random,” Ingrid Van Dorn said. “Every target has been someone—scientist, politician, administrator—working to improve the environment in some way. They are too well planned and executed to be the work of lone individuals. There’s an organization behind them.”

  “You could be right,” Chase said, not having made the connection before now. “But who? What organization?”

  “My money is on one of the intelligence agencies,” said Prothero. “Take your pick—ours, the Russians, the Chinese, Libya, South Africa.”

  “Then why choose such a distinctive method? It only draws attention to the fact that they’ve all been murdered by the same group. That’s hardly good intelligence procedure,” Chase pointed out.

  “Maybe it is,” Prothero countered, pushing his glasses more firmly onto the bridge of his nose. “Now just suppose you want to divert suspicion. What would you do? You’d select a cranky method of disposal and let a terrorist group take the blame. We’re supposed to assume that a regular, highly trained intelligence hit squad would carry out the job cleanly, quietly, and without fuss. By the normal process of deduction we’d come to the conclusion that pyro-assassinations can’t be the work of an intelligence agency, that such a bizarre method rules them out. Only it doesn’t. Doublethink.”

  “I’m prepared to go along with that, except for one thing,” Chase said. “Motive.”

  “That we don’t know,” Prothero conceded. “But with intelligence agencies screwball ideas are a dime a dozen. The screwier the better.”

  “So what you’re saying, I take it, is that anyone known to be involved in a project like this is a prime target.”

  “Right.”

  “But your views are already well known, Senator,” Chase said. It occurred to him that so were his.

  “I already take precautions, Dr. Chase.” Prothero took off his glasses, flicked out a snowy white monogrammed handkerchief, and began to polish them. His eyes were slightly watery but no less piercing without the thick lenses. “And if I were you, I’d do the same.”

  “Even if I decide not to accept your proposition?”

  “Even so.”

  “Though one can take too many precautions in this life.” Ingrid Van Dorn’s eyes were fixed on the ceramic sculpture, yet her remark was addressed to Chase as pointedly as if she had taken hold of his lapels. “Sometimes we have to take risks to make it worth the living. For ourselves and for our children.”

  Beaming like a child on Christmas morning, Cheryl followed Boris Stanovnik through the pine-floored hallway and into the long sunny room that was more like a cluttered study than a living room. Bookshelves lined three entire walls and there were books scattered everywhere, some sprouting markers made out of folded typing paper. Piles of magazines, scientific and technical journals, newspapers and files of different colors were stacked on every flat surface. In a recess next to the window was a massive stripped-pine chest, reaching almost to the ceiling. In place of the usual ten drawers there must have been fifty, some quite small, others the size of shoeboxes.

  “This is wonderful! ” Boris hugged Cheryl to him and then held her at arm’s length for a long searching scrutiny. “Wonderful to see you! After all this time!” He beamed at her delightedly.

  Shafts of sunlight made slanting pillars at the far end of the room, but even so a log fire blazed in the roughly hewn stone fireplace. Oregon in the fall could be decidedly chilly.

  Cheryl smiled, trying to get her breath back after the bear hug. “It has been a long time. Five years. Gavin was really disappointed at not being able to see you, Boris. But he was called away on urgent business.”

  “As you said on the phone yesterday. I’m so glad you were able to come.” Boris lifted his close-cropped gray head and called out to his wife in Russian.

  Amazing how little he’d changed, thought Cheryl. Still the same broad powerful physique and vigor, the same alert-eyed intelligence, and he was well into his seventies. Nina appeared, and to Cheryl it seemed the reverse had taken place. She was small and frail and she now walked with a stick. There was the pinched, harrowed look on her face that those who live constantly with pain acquire.

  Apparently she suffered badly with arthritis and had to take pain-relieving drugs. Cheryl expressed her sympathy and Boris had to translate: After ten years in America his wife’s English was still limited to a few words and phrases.

  They sat cozily around the log fire drinking the strong tea that Boris had made in the samovar. Cheryl explained about their trip, and after every two or three sentences Boris would dutifully translate. He shook his head when he heard that Gavin and Dan had gone to New York.

  “We know what’s happening there, we watch the reports on news-fax. What do they call it now?”

  “The Rotten Apple.”

  “Very bad there,” Boris grimaced. “The East Coast and the South. It’s like a cancer, eating away the country bit by bit. Every day it creeps nearer.”

  Cheryl looked toward the sunlit window. “You seem to be all right here. The air smells good.”

  “Yes, the air is mostly good and clear,” Boris agreed, sipping his tea. “There are forests and relatively few people. On some days we see dark clouds, industrial smog, but it blows”—he pushed his large hand through the air—“away to the ocean. Thank God.”

  “Don’t you miss your own country at all?” Cheryl asked.

  “At certain times of the year perhaps. When the leaves turn brown and fall like pieces of burned paper. Yes, we feel sad then.” Deep vertical creases appeared in his cheeks as he smiled. “But it is beautiful here too! Mountains, lakes, forests. And it has one tremendous advantage over Russia.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “No KGB. At least here we are not spied on and followed everywhere. Vida is a good place to live and work. We feel safe and protected—look, let me show you!”

  He wanted her to see the unbroken range of peaks to the north and east. Their slopes were thickly wooded and dusted lightly with the first snow of the season. To Cheryl they seemed to form an impregnable barrier, shutting out the rest of the world. But no barrier was impregnable to the climate.

  “Mount Jefferson, South Sister, Huckleberry, Diamond Peak, Bohemia Mountain.” Boris rhymed them off proudly like favorite grandchildren.

  “What work are you doing?” Cheryl asked him.

  Boris stood with his thumbs hooked into his belt, his chest swelling under a dark-brown woolen shirt with embroidered pockets. “I write and study and do research. I’ve been cataloging the plant life along the McKenzie River, collecting specimens. There are hundreds, it’s so fertile and varied.” He leaned toward her. “Up to now I have classified one hundred and twenty-six different species.”

  “I didn’t know you were a botanist,” Cheryl said in surprise.

  “No, I’m not, strictly speaking. I was a microbiologist, though much of my work for the Hydro-Meteorological Service was concerned with the conditions in rivers and lakes, how a change in climate might affect them and vice versa. That meant examining the soil, fauna, and flora in order to understand the complex interaction between them and the natural water supply, in particular the process of eutrophi-cation.”

  “Is there any sign of eutrophication in the McKenzie River?” Cheryl asked, vaguely uneasy.

  But the big Russian shook his head unhesitatingly. “No. No trace at all.”

  That was something to be thankful for. Eutrophication indicated that the biological oxygen demand of underwater plants and animal life was exceeding the water’s capacity to provide it. This led eventually to stagnation—the lake or river turning into a foul-smelling swamp. This was what had happened in the Gulf of Mexico.

  Regretfully, Cheryl had to refuse the invitation to stay for dinner. She had to drive back to Eugene and prepare for an early start in the morning. There were two Earth Foundation groups in th
e general area to visit, one at a place called Goose Lake in southern Oregon, the other over the border in California.

  A soft mellow dusk was falling as she was preparing to leave. The firelight threw dancing shadows along the crammed bookshelves, and Boris went across to the large pine chest in the corner, its row upon row of brass handles winking like fireflies. He beckoned to her, and Cheryl sensed a certain reluctance or indecision, as if he couldn’t make up his mind about something.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked, sliding open one of the drawers and taking out a rigid sheet of plastic. She saw that it consisted of two wafer-thin sheets pressed together and held by metal clips.

  Between them the stem and leaves of a plant were spread out on display, sealed from the air.

  Boris switched on the desk lamp so that she could see better. Cheryl held the plastic sheet in her spread fingertips and bent forward into the light. The leaves were about two inches in length, heart-shaped, with a fine tracery of darkish-green veins.

  “I’m not sure. It looks a bit like knotweed. You know, the generic species Polygonum convolvulus, which is very similar to this, only much smaller, about one third this size.” Cheryl looked up. “What is it?”

  “Polygonum convolvulus,” Boris said.

  “You mean it is knotweed?” Cheryl found herself gazing at the embroidered breast pocket of his shirt. Tiny pink hearts on twined green stems. “You actually found this along the McKenzie River?”

  “Also many other species that are three, four, even five times bigger than normal.”

  Boris took the plastic sheet from her fingers. Its surface caught the reflected glare of lamplight, illuminating his face from below and giving him the appearance of a giant in a fairy tale. He carefully replaced it and silently slid the drawer shut.

  The driver kept looking in his mirror to make sure. Skinny little runt of a guy in the funny black robes at the back of the bus hadn’t moved a muscle in over two hundred miles. Just sitting there, straight up, stiff as a board, eyes shut tight behind those crummy wire specs.