The Green Trap Page 18

  “We’ll need to check this out thoroughly, Andy. I can’t make a fool of myself over this.”

  Love nodded. “I’ll phone the National Academy.”

  “Tell them I need a preliminary assessment as fast as they can get it to me.”

  “Right.” Love hesitated, then added, “But if Gould has his fingers in the pie…”

  “Yes, I know. It could get tricky.”

  Love stood before the senator’s desk, a compact dark bundle of sinew and determination. “Senator, you know that I’m not a political adviser. But this thing could make a presidential candidate out of you. You could come out with an energy policy that works. Man, you could tell OPEC to go pound sand up their asses.”

  Bardarson grinned at the thought. But his expression sobered almost immediately. “If it’s for real, Andy. If it’s for real.”

  WASHINGTON, D.C.:

  J.W. MARRIOTT HOTEL

  This is still on Fiona’s credit card?” Cochrane asked, once the bellman had put their bags in the room’s closet and left with a minimal tip out of the last cash in Cochrane’s pocket.

  Nodding as she looked around the small room with its queen-sized bed and tall wardrobe of bleached pine, Sandoval said, “Fee knows I’ll pay her back. It’s okay.”

  Cochrane went to look out the room’s only window. The concierge level, he thought. Not all that different from a regular room. Better than the airport flea trap we slept in last night. This high up, he could see the Mall and the phallic spire of the Washington Monument.

  “I thought,” he said, turning back to her, “that since we’ve got Secret Service protection now, we could start using our own cards again.”

  “Maybe,” Sandoval replied. “But we haven’t seen any Secret Service agents yet.”

  As if in response, there was a rap at the door.

  Cochrane went to answer it, hesitated, then squinted through the peephole. Distorted by the fish-eye lens, he saw a stubby redheaded middle-aged woman in a navy blue jacket over a starched white blouse.

  “Who is it?” he called through the door.

  “Senator Bardarson’s people sent me,” came the reply.

  Cochrane opened the door.

  The redhead introduced herself as Sharon Quinn. Not from the Secret Service, she headed a private security company that the senator often used. She was small, but wiry and hard-eyed, her lean face set in a flinty expression.

  “My company will be providing you protection twenty-four seven,” she told Sandoval and Cochrane. “You won’t see my people, but they’ll be taking care of you.”

  She handed each of them a palm-sized black plastic paging device. “Carry these with you at all times. If you have any reason to be alarmed, any reason at all, beep us. We’ll be at your side in less than a minute.”

  “Really?” Sandoval asked.

  “You can bet your life on it,” said Quinn.

  “We will be, won’t we?” Sandoval replied.

  Quinn glared at her. “If you don’t like this arrangement, lady, you can call the senator and tell him about it. In the meantime, my people will be providing your security.”

  She turned abruptly to Cochrane. “Any questions?”

  “I guess not,” Cochrane heard himself reply.

  “Good. Have a pleasant day.” She turned on her heel and left the room, letting the door swing shut behind her.

  Cochrane looked at Sandoval. “That’s our protection?”

  She shrugged. “She seems professional enough.”

  “How many people do you think she’ll have watching us?”

  “One at a time, I imagine. A total of three for round-the-clock security.”

  With a wary shake of his head, Cochrane said, “I can’t imagine her taking on Kensington.”

  “Maybe her other people are bigger,” Sandoval said.

  They spent the afternoon walking down to the Mall, taking in the Lincoln Memorial, strolling among the tourists along the Reflecting Pool. Cochrane kept looking around for Kensington’s menacing figure or anyone who looked like he or she might be their bodyguard. He saw only tourists from all over the nation, all over the world. It was a warm but pleasant day, with fat puffs of cumulus clouds sailing slowly across the sky, providing shade from the late springtime sunshine.

  By four o’clock they found themselves among the crowd thronging the streets of Georgetown. Wisconsin Avenue was jammed with growling, fume-spewing cars inching along from stoplight to stoplight.

  “It’s a wonder we’re not all asphyxiated from the exhaust fumes,” Sandoval said as they wormed along the crowded sidewalk.

  “Once cars switch to hydrogen fuel,” Cochrane said, feeling sweaty, “their exhausts will be water vapor. The humidity on the street will go through the roof.”

  “My hair will curl better.”

  “Nobody’ll be able to keep a crease in his pants.”

  “It could start a whole new fashion trend.”

  They ducked into a quiet French restaurant on M Street and had a long, leisurely dinner.

  “Do you think Senator Bardarson will handle everything properly?” Sandoval asked, over canard au l’orange.

  “Did you see the light in his eyes?” Cochrane replied. “He wants to ride the hydrogen wagon all the way to the White House.”

  She nodded. Later, as dessert was being served, she asked, “Those three other people you sent your brother’s results to, are you sure they’re trustworthy?”

  “I’ve known them since high school, Elena. We’ve been friends for a long time.”

  But inwardly a tendril of doubt began to gnaw at him. I haven’t seen any of them in years. Don Mattson, Vic Cardoza, and Sol Roseman. The Four Musketeers. It’d been a long time since high school. You drift apart. We exchange Christmas cards and an occasional e-mail. But how close am I to any of them? To anyone in the whole frigging world?

  Yet who else is there? I’ve been a loner all my life, except for those three. He remembered the time they cooked up a batch of chlorine gas in the high school chem lab. Mr. Miller took one look at that green cloud rising up to the ceiling and banged the fire alarm. Cleared the whole school. Vic talked them out of being suspended. Cochrane saw Cardoza’s beautifully crafted look of innocence as he protested that they didn’t realize the gas would escape the retort they had used to produce it.

  Cochrane smiled at the memory of it. Across the table, Sandoval smiled back at him, misreading his inner thoughts.

  I never made friends like them, Cochrane realized. Not really tight buddies like we were in high school. Once I got to college I had to work and study and there wasn’t any time for making friends. That’s when I became a loner.

  Jennifer pulled me out of it, but once she died I’ve gone right back to being a hermit. I don’t really have any friends. Not real friends, men I can count on.

  He realized that Sandoval was gazing at him, her expression thoughtful, caring.

  “Are you all right, Paul?”

  He nodded and dipped a spoon into his crème brûlée to hide his embarrassment. She’s the only person in the world I’m close to, he realized. She’s entrusting her life to me. She could walk away from all this and be clear of me and whatever danger we’re in.

  Yes, said that sardonic voice inside his head. She’d also be walking away from ten million dollars.

  But that’s all gone now, he told himself. Once she agreed to go to Senator Bardarson with this, Gould’s ten mil flew out the window. We won’t get a penny for this. Mike’s heirs will get whatever money the patent brings in. Irene’s going to be a rich widow and Elena is sticking with me, even though there’s no money in this for her anymore.

  By the time they returned to their hotel room, Sandoval looked truly concerned about him.

  “You’ve been awfully quiet all evening, Paul.”

  “Thinking,” he said.

  “Thinking about us?”

  “About us. Yeah. About what’s happening to us. About Mike and that Arashi guy and
Kensington and Gould and the whole mess.”

  “It’s a lot, I know.”

  “Yeah,” he said, sitting on the bed to pull off his shoes.

  She sat beside him. “You can change the world, Paul. It’s in your hands.”

  He thought about that for a moment. “Elena, I don’t want to change the world. I just want to find out who killed my brother.”

  “But the discovery he made…”

  He looked into her sea-green eyes. “It’s a laugh. Everybody wants to know the frigging secret. They all want Mike’s data. But the secret really is that he did it.”

  She looked at him strangely, as if she didn’t understand or didn’t believe what he was saying.

  “It’s like this,” Cochrane went on. “Mike figured out how to produce hydrogen cheaply from some microscopic bugs. The secret is that it works! Now any biologist with half a brain can figure out how to do it again. All this chasing around after Mike’s data, it’s bullshit, pure and simple. There isn’t any secret, really. What one scientist can do, some other scientist can duplicate. There isn’t any secret, not really.”

  “No, Paul, you’re wrong,” she said softly. “Oh, I’m sure you’re right about the science part. But what Gould is after is much more than the science. He wants to control this new discovery. He wants to get a patent for it, so no one else can use what your brother discovered unless they pay Gould for the privilege. That’s why he’s dangerous. He wants a stranglehold on the entire global energy industry.”

  “A stranglehold…?”

  “That’s why he’s willing to kill to get your brother’s data into his own hands. That’s why we’re in danger.”

  Cochrane suddenly felt bone-weary, tired of the whole crazy business. This is too big, he said to himself. What the hell am I doing in the middle of all this crap? The global energy industry. A senator with White House ambitions. Who the hell cares about them?

  “All I want,” he said in a whisper, “is to find out who killed Mike. I owe my brother that much.”

  “You will, Paul. You’re strong and determined. You’ll find his murderer. I’m certain of that.”

  “Yeah,” he said, in a long tired sigh. “But right now what I really need is a good night’s sleep.”

  He was too exhausted, drained emotionally as well as physically, to make love with her. They lay together in the bed, the warmth of her body soothing him, making him feel safe, almost content, making him feel wanted and understood and no longer alone.

  “Paul,” she whispered in the darkness.

  “Yes,” he replied drowsily.

  “Those three old friends of yours… the ones you sent your brother’s data to.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Don’t you think I should know who they are?”

  “Huh?”

  “I don’t know who any of them are. If anything should happen…” She stopped, as if suddenly afraid of where her thoughts were leading.

  “You mean if anything should happen to me.”

  “God forbid! Don’t even speak about it.” She was quiet for a few heartbeats. Then, “I suppose we have to face all the possibilities, though. I mean, it would be extra protection. Backup. If anything should happen to you, then I’d know where the information was being kept.”

  “Yeah, true enough,” he mumbled.

  “Are their names in your computer files?”

  “Names, addresses, phone numbers, everything,” he said, yawning.

  “Don’t you think I ought to know who they are?”

  “The Four Musketeers,” he mumbled sleepily. “Don Mattson, Vic Cardoza, Sol Roseman, and me.”

  “The Four Musketeers?”

  “That’s us. Now lemme go to sleep.”

  She kissed his ear lightly. “Good night darling. Sleep well.”

  “Night.”

  WASHINGTON, D.C.:

  SENATOR BARDARSON’S OFFICE

  While the Senate is in session, a senator’s daily schedule is often turned upside down. Mornings are devoted to committee hearings, afternoons to actual sessions of the Senate—which can carry on into the late hours of the night. Then there are the luncheons, cocktail parties, dinners that form the backbone of the Washington social and political scene. A senator’s meetings with his or her staff have to be squeezed into the odd hours of the day, or night.

  Senator Bardarson’s office manager had scheduled this strategy session four different times over the past two days, and each of the four times the senator had to cancel because other commitments got in the way. Now, close to midnight, he at last sat behind his desk with Anderson Love, his man for science and technology, and Avery Hunter, his most trusted political adviser.

  Hunter was nondescript in appearance: average in height, medium in build, thinning sandy brown hair that had retreated from his forehead far enough to hang the nickname “egghead” on him. He had been a computer analyst for a struggling data management firm in Bangor when he’d volunteered to work for Ian Bardarson’s first political campaign. Almost singlehandedly, Hunter had set up a computerized database that fed Bardarson up-to-the-minute information on what Maine’s voters wanted, what they feared, what they would vote for—or against.

  Since then, Hunter had served as the senator’s strong right arm. Bardarson did not always follow his fellow down-Mainer’s advice, but he always depended on Hunter when he had an important decision to make.

  “Is this for real?” Hunter asked. He was seated in one of the burgundy leather-covered armchairs in front of the senator’s dark cherrywood desk, swirling a glass of single-malt scotch on the rocks in his right hand.

  “Seems that way,” replied Anderson Love, sitting beside him in the other armchair. He, too, held a glass in his hand: Dr Pepper. “The people I’ve talked to at the National Academy are pretty excited about it.”

  Senator Bardarson asked, “How soon will the academy’s report be ready?”

  Love’s dark face opened into a smile. “They wanted three months. I told them we needed a preliminary assessment by the end of the week.”

  “And Cochrane is cooperating with them?”

  “Dr. Cochrane is happy as a pig in shit. He’s working with National Academy scientists. He thinks it’s an honor.”

  Bardarson grinned back at his aide. To Hunter he said, “Andy thinks I could ride this hobbyhorse to the nomination next year.”

  Hunter was silent for several heartbeats, then he replied slowly, “Energy is going to be a major issue next year. Already is today.”

  “Is it enough to get me the nomination?” Bardarson asked.

  “Couldn’t hurt.”

  With a mock frown, Senator Bardarson said, “Avery, don’t go into your Delphic Oracle mode. I need concrete answers.”

  “Wellll,” Hunter replied, stretching out the syllable, “everybody wants an answer to the energy problem. Voters aren’t happy paying more than seven dollars a gallon for gasoline. If you can show that you have the answer—and nobody else does—then you’d be in first place by the time the national convention starts.”

  Bardarson reached for the untouched glass of cream soda on his desk.

  “Of course,” Hunter went on in his measured drawl, “the oil companies and the auto companies aren’t going to like it. They don’t want a solution to high energy prices. Right now they’re happy as clams at high tide, no matter how many ads they take out on television to tell the people how hard they’re workin’ on solving the energy problem.”

  The senator sipped at his soda. “There’s a lot of money we won’t get.”

  “Ay-yup. They’ll support the opposition, whoever it shapes up to be.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Love asked.

  Hunter gave him a pitying look. “If you were head of a big oil corporation or an auto company, which would you prefer: rakin’ in obscene profits from high fuel prices or sinking billions into retooling for some new technology that might not even work?”

  “The car companies are hurting from high ga
soline prices,” Love argued. “Their sales are down across the board.”

  “Maybe so,” countered Hunter. “But they’ll shit bricks before they retool their whole industry to convert to hydrogen fuel.”

  “But it won’t be that major a retooling,” Love insisted. “It won’t be like they have to redesign their engines from scratch. Most car engines could be converted to hydrogen pretty easily. At your local garage or gas station.”

  “Really?” Hunter seemed surprised.

  “Really,” said Love.

  “Well, even so, you’ve still got the oil companies. And they’re multinational. This has implications for our foreign policy: Israel and the whole Middle East.”

  “Let ’em all sink into the sea,” Love grumbled.

  “Wait a minute,” Senator Bardarson said. “How would the Jewish vote go for this?”

  Love replied sourly, “The damned Jews don’t have enough votes to matter one way or the other.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Hunter objected. “The Jewish vote can swing New York.”

  “And they control a lot of the news media,” Love admitted.

  “And Hollywood.”

  Hunter laughed. “You two sound like a pair of anti-Zionists.”

  “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?” Bardarson said.

  “The Jewish vote didn’t elect Kerry,” said Hunter. “Or Gore. Or anybody else. They’re an important bloc to consider and you don’t want to get them actively against you, but the Jews can’t elect a president. Not by themselves.”

  Bardarson considered that for a moment. Then, “So how will they react to my hydrogen program?”

  “They’ll like it. Love it, in fact. Anything that reduces the influence the Arabs have over us, they’ll be in favor of.”

  Looking nettled, Love asked, “And how much do we lose by alienating the Arabs and the rest of OPEC?”

  “I’d worry more about the automobile industry,” Hunter replied. “Lots of electoral votes in Michigan and the rest of the Rust Belt.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bardarson said. “That Cochrane fellow said that Gould Energy is already involved in this.”