As she got to the parking lot, she dialed Cynthia’s number. She knew she would be home. Cynthia answered right away. “Hey Bernie, I was hoping you’d call. I just ordered a large pizza—you want to come over?”
“Has the pizza got meat on it?”
“Hell yeah, it’s a meat lover’s pizza!”
“Great, I’ll pick up one of those elegant wines by the box and be right over. Should I bring a movie?”
“Forget bringing a movie. It’s a Matrix marathon tonight. We can watch that cute Keanu Reeves’s ass until our eyes bleed.”
Bernadette laughed as she brushed the snow off her Jeep. “Girl that is why I hang out with you... you’re a deviant. I’ll be there in a half hour.”
She jumped into her Jeep and hit the radio as the vehicle warmed up. It had been sitting out in the cold all day and was a block of ice. She had not been able to afford electric seat warmers when she had bought the Jeep. She sat there shivering as the vents blew semi-warm air and her butt turned to ice.
The defrosters finally warmed the front and back windows enough for her to see out of them, and she put the vehicle in reverse. As she was about to step on the gas, she glanced for the first time at the paper she had bought that morning with her coffee. It was sitting on the passenger’s seat. The front page read “The oil sands will spend 180 billion dollars in the next 10 years on new projects.”
As she drove out of the parking lot and into the black night and snow-covered streets, she knew exactly what that would mean. More young people chasing the dream of big money, which would mean more crime and more headaches—and it would wear on her, and make her fat.
Detective Mueller finally found the administrative offices. For the last part of the walk, he had followed Kearns’s booming voice. As he walked to the outside of his door, he could hear he was engaged with what sounded like a reporter.
Kearns was yelling into the phone. “I don’t care what fucking rumors you’ve heard about some terrorist fucking plot. This is just a couple murders of some people with cabin fever—have you got that? If you print anything else I will come down to Anchorage and tear you a new asshole—have you got that?” When Kearns slammed the phone back into the cradle, his large head was different shades of purple.
This time, Mueller did not wait for an invitation to sit down. He sat in front of Kearns, looked him straight in the eye, and said, “We need to talk.”
Kearns was breathing heavily. He suddenly focused on Mueller.
“What is it?”
“I have no idea whom you were just talking to, but I just received confirmation from a source in Canada that the Clearwater people may be tampering with the oil fields. This could be a terrorist plot.”
Kearns’s breathing got heavier; he pounded both big hands flat on the desk. “Fuck!” was his only answer.
Mueller took Kearns’s answer as agreement to his statement of fact. He continued. “The source said two Clearwater employees have been killed in Canada, and they are shutting down systems to look for any evidence of tampering.
Kearns closed his eyes for a brief second. When he opened them, he was focused. “I need to close all water intakes to all the fields until I find out where they’ve been.” He picked up his phone and started dialing.
Mueller realized he did not need to be in the office anymore. Kearns would be calling every operations person and every technician. He would have the entire Alaskan oil field shut down in a matter of hours. Mueller knew he needed to contact his chief in Anchorage, who would contact the Alaska State Troopers. There would then be a call to the Bomb Squad, the FBI, and probably Homeland Security. This murder investigation had become an international incident.
23
Byron Stood Still In Front of the bright lights. The makeup artist was adding the last bit of color to his cheeks. “A little blush to fend off the Alaskan pallor,” the artist said. The makeup artist was young; her own makeup looked heavy. It covered up her bad skin. Her breath smelled of coffee and bagels.
It was 7:00 a.m. The cameraman from Channel 3 News was checking the light readings in front of his face. The pretty red-haired news reporter was doing sound checks and listening to her ear piece, waiting for instructions from New York.
They were getting ready to go live with Samantha Savage from CBS New York as part of the breaking news story “Terrorism in the Oil Fields.” They were in the Channel 3 studio, and the newsmen and production people were in a semicircle, waiting for the cue.
Byron knew exactly where this had gone so wrong. He was supposed to have broken the story in the Anchorage Daily Mirror—front page headlines, the media fighting to get his quotes. They would beat their way to his little cubicle at the newspaper.
But the pretty red-haired news reporter from Channel 3 had tracked him down. She had noticed his absence after the police media event and sensed he was on to something. Like a wolf tracking a wounded deer, she followed him to the Anchorage Daily Mirror. The moment he had walked out the main door, all smiles, gleaming, his very pores exuding the exclusive he had on the Prudhoe Bay murders, she knew it—she smelled it on him.
In a mere nanosecond, she had flashed him her smile and moved in for the kill. She got in close—her eyes, her lips, the sweet, minty fresh breath that flowed over the perfect teeth and little pink tongue. He was lost.
She invited him for drinks. Cocktails at the Crows Nest lounge at the top of the Captain Cook Hotel, where they toasted his success with several martinis. She offered to buy him dinner. What man can refuse a pretty redhead buying dinner? They feasted on Bering Sea King crab legs. Their lips were soaked in butter, and their fingers covered in moist crab. They left greasy prints on their champagne glasses.
Dinner turned into more drinks back in the lounge, and they closed the place down at 1:00 a.m. She took him back to her place. She turned down her sheets and laid him out like her very own prize. He spilled. He gave her the story: the background, the angle—everything. At one point he would have confessed to being on the grassy knoll when Kennedy was shot. She was that good.
At some point in the evening, as the moonlight poured through the window of her downtown apartment, he realized she was on her cell phone. She was talking to New York—and he was admiring her cute little ass.
She was organizing shooting schedules and arranging secondary interviews with McAllen’s assistants, interviews with people who had scientific backgrounds, and interviews with people who had oil and security insights. He realized he had been had.
The pretty redhead news reporter had worked the phone for nearly two hours to finesse every detail and squeeze every ounce of coverage out of the story. Byron’s input? He would get a thirty-second spot as the person who had broken the story—but she might give him one minute with a lead-in.
He had lain there, transfixed, in her bed with the satin sheets, watching her as she moved from the computer, back to her desk, back to her notes, her hips swaying in the moonlight. He had realized then what a perfect male slut he was. He had given up his story. He had been betrayed by his pecker.
He heard the cameraman call out, “On in 3, 2, 1, and live.”
The next moment, the red-haired news reporter, Naomi Walters, formerly Nancy Wolnick of Greenfield, Ohio, turned to face the camera and flashed her brilliant smile.
She gave a quick lead-in about exposing a terrorist attack on oil and then shoved the microphone in Byron’s face. Byron stammered out his story about the connection of four of the murdered to Clearwater Technologies, and Professor McAllen, and the Professor’s background. He felt sweat run down his face in small cascades of drops that were probably playing hell with the makeup. The young makeup girl watched from the sidelines, her pimply face a mask of sympathy.
He realized his voice was cracking. He had never had a voice for radio or television. When excited or emotional, his voice went from a sulky, sexy, low Clint Eastwood to a high-pitched kazoo, not unlike a Pee-wee Herman. Before he could get himself under control, he heard Naomi say the dreaded wor
ds: “Back to you, Samantha.”
Byron watched in horror as the television monitor showed Samantha Savage on a split screen with Naomi. They had cut him out of the camera shot completely.
Samantha Savage was a cross between a young Katie Couric and a young Diane Sawyer—blonde, blue eyed, and fierce in her focus, like a young great white shark circling the waters, looking for prey.
She and Naomi discussed the implications of the terrorist plot on North America’s oil supply, the cost to the American public and their jobs, and the economic ramifications.
Byron started inching towards Naomi, and she inched away, keeping him out of the camera shot. She was still talking with Samantha. He was about to interject, throwing in a thoughtful point, but they cut away.
The monitor now showed only Samantha. Then there was a split screen again, and she was interviewing a scientist in Berkeley, California, named Professor Adler. He was introduced as an eminent research scientist with numerous credentials who had once worked with Professor McAllen.
Professor Adler looked every inch the competent professor of science and chemistry—the gray-flecked hair, the short, cropped beard. Black-framed glasses sat on his intelligent-looking face, and his gleaming white lab coat fit neatly over his tall frame. Byron wondered who at CBS wardrobe had gotten to this guy.
The other screen showed a very disheveled and frightened-looking research assistant from the University of Victoria. The young man looked like he had recently been dragged out of bed—and he had. His hair was a mix of black and tan—there seemed to be no consensus as to color. His pale skin was blotched by far too much pizza and beer.
Samantha asked Professor Adler if in fact the McAllen formula of polywater was real or a hoax. The professor almost spit the word “hoax” as he expounded on the very reasons why polywater had no basis in fact.
As Byron watched the monitor, he could see Samantha’s eyes widen. She had something. She was going in for the kill shot: news as theater equals ratings. Samantha asked the professor if he would like to see the polywater demonstrated in his lab.
The professor was, of course, speechless. Byron could see that this was a new experience for him. He stammered out, “Sure, of course, but we have no samples in this lab.” He added a reassuring smile as if that might disarm the pretty blond news anchor. He had no such luck.
Samantha responded that the news team in Professor Adler’s lab had a sample of the polywater, the very same one provided by the research assistant with the very bad complexion at the University of Victoria. At this moment, the research assistant with the very bad complexion and lack of sleep waved weakly from his side of the screen.
Professor Adler could do nothing more than flash a smile at Samantha. Samantha smiled back—her smile was better. A CBS production person came out from behind the camera, and a vial was provided.
Byron was in awe of Naomi and Samantha and how they had managed to orchestrate all of this between three in the morning and now. They had somehow tracked down McAllen’s assistant and Professor Adler as well as numerous other people for the segment all in the past five hours. They were incredible.
The professor, with his pasted-on smile, dutifully emptied the vial containing the supposed polywater into a small glass bowl of water. They had used good California tap water for the experiment. Nothing happened at first. The professor’s eyes and face were now eclipsing into a “see-I-told-you-so” expression.
Then the professor shook the bowl. It jiggled. He shook it again. It jiggled again. He looked up at the camera as if there might be an answer somewhere in the lens. He started to move the bowl violently. The bowl of what was once water now jiggled violently. It looked like clear, firm jelly.
The smile on the research assistant’s face in Victoria was evident. Samantha Savage in New York was trying to hide hers.
“So, Professor Adler,” Samantha asked, “an invention that has such obvious effects on the nature of water—how did the scientific community miss this?” Samantha had asked the classic interviewer bombshell question. Ask the big question and watch the person squirm. No television viewer could help but feel the professor’s discomfort.
From Byron’s viewpoint in Anchorage, he could feel himself sweating the professor’s answer.
The professor was speechless, probably for the first time in his life, as he muttered a series of words that had no meaning or were incomprehensible. And all the while he kept jiggling the bowl of water that was now polywater. He was muttering to it as if it would answer him back.
“Thank you, Professor Adler,” Samantha said. The screen then shifted to an international security analyst and a consultant for the oil and gas industry. They had been on the sidelines somewhere watching the scientific show in Berkeley. They were in a split screen below Samantha, as if she were a puppet master.
She directed the questions, the tone, and where the story was going. The security analyst confirmed that this polywater he had just seen demonstrated was one of the greatest threats to mankind. He could not name the exact threats offhand, but his furrowed brow showed that he was thinking about them at that very moment. Byron knew that the moment the analyst finished the interview; he would call his clients to inform them of the new terror that was now evident and would raise his fees accordingly.
The oil industry consultant immediately saw the threat. He stated simply that if the polywater reacted the same way it did in the experiment in nature, then oil would not be pushed to the surface. “It would be a bad day for oil,” he said with a pained look on his face.
Samantha cut back to Naomi, who had quotes from the RCMP in Fort McMurray and from Chief Wilson in Anchorage. Both forces claimed their investigations were ongoing, and both had “no comment.” Naomi Walters wore a lovely smile as she signed off for Channel 3 Anchorage.
Samantha did a quick wrap-up of events, and ended with, “Where is the elusive Professor McAllen? Is a terrorist attack on American and Canadian oil imminent?” The screen faded to “Terrorist Attack on Oil.”
The television monitor in the newsroom at Channel 3 Anchorage went back to sports. The course at Torrey Pines, La Jolla, California, came on. The sportscasters were discussing the prowess and changes of Tiger Woods. He was not doing well; they were trying to keep the ratings up by discussing him anyway.
Byron turned to Naomi. Some black roots were showing in her beautiful red hair. She smiled at him, kissed him on the cheek, and with a wink and a “catch you later,” she was back on her cell phone. She was talking to Samantha, who was congratulating her on the amazing job. Byron heard Naomi say, “A chance for San Diego? Really? Oh Ms. Savage, that would be wonderful.”
Byron put on his jacket, his hat, and his gloves and walked out the door of Channel 3 News Anchorage. The whole episode had taken an hour. As he left the building, he saw the Anchorage Daily Mirror in a paper dispenser. TERRORIST PLOT UNCOVERED IN PRUDHOE BAY. His name was there, Byron Jacks, but the thunder was gone. Naomi Walters would be the story leader, and he was now the source.
He sat in his car, warming up the interior. At 8 AM, it was still dark and cold, his breath formed clouds in his car. He looked at his cell phone. He had several text messages. One was from his editor, a simple, “Why?” There was one from his dad in Cleveland saying how proud he was to see his son on TV.
There was one from Della, who had helped him break the story— for favors of course. Three hundred pounds of southern love had left a simple message: “Hey lover, looks like you were cozy with that pretty red-haired reporter down there, but when I get to Anchorage next week, your sweet little ass is mine.”
Randall watched the CBS breaking news story from his Manhattan apartment. The apartment was one thousand square feet with two bedrooms and a breathtaking view of the Hudson River. He had purchased it for 1.5 million for it plus the cost of a designer to do up the place in style. He had a mortgage of 1 million dollars on it, with large payments. He was counting on the polywater project to make the upcoming payments.
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br /> He watched the news story on his new sixty-inch plasma television as he lay in his red calf-leather chaise lounge chair. His bathrobe was open; his stomach was a large mound of flesh and hair. He had to prop himself up on pillows to see over it. He was balancing a plate of two chocolate croissants on this belly. The news story caused him to start choking on his croissant; he spewed crumbs across his chest and onto the chair and beige alpaca rug.
His phone rang, and as he was choking he picked it up. His eyes were watering from the exertion—he could not see the phone number. He coughed out a hello and heard the voice of Duncan on the other line.
Duncan sputtered as he yelled, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck . . .”
Margaret watched the CBS news report in Palm Springs—it was 9:00 a.m. She was on the treadmill in her country club gym. There’s no need to panic, she thought. They had agreed to activate the devices at 11:00 a.m. Alaska time.
Some of the devices were well hidden, some might be more visible. It did not matter. There were enough devices that if the engineers found a few, it would not make any difference. She headed back to her villa. She would need to be close in case Cordele needed to reach her.
Professor McAllen was standing over Sebastian’s shoulder watching the news report. Theo and Percy were beside him. Grace was in the kitchen. She was making some high-fiber muffins to get her boys back on track. Grace thought a clean colon was next to godliness. The men were definitely feeling lighter in their bowels—not exactly in their spirits.
As the news special finished, McAllen looked at his three friends. “Well, so now they’re on to us.”
Sebastian looked up at McAllen from his large leather chair. He had gotten one with an added headrest, like the ones he saw lawyers on television using. He had always admired those chairs. “You mean they think they are on to us. Don’t you think it’s time for a little surprise for our Wall Street friends?”
Polar Bear Dawn Page 13
