“This evening, I am able to report to you that this tragic scenario has been averted. While the remains of Alexander still pose a serious threat to some mid-Atlantic and New England regions, the unprecedented disaster that many had feared was inevitable has been avoided.
“I’ve just met with a team of the country’s leading weather scientists from FEMA, the National Weather Service, and the National Hurricane Center, and I am pleased to announce that as of twenty minutes ago, Alexander has been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm, with all projections showing continued weakening through the overnight hours.
“Threats such as Alexander remind us of our nation’s vulnerabilities—and of our own vulnerabilities as human beings. They are a clear testament to the power of nature to disrupt our lives and our livelihoods. Today, however, I am able to announce that some important and exciting new strides have been taken that may eventually render disasters such as Alexander obsolete.”
The camera came in for a closeup.
“In fact, I am both pleased and humbled to tell you this evening that some of the credit for averting Alexander may in fact belong to American science, rather than nature.
“For the first time, the federal government of the United States, working in tandem with a consortium of research centers, was able to implement a program of comprehensive storm mitigation. Specifically, we engaged cutting-edge solar laser technologies that were designed to alter the structure of hurricanes, cutting off Alexander’s energy source, increasing central pressure and, as a result, degrading the hurricane’s eye and diminishing its overall strength. Although I am not able to offer definitive proof to you tonight that these efforts were the sole reason that Alexander is no longer a hurricane, I am able to announce that this is a viable new science and that the United States will pledge all of its resources, ingenuity, and imagination to becoming the world leader in this field. Eventually, this new science will enable us to eliminate drought and heat waves, providing significant assistance in crop production and mitigating various other natural disasters.
“The destructive force of storms such as Alexander makes it imperative that we take the lead in exploring and developing this new realm of science and technology, so that in the future we may harness the power of nature for good rather than be at its mercy. It is our American responsibility—to ourselves, to our nation and to our future.
“It is in this spirit, therefore, that I am today announcing a new international organization that will pool resources and research to fully explore the dynamics of climate and weather science. It is our goal that within a generation, massive hurricanes such as Alexander will no longer pose a danger to these shores, to our lives, or to our livelihoods.
“However, I want to close by saying that Tropical Storm Alexander remains a potent threat to the United States. I would urge residents in the mid-Atlantic and lower New England coastal areas to take all necessary precautions. And I assure you that the United States of America will pledge all of its available resources toward assisting any and all regions affected by this storm. Thank you for your time. And God bless America.”
TROPICAL STORM ALEXANDER took a northeastern jag overnight, missing the Chesapeake and turning back into the Atlantic Ocean, although its western bands slammed the coasts of Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey on Saturday, with fifty-mile-an-hour winds and gusts topping eighty. In those three states, the storm destroyed dozens of beachfront homes, knocked out power, and flooded streets.
Blaine and Mallory watched from the Pike Motel, where they had decided to “ride it out.”
“Feels kind of funny being in a motel room like this,” she said, after they woke in the still of mid-morning.
“Yes. You said that before.”
“Think any restaurants are open? Stores?”
“Sure.”
He gave her a sideways look. The sun was high again through the blinds, accenting the planes of her face.
“There are still a few things we haven’t talked about, you know,” she said.
“Like?”
“Like what you’re going to do with yourself.”
“Suggestions?”
“Some.”
“Do they all involve me staying in Washington?”
“I think so. Is that a possibility?”
“It could be.” He listened to the whisk of cars moving past the motel on the wet street. “Yes,” he said. “I definitely think it could be.”
FIFTY-NINE
THE SATURDAY AFTERNOON BREEZE was balmy and laced with a fine mist as Catherine Blaine drove them through the narrow streets back to Washington. Traffic was heavy, and there was a palpable human energy in the D.C. suburbs. Families sat on front lawns and raised their fists, gave thumbs-up signs to passing travelers, who responded with celebratory whoops and honking horns as if everyone were sharing in the giddy aftermath of some sports victory. What people were sharing was of a higher order, though, than the outcome of a ball game. It was as if they were celebrating getting their lives back; having another chance that they hadn’t expected. As Mallory and Blaine came through Bethesda back into the District, Joseph Chaplin reached Mallory with the news about Thomas Rorbach. He’d deciphered thirteen documents and emails on Rorbach’s cell phone, he said. The most significant had been written three days earlier: a two-page memo succinctly explaining the project and his, and Secretary Easton’s, roles in it. Leviathan, the murders, Zorn and Volkov. He had realized that he was in trouble, evidently, and chose to leave a record. It was tantamount to a confession, Chaplin said.
“What about Easton? Do we have any idea where he is?”
“Yes, actually.” What he said next was drowned out by a burst of revelry from the sidewalks. Mallory raised the windows. “This might all work out naturally, Charles. On its own.”
“How do you mean?”
“Planes are flying again.”
“Okay.”
“His Continental flight to Geneva left eleven minutes ago.”
“So he gets away?”
“No. He doesn’t get away.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve obtained the passenger list,” Chaplin said. Mallory heard the Toreador song from Carmen playing in the background. “Dmitry Petrenko is on the same flight. I don’t think that is a coincidence.”
Petrenko. A name he recognized. He was trying to remember how. Then it came to him. “Volkov’s man.”
“Yes. He’s in charge of security and clean-up. Volkov’s right-hand man, actually. Mr. Zorn died yesterday evening. If Petrenko’s on that plane, I’m fairly certain Easton will be dead within twenty-four hours.”
Monday, October 10, 3:27 P.M.
“That’s a remarkable story,” said Roger Church, looking up from the printout of Jon Mallory’s draft, his face creasing into a network of wrinkles. “I don’t know how you managed to pull it together.”
“Sources.” Jon Mallory shrugged. “That’s all.”
Two of the sources were in Church’s spacious corner office at the Weekly American in Foggy Bottom—Catherine Blaine and Charles Mallory. Another was Steven Loomis, the first name on the list and the “S.L.” in documents Dr. Keri Westlake had sent to Jon Mallory.
Loomis had started the chain, sharing his concerns about Leviathan with the project’s assistant administrator, Frank Johnson, in 2004 and later with a journalist named Michael Dunlopen—two of the names on the list. Loomis and Johnson had both worked for Thomas Rorbach and Environmental Atmospheric Research Systems, observing firsthand the evolution of the Leviathan Project.
Jon Mallory was titling his piece “Story of an Unnatural Disaster—the Leviathan Memos.” He would describe it with a series of documents passed down through the years, beginning with Loomis’s.
Among the earliest of these documents was an email linking Thomas Rorbach and Clark Easton to experimental radio tomography research in Alaska that may have inadvertently triggered a devastating earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. S
hortly before his disappearance, Loomis forwarded this email to a scientist named Deborah Piper, who then shared its contents with a colleague, Susan Beaumont. Their concerns received a little play on the Internet at the time but were never taken seriously. Email exchanges between lobbyist David Worth, who had also worked with EARS, and Dunlopen, however, indicated that the journalist was at work on an in-depth investigative story about the Leviathan Project at the time of his death in 2007. Several of those emails were obtained by Atul Pradhan, a scientist Dunlopen apparently knew in passing.
The earliest memo, titled “The Leviathan Effect,” had been written by Loomis in August 2004. In it, he expressed concerns about the lack of international oversight for climate and weather modification research and warned that efforts to manipulate geo-physical phenomena might produce unwanted and unpredictable results.
I am troubled that the technological advancements inherent in the Leviathan Project, which have the ultimate potential of mitigating natural disasters that every year exact a toll of millions of lives and tens of billions of dollars, may instead be used irresponsibly for political gain.
A pre-requisite to the use of this technology must be a comprehensive understanding of how atmospheric systems work, and how they may be affected by these sorts of adjustments. Unfortunately, as you know, there is much about these processes that is still not understood.
When weather is altered to benefit one group or region, adverse effects may result in other regions. This is what I refer to here as the Leviathan Effect. I am afraid that as we continue to explore the complex science of climate and weather, we will increasingly make ourselves susceptible to this effect if we do not first raise global awareness and implement global safeguards.
Even research supposedly conducted in our own backyard may have chaotic and potentially disastrous effects elsewhere in the world, in ways we might not be able to anticipate. That is my primary reservation about the Leviathan Project as it stands today.
I do believe that climate and weather research is essential to our future and should go forward at an accelerated pace. This is a science that could be used for great gain or for great ill; it may even one day hold the keys to the survival of our planet. But this is why I believe it is essential that it be explored transparently, and with international oversight.
Stephen Loomis’s warnings about the Leviathan Effect may have been borne out by the spate of severe events that accompanied Hurricane Alexander. These included torrential rains in China that caused the evacuations of two million people; deadly earthquakes in Pakistan and Iran, which killed thousands; record downpours in Mexico, Argentina, and the Midwestern United States; and unprecedented lightning storms in Tanzania, Sumatra, Bolivia, and elsewhere, responsible for several hundred deaths.
The most recent memo, found on Thomas Rorbach’s smart phone, succinctly explained the roles of Rorbach, Zorn, and Easton in the Leviathan and Weathervane projects. “This is our mission,” it concluded. He signed it, “A soldier.”
CHARLES MALLORY AND Catherine Blaine walked into the blue shaded autumn evening. As they came to Constitution Avenue, she reached for his hand. Mallory felt lifted by the warm-cool currents of the air, and by just being with her. Everything had changed, and he had no particular interest in leaving again.
They walked through the soggy parkland and across the National Mall, stopping to look east, toward the World War II memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Capitol. The Mall was a giant rectangle of land that told the American story better than any other. A piece of property that was projected to have been twenty feet under water right now.
They strolled past the monuments and the cherry trees into West Potomac Park, stopping finally at the Tidal Basin, where they sat on a bench and gazed out across the choppy reservoir waters, lit with the orange-gold glows of the fading sun. Mallory was surprised to see the vague outlines of a new life; things he’d never done, places he’d never been; adventures he would share with Blaine.
When she spoke, her voice was soft, surprising.
“It’s not really over, is it?” she said.
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“It’s nice to stop thinking about it for a while, though, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
They sat there for a long time, marveling at the sky’s shades of blue and gold glimmering in the water, hearing the cars passing over the wet streets and the waves splashing on stone, the breeze coming in currents. He thought of saying more, but decided not to.
The birds were high in the air again, Mallory noticed.
EPILOGUE
Beijing, China
PARAMILITARY GUARDS STOOD OUTSIDE the imposing southern gates of Zhongnanhai as a shiny black Hong Qi limousine pulled onto the park-like grounds of the Chinese leadership compound. Inaccessible to the general public and media, much as the Forbidden City had been during the Imperial era, Zhongnanhai was the seat of the Chinese Communist Party and the residence of the President. The sprawling, rectangular complex, set behind vermilion-colored walls, was a strange blend of blocky gray office buildings and ornate Qing dynasty palaces set on the shores of two giant artificial lakes.
Just inside the Xinhuamen Gate, the limousine passed a concrete wall with the famous slogan SERVE THE PEOPLE, in a giant facsimile of Chairman Mao’s calligraphy. The car sped past the South Lake, where stone bridges led to an ornamental island, and a series of whimsical pavilions with names such as Zhanxulou, the Pavilion of Placid Pleasure, and Penglaige, the Fairy Isles Pavilion, before stopping at the massive Western-style building known as Qunzhengdian, or the Hall of Diligent Government.
The man in the back seat of the limousine was the country’s Vice President, one of the nine old men known as the Politburo Standing Committee who determined much of China’s national policy.
In his briefcase he carried a message for the President, his friend and former rival. It was a message that he had received approximately thirty minutes earlier on his mobile phone, which he knew the President would want to see immediately. A message signed Janus.
The Vice President held various titles in the Chinese government, including propaganda minister and Vice President of military affairs. He had also served for years as a top-rank intelligence official and knew as well as anyone that Janus did not, in fact, actually exist. He knew this because he had been one of the six men who had invented Janus, a fictitious super-hacker who could infiltrate Internet networks of other nations and corporate entities, including the Dalai Lama’s organization and the White House in Washington, without seeming to have any connection with the Chinese government.
But he was naturally concerned that someone—probably an American, or “the Americans”—was now appropriating Janus’s identity and using it to threaten his country.
He was ushered in to the President’s large but austere office, with its recessed lighting and leather chairs, where he remained standing as the country’s ruler read and re-read the email message.
Mr. Vice President: Three days ago, a deadly hurricane struck the East Coast of the United States of America. This was the sixth in a series of so-called natural disasters.
Within the next week, another major disaster will devastate a portion of North America. You have the power to stop this trend. It is up to you. If not, the next disaster will be on Chinese soil—an earthquake worse than any you have ever experienced. We will be in contact soon with further instructions.
—Janus
Sochi, Russia
In a hillside villa above the Black Sea, Vladimir Volkov listened to Prokofiev’s “Dance of the Knights” on his iPod while enjoying the warm-cool currents of air from over the open sea. Two of his mistresses had fixed the house for him and he expected to stay here for the next three nights.
Volkov was waiting now for the arrival of his only surviving son, Dmitry Petrenko, to discuss their plans for the next phase. Dmitry was coming from the cold of America to meet him here, where the weather was still pleasant a
nd would be for the duration of his stay.
Volkov had given his other son the opportunity that he had requested. But Victor, it turned out, could not produce the prize. He had the desire to do big things, but he lacked the ability. He was like most people, who strove stupidly after what they could not achieve; who became regressives. Mankind was still a regressive creature, Volkov believed. For all of man’s ingenuity and accomplishments, nature was still capable of reducing him to a veritable caveman.
That was something that could change. That would change. Volkov knew exactly how to do it. How the world could become more civilized. He just needed the right general to carry out his mission. The Project.
Once again, the Americans had not been paying attention, he reflected, looking up at the cumulous clouds, as he walked along a ridge beside the sea. It was almost amusing to him: for all of their wealth, their knowhow, their arrogance, aggression, and resourcefulness, the Americans had not even read the last warning properly. They had become so consumed with their notions of success and winning that they hadn’t even processed the last note carefully. It had been stated very clearly: The next two events will be on American soil.
Vladimir Volkov turned from the water and gazed up the lawn. That’s when he saw his son, the good son, Dmitry Petrenko, walking toward him. What he really saw was the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to Laura Gross for her support of this series and of my writing.
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