Darkness Falls, page 5
Chapter 7.
It was only the middle of September, but the wind was already carrying the season's first snowflakes. Jenna turned her face upward and closed her eyes; she felt the cold sting against her skin and tried to push away thoughts of that storm in Alaska. Most of the time it seemed as if it had all happened to someone else, and then something would trigger the memories and they would consume her. She wondered if that would ever change.
Her modest house sat on an exposed knoll about an hour from Bozeman, Montana, surrounded by nothing -- no neighbors, no paved roads, no far-off glow of town at night, not even a distant glimpse of the dense forests that covered so much of the state. She increasingly found emptiness and bad weather comforting. Maybe it was just her penance. When the sun shone and she found herself seized by an unexpected moment of real happiness, it would inevitably bring back the image of Erin's expression when she'd told him she didn't love him anymore. More well-deserved punishment, she supposed.
Jenna grabbed the grocery bags from the back of her Subaru and began teetering up the driveway, using considerable athleticism to unlock the door and push through it with her back. Frozen pizza in front of the television again tonight. Or maybe Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. In her previous life, she'd liked to set out the good dishes and slave over some elaborate, experimental meal. But now cooking just amplified her loneliness and brought back more of those damn memories.
"Jenna Kalin."
She spun toward the voice, dropping her bags on the slate floor.
"No. It's Baker now, isn't it? I'm sorry, Jenna. I didn't mean to frighten you."
The adrenaline coursing through her made it hard to think coherently, but still she knew it was a lie. Frightening her had been exactly his intention.
Michael Teague was sitting in the living room, partially obscured by the semidarkness provided by the worsening storm outside. He waved her forward and she took a few hesitant steps but stopped again when she saw two more figures backlit by the window that dominated the room. Although she couldn't see their faces, there was no mistaking Udo and Jonas Metzger.
"What . . ." She discovered that her mouth was so dry it was hard to speak. "What are you doing here, Michael?"
"It's been a long time," he said. "Aren't you happy to see me?"
"It's not that . . ." she said, and then fell silent, realizing that she had no idea how to complete the lie.
When the four of them had scuttled their boat and run for opposite corners of the earth, she'd been surprised at the powerful sensation of weight being lifted from her. Despite having spent a great deal of time working together and for a while having similar goals, she'd never been comfortable with Teague. And now, with the benefit of hindsight, she realized that she was a little afraid of him.
"It is good to see you after so many years," Udo said, seeming to want to move toward her, but then deciding that he was close enough. His German accent had become more subtle since they'd last spoken, and he'd abandoned his comb-over for a much hipper buzz cut. His clothes were more expensive and carefully chosen, too, with the effect of transforming the forty-fiveyear-old biologist into something closer to a forty-five-year-old Cadillac salesman.
In truth, during all the time Udo had worked for her, he'd never been anything but pleasant. And yet, there was something about him -- the way his polite smile always lingered a little too long, the way his eyes fixed a little too blankly -- that made her think everything she saw was just a carefully crafted facade.
He jabbed his brother gently in the ribs. "Say hello, Jonas."
Unlike his brother, Jonas hadn't changed at all. He was still spectacularly handsome, with smooth, almost feminine skin and dark eyes that always seemed to be looking at something horrible. Jenna knew very little about him and, frankly, preferred it that way. In her estimation, he had been born a true believer -- one of those rare people who craved a cause to lose themselves in and to justify following the voices in their heads. If he'd been Muslim, he'd be a member of al Qaeda. If he was African, he'd be leading a genocidal campaign against a neighboring tribe. But he wasn't. He was an environmentalist -- a path he'd undoubtedly chosen for no other reason than his brother's involvement.
"You told me we'd never see or speak to each other again," she said. "That it was too dangerous. What's changed?"
"How have you been adapting?" Teague responded, his tone reminding her that he didn't like to be questioned. "You have a lot of time. What do you do with it?"
"I stay busy."
He smiled and pointed behind him at a nine-foot-tall artificial climbing wall bolted to the side of her fireplace. "Going up and down on that like a rat in a cage?"
"Sometimes," she said, though it was just another lie. Climbing had been one of her great passions, but now she couldn't remember the last time she'd so much as touched that wall.
Faking their deaths by sinking that boat had been the only solution to the fact that the FBI was using terrorist paranoia to intensify its scrutiny of environmentalist groups. Teague had been overly vocal in his beliefs about global warming, and there was little question that he and his associates were being watched.
Of course, he had planned their "deaths" with his normal efficiency, and it had gone flawlessly, allowing them to work without the fear of being exposed. But then she'd discovered one small detail that she hadn't considered: pretending to be dead wasn't all that different from actually being dead.
Teague stood and wandered around the living room, looking at things she knew he had no interest in. His hair was still long and thick, with just a little gray to hint that he was nearing fifty. Pale skin suggested that he rarely ventured into the environment he was so concerned about, and his clothes still appeared to be chosen for no other reason than to highlight the enormous personal fortune he'd amassed.
"We're getting reports that a number of rigs have been shut down in the Alaska wilderness," he said, finally.
Her legs suddenly went weak and she reached out to a small table for support. When she regained her balance and pulled her hand away, it left a palm-shaped sweat stain.
"It worked," Udo said as Teague silently appraised her. "Your bacteria, your delivery system. It all worked just like you designed."
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?
