Blackmail Earth (9 page)

“Now, Turtles,” Higgens’s moniker for an unfortunate-looking older Pakistani man whose elongated head appeared ready to dip into his torso at the slightest hint of danger, “here’s
your
chance to move up the food chain. Show me
how sweet it is.
” A credible Jackie Gleason that meant nothing to Turtles, who’d grown up in Lahore, or to most of the people left at the table, who were too young to have ever bothered with
The Honeymooners.
“You get to present the option of fertilizing the ocean with iron oxide.” Iron oxide in seawater helped absorb CO
2
by facilitating the growth of algae. “Go hard on cost, which is low, and light on risk, which some of our critics might claim is high. Besides, plankton everywhere will thank us. When do I want this report, Turtles?”

“Friday.”

“The rest of you,” Higgens threw them a wicked grin, “are going to keep working on that special project on the Maldives. Is the tanker on the move?”

“Yes, right on schedule,” answered a red-haired sprite who looked sixteen, but was on her third year of working toward a doctorate in international relations and, surprisingly, had taken leadership on this issue from her two older male compatriots.

Higgens hadn’t mentioned to the White House task force that USEI already had launched a private geoengineering project with the cooperation of the highest echelons of the Maldivian government: What was the point in appearing presumptuous? But with the White House now moving forward, it was hard to see how anyone could raise objections that might have been hurled at the institute even a week ago. Hell’s bells, there wasn’t even a single international law preventing a nation from dumping half a million tons of iron oxide into the sea. They could make an algae bloom big as Australia, if they wanted to. Scary, when Higgens considered how irresponsible parties could make a unilateral decision to fundamentally alter the Earth’s climate. It was enough to make even her shiver.

“How many days away from the Maldives is our tanker?”

“Three days,” the sprite said.

“You guys are good. Now, do you have Maldivians ready to put a local face on the project once that tanker sails into their waters?”

“They’re recruiting in Malé even as we speak.”

This kid’s a gem.
“I know I’m about as subtle as my grandpappy’s old hickory stick, but I love this iron oxide option. It’s cheap and it’s
so
visual, and it’ll make us look as green as Gore. We’ll cool the planet and the glaciers will stop melting, the seas will stop swelling, and we’ll be heroes with a solution as environmentally pure as the Natural Resources Defense Council.”

“Which hates geoengineering,” the institute’s media strategist said, lean as the tie he stroked nervously.

“Let them be the haters,” Senator Higgens said. “Remember our new slogan? ‘On the side of life. Naturally.’ Live it.”

“There’s a problem with terrorism there,” the media strategist said, abandoning his tie.

“They call
that
terrorism? Pikers. Besides, we won’t be
there,
strictly speaking. We’ll be at sea, working to make the world a better place. And I’ll bet you enchiladas to empanadas that the government keeps doing exactly what we want it to. They’re holding cabinet meetings underwater, for crying out loud. They’re desperate, poor. Perfect. We’re bringing them a pilot project to solve their ills. They’ll probably canonize us.”

“I just want to make absolutely sure,” the media strategist said, “that they’re not going to get skittish about the video: We’re going to get it from start to finish, right?”

“Does a horse poop? Is Billy Graham still dead? ’Course we’re going to get the video. Otherwise, what’s the point? Hey, I can already hear the string section we’ll use in the ads that we’ll get out of this. We’ll use that new guy the ad agency found, the one with that really sweet voice. I love the way he says ‘USEI: On the side of life. Naturally.’ I swear, I get excited every time I hear it. Don’t you? Come on, y’all say it to me, right now. Get over here and whisper it in my ears: ‘On the side of life. Naturally.’” The pink fingernail beckoned them.

Her staff, including the upstart sprite, stared at her, panic plastered all over their frozen features; then Higgens laughed harder than ever. “You young ’uns,” she managed to say between guffaws, “y’all are
so
serious.”

*   *   *

Dafoe called Jenna as she deplaned at New York’s LaGuardia Airport. Seconds earlier, Jenna had received a text from Nicci: The network’s investigative reporter had been dispatched to the Maldives and wanted Jenna to call him ASAP. When the phone rang, for a moment Jenna thought it was the reporter. Then she spotted Dafoe’s number and her breath caught. Smiling to herself, she pushed the button to accept the call.

“How was Washington?” Dafoe asked.

“Hold on.” Jenna waved to attract the attention of a network driver she recognized. He rushed up, took her overnight bag, and led her to a black Ford Fusion, a hybrid that she’d had stipulated in her last contract. She thanked him with a nod, settled into the backseat, and fastened the safety belt. “There, I’m set,” she said to Dafoe. “I met the president, but that wasn’t the high point of my day.”

“Really? What was the high point?”

“Are you kidding? This call.”

“You don’t have to say that.”

“Well, maybe it’s a
slight
exaggeration, but it’s mostly true. How are you?”

“Crazy day. I’m just coming up for—”

“Crazy? How can you have a crazy day on an organic dairy farm?”

“Forensia didn’t show up for work. First time in six years. She’s never been sick, and she didn’t even call.”

“Is she okay?”

“I’m not sure. She got in touch about twenty minutes ago, full of apologies, but when I asked what happened, she wouldn’t say. I didn’t want to press her—she sounded a little shaky to me—but everybody’s entitled to a day off without having to explain themselves.”

“Sounds mysterious.”

“It
is
mysterious. And it’s totally unlike her.”

“Maybe the rumors are true, then,” Jenna said.

“What rumors?”

“About that GreenSpirit woman being in your ’hood. Half the reporters in the country are trying to track her down. Maybe that’s why Forensia’s getting all mysterious on you.”

“Nah,” Dafoe said, and Jenna could picture him shaking his head. “I think it’s a personal crisis of some kind. She’s got a crazy mom. Or Sang-mi might be having problems with her parents. She’s five months pregnant.”

“She must be barely showing; I sure didn’t notice.” The cab was entering the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Garbagey air, smog everywhere.

“Me, neither. Anyway, Sang-mi’s pregnancy is the reason her family defected. If you’re a single Korean woman, you do
not
get pregnant and have a child.”

“They defected? From the North?”

“I thought I’d told you that. Her father was a member of the North Korean mission to the U.N., which means, basically, he was a spy. Then Sang-mi got pregnant by—get this—her
white, Pagan
boyfriend. There was no way her father’s career could have survived that. It might even have cost him his life.” He took an audible breath. “Please don’t mention
any
of this to your colleagues. Forensia says Sang-mi’s father has been getting debriefed by the CIA for three months.”

“This can’t have been easy on any of the family.”

“Yeah. About a week ago she moved in with Forensia.”

“Who’s getting all secretive on you now,” Jenna said.

Approaching Midtown. Still hot and sticky in the city, even though the ten-day countdown to the November fourth election had begun. Jenna found it strange to see leaves of all colors still clinging to the trees. Nature going visibly wacko.

“Can you make it up this weekend?” Dafoe asked.

“Can you see me smiling? I’d love to.”

“I made an appointment,” he added softly.

“For what?”

“To get tested.”

“We’re pulling up to the building. How about if I call you later tonight?”

“Not too late: I’m a farmer.”

“I’m on
The Morning Show,
remember? Late is seven o’clock.”

“I miss you,” he said.

Jenna was still smiling. She thanked the driver and hopped out, then unloaded her bag and headed into the building. As she dialed the network’s investigative reporter, her smile disappeared. And though sworn to silence, she planned on Googling Sang-mi’s father as soon as she could.

*   *   *

Rafan eyed the island from the barge’s pilothouse, which stood about fifteen feet above the wide, flat-bottomed vessel, giving him one of the higher perches enjoyed by anyone for a thousand square miles. He thought it proper, as the self-ordained Minister of Dirt, to oversee the arrival of the barge and front loader on the bedraggled island of Dhiggaru. According to a real minister—of the Environment—there was plenty of dirt on its northern end and few residents to object to its removal.

“Binoculars?” he asked the captain, a short man with a staved-in face. Rafan wanted to survey his new territory.

Wordlessly, the captain handed over a chipped, dented pair that looked like they’d survived hand-to-hand combat in the South Pacific during World War II. But they focused well enough to reveal two people, one in the robes of a religious leader, standing in the shade of the palm trees. They must have caught some glare from the field glasses because they looked up in alarm. That seemed odd—given the distance, Rafan could see nothing amiss, and hearing them wasn’t possible.
Guilt?
Over what,
he wondered, then chuckled softly because it reminded him of the guilt he felt over the kiss that he’d shared with Senada yesterday.

They’d been talking about Basheera, about the way his quiet sister used to suddenly burst into loud laughter over some absurdity of modern Muslim life. Then Senada touched him, as she had so sweetly in the past. Her fingertips had drifted down his shirt so slowly, revealing her desire. He’d caught her hand and pulled her close, once more committing himself to a kiss and all that it might mean for a single man and a married, religious woman, whose fisherman husband often arrived home unannounced.

Rafan raised the binoculars for another lazy look at Dhiggaru and saw the man who was not in robes retreating into a palm grove that bordered the beach.
And here I am,
Rafan thought,
coming to take their dirt, to present them with an order of confiscation.

Up till now, he hadn’t expected any serious resistance: They weren’t demanding that anyone leave Dhiggaru. But maybe that’s why those two were there, to watch for the barge. It was a small country, and word traveled fast. “Do not worry. They will not kidnap you and chop off your head,” the Minister of the Environment laughed.

For taking their dirt?
Rafan wasn’t so sure, not after the bombing.

The captain nudged the barge’s broad bow against the shoreline, raising a creak of protest from the snub-nosed hull and a rattle from the chains securing the front loader to the centerline. Three laborers began to unshackle the heavy earthmover.

Rafan eased around them and stepped down the ramp, smelling the sweet rot of dead fish washed up along the shoreline.

The robed man waited a few feet away. Rafan introduced himself, but the young, bearded cleric made no effort to take his hand. Instead, he spoke his own name slowly, as some men do when they believe they are worthy of note, while peering intensely at the visitor through rimless glasses. Rafan avoided the cleric’s dark eyes by looking past him.

“Was there someone else here? I thought I saw two of you but it was hard to tell because of the sun.” He lowered the brim of his white ball cap to emphasize the blinding light reflecting off the white sand.

Parvez Avila didn’t reply. He looked at the barge and cumbersome front loader. “What are you doing here?”

Rafan told him.

“You do not think that you will get away with this, do you?”

Rafan spotted shadowy movement in the palm grove less than thirty feet away. For the first time, he felt afraid. Most likely the other man was back there—
Doing what?
Rafan wondered. He decided not to present the order of confiscation. He feared that Parvez Avila would tear it up, and that even a simple act of violence against paper could unleash much deeper anger and resentment.

“You should never have come here,” Avila said. “Never.”

The sun pounded on Rafan’s cap, but all he felt was a coldness deeper than the sea.

“Rafan,” the captain called, “are you ready?”

Rafan waved, signaling that the earthmover should come ashore.

The diesel engine belched a thick black pillow of smoke that enveloped the two men facing each other on the sand, stinging their eyes and filling their noses with the acrid smell of industrial waste.

*   *   *

Jenna whirled through the revolving door, keeping her cell to her ear, quickly shaking her head as she began to speak: “I can’t give you his name without talking to him; and I doubt very much that I’ll be able to give it to you even then.”

Rick Birk, a codger in his mid-seventies—and the network’s principal investigative reporter for five decades—had landed in Honolulu en route to Malé. He’d called Jenna to try to cajole Rafan’s name and contact information from her.
How does he know I know Rafan?
was her first thought.

Birk now hardened his tone: “For fuck’s sake, Jenna, you were sleeping with him.”

How’d he know that?
she wondered. The answer came right away:
He’s an investigator
. “That’s
my
business, and bringing up personal stuff is out of line.”

“The terrorists could be planning to bomb the network next. Getting me in touch with him could save the lives of everyone we work with.”
What a frickin’ James Bond complex.
“I already know he works in government.”

“What do the plans of some Islamists have to do with my giving you the name of an old friend? Even if he is in the government?”