She paused. “An unexpected change of wind speed and direction has dispersed the methane to a still-high but no longer lethal concentration. It is still, however, at a concentration that will support exothermic combustion.” She stopped and looked at him. “That means fire, Ken. Very, very hot fire that starts with a big boom.”
His face turned a darker shade of red but she continued before he could get a word out.
“Overnight, the mixture of the methane and the dennisium has encouraged the production of phyrruluxine, which is both highly toxic and highly combustible. So people are still dying. That’s the story with the Upper Keys. Reports are coming in of people getting sick in areas between the Keys and Miami, Ken, places like Leisure City and the area around the former Homestead Air Force Base. Sound familiar? The same people who got flattened by Hurricane Andrew, what, fifteen years ago?” she snapped. “They’re not rich voters, Ken, but they’re the ones who make great headlines. Think babies, Ken,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “Think trailer parks and elementary schools and senior centers.”
He took another abrupt step backward.
“They’re not dying, thankfully, not yet, just experiencing varying degrees of respiratory distress. There’ve been reports of large, spontaneous fires here and there, Ken. Have you seen the morning news shows? The talking heads are falling over themselves, not knowing what to rant about first.”
Lucy took another step toward him and Ken actually stumbled as he moved away from her. “I told the president last night in unambiguous terms that this is what we would be facing. You were in the room when I did. He gave me carte blanche, Ken. You heard that, too. So tell me why you’re blocking me at every move?”
“The media are crawling up my ass, Lucy,” he snarled. “The governor of Florida has called out the National Guard. The tourism industry is already screaming about lawsuits. There’s talk of opening a Senate investigation.”
“There’s no need for one. We know exactly what happened and who did it. And who did what about it,” she added pointedly.
“Listen, Lucy, this is your problem. You’re a key member of the cabinet. There’s a national election in a little over a week.”
“I’ve got news for you, Ken: That’s not your biggest problem,” she snapped. “Your inability to see daylight when you look out through your own asshole is the problem. People are dying, Ken. And you’re not letting the president save them.”
He made a visible effort to calm himself, swiping a chubby hand over his shiny, sweaty face. “Germ warfare is not the answer.”
Her hands itched to grab the Montblanc pen he always kept in his breast pocket and jab it through his heart.
She took a breath. “Then what is the answer? People are getting sick and dying, and it looks like we’re not doing anything. Like the president isn’t doing anything.”
He stared at her. It was like being watched by the devil.
“I’ve got the microbes and the people who know what to do with them on their way to the region,” she said quietly. “All I need now is the president’s okay to go ahead.”
“We need—”
“I need the president’s approval, Ken” she repeated slowly, returning his glare with a far more effective one of her own. “If I don’t get it—and get it right now—I’m resigning, effective immediately. And I’ll go public. I’ll hold a press conference on Pennsylvania Avenue with the White House as a backdrop. Does that help your decision-making process, Ken?”
Lucy watched the color in his face increase to an almost muddy hue.
“You bitch. I’m going to make sure you regret this,” he snarled.
“You do that, Ken,” she said coldly as she turned to leave the room. “In the meantime, I’ll make sure you still have an electorate to lie to in South Florida.”
CHAPTER
36
8:40 A.M., Monday, October 27, Taino
Dennis pulled the regulator out of his mouth, shut off the air tank’s valve, and dropped to the ground. Not even bothering to slide the tanks off his back, he leaned against the curved trunk of a coconut palm and took a few deep breaths of the sweet, heavy, island air. With a justified grin, he acknowledged that he’d completed his task just as the last of the air tanks was running low, and that was in spite of his efforts to keep his pace relaxed and his breathing easy as he’d made his way back and forth from the bunker into the dead zone.
He was proud of what he’d accomplished in three hours. The hundreds of books and other papers he’d carried out of the bunker’s library and down into the poisoned part of the forest would be enough dry fuel to get things started. He’d laid them open on their spines in a long path that snaked from the edge of the death zone to well into it. Then, just in case the concentration of methane wasn’t high enough to trigger or sustain combustion, he’d doused the books with the liquid propane that had been stored in the bunker to keep the emergency generators running.
The exertion, even the loss of his books, would be worth it. The methane flowing into the atmosphere would be burned off, breaking down into carbon dioxide and water. And it would continue to burn off until the source was removed—until the broken pipeline was sealed.
That task he would likely have to leave to others. No doubt there would be plenty of governments willing to attempt it if for no other reason than to gain access to the site of Atlantis and harvest his technology, if not his crystals.
After allowing himself a few more moments of self-congratulatory relaxation after his grueling workout, Dennis gave a huge yawn and shut his eyes, just for a moment. But more than forty-eight high-stress hours with little rest took their toll and he fell asleep in a matter of seconds.
8:37 A.M., Monday, October 27, approaching the USS Eutaw Springs, off the coast of Taino
“What the hell am I doing here?”
Victoria heard Sam’s muttering over the roar of the engines and rotors only because she was seated right next to him. They and Marty Collins were the only civilian passengers on the large navy he li cop ter that was ferrying them out to the ship stationed off Taino. They had just received official word that the microbes had arrived on the ship and were being secured.
“Saving the world as we know it?” she replied with a tense smile and received a quick glance in response.
“Kinda hard to do when you’re about to toss your cookies.”
She shrugged and refrained from patting his knee. She wasn’t feeling too well herself. The chopper wasn’t built for comfort.
“Is that Taino?” he asked, pointing out the small window.
Victoria turned, then nodded, a hard lump forming in her throat. She hadn’t anticipated the emotion that rushed through her at the sight of the small slash of green edged by beaches of dark gray volcanic sand and frills of white breakers, by the miles of water that was green and translucent as sea glass, then rapidly turned to the darkest blue.
That blue marked the trenches that held the object of Dennis’s dark desire.
Victoria closed her eyes briefly. Somewhere on the other side of the island lay the murderous patch of foaming sea.
“Then that must be the ship we’re headin’ to. Looks too damned small from up here.”
She opened them at Sam’s words and craned her neck to see a large military ship set slightly apart from the flotilla of boats of every description, which hugged the invisible boundary line of Taino’s national waters.
They began to descend, closing in on the ship rapidly, and Victoria could see several other military ships flying other flags, as well as yachts, sailboats, fishing boats—
Moments later they came to a rocking stop on the Eutaw Springs’s helipad. They had barely stepped out of the chopper before being hustled on a winding journey through a maze of narrow gray corridors and shallow doorways and down two sets of steep, compact iron stairs. They eventually reached a reasonably large conference room filled with banks of computers and flat-screen monitors, and a lot of busy, silent people. No one lo
oked up when they walked in.
Another surprisingly strong wave of emotion swept over Victoria as the memory of her last trip to the operations center of Atlantis crashed into the front of her mind. That had been just over forty-eight hours ago. Since then, everyone who had been there with her had died. And she’d been branded a traitor by Dennis and, less directly, by Tom Taylor and Lucy Denton.
Damn them all.
She clenched her fists and started a slow count. By the time she reached five, she had unclenched her hands. By the time she reached twelve, Victoria felt calm. She looked up to see Sam watching her with a concerned look on his face.
“How’s your stomach?” she asked quickly.
“Better than expected. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she whispered with a smile and looked away.
The commander of the ship, a tight-jawed, white-haired man who obviously hadn’t taken any shit from anyone in a very long time, stood up from his place at the center table. The civilians’ escorts snapped to attention and saluted him. He nodded in acknowledgment and they relaxed.
“Ms. Clark, Dr. Briscoe, Dr. Collins, welcome aboard the USS Eutaw Springs. I’m Commander Duffy,” he said, shaking their hands.
He invited them to sit down and immediately turned to Sam. “Dr. Briscoe, I understand you’re the one who came up with this plan.”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Is it going to work?”
Sam nodded. “The last time I checked the data, everything was behaving just as we modeled it, sir. The temperature, the currents. We’ve triple-checked the crustal structure using the most recent images that we have access to, and Marty here was studying reports of drilled cores for a good part of the night. I believe it will work, sir. I believe it will.”
The commander nodded. “Good. The payloads are being installed on the torpedoes and the missiles. I’ll get the current water and air data for you so that you can make sure all the conditions are still within acceptable parameters.” He turned away to speak to a uniformed woman.
Moments later, the woman came forward and turned on the monitors on the table in front of them. She briefly explained the layers of windows that appeared, each of which displayed different data that updated itself in real time. Sam and Marty both went a little slack-jawed with admiration as they flicked through the screens.
Victoria looked around the room, too tense to be bored, but knowing she was just extra weight until the operation was over and they could safely gain access to Taino. In a brief, private conversation, Lucy had made it clear to Victoria that she was only there to be the liaison with Taino, should one be needed—in other words, if there was anyone left alive on the island to give orders to. Whether anyone was alive or not, Victoria was to be the one to let the fox into the henhouse, the one who would let the American military in to see and steal pretty much whatever they wanted from Dennis’s files and those of the Climate Research Institute. Apparently what she’d already given them wasn’t nearly enough. They wanted everything. And she had to help them.
If she didn’t, she’d be vilified, investigated, and most likely indicted for crimes yet to be determined.
If she did, she might be granted immunity, but the press would still brand her as untrustworthy and a traitor to two countries. She’d never work on this planet again.
Brilliant set of options.
Victoria took a deep breath and looked up to find a senior officer walking toward her looking less than happy. Sam was by his side.
“Ms. Clark, you’re with the Taino government, aren’t you?” the officer asked.
Depends on who you talk to, but there’s no need to bore you with the details. “Yes, sir, I am,” she replied.
“Ma’am, would you be willing to speak to a Captain Maggy Patterson, who appears to be the senior officer on site? She’s failing to cooperate with our team. We need to get sensors in the water. We’re behind schedule.”
She blinked and looked at Sam. “I’m sorry. What sensors?”
“We need to place some sensors at various points around the rupture zone. We’ll fire beams of light through the degraded water column to receptors on the far side of it. The data will provide reasonably good estimates of the volume of methane passing through, as well as information on the density of the water column, among a lot of other things. We need that data in order to figure out if what we’re about to do will work.”
Despite all her familiarity with electronics and surveillance equipment, this still seemed a little bit like voodoo to her. Things done at those depths always had. Victoria nodded, then paused. “Did you say Maggy Patterson is the senior officer on the site?”
The officer nodded.
Maggy was a good captain, but not nearly experienced enough to be running an operation like this. Victoria had left Simon Broadhurst in command, and he would never have relinquished that duty. Not voluntarily.
“I’m glad to assist however I can,” she said.
Moments later Victoria was on the phone with a very distraught and understandably exhausted Maggy Patterson. The woman sounded like she had little patience and little rationality left.
“Ambassador Deen told me not to speak with you. He said you’re not working for Taino any more.” Maggy’s voice was higher than usual and shaky.
“Maggy,” Victoria said in as calm and soothing a tone as she could manage. “A lot of things have happened since I last spoke with Charlie Deen. I’m not working against Taino, but I am working with the Americans to resolve this situation. Maggy, things are very bad. What’s bubbling up on the other side of the island is methane. It’s drifting toward the Florida coast and killing everything in its path, just like it did on the south tip of the island. It doesn’t matter any more who stops it, Maggy, it just needs to be stopped. The Americans are the only ones who can do it.” She paused, but the other woman said nothing. “They need to place some sensors around the rupture.”
“I can’t let them in, Ms. Clark.” The young woman’s voice was breaking.
Well trained. By me. Victoria took a breath. “I’m on the Eutaw Springs with the scientists who are going to get this situation under control, Maggy. Will you allow me and one member of the American team to come aboard the Marjory to explain what we’re trying to do? Would that ease your mind?”
Another small silence, then, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll allow you on board. You and one other person. No weapons.”
“Of course, Maggy. I—” Victoria stopped as she glanced at a wall clock. “Is there anything you need? Any supplies? You haven’t been able to get back to shore, have you?”
The next sound Victoria heard sounded enough like a sob to make a chill skitter down her spine.
“I’m low on everything, Ms. Clark. We came out here expecting to do a ten-hour shift. We’ve been here for more than forty-eight hours and between the three boats, we’ve got every member of the security staff aboard and as many of the topside personnel as we could save. And the survivor from the clipper. We can’t get back onto the island.” She hiccupped a breath. “We’re out of food and drinking water and we’re low on fuel. Simon led a team onto the north end of the island yesterday afternoon and we haven’t had any contact from them since they radioed that they’d arrived and could breathe without their tanks. Until I hear from him again, I won’t let anyone else try going onto the island,” the young woman finished, her voice breaking.
“We’ll bring some supplies with us, Maggy. I’ll be there shortly,” Victoria replied briskly. She ended the call, then looked at the man standing a few feet away from her. “Commander Duffy, that survivor that Captain Patterson mentioned is an injured American citizen, a tourist. I’d like permission to have her brought aboard this ship when we return. She might be able to give us some information about what happened out there.”
The man nodded once and gave an order. Twenty minutes later, Victoria, an American officer, and several cases of food and bottled water were on a small launch heading inside the boundaries of
Taino’s waters.
When Victoria laid eyes on Maggy Patterson, she could hardly believe the difference two days could make. Ordinarily brisk and businesslike but with an air of ease about her, the young woman was clearly stressed to her limits. Her uniform was wrinkled, obviously slept in, but the dark circles under her eyes and her pallor showed that she had gotten little rest. Lines had etched themselves into her forehead and around her mouth, and her movements were rapid and abrupt. She might be in command of the operation, but she was barely in command of herself.
She greeted Victoria and the U.S. naval officer stiffly, then directed her equally exhausted-looking crew to unload and distribute the supplies. Then she led her guests into the small space she was using as her command center and burst into tears.
Not knowing quite what to do, Victoria gave a quick glance at the American who’d accompanied her. He was standing by impassively, staring at the wall and trying very hard to keep his contempt from showing. Victoria sighed. She stepped closer to Maggy and gave the woman a brief, awkward hug, and was rewarded with a surprisingly fierce, tight embrace.
Slowly, she eased away from the sobbing woman and suggested they all sit down at the small table. Maggy seemed to be gathering some of her wits already, but Victoria knew there was no time to let her indulge in hysterics.
“So Simon is presumed dead, then?” Victoria said calmly and was pleased by the sharp intake of breath from Maggy, who instantly stopped sobbing and looked at her with wide, outraged eyes.
“I didn’t say that. I said we haven’t had any contact with him.”
“Or with anyone in his party,” Victoria added.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is there any reason the radios wouldn’t work?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Were they armed?”
Frozen Fire Page 40
