The Leviathan Effect

by James Lilliefors

  “I think the endgame is about legitimacy,” he said at last. “It’s about someone who is very resourceful. Brilliant, wealthy, connected. Someone who has created a network that could probably revolutionize science and technology worldwide. But somehow this person has an Achilles heel. Something about his character, his past, is tainted. There is a reason he needs to stay in the background. He’s come this far and now he needs a stamp of legitimacy. The US government could give him that. This President, in particular, seems responsive to grand gestures, to big symbolic ideas. And it sounds like they’re about to hand him one.”

  “But if he doesn’t have legitimacy,” she said, “how was he able to get people like Garland, Romfo, and Clayton on board?”

  “I know,” Mallory said. “I’m still working on that part.”

  He sat up straighter, gazing at the entrance to the gym. Then he thought of another idea. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “What doesn’t seem right to you about all this?”

  Blaine snorted. “Where do I begin?”

  “Begin with the first thing that comes to mind. What doesn’t fit? Three words or less.”

  She smiled, but he could see that she was thinking about it.

  “The President,” she said.

  Mallory nodded, although he hadn’t really imagined what she would say. “Why, what about him?”

  “I don’t know. Something just doesn’t seem right. The President’s career could be on the line over this crisis and he seems to be going along with everything too easily. I don’t know, it just feels kind of reckless.”

  “Do you think the President is involved?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t.”

  “Okay.” Mallory stretched out his legs. “And it bothers you because you like this President.”

  “No. Well, I mean, yes. But that’s not why it bothers me. It bothers me because I don’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense. He’s acting like the threats are a separate issue from the storm that’s out there. They aren’t.”

  Mallory watched her and he suddenly understood something else about the list. Something he’d missed.

  “What are you doing after the meeting?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked at him this time, not his mirror image. “Why?”

  “Let me tell you my idea.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Nice, France

  VLADIMIR VOLKOV STOOD ON an edge of the pink marbled pool terrace gazing at the sequins of sunlight on the Mediterranean and thinking about fate, as Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony filtered through a dozen speakers concealed in the lush shrubbery. It was a perfect, calm afternoon in the south of France. The sky was nearly cloudless as far as he could see, even as storms were raging elsewhere. Rain was forecast here, too, by the weekend; but by then Volkov would be gone.

  “You always find us the most beautiful places,” Svetlana said, coming up beside him and kissing him carefully on the cheek.

  Volkov glanced at his gold watch, and showed her a quick smile. His mistress came from where he had once dwelled, a life of few rewards, lots of desires.

  “Yes, well, that’s what I do, isn’t it? Now, please, wait for me inside.”

  Volkov leaned on the railing and looked back toward the sea, wondering about the monster that was right now raging across the Atlantic.

  As a side business, Volkov operated a string of luxury resorts, which allowed him to live in the most agreeable climates on the planet. One day, he would like to see a world in which the weather was hospitable everywhere. Because when the weather was bad, Volkov’s mind became a haunted palace; a place he could not bear to live.

  He was a tall, slightly jowly man, once strikingly handsome, who still often felt like the champion athlete that he had been decades earlier. This morning, he was headed into competition again, after years of secret training. A man in pursuit of a prize.

  For Volkov, the championship was ΠpoeKT, or “The Project.” A plan meticulously constructed over the course of many years, which would be executed now over the course of a few days.

  He sat on a chaise beside the swimming pool and took out his encrypted mobile device. Checked his watch and waited. Only fourteen seconds late, the call came.

  “ΠpoeKT is about to go forward,” Dmitry Petrenko said, speaking in his cultured, central-Russian accent.

  “And how is he? Is he ready?”

  “Victor?” Petrenko was careful not to hesitate, Volkov noticed. “He seems to be.”

  “Has he been honest? With himself?”

  “So far, yes. I’d say yes.”

  There was a silence. “I don’t want you involved, Dmitry, other than to provide security.”

  “I have no other intentions.”

  “I don’t want you offering any assistance or any advice. Otherwise, we will never be able to say it was really him. This is his project and he must rise or fall by it.”

  “I understand that. I have no issue with that.”

  “Good.”

  Volkov clicked off and gazed again at the azure sea. He closed his eyes and thought about his lieutenant, Victor Zorn, for several long moments. Mr. Zorn.

  Volkov, raised in Russia during the Cold War, had never been to the States, although he expected to visit very soon. His second wife and their two children lived still in Russia, at a villa outside Moscow. But Volkov kept a boundary between work and family. The Project had been constructed that way. His family understood, without knowing what his real business was; they knew not to question him.

  Volkov’s rise had been swift and, it sometimes seemed, to him and others, divinely inspired. He had adopted an aggressive, Western-style approach to management and organization, using his inheritance to buy up oil fields, refineries and pipelines, coal companies and port facilities; winning a major oil company in a loans-for-shares auction before he was forty; and then engineering several highly leveraged takeovers, selling the acquisitions to strategic investors, at times to himself. For several years, Volkov had even sat as a deputy on the Russian Fuel and Energy Ministry. Everything had been built carefully, and much of it nearly invisibly.

  Eight and half years ago, Volkov had merged his largest oil company, TNK, with the Russian oil interests. It was a ten billion dollar deal, and the last of the chess moves he needed to make before he could launch ΠpoeKT.

  Volkov understood the failings of the “Western model” even as he had benefited enormously from it. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States had celebrated the prospect of a “new” democratic Russia—a true capitalist society in which industry, housing, and land would all be privatized; in which industrial ministries would be replaced by private, multi-national corporations.

  The outside world had applauded his country’s shift to the Western model; but Russia herself had only suffered because of it. The capitalist example created thirty-five billionaires in less than a decade and gave rise to the oligarchs. But Yeltsin had not been able to stand up to the oligarchs and they had looted his country blind. The “reforms” of the early 1990s had not only failed, they had supported and validated a criminal culture.

  The Western model—Volkov preferred to think of it as “the American model”—purported to be about free markets and opportunity. But in actual practice it was about weakness and lawlessness. It was a travesty; the kind of “democratic” system the United States blithely thought it could impose around the world.

  Now all of that was going to change—and within a few years Russia would regain her deserved claim to greatness. She would be a country that believed in the future—and also created that future. Vladimir Volkov had been one of the architects of this coming Russia, one of the believers who had helped Putin’s efforts to overhaul the political system, to centralize power in the Kremlin once again, to begin eliminating the criminal culture.

  In the dark days of the late 1990s, Volkov had come up with an agenda that would enable Russia to eventually stop playing by the Western rulebook. It was a projec
t that went far beyond politics. A plan that would showcase the visionary muscle of Russia again, making her a world leader in science and technology. It was Putin who had named it ΠpoeKT, “The Project,” on the first night they had discussed it, a balmy May weekend at his vacation villa on the Black Sea.

  Unlike his father, Volkov felt driven by the call of destiny. He had taken on an elevated mission, one that would ultimately restore greatness to his homeland. Americans liked big ideas. This President, in particular, embraced them. And Volkov had come up with a very big idea, one that he was about to sell to the President. Victor Zorn had been meticulously groomed to be the general who would journey to America and lead the mission. He was a world-class salesman, with a personality that worked like a magic trick. He had surprised and impressed Volkov with his ability to sign up such a strong advisory board—all high-profile American figures.

  But Mr. Zorn had acquired an American softness, as well, and Volkov worried about him. The latest problem with Victor was that he thought too much. When you think too much, you imagine too many outcomes.

  So he considered Mr. Zorn’s mission to the United States a trial, and if it did not succeed, he would replace him with Petrenko. Petrenko was not as smooth or as charming as Zorn, but he was just as adept at negotiations, and he was considerably tougher—a former KGB man who had once been a middleman for Izmailovskaya.

  Volkov pushed a button on his telephone and he summoned Svetlana. She would finish his massage now.

  He checked his watch again.

  It was time. 6:45 P.M. in Southern France.

  12:45 in Washington. Victor Zorn should be arriving at the gate of the White House. ΠpoeKT was going to have its first major trial.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  CATHERINE BLAINE INSTANTLY RECOGNIZED three of the four members of the Weathervane team as they were led by Chief of Staff Gabriel Herring through the doors to the Cabinet Room: Jared Clayton, Morgan Garland, and Sue Romfo. Dr. Clayton was a Nobel Prize-winner known for his pioneering work in cloud physics. Morgan Garland was among the most successful venture capitalists in the country; she had recently viewed a segment about him on 60 Minutes. Dr. Romfo was a well-known researcher on the effects of global warming on hurricane formation and frequency.

  What could have convinced them to become involved in this project?

  Blaine did not know the fourth representative of Weathervane, who introduced himself as “Mr. Zorn.” He was tall and svelte, dressed in a black, double-breasted suit; there was something slightly exotic about him—the well-proportioned face and regal nose that suggested nobility, the easy smile, the indeterminate accent, the thick brushed-back dark hair, with stray loose strands and the welcoming but slightly elusive eyes.

  As Blaine shook his hand, though, she was reminded of the death of her friend, Ruben Sanchez, and felt a rush of anger.

  The President sat at the foot of the table. His Cabinet secretaries and the Vice President took the seats on the right side of the table, his three guests to the left.

  Victor Zorn, though, did not sit. He opened a laptop computer and set it in the center of the table.

  “Mr. President,” he said. “Madam Secretary. Gentlemen. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us this afternoon.” He glanced at them one at a time, with a deference that seemed to hold everyone’s attention. “I want to assure you from the outset that we are all here today for the same purpose.” His cheeks dimpled slightly as he smiled; he was actually pleasant to look at, Blaine thought. “Our interest, you will see, is the national interest.”

  Mr. Zorn snapped open his briefcase and extracted a stack of dark binders, which he passed around the table to each of the people in the room, including his team. Blaine noticed his neatly manicured nails. On the black cover were two letters in embossed gold print: WG.

  “As you know,” he said, “we represent a consortium known as the Weathervane Group. In front of you now is an overview of our organization and a summary of our proposal. Please take a moment to page through it.”

  Blaine looked through her booklet. Twelve pages, divided into sections: a paragraph description of the company; a list of advisers, some of whom she recognized; prominent weather scientists and physicists; a list of twenty-seven participating companies, foundations, and facilities. The last three pages explained the project they had come here to talk about. It was titled “Hurricane Alexander Mitigation.”

  Blaine went back to the first page. According to the description, WG had been built over nearly two decades and represented “the most advanced work in the fields of environmental and climate research, meteorology, geo-engineering, and natural disaster mitigation.”

  The consortium’s twenty-seven partners included research labs, consulting firms, weather monitoring data centers, and a private satellite company.

  “As you can see,” Mr. Zorn said, “the consortium deals with a wide range of research and technology issues and solutions. Although I’m sure the most pressing question you have today is what can these technologies actually do for us—all of us—right now?” He nodded out the window, at the heavy slants of rain in the Rose Garden. “Can they avert this apparent crisis that we are all now facing together?”

  “And your answer?” said the Vice President.

  “The answer? Is unequivocally, yes.” He smiled. “In fact, in a sense, this storm presents the perfect case for us to demonstrate how, and why, all of this works. It is not a single technology or entity that we represent, you see, but a consortium of companies working together to find solutions to complex international problems.

  “I would like to make it clear, too, as Dr. Clayton will explain to you in a few moments, that there is nothing theoretical or hypothetical about our proposal. This technology began with algorithm-driven computer models, fine-tuned over a period of many years. But it has now been successfully implemented in real time to mitigate three hurricane-force storms in the Pacific Ocean.”

  There was an inaudible ripple of surprise around the table, Blaine sensed.

  Mr. Zorn bowed his head. “Mr. Garland,” he said, “would you like to introduce a video of the process?”

  Morgan Garland, the venture capitalist, a slightly frail-looking man in his mid-fifties with pale skin, oversized tortoise-shell glasses, and tufts of silver-blond hair, leaned forward. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Zorn,” he said. “Keep in mind, these are not computer-generated pictures you will be seeing. These are actual satellite images of cyclone systems in the Pacific Ocean.”

  He pressed a key on the laptop and sat down again. An animated image materialized. Mr. Zorn eased back behind the row of chairs as the others watched. The video purported to show three Pacific Ocean storm systems over the past year. Each time-lapse sequence displayed similar patterns—the storm gathering, intensifying and then dissipating. Each presentation took about three minutes, although the tracking actually evolved over several days, Garland explained. The third example was a typhoon that diminished in wind speed from 105 miles per an hour to 20 miles an hour in less than a day.

  Blaine was aware of the three storms, and their rapid deteriorations. But the videos alone proved nothing.

  “Dr. Clayton,” Mr. Zorn said, nodding toward the Nobel Prize-winner.

  “Thank you,” Clayton said, clasping his hands on the table. He was tall and slightly stooped, with disheveled gray hair, intelligent eyes and a strikingly deep voice. “Just by way of introduction,” he said, glancing at a page of notes. “My involvement in this began three years ago, when I was hired as a consultant for a new weather-modeling research center in northern California. That research center today houses the largest weather data assimilation project in the world. Last year, as you’ve just seen, we managed to mitigate these three full-fledged cyclones—”

  “Just to clarify,” said the Vice President, raising a hand. “What is the difference between a cyclone and a hurricane? Or is there a difference?”

  Clayton seemed taken aback for a moment, and looked to Mr. Zorn. “N
o, actually,” said Mr. Zorn. “Cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes are all the same thing. They carry different names in different parts of the world.”

  “So,” the President said. “Let’s cut to the chase. How does this so-called mitigation work? How did you do this?”

  Mr. Zorn nodded for Clayton to go ahead. “There are four primary mitigation operations,” Dr. Clayton said, “which have been developed and refined over the past two decades. They are all summarized in your booklets.

  “The first we call Manipulated Eyewall Degradation, or MED. This is, in effect, a more sophisticated version of what the government attempted in the 1960s and 1970s. It was called Project Stormfury then. The idea was to inject silver iodide showers into the first rain bands outside the wall of clouds that surround a hurricane’s eye. The heating that resulted caused the clouds to enlarge, creating what is known as ‘invigorated convection,’ which weakens the center of the system.

  “The earlier model used silver iodide, released into the clouds by ten or a dozen Air Force planes. Since then, and in particular in the past five years, private industry has developed a more effective synthetic property, which is capable of disrupting the energy in the eye of the storm, causing it to, in effect, lose its energy source and unravel.

  “Second is Solar Laser Technology. This involves solar-powered satellite laser beams, which can both disrupt the balance inside a storm’s eye and also steer the storm by heating the air on either side of the eye wall. This technology is being developed by one private company in particular, which launched its first weather control satellite last year. A second is expected to go up this winter. So far, they have demonstrated an ability to steer storm systems into cooler waters or into low pressure systems. This same technology has been studied by NASA. But the private sector is considerably further along with it at this point.

  “Third is Sub-Surface Tomography. A hurricane, you see, is basically fed by warm water. Cooler water slows it down. SST causes a disruption under the surface of the ocean floor, which pumps cooler water from the bottom of the sea up to the surface. The effect is similar to that of the proposed technology referred to as ‘up-welling pumps.’ SST uses radio frequency beams, which bounce off the atmosphere and return to the sea floor, in turn causing cold water to rise to the surface, weakening the hurricane.