The pile of crabs had been transformed into a mass of broken claws and empty shells. The middle-aged waitress deftly cleared away the mess and returned a short time later with coffee and key lime pie for the table.
“Forgive me, but I’m not sure I understand what you are saying,” Loren said between bites.
Lisa gazed out the window at some twinkling lights on the far side of the river.
“I’m quite certain that the application of my catalyst can be used to construct a high-output artificial-photosynthesis device.”
“Could it be expanded to industrial proportions?” Pitt asked.
Lisa nodded with a humble look. “I’m sure of it. All that is needed is some light, rhodium, and ruthenium to make it tick.”
Loren shook her head. “So what you’re saying is that we’ll be able to construct a facility that can filter carbon dioxide into a harmless substance? And the process can be applied to power plants and other industrial polluters?”
“Yes, that’s the prospect. But even more than that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hundreds of facilities could be built. In terms of carbon reduction, it’d be like putting a pine forest in a box.”
“So you’re talking about actually reducing the existing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” Pitt stated.
Lisa nodded again, her lips pursed tight.
Loren grabbed Lisa’s hand and squeezed it hard. “Then… you’ve found a genuine solution to global warming.” The words came out in a whisper.
Lisa looked sheepishly at her pie and nodded. “The process is sound. There’s still work ahead, but I see no reason why we can’t have a large-scale artificial-photosynthesis facility designed and built in a matter of months. All it will take is money and political support,” she said, looking at Loren.
Loren was too startled to eat her dessert. “But the hearings today,” she said. “Why didn’t Dr. Maxwell mention it?”
Lisa stared up at the fern. “I haven’t told him yet,” she replied quietly. “I only just made the discovery a few days ago. To be honest, I was a little overwhelmed at the findings. My research assistant convinced me not to tell Dr. Maxwell before the hearings, until we were sure about the results. We were both afraid of the potential media frenzy.”
“You would have been right about that,” Pitt agreed.
“So do you still have doubts about the results?” Loren asked.
Lisa shook her head. “We’ve duplicated the results at least a dozen times, consistently. There is no question in my mind that the catalyst works.”
“Then it is time to act,” Loren urged. “Brief Maxwell tomorrow, and I’ll follow up with an innocuous hearing question. Then I’ll try and get us in to see the President.”
“The President?” Lisa blushed.
“Absolutely. We’ll need an Executive Order to put a crash production program into place until an emergency funding bill can be authorized. The President clearly understands the carbon problem. If the solution is within our grasp, I’m sure he will act immediately.”
Lisa fell silent, overcome by the ramifications. Finally, she nodded her head.
“You are right, of course. I’ll do it. Tomorrow.”
Pitt paid the bill, and the trio drifted out to the car. They drove home in relative silence, their thoughts absorbed with the magnitude of Lisa’s discovery. When Pitt pulled up in front of Lisa’s town house in Alexandria, Loren jumped out and gave her old friend a hug.
“I’m so proud of what you’ve done,” she said. “We used to joke about changing the world. Now you really have.” She smiled.
“Thanks for giving me the courage to go forward,” Lisa replied. “Good night, Dirk,” she said, waving at Pitt.
“Don’t forget. I’ll see you in the morning with the ocean carbon report.”
After Loren climbed back into the car, Pitt slid the gearshift into first and sped down the street.
“Georgetown or the hangar?” he asked Loren.
She snuggled close to him. “The hangar tonight.”
Pitt smiled as he steered the Auburn toward Reagan National Airport. Though married, they still kept separate residences. Loren maintained a fashionable town house in Georgetown but spent most of her time at Pitt’s eclectic home.
Reaching the grounds of the airport, he drove down a dusty side road toward a dark, vacant section of the field. Passing through an electric gate, he pulled up in front of a dimly lit hangar that looked as if it had been collecting dust for several decades. Pitt pressed the security code on a wireless transmitter and watched as a side door to the hangar slid open. A bank of overhead lights popped on, revealing a glistening interior that resembled a transportation museum. Dozens of brightly polished antique cars were neatly aligned in the center of the building. Along one wall, a majestic Pullman railroad car sat parked on a set of steel tracks embedded in the floor. A rusty bathtub with an ancient outboard motor bolted to the side and a weathered and dilapidated semi-inflatable boat sat incongruously nearby. As Pitt pulled into the hangar, the Auburn’s headlights flashed on a pair of aircraft parked at the back of the building. One was an old Ford Tri-Motor and the other a sleek World War II Messerschmitt ME-162 jet. The planes, like many of the cars in the collection, were relics of past adventures. Even the bathtub and raft told a tale of peril and lost love that Pitt retained as sentimental reminders of life’s frailty.
Pitt parked the Auburn next to a 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost that was undergoing restoration and turned off the motor. As the garage door closed behind them, Loren turned to Pitt and asked, “What would my constituents think if they knew I was living in an abandoned aircraft hangar?”
“They’d probably feel pity for you and increase their campaign donations,” Pitt replied with a laugh.
He took her hand and led her up a spiral staircase to a loft apartment in one corner of the building. Loren had exerted her marriage rights and coerced Pitt to remodel the kitchen and add an extra room to the apartment, which she used as an exercise area and office. But she knew better than to touch the brass portholes, ship paintings, and other nautical artifacts that gave the residence a decidedly masculine tone.
“Do you really think Lisa’s discovery will be able to reverse global warming?” Loren asked, pouring two glasses of pinot noir from a bottle labeled Sea Smoke Botella.
“Given enough resources, there seems no reason to think that it can’t happen. Of course, going from the lab to real world production is always more problematic than people think. But if a working design already exists, then the hard part is done.”
Loren walked across the room and handed Pitt a glass. “Once the bombshell hits, it’s going to get pretty hectic,” she said, already dreading the demands on her time.
Pitt hooked an arm around her waist and drew her tight to him. “That’s all right,” he smiled with a yearning grin. “We’ve still got tonight before the wolves start howling.”
14
After dropping Loren at the airport metro-rail station for a subway ride to the Hill, Pitt drove to the NUMA headquarters building, a tall glass structure that hugged the bank of the Potomac River. Collecting a copy of the research study on ocean carbon absorption, he returned to the Auburn and drove into D.C., turning northwest up Massachusetts Avenue. It was a beautiful spring day in the capital city. The oppressive heat and humidity of summer, when all were reminded that the city was built on a swamp, was still weeks away. The warm morning still felt comfortable driving in a convertible. Though he knew he should have left it safely tucked away in his hangar, Pitt couldn’t resist driving the topless Auburn one more time. The old car was remarkably nimble, and most of the surrounding traffic gave him plenty of leeway as they gawked at the sleek lines of the antique.
Pitt was every bit the anachronism he appeared to the passersby. His love of old planes and cars ran deep, as if he had grown up with the aged machines in another lifetime. The attraction nearly matched the draw of the sea and the
mysteries that came with exploring the deep. A gnawing sense of restlessness swirled within him, always fueling the wanderlust. Perhaps it was his sense of history that set him apart, allowing him to solve the problems of the modern world by finding answers in the past.
Pitt located the GWU Environmental Research and Technology Lab on a quiet side street off Rock Creek Park, not far from the Lebanese embassy. He happened upon a parking spot in front of the three-story brick building and walked to the entrance with the ocean study tucked under his arm. The lobby guard signed him in with a visitor’s badge, then gave him directions to Lisa’s office on the second floor.
Pitt took the elevator, waiting first for a janitor in a gray jumpsuit to push a trash cart out of the lift. A broad-shouldered man with dark eyes, the janitor gave Pitt a penetrating gaze before smiling good-naturedly as he passed by. Pitt pushed the button for the second floor and stood patiently as the cables pulled the elevator compartment skyward. He heard a muffled ding as the elevator approached the second floor, but before the doors slid open a massive concussion slammed him to the floor.
The detonation was centered over a hundred feet away, yet it shook the entire building like an earthquake. Pitt felt the elevator rattle and sway before the power failed and the compartment turned black. Rubbing a knot on the back of his head, he gingerly pulled himself to his feet and groped for the control panel. None of the buttons triggered a response. Sliding his hands along the door, he pressed his fingertips into the center seam and wedged open the inner doors. A few inches beyond, the outer doors to the second story rose a foot above the floor of the elevator. Pitt reached over and forced open the outer doors and climbed up onto the second-floor landing, stepping into a scene of chaos.
An emergency alarm blared with a deafening din, drowning out numerous shouting voices. A thick cloud of dust hung in the air, choking the breath for several minutes. Through the smoky haze, Pitt saw a crowd of people fighting their way down a nearby stairwell. The damage appeared most severe along a main corridor that stretched in front of him. The explosion had not been powerful enough to structurally damage the building but had blown out scores of windows and several interior walls. Looking past the immediate congestion, Pitt grimly realized that Lisa’s lab was near the heart of the blast.
He made his way down the hallway, giving way to a group of coughing scientists caked in dust. The ground crunched underfoot as he passed the shattered remains of a hallway window. A pale-looking woman staggered out of an office with a bleeding hand, and Pitt stopped and helped her wrap a scarf around the wound.
“Which one is Lisa Lane’s office?” he asked.
The woman pointed toward a gaping hole on the left side of the corridor, then shuffled off to the stairwell.
Pitt approached the jagged hole where a doorway had stood and stepped into the bay. A thick cloud of white smoke still hung in the air, slowly drifting out the shattered remains of a picture window that faced the street. Through the vacant window, he could hear the sirens of approaching fire rescue vehicles.
The lab itself was a jumbled mass of smoldering electronics and debris. Pitt noted an old Bunsen burner embedded into a side wall from the force of the blast. The smoking remains and punctured walls confirmed what he had feared. Lisa’s lab had indeed been the epicenter of the explosion. The walls still stood and the furnishings had not been obliterated, so it was clearly not a completely debilitating blast. Pitt guessed there would be no fatalities in the rest of the building. But any occupants of the lab were probably not so lucky.
Pitt quickly scoured the room, calling out Lisa’s name as he picked through the debris. He nearly missed her, just catching sight of a dust-covered shoe protruding beneath a fallen cabinet door. He quickly pulled the cabinet aside to reveal Lisa lying in a crumpled heap. Her lower left leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, and her blouse was soaked in blood. But her listless eyes turned and gazed up at Pitt, then blinked in acknowledgment.
“Didn’t they teach you to stay away from chemical experiments that go boom?” Pitt said with a forced smile.
He ran his hand along her blood-wet shoulder until finding a large sliver of glass jutting from her blouse. It appeared loose, so he yanked it out with a quick tug, then applied pressure with the palm of his hand to the stem the bleeding. Lisa grimaced briefly, then passed out.
Pitt held still and checked her pulse with his free hand until a fireman entered the room wielding an ax.
“I need a paramedic here,” Pitt shouted.
The fireman gave Pitt a surprised look, then called on his radio. A paramedic team arrived minutes later and quickly attended to her injuries. Pitt followed as they placed her on a stretcher and carried her down to a waiting ambulance.
“Her pulse is low, but I think she’ll make it,” one of the emergency workers told Pitt before the vehicle roared off to Georgetown University Hospital.
Threading his way through a horde of emergency workers and onlookers, Pitt was suddenly grabbed by a young paramedic.
“Sir, you better sit down and let me take a look at that,” the young man said excitedly, nodding at Pitt’s arm. Pitt looked down to see that his sleeve was soaked red.
“No worries,” he shrugged. “It’s not my blood.”
He made his way to the curb, then stopped in dismay. The Auburn sat covered in a blanket of shattered glass. Dings and scratches pockmarked the car from nose to tail. A piece of file cabinetry was mashed into the grille, spawning a growing pool of radiator fluid beneath the car. Inside, a chunk of flying building mortar had carved through the leather seats. Pitt looked up and shook his head as he realized that he’d unknowingly parked right beneath Lisa’s office.
Sitting on the running board and collecting himself, he observed the scene of chaos around him. Sirens blared as dozens of disheveled lab workers wandered around in a daze. Smoke still rose from the building, though fire had thankfully not materialized. Taking it all in, Pitt somehow had an odd sense that the explosion was no accident. Rising to his feet, he thought of Lisa as he gazed at the damaged Auburn, then felt a pang of anger gradually swell from within.
* * *
Standing behind a row of hedges across the street, Clay Zak watched the mayhem with idle satisfaction. After Lisa’s ambulance roared away and the smoke began to clear, he walked several blocks down a side alley to his parked rental car. Unzipping a gray jumpsuit, he tossed it into a nearby trash can, then climbed into the car and cautiously drove to Reagan National Airport.
15
A low mist hung over the still waters surrounding Kitimat as the first gray swaths of dawn streaked the eastern sky. A distant rumble of a truck rolling through the streets of the town drifted over the water, breaking the early-morning silence.
In the cabin of the NUMA workboat, Dirk set down a mug of hot coffee and started the boat’s engine. The inboard diesel sprang immediately to life, murmuring quietly in the damp air. Dirk glanced out the cockpit window, spying a tall figure approaching on the dock.
“Your suitor has arrived right on time,” Dirk said aloud.
Summer climbed up from the berths below and gave her brother a scornful look, then stepped onto the stern deck. Trevor Miller walked up with a heavy case under one arm.
“Good morning,” Summer greeted. “You were successful?”
Trevor handed the case to Summer, then stepped aboard. He gave Summer an admiring look, then nodded.
“A lucky stroke for us that the municipality of Kitimat has its own Olympic-sized swimming pool. The pool maintenance director willfully parted with his water quality analyzer in exchange for a case of beer.”
“The price of science,” Dirk said, poking his head out the wheelhouse door.
“The results obviously won’t be on a par with NUMA’s computer analysis, but it will allow us to at least measure the pH levels.”
“That will give us a ballpark gauge. If we find a low pH level, then we know that the acidity has increased. And an increase in acidity can occu
r from elevated amounts of carbon dioxide in the seawater,” Summer said.
Summer opened the case, finding a commercial-grade portable water analyzer along with numerous plastic vials. “The important thing is to replicate the high acidity readings identified by the lab. This ought to do the job for us.”
The results of the Seattle lab test had been shocking. The pH levels in several water samples taken near the mouth of the Douglas Channel were three hundred times lower than base levels taken elsewhere along the Inside Passage. Most disturbing was the final sample taken, just minutes before the Ventura nearly ran into the NUMA boat. The test results showed extreme acidity not far removed from the caustic levels of battery acid.
“Thanks for sticking around,” Trevor said, as Summer cast off the lines and Dirk powered the boat into the passage. “This certainly appears to be just a local problem.”
“The waters know no international boundaries. If there is an environmental impact occurring, then we have a responsibility to investigate,” Dirk replied.
Summer looked into Trevor’s eyes and could see the concern ran much deeper. Left unspoken was the potential connection to the death of his brother.
“We met with the police inspector yesterday,” Summer said quietly. “He had nothing more to add about your brother’s death.”
“Yes,” Trevor replied, his voice turning cold. “He’s closed the case, reporting the deaths as accidental. Claims an accumulation of exhaust gases likely collected in the wheelhouse and killed everyone. Of course, there’s no evidence for that…” he said, his voice trailing off.
Summer thought of the strange cloud they had seen on the water, and the eerie Haisla tale of Devil’s Breath. “I don’t believe it either,” she said.
“I don’t know what the truth is. Maybe that will help tell us,” he said, staring at the water sample kit.
Dirk piloted the boat at top speed for over two hours until they reached the Hecate Strait. Tracking the navigation system, he cut the engine when they reached the GPS coordinates where the last water sample had been taken. Summer dropped a Niskin bottle over the side and scooped up a vial of seawater, then inserted a probe from the water analyzer.
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