A Perfect Ambition

by Dr. Kevin Leman

  Will paused. “You know how we’ve always talked about the Worthingtons getting into politics over the years, during those family vacations at Chautauqua?”

  She nodded. “I remember them well. I’ve wondered when you’d get around to asking this question, honestly.”

  “Well, it’s time. I’m getting into the Senate race against James Loughlin. And if you thought the fight with Sandstrom was bad, well, buckle up. This could be a whole lot more interesting and a lot more public.”

  37

  “You safe, Sean?” Will asked. “Shouldn’t you—”

  “I’m fine,” Sean said. “And no, I’m not leaving.”

  “But Mom and Sarah are a mess, worrying—”

  “They’d worry no matter what. I’ve got a job to do.”

  Their phone call kept cutting in and out, due to the hurricane Sean said was blowing in. Each time it did, Will’s heart rate sped up. Sean always took risks . . . too many risks. But a hurricane?

  And that wasn’t the only storm brewing. Everything was going to hit the fan at the next AF meeting. He’d know the results of that storm very fast, as soon as the meeting concluded.

  But there was still another storm lurking in the background. If Will’s suspicions were true about the bombing, then more about AF might eventually come to light. However, unless the Polar Bear Bomber crawled out from whatever rock he was under and got captured or turned himself in, there might never be proof one way or the other. Still, Will’s gut told him he was on target.

  But no reasoning changed the stark fact that Sean was doubly in harm’s way. Will couldn’t help one reason for that. The other, though . . .

  It’s because of me that Sean is directly in the line of fire.

  If Sandstrom indeed had hired a bomber to dress up as an eco-crazy and to bomb his own office building—just to turn public support his direction—what kind of lengths would the man go to in order to cover up anything that happened in the Arctic?

  Suddenly Will felt sick. He’d learned the hard way that desperate people would do desperate things. The rich ones would never get their own hands dirty, but hired guns like Jason Carson had no conscience.

  Sean’s irritated voice broke in. “Are you listening to me, Will?”

  Will snapped his focus back to the phone call. “Sorry.”

  “This is a bad one, and the captain says it’s almost certain to do some damage, if not cripple the oil platform on the surface.”

  The Arctic Ocean was notorious for unpredictable, fast-moving hurricanes whose course couldn’t be charted as easily as those that swept through the Atlantic and Pacific regions. Hurricanes in the Arctic had never really been studied that much, largely because there weren’t very many people impacted by them.

  “I just got a text from Elizabeth. She’s really worried,” Sean continued. “Something about methane mixing with the water. She didn’t fully explain. I could tell she was in a rush. Add that to the hurricane ripping through here and making the platform potentially shaky, and we might be in for a rough ride.”

  This type of one-two punch was precisely what Will had warned the company of in his early memos about the perils of trying to drill in deep water in the Arctic before they’d perfected things like movable domes or platforms that could withstand unusual weather, ice, or windy conditions. But in the end, the board had made a decision, and AF moved into action.

  An AF team had created a modern miracle of engineering—a new kind of platform that could drill through rock and handle crippling winter conditions at the same time. The combined subsea structure linked by graphene pillars to the platform at the surface was the combined work of can-do ex-NASA types and field-tested oil engineers.

  But Will had worried and argued—until there was no more time or room for argument—that the platform simply might not be able to handle the subsea fracture and then still keep itself upright if a level 4 hurricane hit it.

  He’d then called in a favor with a respected crew chief he knew. Adam Blunt had seen it all in his 30 years in the business—from the same sort of wildcatting days that Sandstrom liked to brag about until now, the heady days when the great oil companies straddled the world, influenced the rise and fall of governments, and settled the fate of compassionate, democratic rulers and despots alike.

  Blunt had made his seasoned opinion clear. He concurred with Will. And he’d said that there was even further danger—of methane leaks and subsequent blowouts, like what had happened with the BP spill. If American Frontier guessed wrong about how much methane actually mixed in with the oil once they’d tapped the reservoir in the Arctic Ocean . . .

  And my own brother is right there in the midst of the worst scenario I’d worried about.

  When the BP crisis hit, people had tended to focus on the death of thousands of birds with oily feathers, or oil balls washing up on white beaches. But 11 people had died in the BP platform explosion.

  His heart rate sped up. American Frontier was also gambling with all the people’s lives on the platform. But if pride won the coin toss and Sandstrom wouldn’t allow his people to move out, they’d be trapped.

  Will understood the oil business—and the Worthington fortunes—had been built on exploration and risk. But his brother’s life wasn’t a risk he wanted to take.

  “Sean, you’ve got to get out of there.”

  “I know, but—”

  The line went dead.

  38

  THE ARCTIC OCEAN

  At least one thing had gone Sean’s way in this whole mess. The Russian ship, leased by Green Justice officially but funded with Worthington money, would soon be accepting some additional passengers.

  Sean had been shocked when Dr. Shapiro had contacted him, asking if the ship would be willing to take the scientists aboard. “We’re getting kicked off the Cantor,” he said when he called from the Cantor’s sat phone. “I just ran into the ensign, our babysitter. He said they were moving all of us off the ship. The Navy doesn’t want to keep track of us anymore, now that our research mission is basically kaput. And they need to stay in the area, he said, to be available to help with the spill.”

  “They’re not heading back to Alaska?”

  “I don’t know. But they’re off-loading us.”

  “Off-loading you? Where?”

  “They said we have our pick.” Dr. Shapiro’s tone was sarcastic. “Then again, yours is the only other ship around. Care to take us aboard? I, for one, would rather not be floating around with the carcasses in the sea.”

  “How much time do you need to pack up?”

  “We already did, as soon as we heard.” Dr. Shapiro lowered his voice. “Elizabeth and the rest of the team transferred the files off the systems on board the Cantor, put the big data pools on my laptop, and saved the documents and research notes on a flash drive. And then, just to be safe, I backed everything up on a portable hard drive.”

  That was so Dr. Shapiro, Sean thought. Covering his bases and then double-covering them.

  “So we’re good. We can take all the data with us and write it up when we’re on board your ship.” He chuckled. “Elizabeth’s pretty steamed.”

  There was a slight scuffle on the other end of the phone line, and then Sean heard a prickly female voice declare, “Just our luck. We finally get some answers back on methane hydrates in the Arctic from some of our colleagues, and we’re starting to write up our observations with the infrared and our buoy system. Provided, of course, as the Navy says, that we limit it to facts only and don’t draw any premature conclusions. And I was beginning to write up the findings for a research post. Now a hurricane chases us out of the area. Honestly!”

  Sean grinned. Elizabeth was in full swing.

  “I just want to see how it all turns out,” she concluded.

  “You want to see how a hurricane turns out? ‘Not good’ is the answer. It’s never a good thing to be on something that can move when a hurricane hits.”

  “No, I mean the oil spill,” she said.
“We know that everyone thinks it’s a small thing and that everything is mostly under control. But Dad and I have our doubts.”

  “Well, I guess we’ll have to read about it in the papers like everyone else.”

  She huffed. “I am so not good with that.”

  Indeed, Elizabeth was at her finest, and Sean couldn’t wait to see her.

  NEW YORK CITY

  He’d been living in abject fear and paranoia ever since the beginning of the massive manhunt to find the Polar Bear Bomber. He hadn’t dared go back to his tiny flat in Brooklyn, for fear they were waiting for him there.

  He’d spent the first night in the church on Madison, the second night in the furnace room of an apartment complex on the East Side, and the third night—at least he thought it was the third night—collapsed in a heap in a corner of the one train that ran between Harlem and lower Manhattan. His nights and days were all starting to run together.

  He’d barely even noticed that he hadn’t taken a shower for days on end, or that the entire end of the subway train emptied out to avoid the horrific smell while he slept at the end of the subway car. He was just glad to have the peace and quiet.

  On the streets, he’d gotten into the habit of walking to the other side of the street whenever he saw some NYPD cop out walking his beat. He was sure that at any moment the police were going to descend on him, pick him up, and drop him in a deep, dark hole somewhere for his role in the American Frontier bombing.

  He didn’t want to be famous—not this way. His lifelong goal had been to make it on Broadway, in front of the stage lights. It was why he spent so much of his time in Times Square, wandering from one theater to the next, studying the marquees and the posters, discerning patterns and trends, and waiting for that one big break that would allow him to reach his goal.

  But right now, he merely needed to avoid them. They were going to find him—he was certain of that. He needed to get his money and disappear. He’d come back to the city when it was safe again. Now wasn’t the time. They were all searching for him, trying to find him. He needed to flee. But he needed the money first. That was the thing. And it was the only thing in the world that mattered.

  39

  “Will, did you do something to your mother? Say something to her?” Laura frowned, toe tapping, as she confronted him the instant he walked into the door at home.

  Will had thought his wrestling with storms would be temporarily suspended, at least for an hour.

  Evidently not.

  “What makes you think I upset my mother?” he tried in a calm tone.

  “She’s called here four times today, said it’s urgent. Said you haven’t picked up her calls on your cell today.” Laura crossed her arms. “And she said she needed to talk to you alone.”

  “Honestly, hon, I have no idea what it’s about.”

  Laura narrowed her eyes. “And the last time she called, I could tell she’d been crying.”

  Crying? His mother? She was a bastion of strength. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his mother cry.

  Then an image fluttered at the edges of his vision. His mother, sitting alone in their backyard garden at Chautauqua. Will must have been very young at the time, but he distinctly remembered her looking sad.

  Even now, all these years later, it was a startling memory. His mother was a powerhouse in their family and in society, known for encouraging everyone she knew. But that day her usual vibrant smile had been missing.

  Will hadn’t said a word. He’d simply climbed up into her lap and hugged her.

  She had held him tightly. To this day he could taste the salt of her tears as they dripped onto his hair and then down his cheek. It had been the first inkling he had of what shared sorrow meant. And from that moment on, something had built in him to be her protector. He never wanted to see his mother sad again.

  “I’m waiting,” Laura cut in. She lifted a dubious brow.

  “Seriously, I haven’t done anything. I’ve barely talked to her, with everything going on.”

  “Well, it has to be something.”

  Will almost chuckled. Women—they sure stick together.

  “Anyway, give her a call. Get it worked out,” Laura directed.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said in a contrite tone, even though he didn’t know what he was being sorry for.

  She pivoted toward the kitchen. “And be quick about it. Dinner’s waiting.”

  Funny. He could walk fearlessly into the tightest situations in boardrooms without a flicker of anxiety. But when sparks were shooting from his wife’s eyes, he was putty.

  40

  THE ARCTIC OCEAN

  The Green Justice ship was riding the waves long before the sun came up. Chunks of ice had battered the hull of the ship all night, and no one had gotten much sleep. Though there would definitely be high winds, it was still an open question about when, or if, an actual hurricane would hit.

  The Navy ship still hadn’t budged. Sean continued to network but had yet to hear from the Russian ambassador. The director at AIA hadn’t been able to convince any of their staff contacts yet to force action from either Finland or Sweden. They appeared to be at a standstill, unless something else intervened.

  Is Drew right? Sean thought. Am I putting myself and the entire Worthington family in danger, without accomplishing anything?

  Still, his conscience wouldn’t let him give up. Sean’s last gambit—an effort to extract a quid pro quo from some of his NOAA friends to intervene with the Navy—had been a spectacular failure. The Navy hadn’t budged, and NOAA had zero clout with them. The net result of those efforts, oddly, was that the Navy realized they could off-load the science team to the Russian-flagged ship, and they had allowed Dr. Shapiro to call Sean when they found out the good doctor had a direct contact on the ship. Sean had agreed to that request, not only because he was glad to welcome the scientists on board—especially Elizabeth and her father—but also because he thought it might help with negotiations to sail past the American Frontier platform for at least one quick sighting before shipping out to the nearest coastline.

  It didn’t work. The Navy had refused on safety grounds and the fact that the Arctic Council still had not authorized anything other than US military or American Frontier rescue ships into the area.

  The science team had been told to leave all of the gear and equipment aboard the USS Cantor. They’d received a promise that they could pick it up later, after the storm had passed or the ship had returned to port. Either way, the science team’s mission was done. They would now simply play the role of passengers aboard the Green Justice ship.

  “I’m sorry,” Sean told Kirk and Jon as they waited for the Navy ship to send the crew of scientists over their way on smaller boats.

  “For what?” Kirk asked.

  “I failed.” Sean sighed. “I couldn’t get us clearance. I tried. I tugged every string or every thread I could find. It didn’t work. NOAA has no pull with either the Pentagon or the White House. The Navy is calling the shots here, probably under orders from AF. Because the Russian ambassador hasn’t called back again with news, we can assume we’re dead in the water there as well.”

  “The Aleut NGO?” Jon asked.

  Sean shook his head. “No progress. At least not yet. These things take time, through staff channels. But by the time we get some sort of clearance from another country that isn’t the United States or Russia, we’ll be long gone from this place, tucked away safely in some port.”

  “So we come back.” Kirk narrowed his eyes fiercely. “I’m not giving up. We’ll be back. We aren’t out of this yet by any means. We may just turn around if the storm passes and head right back here before we ever get to port. We can be defeated today and tomorrow—but not forever. Remember the Sun Tzu philosophy: ‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.’”

  Sean smiled wanly. He loved Kirk’s courage and his pluck. He never gave up. He was always on the attack, ready to
find any chink in the armor, and constantly quoted passages from The Art of War. It was one of Kirk’s charms. He seemed to genuinely live his life as Sun Tzu might have instructed, albeit in the context of a civil society.

  Whomp!

  The ever-increasing waves ferociously tossed a massive ice chunk up against the side of the Green Justice ship. The skies darkened almost by the minute. The winds were already strong enough that the three of them had to hold on to something while they stood out on the deck.

  Sean’s smile turned wry. “I think even Sun Tzu would admit defeat right now in this particular battle. We’ll need to leave the area as soon as the scientists arrive on board. The weather is clearly getting much worse, and quickly.”

  Kirk drew himself up taller. “Never admit defeat. You merely retreat. You’re not defeated.”

  Jon jerked his head in the direction of the Navy ship. “I’ll be curious to hear from them. We’ll at least be able to get some firsthand observations. That’ll give me something to report, assuming I can quote them in anything that I file from here.”

  The smaller boat pushed off from the side of the Navy cutter and struggled to make its way through the choppy waves. Even though there was a short distance between the two ships, it still took nearly 20 minutes.

  The scientists all looked frazzled and more than a bit unhappy as they climbed up the ladder and onto the deck of the Russian ship.

  Sean recognized Elizabeth as soon as she nimbly pulled herself over the edge of the railing and clambered on board the Green Justice ship. Her father followed. Sean hurried across the deck, trying not to stumble on the uncertain deck surface. He got there in the nick of time to smile at Elizabeth before he grabbed Dr. Shapiro and helped him finish the climb onto the deck.

  At that moment, Jon stepped up.

  “Jon Gillibrand!” Dr. Shapiro said brightly. “It’s so great to see you. Elizabeth told me you also were here.” He lowered his voice. “Uh, do the Green Justice folks know you’re a reporter?”