Blackmail Earth (10 page)

“He might know someone who knows someone.”

“I’m sure he knows someone who knows someone, but
you’re
badgering me, Rick, and I don’t appreciate it one bit.”

“And I don’t appreciate getting stonewalled by a fucking meteorologist over such a ridiculously simple—”

She hung up on him. Jenna could count on one hand the number of times that she’d hung up on someone. You just didn’t do that when you’d been raised by parents like hers, who’d given her a strong sense of propriety.
“Fucking meteorologist”!
Even if he was old school,
very
old school, that was off the charts.

Christ, there he is, calling me back. Leave a message, creep.

As she stopped out of the elevator on the third floor, her friend and producer, Nicci, rushed toward her, short, dark hair flying. “Birk’s in a tizzy. He’s on line one and says he wants to apologize.”

“He can stay on line one till his ear rots off. I’ve got work to do.” In her office, Jenna tossed her overnight bag onto a chair, then turned to the pixie-size Nicci. “They should have sent us to the Maldives, not him. You know that, don’t you? He’ll make a hash of it. It’ll be another one-dimensional story that begins ‘This is the Maldives…’” Jenna offered a fair impersonation of Birk’s typical basso profundo story opening. As creative as a paint-by-number kit.

“We may get a chance,” Nicci said. “The
National Review
broke a story online half an hour ago: USEI is sending half a million tons of liquid iron oxide to the Maldives in a supertanker. It’s part of some geoengineering project. Everyone’s jumping on the story.”

“USEI?”

“The ship’s been underway for more than a week.”

“They sure played that close to the vest,” Jenna said. “Not a peep about it this morning at the White House.”

“Remember our friend from the Northeast Bureau?”

“Sure.” The up-and-comer.

Nicci smiled. “He wants a sound bite about USEI’s plans, since you’re on the task force that’s considering whether to actually recommend
using
the technology.”

“I can give him something, as long as it’s just about the technology. I won’t go into any of the task force’s work.”

Though she knew almost nothing about the USEI tanker, what Jenna would have most liked to say was that somebody should have stopped the ship before it set sail. She found it hard to believe that any good would come from this voyage.

She Googled Sang-mi’s father. But after quickly scrolling past a spate of stories about his defection, she found little. No updates. No reaction from North Korea. No statements from U.S. officials. And certainly nothing about his wife and pregnant daughter. Jenna could conclude only that he was a small fish in a mighty big diplomatic pond. In other words, if he was a spy, as Dafoe had suggested, the North Korean had cast the perfect profile.

*   *   *

Parvez returned to the palm grove, where Adnan’s footprints stood out in the shaded sand. As he stared at the outline of his friend’s feet, he saw the astonishing shape of the immediate future. It was such a stunning vision that Parvez found himself holding his breath for several seconds. In those incendiary moments, he knew exactly how he would become the architect of the greatest martyrdom in modern history. Just an hour ago, he’d heard a shortwave radio report about a tanker heading to the Maldives, loaded with iron oxide for a year-long attempt to slowly lower the Earth’s temperature. The BBC said that Maldivian sailors would be hired once the ship arrived in Malé. And Adnan was a fully licensed seaman.

The ground beneath Parvez’s feet trembled, as if the Earth itself were waking to the weight of what would come to pass, but he saw that it was only the front loader taking another savage bite of the earth. More sooty smoke drifted over him, invading the island as surely as the salty water that had stained the floor of Adnan’s house. The man in the white hat probably planned to take away all of Dhiggaru, load by load, till nothing was left.
Who can stop me?
he might have thought. The island was home to so few: Adnan and his mother, Khulood; and two old fishermen who’d always kept to themselves.

And me.
Parvez added himself with a smile. He’d learned so much about resistance and jihad from the religious leaders of Waziristan. They’d fought the Russians, the Americans, the Afghan army, and the Pakistani military. The war against nonbelievers was spreading everywhere. Even in America, Muslim men heard the call for jihad and became true martyrs.

Parvez knew that Allah—who else could inspire such divine greatness?
—
had shown him what to do. Nothing that Parvez had planned for diamond island could match a martyrdom that would be watched by billions. But he would continue that plan even as he undertook this much greater calling, which would need the help of jihadists from Waziristan. Not many; a few could bring to life the vastness of the vision Allah had granted him. Soon, the religious leaders whom Parvez most admired would know that a humble cleric from the Maldives had proved worthy of their company.

Parvez quickly followed the trail of footprints to Adnan’s house. He found his old friend eating cold rice and fish.

“What is it?” Adnan stood. “You look so happy.”

“I am, my friend. Allah has blessed us with a vision.” Squeezing Adnan’s hand, he told him about the tanker. “You are a seaman. Show them your papers and they will hire you. Then you can wear the vest on board.”

“But they check everyone. I can’t get on board without being searched.”

“You will have help. Jihadists will get you onto the ship, and then you will hold the world’s attention like no one ever has before.”

“What about diamond island? My mother?”

“Yes, I will continue to plan for diamond island, but the tanker will be here soon; and it is coming for you and all that you can give Islam. Paradise truly awaits you.”

Parvez explained that the Americans planned to dribble the liquid fertilizer into the sea over many months, “But you will blow up the tanker. It will fill the sky with flames, and the ocean will turn orange as far as the eye can see. The infidels will pay the highest price for drowning us. I have done research,” he glanced at his iPhone, “and it is simple: If we release all the fertilizer at once, it will make temperatures drop till they freeze in their colder countries. Then they will stop stealing our island.”

Adnan agreed to sign up for tanker duty without the hesitation that he’d shown about bombing diamond island. His eyes brightened when Parvez told him that they would make a video of him and post it on scores of Islamic Web sites. “You, Adnan,
you
will declare victory for Muslims everywhere.”

Parvez stared at the open ocean, imagining flames and orange floodwaters—the surface of the sea reflecting the holocaust of sky—and knew that martyrdom would greet his friend, and that both of them would be honored the world over.

CHAPTER 7

Forensia sat “sky clad” on the crunchy meadow grass. The strikingly pretty twenty-three-year-old wore only the sunflower tattoo on her right shoulder and a red ankh—the oddly anthropomorphic-looking Egyptian cross—on her left breast. She resisted a powerful urge to brush aside one of her long black braids and look at the other naked bodies gathered behind her and Sang-mi.

The two young women were about to be initiated into a witches’ coven. A few feet in front of them a “circle of power,” formed of white stones, glowed under the full moon. Inside the circle, an altar of rough-hewn pine had been raised. A twig broomstick, known as a besom, rested against the altar’s left side. Three candles burned at its center. Forensia worried that they’d set off a raging conflagration. Then she spotted a bucket of water just outside the circle and hoped that it would be enough to snuff the flames if the candles fell over.

At the end of the altar closest to Forensia, incense smoldered, giving off a sharp, spicy odor that she couldn’t identify.

A thick iron cauldron squatted beside the candles; the tip of a boline—a black-handled knife with a foot-long blade—had been sunk into the wood beside the pot. Reflections of the red and orange candle flames danced on the blade’s shiny silver surface.

Forensia worried about what would come next—the blindfold, the tethering of her hands behind her back, and the scourging with whips. She struggled to take solace in the reassurances from Heart Warrior, her spiritual adviser, that these practices were largely symbolic. “You will not be hurt,” Heart Warrior had told her. Even so, Forensia’s nakedness—her sense of vulnerability—made her squirm silently. But more than any other goal in her life, she wanted to become what she had always known she was: a witch. It made bearable all the anxiety swirling through her system.

Reminding herself of her aspiration steadied her nerves until she realized that seeing the boline had caused a tiny knot to tug at her gut. Even the most benign-looking butter knives had always unsettled her, and this weapon did not look kind or gentle or forgiving.
Made for murder,
her mind whispered. Her worst fear—by far—had always been that she’d be killed with the savage inefficiency of a blade. One of her earliest memories was of hearing a news report over the radio in her mother’s old Ford Falcon about a twelve-year-old girl who’d been stabbed forty-seven times. Fear of such a fate never left her and she was somehow drawn to every bit of news that mentioned a knifing death. Just days ago, she’d read of a young woman who had been killed with a butcher knife in New York City.

It’s just a symbol,
she reminded herself,
of how you’re cutting yourself off from your old life.

Forensia forced her gaze to a large pentagram of woven animal skin that was hanging from a branch behind the altar, like a giant pendant from a neck chain. But this was no laser-cut diamond heart or sapphire oval. The ancient five-pointed star had been hacked from crudely tanned hide spotted with patches of dull fur and scattered shanks of coarse hair that hung unevenly, like roughly chopped fringe. A cattle horn, grayed by smoke and time, curled out of the twisted pelts, a forged fang in an errant grave.

The star’s harsh appearance was not reassuring and Forensia quickly reminded herself that the five points symbolized the five appendages of her body. That it hung from a tree also was symbolic, for trees represented the five true elements: earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. And each element represented the five points of a compass: Air was east, fire was south, water was west, earth was north, and spirit was the center. Microcosm upon microcosm of creation. Real meaning in all that you did and thought, especially on this day.

Only hours ago, Forensia and Sang-mi had given themselves a ritual bath in a spring, though finding one that hadn’t succumbed to the devastating drought hadn’t been easy. They’d had to drive forty-three miles and then hike for an hour up into the Catskill Mountains to bathe outdoors. But on the day of their initiation they knew that their skin and spirits needed to feel nature’s elements directly. A bathtub would never do.

Once a witch, always a witch.
Even as a young girl, she’d been drawn to witchcraft. Not the dark side, but not Disney’s commodified version, either. Or Harry Potter’s, for that matter. Much as she’d loved the Potter series—yes, she’d been one of those kids lining up at midnight for each new book—the world of Hogwarts had never appeared as real to her as the world within herself.

For Forensia, witchcraft was all consuming: befriending the trinity of maiden, mother, and crone who lived inside her; learning about the spirits of the land, sea, and air; using natural herbs and balms for healing and to gain wholeness; and enjoying the companionship of like-minded women. Practicing spells, too. Yet despite several years of study, she felt that she had only begun to learn these ancient magics. She’d be studying enchantments and charms—and a few carefully selected curses—the rest of her life. Spells were so hard to perfect, yet so vital to her growth.

Her fears ebbed as she considered her long path to the circle of power. Then she noticed a distinct trace of giddiness blooming in her belly, sweetened by the knowledge that Richtor sat, also shamelessly sky clad, only feet away. Over the past two months she’d been drawn to his quiet overtures, lured by his shockingly abundant blond dreads and his densely blue eyes that reminded her of cornflowers. She tried mightily not to look at him, not to linger on his lovely nakedness, but her body wouldn’t obey such an easily eluded command, and a smile parted her lips when his open gaze met hers.

The feelings that had drawn her to Richtor, to hold his hand and kiss him, felt strong as thunder. They’d spent many evenings reading by candlelight in his simple wooden cabin, imagining the rites and rituals that neither of them had yet performed. But she’d never shown him her private
Book of Shadows,
an intensely intimate journal filled with jottings about spells, and the results—still spotty—of her magic making. And he and the other nonwitches would not be permitted at the initiation ceremony itself.

She looked at him once again, caught his eye, and felt ever more naked, open, willing. Any thoughts of blood or blindfolds or blades had been eclipsed as totally as the brazen face of the moon in the willfully calibrated heavens.

*   *   *

“Let’s go check ’em out. Naked.
No
fucking clothes.” Jason Robb pumped his fist, felt his abs clench. Girls loved that shit; too bad none of them was around to see him.

But maybe mo’ betta, mon, not havin’ dem shorties wich you.
Ever since his parents had taken him to Montego Bay, Jason had begun talking to himself in what he thought of as his “Jamaican voice.” He might be white, but he didn’t have to sound like it. Still, he kept his quarterback’s bark alive for his teammates: “Come on, you assholes. They’re gonna be dancing around gettin’ all horny. Got to strike while the punani’s hot.”

“Sounds too good to be true,” groused Carl Boon, his center. Jason had seen enough of Boon’s fat butt to last a lifetime, and he’d about had it with all the fag jokes about reaching down between Carl’s chunky fucking legs. “You jerking him off during audibles, QB?”
Like I’d juke
him,
mon, even if I was some batty boy.