Dry Ice (7 page)

And, increasingly, what the Pentagon wanted it to do.

That was about to change.

Greg swiveled to face the small screen of his personal laptop and opened a private email application that gave him a secure link to a top-secret military satellite set in a low-earth polar orbit. He patiently worked through the four password-protected portals that led him to the window he needed. The message he typed was brief and was encrypted before it was sent.

Call me. Now.

No greeting was necessary, no closing offered. The person receiving the message, a high-ranking officer in the Pentagon’s E-ring, would not be pleased at receiving, rather than giving, an order, but Greg didn’t care about that. Only his own displeasure mattered. His own fury.

To most of the fiscal-minded clowns occupying the C-suite at Flint, TESLA was the means to unimaginably vast power and unimaginably large profits, and nothing more. But the chairman, who’d learned his rapacious trade at the knee of his robber-baron grandfather, had never let himself be blinded by altruism, however warped. Croyden Flint had always known that the huge, secret array of transmitters whose development he was funding would not only micromanage the world’s weather—its growing seasons, monsoons, droughts, and floods, even its earthquakes and tsunamis, when needed—but would have a second, even more secret purpose: for the right price, TESLA could be the Pentagon’s shiniest new toy, its ultimate weapon.

And the unholy alliance had been forged.

Greg had discovered the truth about this arrangement a few months after the array came on line, when a deliberately bland, deliberately forgettable visitor had arrived for a quick and unforgettable visit, having nearly circumnavigated the globe to have a one-hour conversation with him. This high-level envoy from the Pentagon made Greg an offer he would have been a fool to refuse: occasionally, secretly, allow the military to sidestep its existing arrangement with Croyden Flint and come to him directly with requests. All he had to do was trigger an occasional weather or geophysical event when, where, and how the government asked him to … in exchange for whatever he wanted. Money. An invitation to become a JASON. A Nobel Prize.

He’d settled for all three, plus immunity. Irrevocable, complete, eternal immunity from any culpability for his actions.

And that had set him free.

Greg had been reasonably content in his role as the science director at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, known as HAARP, the publicly acknowledged military installation in Alaska focused on applied ionospheric research. There, he’d had access to research materials he’d only dreamed of: the original papers of the most ground-breaking visionary in modern electromagnetics, Nikola Tesla.

Greg had studied the notes and drawings minutely, committing every word, every diagram, every equation to memory, and filling in critical gaps from his own knowledge and imagination. Over time, he’d drafted what he believed was the key to the most magnificent engine in existence: the weather. He’d kept his ideas to himself, burying small segments of his hypotheses in larger experiments that were then tested, but never letting anyone know that he was forming a larger, much different, focus. He’d heard too many stories—some real, some probably not—of how badly the government had treated Tesla, and the tales resonated too closely with his own experiences. He wasn’t about to squander
his
genius.

Then Croyden Flint offered him the opportunity to devise the master plan for a new weather research installation, the first of its kind. The old man had promised him everything he’d ever wanted, if Greg would create a system that enabled Flint to exploit agricultural markets by controlling the ultimate means of production: regional weather on a global scale.

Greg had accepted the offer without hesitation, and he’d delivered the goods on time. After two high-intensity years spent planning and five more spent building and testing every aspect of the installation, the results had been perfect, inflating the wildest dreams of the executives and bringing to fruition Flint’s three-generation quest for market domination. Then, a year ago, TESLA, fully operational and completely flawless, had been given the go-ahead to come on line.

The executives, immensely proud that their investment had been worthwhile, viewed themselves without irony as the most magnanimous of corporate stewards. By moving high and low pressure systems around the world, by stopping, starting, and diverting storms, TESLA allowed Flint AgroChemical to moderate rainfall, relieving pressure on critical water supplies. Delusions of godlike grandeur had the executives directing Greg’s team to stave off floods and droughts, saving lives and reversing desertification. All the while, they crowed privately to themselves and one another about their ability to enhance sustainable worldwide agricultural food production.

By diminishing the awesome power of cyclonic storms, the executives saw their actions as selfless opportunities to give battered populations and economies a chance to recover and rebuild. Of course, Flint made huge profits every step of the way. From betting on weather-related outcomes in the stock market, to increasing sales of seed and the pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers required to make genetically modified crops grow, to buying and selling those perfect crops grown under perfect conditions, the executives took advantage of every possible mechanism to reap their just rewards.

The chairman, who had always understood the larger perspective, saw to it that the company reaped the unjust rewards as well. Croyden took a great deal of pleasure in the downfall of Flint’s competition as his enemies lost ships full of goods to storms at sea, as their crops and customers were lost to the capriciousness of nature, when prices for their primary crops went into freefall as markets suffered from surpluses due to weather that was too good to be true.

TESLA’s atmospheric “adjustments,” as Croyden liked to call them, were untraceable, and the operations were conducted so neatly and at such a distance from the firm’s Connecticut headquarters, that they quickly became mundane; the consistently perfect outcomes came to be viewed as simply the well-deserved return on a $250 million investment in “agricultural research,” as Flint’s public relations machine modestly described it.

Greg’s Pentagon visitor had warned him that the executives—that band of pathetic profiteers—wanted to oust him. Greg had dismissed the warning as a ploy; months went by in peace, months in which Greg worked for two masters, sometimes for the same ends, sometimes for opposite results. And then it happened. Flint had begun making noise about “bringing him home.” He’d pushed back, of course, and that had ended the conversation. Until today, until a moment ago, when Croyden told him flatly that they were bringing him off the Ice, transferring him to the warmth of the corporate offices overlooking the Long Island Sound, where he would develop other projects.

Greg smiled. What fools they were, to think that he’d agree, to think there could be other projects of greater importance, of greater impact, than TESLA. Their lives were petty, as were their goals. But his only goal in life had been to master the weather. There
was
no greater goal.

And he’d achieved it.

He, Greg Simpson, and his handpicked team had harnessed the immense power of the earth, something Man had tried to do for millennia by offering up prayers and penance, by deploying methods ranging from live sacrifices to cloud seeding. For centuries, humans had understood that weather was a critical variable in the outcome of wars—both the military and political varieties. Across time and civilizations, the gods of weather and war had been beseeched by the oppressed and appeased by the victors. Geniuses and madmen alike had devised plots and plans in their efforts to affect the weather, but none had ever succeeded in wresting control of the weather from the very forces that direct it.

Until now.

Greg’s team had turned Nature itself into the last, best weapon in the world’s history, the ultimate force multiplier. Severe weather everywhere was created and steered, and then dissipated when the goal had been achieved—or the lesson learned. One large earthquake had shown the world that a self-proclaimed superpower really wasn’t one at all.

Because of Greg Simpson, because of
his
genius, Flint was on its way to becoming the most prosperous, most powerful corporation on the planet … and America was re-establishing itself as the world’s only economic and military superpower.

The small, bland, screenless communication device at the edge of his work space emitted a low buzz as it vibrated in its charger. Greg reached across his desk and picked it up.

“What’s going on?” was the admiral’s greeting in a voice that sounded annoyed rather than concerned. It pricked at Greg’s ego.

“Your efforts have not worked,” Greg replied. “I’ve just been told my replacement will be here in a matter of hours.”

Silence on the other end of the phone confirmed for Greg that this was not news to the admiral.

“I’m sorry. We did everything—”

“No, you didn’t,” Greg said simply. “If you had done
everything,
this would have been settled by now. Instead, Tess Beauchamp has just taken off from Capetown, South Africa, in a Flint plane. I’m expected to hand over the keys to my kingdom and then head back to civilization.” He paused. “You do know who Tess Beauchamp is. Third-generation government scientist. Recent sellout to the private sector.”
Breakthrough researcher in agrometeorology and a leading figure in the field of applied informatics. Stupid bitch who bolted in the middle of a three-year fellowship with me fifteen years ago and nearly cost me everything because of it.

“Of course I know who she is. She spoke at a NATO meeting I attended three weeks ago. Listen, Greg, we can still fix this—”

“No,
you
listen to me, Admiral Medev,” Greg said quietly. “You had the opportunity to ‘fix’ this. You failed. So I will fix it.”

Alexander Medev’s pause lasted long enough to make Greg smile with cold delight. “How?”

“I’m going to follow the most basic rule of engineering. I’m going to use the resources at hand.”

“Christ Almighty. There will be a flight crew on that plane. Equipment. We can’t—”

“I’m sorry, did you say ‘we,’ Admiral Medev? This isn’t a collaborative effort anymore.
I
am going to address the situation as
I
see fit. Tess Beauchamp, Flint’s new girl wonder, is
not
going to take over TESLA. I am going to remain in control, which makes her expendable. The plane and equipment can be replaced. The flight crew, well, those people are adrenaline jockeys, aren’t they? That’s what they signed up for, isn’t it—risk, danger, adventure?”

Greg let the frigidity of his smile seep into his voice. “Anyone who agrees to fly onto the Ice at this time of year can have no fear of death. The window for flights closed six weeks ago. Everyone knows that no one should attempt to fly in until August barring a life-or-death emergency, which this isn’t. There won’t even be any internal flights for months. To send a flight in from Capetown now just for the sake of corporate politics is beyond foolhardy. And Flint’s plan is not only stupid, it will destroy the project. We both know that.”

“Let me—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You had the opportunity to act and, with your exquisite foresight,” Greg said, sarcasm seeping through his silky calm, “you failed to do so. Now you’re helpless, Alexander. If I leave TESLA, your career is over. You will lose your direct link to the array and you’ll be back to fetching coffee for the real brass. The price of your weakness is that you’ve been taken out of the equation. I
’
m making the decisions now. Bringing down that plane is imperative. There is no other alternative. If that—”
bitch
“—woman arrives here, there will be questions raised that you and I long ago agreed must never be asked.”

“Listen to me, Greg. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll pull strings and shut down the flight. That will give us time—”

“Haven’t you been paying attention, Alexander? You’re out of time. And luck. You can’t stop the flight. The U.S. military has no jurisdiction over TESLA. The air fleet is flagged in South Africa specifically to keep you out of the mix. The planes belong to Flint and the crews are Flint employees. The ice we’re sitting on is in Australian territory, as you know, and the Aussies are hardly going to interfere with our internal operations without a good reason. We’ve given them a lot of money to keep them out of our hair. So the harsh reality is that only Flint can stop the flight, and that is unlikely at this point. They’ve declared war on me.”

“War? Greg, be reasonable.”

“I’m being eminently reasonable, Alexander. You’re the one panicking. Listen to yourself.”

“Let me—for God’s sake, you can’t take out a plane—Flint won’t like the publicity.”

“Is that the best reason you can come up with? Given all that pungent desperation in your voice, I was expecting a morality play in three acts,” Greg said with a smile that had grown wider during the call. “I have no fears of publicity. There won’t be any. Flint won’t allow anything to raise the profile down here, any more than you will. By the time news of the plane crash makes it into the paper, if it does at all, it will be on page fifteen, lower left corner, and the flight will have become a pleasure trip gone bad, an accident attributed to a sloppy crew operating in old aircraft during bad weather and without authorization.”

After thirty seconds of listening to the admiral breathing heavily while trying to find new ideas, Greg nodded to himself. “I’ll assume your silence implies consent. Thanks for your time, Alexander. I wish you much success in your future endeavors.”

Greg disconnected the call, set the small unit back into its charger, and spun to face one of the large flat-screen monitors on his desk. In seconds, he’d pulled up a map of the Antarctic continent, then zoomed in to their small slice of it.

Their position, so close to the South Geomagnetic Pole, prevented him from creating weather too close to home, but a sudden Antarctic storm near the coast would be an occurrence so commonplace as to be hardly worth a mention. The fact that he had granted the pilot weather clearance she needed to take off would further allay any suspicion. After all, everyone knew not to fly if Greg Simpson, master of the weather, didn’t give the okay.