Arctic Drift Part 9

"I know. I'm supposed to accompany him to the Hill."

"Now, there's a suicide mission," Bob said, shaking his head. "If you tell him now, he's liable to bring it up in testimony in order to obtain more funding for the lab."

"Would that be such a bad thing?"

"It would if the results can't be duplicated. One lab test doesn't solve the mysteries of the universe. Let's rerun things and fully doc.u.ment every step before going to Maxwell. At least wait until after he testifies," Bob urged.

"I suppose you're right. We can duplicate the experiment under different scenarios just to be sure. The only limitation is our supply of ruthenium."

"That, I'm sure, will be the least of our problems," Bob said with a hint of prophecy.

11

THE AIR CANADA JET SKIMMED HIGH OVER ONTARIO, the landscape below appearing like a green patchwork comforter from the tiny first-cla.s.s windows. Clay Zak was oblivious to the view, focusing instead on the shapely legs of a young flight attendant pushing a drinks cart. She caught his stare and brought over a martini in a plastic cup.

"Last one I can serve you," she said with a perky smile. "We'll be landing in Toronto shortly."

"I'll savor it all the more," he replied with a leer.

Dressed in the traveling businessman's uniform of khaki slacks and a blue blazer, he looked like just another sales manager headed to an off-site conference. The reality was quite different.

The only child of an alcoholic single mother, he'd grown up in a ragtag section of Sudbury, Ontario, with little guidance. At fifteen, he'd dropped out of school to work in the nearby nickel mines, developing the physical strength that he still retained twenty years later. His life as a miner was short-lived, however, when he committed his first murder, driving a pickax into the ear of a fellow miner who'd taunted his family lineage.

Fleeing Ontario, he a.s.sumed a new ident.i.ty in Vancouver and drifted into the drug trade. His strength and toughness were put to use as an enforcer for a major local methamphetamine trafficker named "The Swede." The money came easily, but Zak treated it with an unusual intelligence. A self-taught man, he read voraciously, and judiciously studied business and finance. Rather than blowing his ill-gotten gains on tawdry women and flashy cars like his cohorts did, he shrewdly invested in stocks and real estate. His lucrative drug career, however, was cut short in an ambush.

It wasn't the police but a Hong Kong supplier looking to expand his control of the market. The Swede and his escorts were gunned down during a nighttime deal in Vancouver's rambling Stanley Park. Zak managed to duck the fire and disappear unscathed into a maze of hedges.

He bided his time before taking revenge, spending weeks staking out a luxury yacht leased by the Chinese syndicate. Setting off a timed explosive charge, using knowledge gleaned from his days in the nickel mines, he blew up the boat with all of the Hong Kong a.s.sociates aboard. Watching from a small speedboat as the fireball erupted, he saw a man on an adjacent yacht get thrown into the water by the concussion. Realizing the authorities would spend little time investigating the death of a known drug dealer but might expand the dragnet if a wealthy socialite was an added victim, he sped over and fished the unconscious man out of the water.

When a sputtering Mitch.e.l.l Goyette came to, his grat.i.tude was uncharacteristically effusive.

"You saved my life," he coughed. "I will reward you for that."

"Give me a job instead," Zak said.

Zak enjoyed a huge laugh when he reminded Goyette of the whole story years later. Even Goyette conceded the humor in it. By then, the mogul had come to admire the subversive talents of the former miner, employing him as a high-level enforcer once again. But Goyette knew Zak's loyalty was based solely on cash, and he always kept a wary eye on him. For his part, Zak enjoyed being the lone wolf. He had influence with Goyette, and while he enjoyed the compensation he also enjoyed tweaking his rich and powerful employer.

The plane landed at Toronto's Lester B. Pearson International Airport a few minutes ahead of schedule. Shaking off the effects of the in-flight martinis, Zak stepped out of the first-cla.s.s compartment and headed to the rental-car counter while waiting for his bags to be unloaded. Taking the keys to a beige four-door sedan, he drove south, skirting the western sh.o.r.eline of Lake Ontario. Cruising the lakefront expressway for another seventy miles, he exited at a sign reading NIAGARA. A mile below the famous falls, he crossed the Rainbow Bridge and entered the state of New York, handing the immigration officer a phony Canadian pa.s.sport.

Turning past the falls, it was just a short drive south to Buffalo. He found the city airport in plenty of time to catch a half-empty 767 to Washington, D.C., flying under yet another a.s.sumed name, this time with a phony American identification. Dusk had fallen as the jet crossed over the Potomac River on its final approach to Reagan National Airport. It was Zak's first time in the nation's capital, and he duly stared at the city's monuments from the back of a cab. Watching the blinking red lights atop the Washington Monument, he idly wondered if George would have deemed the towering obelisk an absurdity.

Checking in at the Mayflower Hotel, he perused the file that Goyette had given him, then rode the elevator down to the wood-paneled Town & Country Lounge on the lobby floor. Finding a quiet corner booth, he ordered a martini and checked his watch. At a quarter past seven, a thin man with an unkempt beard approached the table.

"Mr. Jones?" he asked, eyeing Zak nervously. Zak gave the man a weak smile.

"Yes. Please sit down," Zak replied.

"I'm Hamilton. Bob Hamilton, from the GWU Environmental Research and Technology Lab," the man said quietly. He stared at Zak with trepidation, then took a deep breath and slid tentatively into the booth.

12

A MIRACLE OF SORTS ARRIVED ON THE PRESIDENT'S desk shortly after his meeting with Sandecker. It was another letter from the Canadian Prime Minister, offering a potential solution to the growing crisis. A major natural gas field had quietly been discovered last year, the Prime Minister wrote, in a remote section of the Canadian Arctic. Preliminary explorations indicated that the site, located in Viscount Melville Sound, could prove to be one of the richest reserves of natural gas in the world. The privately held firm that made the discovery already had a fleet of tanker ships on line to transport the gas to America.

It was just the tonic the President was seeking to help boost his broader objectives. A major purchase agreement was quickly put in place to get the gas flowing. Though market price was exceeded, the company promised to provide all the gas it could deliver. Or so guaranteed the CEO of the private exploration firm, one Mitch.e.l.l Goyette.

IGNORING THE PLEAS FROM his economic and political advisers that he was being too brash, the President quickly acted on the news. In a nationally televised address from the Oval Office, he outlined his ambitious plans to the public.

"My fellow Americans, we are living in a moment of great peril," he said into the cameras, his normally upbeat mood masked by solemnity. "Our daily lives are imperiled by a crisis of energy while our very future existence is threatened by a crisis of the environment. Our dependency on foreign oil has created damaging economic consequences that we all feel while promoting the emission of dangerous greenhouse gases. Troubling new evidence continues to show that we are losing the battle against global warming. For our own security, and for the safety of the entire world, I am hereby directing that the United States achieve a national goal of carbon neutrality by the year 2020. While some may call this objective drastic or even impossible to attain, we have no other choice. I call tonight for a crash research effort by private industry, academic inst.i.tutions, and our own government agencies to solve our energy needs through alternative fuels and renewable sources. Oil cannot and will not be the fuel that powers our future economy. A funding package will be presented to Congress shortly, outlining our specific investments in new research and technology.

"With the proper resources and a determined will, I am confident that we can reach this goal together. Nevertheless, we must make sacrifices today to cut our emissions and reduce our reliance on oil, which continues to choke our economy. Due to the recent availability of natural gas supplies, I am directing that all of our domestic coal and oil-fired power plants be converted to natural gas within two years. I am pleased to announce tonight that President Zhen of China has agreed to impose similar mandates in his country. In addition, I will be presenting plans shortly for our nation's automakers to accelerate the production of natural-gas- and hybrid-electric-powered vehicles, which I hope will be adopted at the international level.

"We are facing difficult times, but with your support we can reach a more secure tomorrow. Thank you."

As the cameras turned off, the President's chief of staff, a short, balding man named Charles Meade, approached Ward.

"Excellent job, sir. I believe it was an effective speech, and it ought to pacify the anti-coal fanatics and their proposed boycott."

"Thanks, Charlie, I believe you are right," the President said. "It was quite effective. Effective, that is, at eliminating any chance of my being reelected," he added with a twisted grin.

13

ROOM 2318 OF THE RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING was uncharacteristically packed with reporters and spectators. Open hearings of the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment seldom drew more than a handful of onlookers. But in light of the President's mandate on greenhouse gas emissions, the resulting media firestorm brought a flurry of attention to the subcommittee and its previously scheduled hearing. Its topic: the status of new technologies to aid the battle against global warming.

The a.s.sembled crowd slowly hushed as an anteroom door opened and eighteen members of Congress filed to their respective seats on the dais. The last member to enter was an attractive woman with cinnamon-colored hair. She was dressed in a deep purple Prada jacket and skirt, which nearly matched the hue of her violet eyes.

Loren Smith, devoted congresswoman from Colorado's Seventh District, had never traded away her femininity since arriving at the blue-suited halls of Congress years before. Even in her forties, she still made a smart and stylish appearance, but her colleagues had learned long ago that Loren's beauty and fashion sense did nothing to lessen her skill and intelligence in the political arena.

Walking gracefully to the center of the dais, she took her seat next to a plump, white-haired congressman from Georgia who chaired the committee.

"Ah call this hearing to order," he brayed with a thick accent. "Given the public interest in our topic, Ah will forgo opening remarks today and invite our first speaker to testify." He turned and gave a quick wink to Loren, who smiled in return. Longtime colleagues and friends despite sitting on different sides of the aisle, they were among a rare minority of House members who shunned partisan grandstanding in order to focus on the good of the country.

A succession of industry and academic leaders took turns testifying on the latest advances in energy alternatives that emitted zero carbon. While offering up sunny long-term prospects, every speaker wavered when pressed by the committee to provide an immediate technological solution.

"Volume production of hydrogen hasn't been perfected yet," testified one expert. "Even if every man, woman, and child in the country had a hydrogen fuel cell car, there wouldn't be enough hydrogen available to power a fraction of them."

"How far off are we?" asked a representative from Missouri.