by Ben Bova
“Is he there to work on the toxic-waste microbe?”
“We assume so,” said Meade. “We understand he is employed as a staff scientist for Simi Bioengineering, in California.”
“What makes this O’Donnell gentleman important? His employer is hardly on the cutting edge of genetic engineering.”
“We don’t know, Sir Derek.” Meade noticed that his boss seemed to be staring through the brown surface of the Avon. “Simi is a member corporation of the American arm of Trikon.”
“I am fully aware of that,” said Sir Derek. “Are you attempting to portray this new scientist as some sort of mystery man?”
“We don’t know enough about him to be certain of anything,” said Meade. “We are following your orders to keep you apprised of all developments on Trikon Station. We wanted you to be aware of O’Donnell.”
“Dr. Ramsanjawi should be advised and kept informed of anything you uncover about this man.”
“I’ll see to it.”
“Is there anything else?”
Meade shook his head, then realized that Sir Derek was not looking at him. He dropped the last pieces of bread into the water. “No.”
The bread caught the current and dipped quickly down the shallow steps of the weir. A young couple swaddled in yellow slickers walked past and stood at the dock for the sightseeing boat. They paid no attention to the two men.
Sir Derek watched the bread swirl into the distance. He watched it long after it disappeared from view, long after Meade’s presence faded into the misty evening air, long after the sightseeing boat appeared under the Parade Bridge, The Avon drained the lands where, more than eleven hundred years earlier, a young King Alfred rallied a band of Saxon warriors and defeated the Danes at Ethandune. Without that victory, there would never have been an England, and Sir Derek—if he had been born at all—would have been speaking Danish. The peril facing this last fragment of the Empire was no less great. Economic power had been squandered by a xenophobic government. But he, with a band smaller than Alfred’s, would restore England to its preeminent position. And make millions of pounds for himself in the process. Sir Derek left his place on the river and retraced his steps across Pulteney Bridge. A freshening breeze lifted the shops’ awnings and the lowering sun edged through a seam in the cloud cover. A pale yellow glow seeped into every corner of the city. Bath seemed alive.
Five years earlier, when it became apparent that Great Britain would separate from the European Community, Sir Derek had invited Chakra Ramsanjawi to his weekend estate in the Mendip Hills. The two men had not seen each other in several years, and Sir Derek was both surprised and gratified to see how paunchy Chakra had become. Chakra was dressed in a rumpled gray pinstripe suit that Sir Derek noted had been inexpertly pressed. The vest was stretched across his belly. His slick black hair was parted in the middle in a caricature of a style in vogue among the fashion trendsetters of Savile Row.
Sir Derek was barely able to keep his distaste of Ramsanjawi from showing on his patrician face. This Indian fakir, this would-be Englishman with his ash-gray skin and his pretenses of gentility. This would-be brother whom his misguided parents had foisted on him.
The two men had cocktails on an enclosed veranda in virtual silence, dined at opposite ends of the long table in the main dining room, then retired to the fire-lit parlor for brandy and cigars. They stood before the fireplace and stared at the flames licking the blackened mouth of the chimney—the true English aristocrat and the dumpy Indian hopeful. Chakra held his brandy snifter with his pinkie aloft. His other hand was half dipped into his jacket pocket, thumb exposed.
“How is it you are supporting yourself and Elaine now?” asked Sir Derek. His nose pinched at the cologne vapors swarming around his guest.
“Research.”
“I see,” Sir Derek said. “For whom are you conducting this research?”
Chakra mumbled something unintelligible. It did not matter. Sir Derek already knew the answer.
“I have a proposition for you,” said Sir Derek.
“I need none of your propositions.”
“Chakra, let us speak frankly. More than anything in the entire world, you want to return to Oxford.”
Ramsanjawi took a quick sip of his brandy. There was no need to respond. The truth of Sir Derek’s comment was obvious.
“My proposition is that you resign your present post, whatever it might be, and apply for the position of chief research coordinator at Ciba-Geigy’s laboratories outside of Basel.”
“They already refused to hire me after—”
“Apply, Chakra. I assure you, the position will be yours. There are ways for these things to happen.”
“I know,” said Chakra. He leveled a hard stare at Sir Derek. His eyes were two black dots in narrow yellow slits. “I know the way things can be done—when you want them to be done.”
Sir Derek let the comment pass.
“Ciba-Geigy is not Oxford,” Chakra said.
“It is your first step back,” said Sir Derek. “Allow me to explain. If you have been reading the newspapers… sorry, that’s right. You no longer read newspapers. If you have been paying attention to the telly, you undoubtedly realize that the United Kingdom is threatening to pull out of the EC. I think this is a foolish course, and I have labored long and hard to convince the Prime Minister and Parliament that participation is in our best interests. But none of the dolts has the wit to listen to me. I predict that by the year 2000 our economy will be in a shambles and our once preeminent place among nations will have been lost.”
“So what?” said Chakra, almost vehemently.
“I know you don’t feel that way,” said Sir Derek. “You love England as much as I, almost.”
“You think that?”
“Almost.”
“What is your proposition, Derek? I want to be reinstated to my professorship at Oxford. You tell me to work in Switzerland.”
“Simply this. I trust you are familiar with Fabio Bianco.”
“He is a microbiologist of great reputation,” said Chakra. “And he has the soul of a crusader.”
“His crusader’s soul is currently ascendant,” Sir Derek said. “He is attempting, with a significant chance of success, to create a consortium of multinational corporations that will pool their research capabilities in order to solve various environmental problems facing the world through the use of genetic engineering. The work will be so sensitive and so potentially hazardous that it will be performed on a space station.”
Ramsanjawi’s eyes widened slightly.
“The Ciba-Geigy board of directors fully intend to vote in favor of joining the consortium,” Sir Derek continued. “If you are chief research coordinator of the Basel lab, you will most likely be assigned to this project.”
“What do you want, Derek?”
“What I want is to be the father of a new empire. Since that cannot be, I will settle for saving us all from going to hell in a hack.”
Chakra smirked. “And you propose to do that by sending me to Switzerland to work for a research lab that may become part of a research project that has not yet begun.”
“Will participate in a project that will begin,” corrected Sir Derek. “It will be a coordinated effort to create a supermicrobe. I want that microbe.”
“For Britain?” asked Chakra.
“For England,” said Sir Derek.
“For yourself, you mean.”
Sir Derek’s nostrils flared slightly. “I am already a very wealthy man, Chakra. This will make me even wealthier, it is true. But I do this for England, believe me. I want to save my country despite the obstinate idiots in charge of its government.”
Chakra knocked back his brandy. Instantly, a servant appeared and whisked the snifter out of his hand.
“And my cooperation will lead to my reinstatement at Oxford?”
“If at all possible.”
“Now it is merely possible,” said Chakra. “My banishment was not merely possible.”
/> “You brought that on yourself.”
“Bah!” said Chakra.
“What other options do you have? Seriously.”
Chakra turned on his heel and walked toward the doorway. Sir Derek noted that the years had added a rockiness to his smooth gait.
“You know,” Sir Derek called, “Mumsy—that is, Lady Elizabeth— encouraged me to become an economist.”
Chakra froze at the doorway.
“It was after you declared your intention to become a scientist. Her reasoning was that economics was far enough removed from science that our egos would not clash. Wouldn’t she be gratified to see us cooperating so swimmingly.”
Chakra walked out the door without turning around. Sir Derek knew the words had stung.
“I’ll wait to hear from you, Chakra,” he muttered.
17 AUGUST 1998
FLORIDA
DRUG SWEEP NETS 1,000 ARRESTS
A task force consisting of Drug Enforcement Administration agents and the Los Angeles police conducted massive sweeps in three drug-infested Los Angeles neighborhoods early this morning.
“It looked like D-Day,” said one witness to the operation.
The three sweeps were coordinated to occur simultaneously. Police and DEA agents arrested virtually everyone they found on the streets and hustled them off to school buses waiting at strategically positioned staging areas. People found exiting tenements and houses during the commotion were arrested as well.
The school buses, each manned by six armed guards in addition to a driver and equipped with reinforced metal screens covering the windows, transported the suspects to the Los Angeles Coliseum. There, in the eerie glow of the stadium’s floodlights, the suspects were arraigned in six open-air courtrooms hastily constructed on the playing field.
The sweeps, the largest in the history of Los Angeles in terms of arrests, followed a blueprint established in similar operations in New York and Washington, D.C. The American Civil Liberties Union, which has challenged the outdoor detention centers in New York and Washington on constitutional grounds, has filed suit against Los Angeles County on behalf of the detainees.
—Los Angeles Times, 14 July 1995
The day felt and looked exactly like the aftermath of a storm. The sky was a brilliant clean blue, the highway was littered with debris left by Caroline— branches, palm fronds, Spanish moss, even a mailbox still attached to its post. The rented Rover sped south, its balloon tires whining on the macadam. The thick palm and mangrove forest that swept past in a blur plunged the highway into complete shadow. The air was cool, almost frigid.
Aaron Weiss gripped the dashboard with one hand and pressed his Donegal walking hat to his head with the other. He hated open cars, hated convertibles of any sort. If he ruled the world, or at least that portion of the world responsible for overland travel, every motor vehicle would have a roof reinforced with a roll bar and a governor to prevent it from exceeding fifty-five miles an hour. But there was a story beyond that mangrove forest, and he knew that speed was essential.
“Can’t you go any faster?” he screamed over the rush of wind.
Zeke Tucker glanced at him, then looked back at the littered highway. He said nothing, but nudged the accelerator slightly. He smiled enough to reveal the gap in his front teeth. He was amused by Weiss’s consternation.
Tucker and Weiss had worked as a team for seventeen years, since the Reagan assassination attempt. He had seen the reporter annoy thousands of people, from headwaiters to heads of state. When it came to aggravation, Aaron Weiss was a true egalitarian. And Zeke Tucker was the ideal cameraman to team with him: lanky, slow-drawling, absolutely unflappable.
Tucker slowed and squinted at the hand-drawn map Weiss had taped to the dashboard. He swerved off the highway and punched the Rover through a screen of brush and young palmetto, engine growling, camera gear jouncing on the back seat. Beyond the brush, two slender trails of sand curved through the trees. The makeshift roadway was not exactly wide enough for the Rover; Weiss was stuck several times by overhanging palmetto spines. He grumbled curses each time. Eventually the trees and bushes thinned enough to reveal the glare of the sun reflecting off the ocean. The Rover broke out onto a beach. Tucker let it roll to a stop on the white sand.
“Great,” Weiss snapped. “Now where the hell are we?” All he could see was a ridge of sand and, beyond that, the glittering water stretching to the horizon.
“Not far now,” said Tucker, a long bony finger tapping the map. “If you want to, Aaron, we can sit here and watch the shuttle launch.” The gap-toothed grin came back to his long-jawed face.
“Fuck the shuttle. Nobody wants to hear about shuttles anymore, only when they blow up. The big news is right here.” Weiss pounded the dashboard to signify the surface of Planet Earth.
Nodding, Tucker released the clutch and the Rover churned through the loose sand. Weiss leaned over the windshield and shaded his eyes against the sun. As the Rover crested the ridge, he saw them. They were about half a mile to the north, several huge gray slabs lying in pools left by the outgoing tide.
“There they are,” said Weiss, pointing.
“My God,” Tucker whispered. “My God.”
“I count twelve,” Weiss said.
“Yeah,” said Tucker. “Looks like nine adults and three calves.”
The Rover descended the ridge, then sped along the hardpan close to the water. No one except the police seemed to be there. A group of sheriffs deputies were pounding stakes and stringing bright orange tape between them.
“They’re treating this like a crime scene,” said Tucker.
Weiss noticed a van marked Sea World of Orlando approaching from the opposite direction.
“Maybe it is,” he said.
They stopped the Rover at the police line. Weiss and Tucker showed their press badges to a deputy and swung under the tape.
“Christ, you boys are here before the gawkers,” said the deputy.
“It pays to pay your sources,” Weiss answered. He signaled for Tucker to follow.
“Damn,” said Tucker, fanning his free hand in front of his face. The other held a Mini-cam.
“Here.”
“Suntan lotion?”
“Smear it on your nose. Shit, Zeke, after all this time I still have to mother you. The ozone layer’s shot to hell. Remember? We did a story on it last year.”
The first carcass they inspected was a calf. It lay on its side, its one visible eye the color of milk, its skin sunk between its ribs in deep troughs. Seaweed clogged the strips of baleen in its open mouth.
Weiss paced it off, ignoring the ankle-deep water that sloshed over his Hush Puppies. Eight paces, plus. Twenty-five feet.
“Make sure I’m in the frame for perspective,” he said.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Tucker. Weiss constantly harped at him, but rarely about something as elementary as perspective. This whale beaching bothered him.
“These are the same kind we saw in San Diego last week,” said Weiss. “Right whales. You can tell by the curving mouth and the callosities on the adults’ faces. The old Nantucket whalers used to call them right whales because they didn’t sink when you harpooned them; they were the right whales to go after.”
“Since when did you become an expert on whales?”
“Since last week.”
Weiss waved Tucker over to a full-grown bull. This one was fifty feet long and, flat on its belly, was twice as tall as Weiss. Its baleen plates splayed out from its mouth like the bristles of a worn-out broom. Weiss pressed between two ribs. The rubbery skin yielded easily and did not bounce back when he released his hand.
“I’ll be a sonofabitch,” said Weiss. He grabbed Tucker by the shoulder. “You shoot every one of these babies. I want to look around.”
Weiss slogged from carcass to carcass, borne by a sense of unreality. The dead white eyes, the sunken flesh, the tattered baleen, even the symmetry with which the ocean had coughed up its victims smacked of a dream. But
it was real; something strange was happening. He had felt it a week earlier when he and Tucker chanced upon the pod of right whales stranded on a beach north of San Diego. He felt it again that morning when word of a drunken beachcomber’s find reached the motel. Now, seeing huge carcasses for the second time in eight days, he was convinced. Animals as large as whales did not die en masse without there being something very wrong with the world.
The Sea World van had multiplied into four. A swarm of employees, all young enough to be summer help, were unloading gear and fanning out among the carcasses. Weiss approached the only employee who was not moving at double-time, a young woman securing her long red hair with a pin.
“Do you have a boss?”
“Professor Adamski.”
“Ted Adamski?” asked Weiss.
The woman nodded. She had a pert little nose sprinkled with freckles. Photogenic. She pointed toward a man leaning into the back of one of the vans. As Weiss moved closer, he recognized the bald spot and the leathery skin set off by the scraggly white beard. He called the professor’s name. Adamski straightened up as if his back ached.
“Weiss,” he said. “You are like a bad dream.”
“I guess that’s better than being a bad penny.” Weiss reached for Adamski’s hand but the marine biologist did not reciprocate.
“Are you following me?”
“Pure coincidence, Professor. I’m actually covering the human-interest story of the first legless man being hurled into space.”
“And in San Diego you allegedly were covering the senatorial primary,” said Adamski. “You don’t stick to your assignments very well.”
Weiss laughed. “Lemme tell you how this business works, Professor. If a flying saucer landed on this beach, do you think I’d still be interested in the whales?”
Adamski was not amused. “Is this more important than your legless astronaut?”
“I would say that twelve whales washing up dead in Florida one week after eight washed up dead in San Diego is news.”
“But not exactly a scandal.” Adamski leaned back into the van and fiddled with the hasps of a metal box.
