Darkness Falls (7 page)

Teague nodded, being careful to maintain eye contact. "Ten billion barrels of oil that won't destroy the land it's extracted from, Jenna. Ten billion barrels of oil that won't fill the air with its poisons or kill the animals that make their homes over it."

The emphasis seemed to be on the destruction of oil -- not the rest of it. Teague was a power addict in the truest sense. While most people were only interested in the outward trappings of power -- what it could get them or how it impressed other people -- he could feed on it directly.

"Humanity is leading itself off a cliff," he continued. "We deny global warming despite overwhelming evidence. When storms wipe out our coastlines and our refining capacity is damaged, does the government create environmental policy to stop that kind of disaster from happening again? No, they lift environmental restriction on energy production and move the refineries farther from the ocean. It's insanity. The oil is running out. They can deny it all they want, but it's a finite, nonrenewable resource. One day, we will live in an oil-free society. The question is how much destruction do we inflict on the earth before that happens?" Teague paused and once again proved his uncanny ability to read her expression. "You still like to wallow in self-doubt, I see."

"And you still like to make speeches."

There was a brief silence before he laughed and Udo followed suit with a broad grin. Jonas just stared at her as if she were a ripening corpse.

"Fear can protect you, Jenna. Love can make you happy. Even hate has its purpose. But regret? Guilt? Neither of those emotions have ever produced anything useful."

"I did what I did because I thought the benefits outweighed the drawbacks, Michael. But I don't have your iron grip on certainty. I never have."

"So you're arguing that what I just said isn't true?"

She didn't want to be there. She didn't want to be talking about this. She just wanted to sit in her dark, lonely house and eat food from a box for the rest of her life.

"Whether or not it's true isn't really the issue."

"No? What is, then?"

She knew that she was just prolonging his time there, but couldn't help herself. "Whether or not the four people in this room had the right to make this kind of decision for the rest of the world."

"Someone had to."

"I've spent a lot of time trying to define the word 'terrorist,' " she started.

"You believe we're terrorists?" Udo blurted out.

"Don't all terrorists believe what they're doing is right? Aren't they all certain?" "Jesus Christ," Teague said, his voice rising. "This isn't about someone's interpretation of God or some insane conspiracy theory. We acted on a goddamn mountain of scientific evidence that has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that we're destroying everything we count on to keep us alive. We're trying to save people, not harm them! And at what expense? The Alaska wilderness accounts for less than one tenth of one percent of the world's oil production capacity. It's not exactly bombing the World Trade Center, is it? We took on a great responsibility, Jenna. Made great personal sacrifices. But look what we've achieved. We shouldn't be doubting ourselves now. We should be proud."

When she finally met his gaze again, he didn't look proud. He looked intoxicated.

"I'll ask you again, Michael. What do you want?"

He shrugged -- a mannerism that seemed incongruous with everything she knew about him. "To see you again. I'd actually hoped to celebrate. Maybe I was being naive in thinking that you'd be happy something you'd worked so hard to accomplish actually worked."

She didn't respond.

"Then if not to celebrate, to talk about the future."

"Future?" she said. "You made sure we didn't have a future, Michael. We don't even have pasts."

"There's a lot more to do, Jenna. A billion people in China all want SUVs. The world continues to warm, species continue to go extinct, forests continue to be destroyed --"

"And there's not a thing we can do about it," she said.

"Because we're in hiding?"

"No, not just because we're hiding. How can we stop the Chinese from getting cars? I have one. You probably have five. So who are we to say they can't? And even if I wanted to, who would I lobby? The government? The U. S. government doesn't have any power over the Chinese. In the end, it's the people. If everyone demanded environmental consciousness, the politicians and corporations would be falling all over themselves to give it to them. How can I convince billions of people to give up things they think are essential for some vague benefit ten or twenty years down the road?"

Teague's expression darkened visibly at her last statement. It was purposely a nearly verbatim quote from Erin's book. And of all the people in the world Michael Teague hated, Erin Neal was hovering near the top of the list.

"Then the world's on its own, is that it, Jenna? You're washing your hands of it?"

She thought about his question, about the goals she'd once had, about the joy and pride she'd once felt about her work. "I've done my part, Michael. Now it's time for the world to protect itself."

Chapter
8.

"How do you do this, Mark? Seriously . . ."

The ANWR story had broken while Beamon was stranded in Alaska, prompting Jack Reynolds to leave no less than fourteen hysterical and as yet unanswered messages on his cell.

"This is not some diabolical plot on my part," Beamon protested. "This Alaska thing just kind of came up."

"The scary thing is that I actually believe you," Carrie Johnstone said, turning in the passenger seat so that she could look directly at him. "To be completely honest, the first year we were together I thought you were sneaking out of the house looking for trouble, but I couldn't figure out how you were managing to squeeze your stomach through the window."

"Oh, now that's just cold . . ."

"Then around the second year, I decided that it must be some kind of strange subconscious affliction. But you've finally broken me. I now believe with all my heart that if you got a job as a security guard at a 7-Eleven, al Qaeda would break in and take hostages."

The traffic on the Washington Beltway had come to a halt, but he let the car drift slowly forward as an excuse not to look at her. They were less than a mile from the hospital where Carrie worked, and she was already in full psychiatrist mode. Her normally flowing hair was pulled back tight, and a vaguely stern set of glasses had replaced the subversive round ones she wore at home.

"Did you hear that, Emory?" Beamon said, glancing in the rearview mirror at Carrie's nine-year-old daughter. "It took almost a third of your life, but I finally won an argument."

She glanced up from whatever strange electronic device was currently fascinating kids. "Won't last."

"Am I being ganged up on?" Carrie said.

Emory grinned at the opportunity to use her favorite new word. "Don't be so paranoid, Mom."

Carrie rolled her eyes and settled back into her seat. "It's bacteria, Mark. What do they expect you to do? Make a billion microscopic handcuffs and arrest them?"

"You have the right to remain silent," Emory said in a deadpan voice.

Beamon laughed. While the thought of having a stepdaughter was deeply disturbing to him, Emory Johnstone couldn't have been a better choice. The child had a bizarre and advanced sense of humor, and although it worried Carrie more than a little, he loved it. Kid-speak wasn't his thing, and Emory didn't require it.

"Honestly, I think my involvement's going to pretty much fade away in the next few weeks. Like you say, this is a job for a biologist -- not a broken-down former FBI agent."

"You're not that broken down," she said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek and then jamming herself between the seats to kiss her struggling daughter as he eased the car into the hospital parking lot.

As Beamon watched her disappear through the glass double doors, Emory climbed gracelessly into the front seat.

Who would have thought that after forty-odd years he would finally get a life? And that he would like it?

"Let's blow off work and school today, Mark. Let's do something fun."

He stepped on the accelerator, shaking his head. "I'm still in the doghouse for the last time. Let's give things a few months to settle. Then I've got something big planned."

"Is it cool?"

"Let's just say it involves automatic weapons and leave it at that."

"Somebody talked!" Jack Reynolds shouted, holding up a stack of newspapers as thick as a phone book. For a moment, Beamon thought he was going to throw them across the room, but they proved too heavy and he just dropped them back on his desk.

"Jack, I --"

"Don't talk, Mark. Do yourself a favor and just don't talk. Do you realize that the price of oil is already up more than two dollars a barrel? That's billions of dollars to the world's economy. Billions of dollars! What I want to know is where the hell you were during all this?"

"Can I speak now?"

"Don't push me, Mark. I'm warning you."

"Well, I spent almost two days stranded in the middle of a frozen tundra with only a crazy hippie biologist to talk to. Then, just when his leg was starting to look like chicken, we came up overdue and someone finally rescued us. After that, I went home and got some sleep."

"Went home? You went home?"

Beamon had known the energy secretary for years, and as politicians went he was less sleazy than most. But his habit of repeating himself when he got mad could be really grating.

"Jack, there are thousands of people involved in Alaska's oil production. I had all the nonessential personnel pulled from the affected rigs, I controlled their communications as much as I could legally, and I sent a bunch of our people up there to keep an eye on things. But I can't throw a small city's worth of oil company employees down a dark hole. We talked about this. It was going to get out sooner or later."

"I want to know who leaked this and I want their asses. Do you understand me?"

"That horse has bolted," Beamon said. "There's no point in slamming the gate now."

"I don't give a shit. That was an order." "I'm not going to follow it, Jack. It's a waste of time."

Reynolds reached for the stack of papers again, thought better of it, and fell into the chair behind his desk. "Fuck. Where are we now?"

"There are nine wells down as of this morning. Apparently, Erin Neal thinks that within a few months we won't be getting any oil worth mentioning out of ANWR." "And what's he doing to fix that?"

"My understanding is nothing."

"Nothing? Nothing? Why the hell not?"

"Two reasons," Beamon said calmly. "First, because he says it's impossible --"

"Jesus Christ! Isn't he supposed to be some kind of genius? Look, that guy's a closet tree hugger and you know how tree huggers feel about the Alaska wilderness. Is he really trying or is he just pretending to try?"

"I can't answer that question with a hundred percent certainty, Jack, but we've bounced what he's saying off people in the field and they don't disagree."

"You said there were two reasons he isn't fixing it. What's the second?"

Beamon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Well . . . he's not actually there." "Excuse me?"

"If you want to be technical about it, he stole a plane and flew away."

"That's a joke, right? You're joking." "Not really, no."

"You just let him fly out of there?"

"Well I didn't exac "

Reynolds was standing again, leaning over his desk, supported by two fists jammed into his blotter. "When did this happen?" "A couple days ago. That's how --"

"A couple days? A couple days?"

"The communications were down and --"

"What are you doing about this, Mark?

He hijacked a plane for Christ's sake!" "Actually, I think the plane has to be in transit when you steal it for it to be hijacking."

"Shut up! Just shut up! What the hell's going on with you, Mark? This was a simple operation and now I've got every newspaper in the country running it on the front page and the one scientist everyone agrees we need has disappeared. Is there anything you haven't fucked up?"

Though it was barely nine o'clock in the morning, Beamon gazed longingly at the poorly stocked bar in the corner of the of-. fice. What the hell was he doing there? Carrie made good money and he was old enough to take early retirement.

"Come on, Jack. I sacrificed everything for the FBI, and when I left there it was because I was done. I only took the job running energy security because you begged me and because you promised it would be easy. What the hell is energy security anyway? I run the place and even I don't know."

"Do you have a point?"

"Yeah. If you don't think I'm getting the job done, you should replace me."

"Oh, right. You're getting married soon, aren't you? So it's Mark Beamon the family man now? I'm not buying it."

"Buy it, Jack."

"So let me get this straight. The legendary Mark Beamon has been outmaneuvered by some greenie because you were what? Distracted by napkin holders?"