Darkness Falls, page 10
"What Jack means," Beamon said, "is that you dropped kind of a bomb in there and you're the only person who might know how to defuse it. Constitutional rights get a little gray when the scale gets this large."
There was a hint of anger in Beamon's expression, but it didn't seem to project anywhere -- as though he was angry at only himself.
"I already told you that there's nothing I can do," Erin protested.
Reynolds fell into the chair behind his desk. "Let's forget stopping the bacteria for a minute. Let's assume you're right and it's going to run rampant. What happens then?"
"How should I know?"
"Because you wrote a fucking book about it "
.
"Hold on, now. I wrote a book about oil slowly becoming scarce. Not about the spigot suddenly being turned off on a third of the world's supply."
"Guess."
"I'm not an economist. I --"
"Jesus Christ, Erin! Here's your shot. How many people like you do you think have ever sat in this office? Now's your chance to do what you've always dreamed of -- directly affect government policy. If what you're telling me is true, we have to prepare, right? Do you want to be part of that preparation? Or do you want to leave it to the government hacks you people always complain about?"
Erin eased back into his chair. Reynolds was right. He'd spent a lot of time thinking, though not about this particular problem but one very similar. And there was no doubt that the U. S. government had the potential to react with incredibly destructive stupidity. It almost always did.
"It's hard to predict," Erin said finally. "Oil is so cheap and plentiful it's almost impossible to follow the economic chain. I mean, everyone thinks it's great to buy a hybrid car, but no one thinks about how much energy it took to build it. In the end, would it have been more environmentally friendly just to keep your old SUV? The world is full of examples like that."
"You're not helping me," Reynolds said. "Well, then, why don't you call a goddamn Republican think tank. I'm sure --"
"Erin!" Beamon cut in. "Calm down.
We're all on edge. Go on. Jack's just going to sit there and listen. Right, Jack?"
Reynolds frowned deeply. "A lot of books out there say the loss of oil is going to be a disaster for the world. That everybody's going to freeze or starve --"
"Yeah," Erin said. "The peak oil Chicken Littles. In my mind, oil prices were set to rise slowly and we would change our behavior and find power substitutes as they became economically attractive. This is different. There's no time to build solar panels or nuclear power plants, no time to beef up public transportation -- let alone to completely redesign the way our economy works. Take food for example. The average distance food travels from farm to plate in the U. S. is thirteen hundred miles. It might take a hundred calories of energy to produce and deliver one calorie of broccoli."
His mouth was becoming increasingly dry as he thought through the ramifications of what was happening. Of what Jenna had started.
"Our entire economy is based on people spending hours a day in the car -- going to the store, to work, whatever. Heat, medicine, and clothing all take huge amounts of energy to produce. And then you have the shipping costs of imports. Did you know that no shoes are made in the U. S. anymore? So if we suddenly can't fuel the ships to get shoes here, everyone goes barefoot. It sounds kind of stupid, but think about what it would take to create a shoe industry that had the capacity to cover the feet of more than a quarter of a billion people."
"You assumed that virtually all the oil will run out in the next fifty years," Reynolds said. "We're going to lose it faster, but not as much. Thirty percent, right?"
"Right. But it's impossible to predict exactly how it will affect us because nothing like this has ever happened before. I mean, we're not just talking about some minor supply fluctuations that cause an increase in prices or a few gas lines. We're talking about an actual long-term shortage. The oil just won't be there, no matter how much you're willing to pay. Figure ninety-seven percent of petroleum in the U. S. is used for transportation. If it's just Ghawar, then the market can probably deal with that. Gas prices would go up to six dollars a gallon or so and people would react by driving more efficient cars fewer miles, and forgoing luxury products that have huge transportation costs attached to them. Painful, and probably pretty devastating to the economy in the short term, but not really a disaster."
"But you don't think it's just Ghawar." "No. And that leaves you in a gray area. You're talking about a complete reorganization of the world economy in an environment that will make it hard to reorganize because creating energy-efficient systems takes energy. Depending on how you calculate the numbers, it might take a hundred gallons of oil to make one solar panel."
"So, at some point between a ten percent reduction and a thirty percent reduction, the government is going to have to institute some kind of rationing," Reynolds said. "Isn't that right? Agriculture, for example."
"Yeah, I suppose. Below ten percent, you'd probably do a little pandering with the strategic reserve and run up the deficit a little more with tax rebates, but in the end the market would take care of things through pricing. Eventually, though, you cross the first line, where oil becomes so valuable to the public good that it has to be centrally controlled to some degree. You don't want ambulances to run out of gas because some rich guy wants to drive his Hummer around."
"So where is that break point?" Reynolds asked. "The point where the government has to take control of the market?"
"I wouldn't worry about that so much.
It's the next line that you should be thinking about."
"The next line?"
"Where the reduction in energy availability creates a cascade effect. The economic cascade is obvious: If people can't get to the mall, the people at the mall lose their jobs. Then they don't have the money to go out to dinner, so the restaurant people lose their jobs, and so on. But the energy cascade is way more dangerous. To get energy, you have to input energy. An obvious example is the big diesel engines that drive coal extraction. If you can't get fuel to run the mines, then we lose most of our electricity. If you lose your electricity, what happens to all the industries that count on it? Lights? Heat? Communications? The Internet? And if we lose those --"
Reynolds held up his hand. "I get the point. We'd go back two hundred years."
"Yeah, but with a complete loss of survival skills. How many people even cook their own food anymore, let alone grow and butcher it? And our population isn't a hundred thousand, it's three hundred million -- all of whom would start fighting for what few resources were left. Who's going to keep the peace? The army? No way. Even when it's not fighting, the U. S. military still uses more energy than the entire country of Austria."
Reynolds turned and looked out the window behind his desk, following the cars crowding the street below. Washington D. C.'s rush hour had expanded over the years, and now the city seemed to be constantly flooded with the bumper-to-bumper traffic that kept the country -- and the world -- moving forward.
"Okay," Beamon said. "Maybe you could talk about what we can do to make sure none of that happens."
Erin didn't answer. He just wanted to get the hell out of there. To figure out how Jenna did or didn't fit into this. To find out if she was alive or if this was just another desperate fantasy he'd conjured up.
One thing he was sure of, though, was that she didn't have anything to do with Ghawar. Or was he? What was it people always said about the serial killer who lived next door? "He was a nice, quiet guy -- used to lend me his lawn mower." Did anyone really have any idea what another person was capable of?
No. He did know her. She wouldn't have anything to do with this. If his predictions were right, even the best-case scenario was a disaster. The industrialized world would do everything in its power to shore up its supply, leaving countries without economic and military power out in the cold. What would happen to all those people who already lived on the edge? To the people who relied on foreign aid? There was no way she would be involved in something like that. Would she?
"Dr. Neal?" Reynolds prompted.
"I don't know how to kill it. Don't you think I'd tell you if I did?"
Beamon nodded thoughtfully. "Then it seems to me the person to ask about how this stuff can be killed is the person who created it. Right?"
"I don't think they'd have an answer." "But they might."
"Yeah, I guess."
Erin thought of Michael Teague -- an arrogant prick who thought because he had a lot of money he was the world expert on everything. He was almost certainly capable of something like this. But where did that leave Jenna? Dead? Her plan would have ended with ANWR, and then she would be a liability.
He sagged in his seat, suddenly drained of energy. Although he'd never come to terms with Jenna's death, at least she'd been dead. There had been certainty to that. Permanence. Now, it was all chaos again.
"So who did this?" Beamon said.
Erin looked over at him. "What?"
"You heard me."
"How the hell would I know?"
"Who would care about Alaska's wildlife refuge?" Beamon asked.
Erin tried to keep his expression blank, but wondered if the perspiration starting at his hairline was visible. "People like you think all environmentalists are crazy. A few people care enough to speak out about what we're going to leave our kids, and you bug their houses because, of course, the next step is blowing up a logging operation."
"Or creating a bacteria that could destroy a third of the world's oil supply."
"It could have been Arab terrorists -- they have access to Ghawar. It could have been some country that hates us. It's not too hard to find one of those."
"Maybe," Beamon said. "But what if it wasn't? Are you going to deny that there are environmental radicals out there who are off their rockers? My understanding is that you've been one of their favorite targets over the years. Come on, Erin. There can't be more than a dozen people who have both the motivation and the expertise to do something like this. Including you."
"Me?" He looked over at Reynolds, who seemed satisfied just to sit and watch. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"It is your area, right? I mean, everybody says you're the go-to guy on the subject."
"I'm also the guy who told you it was engineered."
"Sure, but Steve Andropolous would have figured that out pretty soon anyway, wouldn't he? So it would make sense for you to blow the whistle yourself and deflect suspicion."
"Why would I? Why would I do something like this?"
"I don't know. To save the African mud-sucker snail? Why do you people do anything?"
"We people do things because the world is being destroyed for no reason," Erin shouted. He knew that Beamon was baiting him, but as usual, he couldn't just let it go. "Are people happier now that they have a four-mile-to-the-gallon truck to drive on dead smooth pavement? Or are they just trying to keep up with the Joneses? Today a family of three buys a six-thousand-squarefoot house with four rooms they don't use, but still have to heat and cool. Tomorrow, their neighbor gets a bigger one, so they have to move to a house with eight rooms they don't use just to stay even. Are they better off?" He pointed through the window at the stopped traffic outside. "Are you happy spending half your life sitting in that?"
Beamon followed his finger and pondered the traffic for a moment. "So it would make perfect sense for you to use that pool of yours to cook up a bacteria that eats oil. You're not trying to hurt anyone. You're trying to help us. To help the earth. I can see the argument."
"Screw you."
Beamon shrugged. "Okay. If you didn't do it, who did?"
"If you think I'm going to start naming names so you can put the thumbscrews to a bunch of innocent people, you're nuts. Create your own witch trial."
"But if this is as bad as you say it could be, shouldn't you be doing what you can to help?"
Erin ignored the question. "Am I under arrest?"
Beamon didn't answer immediately, instead folding his hands over a middle that looked slightly larger than the first time they'd met. "So far, there's only one thing I'm certain about: you know more than you're saying."
Erin just sat there, struggling to keep his stare indignant in the face of an accusation that was completely true. Was he the one in the wrong here? Should he talk? Was he making a looming disaster even worse, all for a woman who was probably dead, and even if she was alive, clearly didn't give a shit about him?
No. What difference would a few days make? If Jenna was out there, he needed to find her and talk to her. To figure out what to do. If Beamon tracked her down first, there was no way he'd believe she'd just been after ANWR. He'd treat her like a terrorist, and everyone had seen the pictures of what happened to terrorists these days.
"You didn't answer my question," Erin said. "Am I under arrest?"
Beamon shook his head disappointedly. "Lucky for you, what I know and what I can prove are two different things."
Chapter 17.
Mark Beamon paused at a fork in the hallway, dialing his cell phone and regretting refusing an escort. Did they say right or left?
Carrie's voice mail picked up and he decided to go with something more involved than the ineffective "call me" message he'd left the last eight times.
"Okay, I know you're mad at me for not showing up to the caterer thing," he said, arbitrarily deciding to turn left. "But I have a good excuse. I was out of the country and then I had to meet with the president. So it's not like I blew you off to go to a ball game or something." He winced. The ball game comment would come off as glib and he was shooting for something more along the lines of groveling. On the slightly brighter side, his instincts had been right and he was now standing in front of the door he'd been trying to find.
"It turns out that this job is going downhill even faster than we thought. I've gotten caught up with some stuff that --"
The door was suddenly jerked open and he found himself face-to-face with a man whose well-tailored suit filled nearly the entire jamb. "Can I help you?"
Beamon made a cutting motion across his throat, and then pointed to the phone, trying to stay on script. "Anyway, I'm kind of caught up in --"
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to move on if you don't have business here. This is a secure area."
Beamon jammed his free hand into his jacket and pulled out his ID. The man leaned down to read it, immediately recognizing the name of his new boss and retreating back inside.
"Christ. Where was I? Look, I can't really talk about particulars, but you're going to find out soon enough and then you're going to understand. Anyway, could you please call me?"
He shoved the phone back into his pocket, but didn't reach for the door.
He should just turn around right now and pick up some solar panels on the way home. Maybe plant a garden.
When he finally pushed through the door, the twenty or so people inside fell silent. He recognized about a third of them -- staff from his until recently backwater division. The others had been assigned from other areas of Homeland Security for their expertise, and probably their willingness to spy for their respective agencies and political sponsors. Computers were abundant, but still lined up on the floor waiting for furniture.
"Hello," he said, detecting a slight echo in the cavernous room. "For those of you who don't know me, I'm Mark Beamon. It looks like I'm going to be running this investigation. At least for the time being. Could someone tell me where we stand?"
A woman he'd never met raised her hand hesitantly.
"Yes. You. Go ahead."
"We've collected all the FBI's files on environmental radicals and have people trying to put threat levels between one and ten on each person and organization."
"How many have we gotten through so far?"
"About seventy-five."
"Seventy-five? Jesus. How many are there?"
"Two hundred or so."
"Okay. I want to pick up all the sevens and above. Physical and electronic surveillance on everyone who rated four through six, and electronic surveillance only on all the others."
"We're already working on the warrants."
"Don't worry about warrants. Just do it," Beamon said, hoping his voice didn't betray his reluctance. He'd never been comfortable with the government's ability to do whatever it wanted as long as it said "terrorism" three times fast. If history taught anything, it was that absolute power corrupted absolutely. He told himself that he had it under control, but isn't that what everyone said?
"Who's looking at equipment dealers?"
Another hand went up. Surprisingly, it was the well-toned appendage of the man who had challenged him at the door. "We've made a list of the items you'd need to create a bacteria like this and we've already got the sales records from all the domestic suppliers of that kind of equipment. We're going through it now."
"And I assume you're cross-referencing it with the threat list?"
"Absolutely."
"If anyone finds they have a manpower issue, let me know right away. I'm told we're going to get whatever we need, but my preference is to keep things as small as possible.
"Do we know who's dealing with securing the oil fields themselves?"
"The state department," someone said. "They're warning other countries and the oil companies about possible attacks on water injectors -- though they're being vague about what kind of attack. The White House has been pretty restrictive about what we can say."
"Okay," Beamon said. "Let's get in touch with State and figure out a way to set a trap. Maybe we can catch someone in the act."
"I'll give them a call this afternoon and try to coordinate. Also, we've found a guy who can probably help us figure out any weaknesses in the security. His name's Erin
Beamon held up a hand, silencing the man. "No one talks to Erin Neal unless it goes through me, understood?"
"You know him?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
"Unfortunately?" the woman coordinating the research into environmentalist groups said. "Are you saying you think he could be involved? Should we be looking at him?"
