Eye of the Whale (31 page)

“What truth?”

Gates set his black leather briefcase on the desk, took out a file, and handed it to Frank. “These were all supposed to have been shredded, but I kept them just in case the good old boys on our board ever decided they didn’t like having an outspoken black man around. You might say it was my unemployment insurance. I know what you were asking about the day my wife and I were in your office, before our whole world collapsed.”

“What do you want me to do with this?”

“I’m sure you will figure out something.”

Gates was at the door. “I think we learned the wrong lesson from tobacco, Dr. Lombardi. I pray God will forgive me. I know my wife never will.”

SEVENTY-FOUR

2:30
P.M.
Davis

“T
HE SAMPLES
are very hot,” Pete Sanchez said as he came back in. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling of the wet lab were unrelentingly bright. Elizabeth could not help feeling like one of the specimens in the fish tanks around her. “We’ll get the full tests back in a week. I’m still waiting on the whale tissue, too. But I did some preliminary tests that can give you a sense of what’s to come.

“The sample from Liberty Slough is some of the most polluted water I’ve seen. It has pesticides, probably agricultural runoff from the fields—phthalates and Bisphenol A, likely from the plastics factory—and benzene and phenols, no doubt from the oil refinery.”

“It must be some kind of toxic waste dump,” Elizabeth said.

“I wish it were that simple.”

“What do you mean?”

“All of the samples were hot, even the whale tissue. It had many of the same pollutants as the frog and the water—PCBs, pesticides, you name it.”

“But the whale sample is from a completely different ocean.”

“Water doesn’t obey our maps,” Pete said dryly. “There really is only one ocean. One of my colleagues just found the highest levels of heavy metal and persistent organic pollutants in free-ranging wildlife near the Gilbert Islands. Do you know where the Gilbert Islands are?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Neither did I. They’re out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They’re about as remote as you can get, and researchers found chromium levels that were off the charts.”

There it was again—the same metal that the whale inspector had said he was finding in the whales. “What are these pollutants doing?” she asked.

“We’re discovering all sorts of mysteries surrounding the way that chemicals and life interact,” Pete said. “I’ll show you.”

Elizabeth knew that this was about much more than saving Apollo. With a growing sense of dread filling her body, she followed Pete over to a collection of cages. Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear what Pete was about to tell her; yet she knew that if she had any hope of helping her own baby, or anyone else’s, she had to know the truth.

“You’ve heard of arsenic, right? Probably as a poison that’s been used in countless murder mysteries—that’s at a high dose. Well, at a lower level, it undermines how your body fights tumors.” Pete pointed at one of the cages. Elizabeth winced at the sight of the swollen white rats in the cage, which looked like they were covered in lumps. “But even lower levels of contaminants can compromise your health. Look at the rats in these two cages.”

Elizabeth saw two other rats, their red eyes looking up at her nervously. One was extremely thin, and the other was grossly obese, four times the size of the other.

“These rats have consumed the same number of calories and have had identical activity levels, but this rat”—Pete pointed to the obese one—“was given one part per billion of a chemical called BPA right after birth.”

“One part per billion?”

“That’s like one drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Sounds like such a tiny amount. I know it’s hard to imagine it could be harmful.”

“So why do some people get sick and others don’t?”

“Our inherited genes play a role. No two animals—including humans—will respond in exactly the same way. And there are other factors, such as stress.”

“Stress?” Elizabeth said dubiously. “Stress can’t change the realities of chemistry.”

“See for yourself. Look at these tadpoles,” he said. Elizabeth bent down and looked into a fish tank filled with them. “They are swimming in water contaminated with a pesticide. They seem largely unaffected, but look what happens when they are stressed.” He pointed to another tank where a small wire cage hung over the edge. Inside of the cage was a California newt with a black back and an orange belly. “When tadpoles in the contaminated water smell a newt—their traditional predator—they are fifty times more likely to die than tadpoles swimming in uncontaminated water.”

Elizabeth saw many of the tadpoles in the second aquarium floating belly-up. She was trying to accept the magnitude of the dangers that faced her and her child. For some reason, seeing the tadpoles floating on the surface made these dangers real. “Is there any hope for us, Pete?”

“I’ll show you something that gives me hope.” Pete brought her over to a series of large plastic tubs. In the first was a patch of desolate black soil. “Many of us were asked to recommend solutions to an oil spill that took place up in Washington recently. I decided to test a theory about mushrooms being the earth’s mechanism for regenerating itself, so I sprinkled mushroom spores, and this is what happened after four weeks.” Inside the second plastic container, brown mushrooms were crowded together so densely that it was hard to see the soil. “Do you want to see what happened after ten weeks?”

Elizabeth nodded.

Pete took her outside to the courtyard. The soil-filled square tub was covered with flowers and bugs, and even a robin perched on the rim.

“Life is simply the balance of destruction and restoration. I have no doubt life will survive. The question is whether we and other so-called intelligent species will.”

The cell phone in Elizabeth’s hand started to vibrate. It was Frank.

SEVENTY-FIVE

4:30
P.M.
Liberty Slough

“T
HIS IS
Lieutenant Governor Farthing. Is this Lieutenant Isaac James?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Commander Swift tells me that he is planning to remove you from your post. He says you are not following orders.” The lieutenant governor’s voice had the calm cadence of power.

Lieutenant James swallowed hard. “I’m trying to do my duty, sir. I know how much you have been a supporter of saving this whale, and I understood my orders to be its rescue.” He swallowed again and looked up at the light blue piece of construction paper on the wall—his daughter’s picture of Apollo.

“We’ve done all we can for the whale, son. My scientific advisers have convinced me that the whale is sick and suffering. The humane thing to do is to euthanize it.”

Lieutenant James wondered which group had gotten to the lieutenant governor and how large their campaign contribution was. Despite Skilling’s belief that the whale was at death’s door, several other scientific advisers believed the whale had more time, including Elizabeth. “Sir, honestly, I don’t want to risk my men getting close to the whale again. This whale has a lot of fight in it. I have talked to the zoo people about their elephant darting gun, but the Fish and Game people tell me etorphine is too dangerous to introduce into a
marine environment.” Lieutenant James hoped this might delay what was becoming increasingly inevitable.

“I am aware of these concerns. One of the scientists has arranged for the delivery of an exploding harpoon.”

“A harpoon, sir?”

“An on-site veterinarian will be tasked with firing it.”

“What about the Marine Mammal Protection Act, sir?”

“This has been cleared with the National Marine Fisheries Service. Sunrise will be 6:00
A.M.
—that’s in thirteen hours and thirty minutes. I want you to make sure this is handled before then.”

Lieutenant James was surprised by this request.

“Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ve roped off the area, but the media is very persistent.”

“We’ve
roped it off, sir? I thought that was done by private security officers.”

“The Office of Emergency Services consented. We don’t want this turning into a circus. I trust you understand.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any questions?”

“Just one, sir. I would like to have your orders in writing.” Lieutenant James was stalling.

“I’m beginning to understand Commander Swift’s frustration. The orders will be faxed over later today. If they are not carried out by tomorrow at sunrise, Lieutenant, I’d look for a new career, if I were you. Is that clear?”

“Very clear, sir.”

SEVENTY-SIX

5:00
P.M.
Davis

E
LIZABETH EXCUSED HERSELF
and hurried away to answer the call.

“Elizabeth, I just saw the article. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I have something to show you that might explain who’s behind it. Where are you?”

“I’m at the toxicology lab at the vet school.”

“I’m on my way. I can smell the vet school from here.”

Elizabeth smiled for the first time since she had seen the article. Having her spouse on her side made all the difference. She could stand against the rest of the world if necessary.

F
RANK WALKED INTO
the toxicology lab. He had on a pink shirt and a frog-patterned green and yellow necktie. The shirt and tie did not exactly match, but now even Frank’s lack of color coordination seemed endearing to Elizabeth.

“I should have trusted you. I’m sorry for getting angry,” he said.

“Teo told me what he said. I can understand why you were jealous.”

“It’s the Italian in me.”

“Maybe it’s the human in you.” She took his hand and pulled him close. “Frank, you’re the man I want…the only man.”

Frank smiled like a schoolboy at his first dance.
Maddings was right,
Elizabeth thought.
That really was all Frank needed to hear. Why did it take me so long to say it?

“Look,” Frank said. “Finish your Ph.D., and we’ll go wherever we can both get jobs. Maybe I can take a teaching position with shorter hours. We can be together and have our family. We’ve been waiting long enough.”

“I am thinking of giving up. You and Dr. Skilling were right. I have been at it too long.”

“Giving up? You can’t do that.”

“But—”

“If you give it up, you’ll never be happy.”

Now it was Elizabeth who was smiling from ear to ear. “Really, you mean it?”

“Of course I do. I was an idiot for suggesting that you should.”

“Maybe I can talk to Dr. Skilling and change my dissertation topic.”

“No,” Frank said, shaking his head. “You can find another program, maybe go back to Woods Hole. You’re not going to change anything—and certainly not for
Skilling.”
Frank’s face showed a scowl of disgust as he said the name. “I found out a lot about Tricky Dick Skilling. You need to see this.” Frank looked around to make sure they were alone, then took a file out of his bag and placed it on the gray countertop. “The memos and reports in this file show that many of the chemical companies, oil companies, and agribusinesses are well aware of the dangers of their products but have decided to cover them up.”

“The companies in the Valley are doing this?”

“These are not just companies in the Valley. These are international conglomerates—some of the biggest companies in the world.” As he flipped through the file, Elizabeth saw that all the internal memos were marked confidential. “It was more important to them
to protect their profits and to avoid government regulation. So they buried their findings and fought anyone who was trying to reveal the health dangers to the public.”

“How could they get away with this?”

“The companies have tried awfully hard to cover up their tracks and confuse the issues.” Frank pointed to one memo that discussed the creation of the Environmental Stewardship Consortium. “These companies set up this product defense group to try to obscure the data and buy off scientists—”

“Dr. Richard Skilling,” Elizabeth read under a column of “sympathetic” scientists. Next to them were earmarked payments for testifying in Congress and for signing their names to pro-industry research articles.

“Yeah, good old Dick Skilling. He’s made a fortune from industry. They even gave him royalties on a patent to hide the money they were paying him.”

Elizabeth was amazed. Skilling had betrayed her and even tried to seduce her, but she’d never imagined that he could be so corrupt. She was feeling tired and defeated—and hungry. “So what?” she finally said. “Everyone knows that there’s a cost of doing business. How do we prove that any of this matters?”

Out of his leather doctor’s bag, Frank pulled what looked like an external hard drive, no bigger than a paperback book. The drive’s gray metal reflected the lights overhead. Frank was smiling like the Cheshire cat. “The cases in this database show the real cost of doing business
like this.
” He turned to Pete, who had just come back into the room. “Dr. Ginsburg said you’re mapping toxins. I assume you’re working with GIS?”

Pete’s eyes widened with excitement. “We’ve got one of the best systems. It’s my pride and joy.” Geographic Information Systems allowed scientists to map data, often using satellite images.

“Ever work with health data like birth defects?” Frank asked.

“With whatever we can get. Privacy laws make it hard.”

“What if I said that on this hard drive I had the birth defects and childhood cancer records for the entire Sacramento Valley region?”

“With home addresses?”

“Everything.”

“I’d say that you had brought me the GIS Holy Grail. We’ve been trying to get that data for years.”

“Well, here it is. Can you map it?” Frank asked.

Pete was turning on his computer eagerly. “I’m sure I can make you a pretty picture.”