Last Gasp Read online

  “It amazes me, Winthrop, that you even considered putting this crackpot notion forward in the first place.” General Wolfe hunched forward over the polished circular table, his tanned face a maze of cracks and lines that was the legacy of Southeast Asia. His eyes were like fissures in sandstone. “Jesus Christ, man, this is a government-appointed body, not a goddamn college debating society. We’re supposed to deal in hard scientific fact. Instead you come up with some ludicrous concoction dreamed up by a lunatic living on—” He turned his craggy head abruptly to his aide, a lieutenant with sharp features who murmured in his ear. General Wolfe swiveled back to bark at Winthrop, “Canton Island. Wherever the hell that is.”

  Winthrop smoothed his silvery hair with long slender fingers. “General, I feel I ought to point out that Dr. Detrick is an eminently respected scientist with an international reputation. His book Diatom Growth and Development is accepted as the standard work on the subject. Anyone acquainted with marine biology knows of his contribution to—”

  General Wolfe snorted rudely. “Just because the guy’s written some book or other doesn’t make him a divine oracle.”

  Esther Steinbekker, the chairwoman, cropped gray hair framing a sexless face, and with a slight squint behind black-frame spectacles, said crisply, “Many of us are familiar with Dr. Detrick’s work, Parris. We know of his important contributions to the field. But really, on the basis of unsupported and unverified data you can’t seriously expect us to include this item on the PSAC agenda.”

  Everyone looked toward Winthrop, who was at pains to define his position. The last thing he wanted was to be lumped with Theo in the cranks and screwballs category.

  “Of course I must agree that the research is, as yet, unsupported by others in the field—and I don’t for one second accept all the conclusions that Detrick draws. But I do think we should at least consider what is after all the fruit of twenty years effort. If Detrick is conceivably right—”

  “Then I’m a Dutchman,” General Wolf grated, getting a few chuckles and hidden smiles.

  Winthrop eyed him stonily. This bastard was out to make him a laughingstock. He could feel perspiration prickling the back of his neck.

  Two seats along to his left, Professor Gene Lucas spoke up in his mild southern voice. Lucas, a small, slim man with a clipped gray moustache, was with the Geophysical Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton and was one of the country’s leading experts in the study of the biosphere.

  “You say in your summary, Dr. Winthrop”—peering through bifocals at the stapled typewritten sheets before him—“that Detrick expects the decline in phytoplankton production to have an effect, quote appreciable effect unquote, on the oxygen level within twenty years.” He looked up, mouth tight and prim. “If that were the case, shouldn’t we be able to register the start of such a trend right now? Those things don’t happen overnight.”

  Before Winthrop could respond, one of the other scientists, a particle physicist, directed a question at Lucas. “As we’re not as well-acquainted with atmospheric dynamics as yourself, Professor Lucas, perhaps you could tell us how such a change would be detected and if in fact there has been any change?”

  “No, none at all,” Lucas stated emphatically. “The most recent measurements indicate that the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere has remained stable at 20.94 for the past sixty years; that’s to say, since continuous reliable records were kept. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest either a rise or fall in oxygen content.” He turned to regard Winthrop over his spectacles. “Furthermore, it has been calculated that if the entire fossil fuel reserves of this planet were to be burned, the combustion would reduce the oxygen to only 20.80 percent, an insignificant change, which would have nil effect on life-forms, including man.”

  Winthrop was beginning to regret that he’d raised the subject. Two of his senior staff had studied Theo’s massive dossier of research and both agreed that its implications were serious enough to warrant a hearing before PSAC. As for Winthrop himself, he’d felt that this was the least he could do in the light of Theo’s personal appeal.

  But if he’d known, even had an inkling, of the vehement reaction from the military, he would never have stuck his neck out. It was almost as if they had an ulterior motive. Yet what could be further removed from matters of national security than a global threat? Because, of course, any depletion in oxygen would threaten every nation in the world—every single person in the world. So why the opposition, the almost violent antagonism?

  “To put this in perspective, as a kind of frame of reference,” Professor Lucas went on in his gentle drawl, “we have to remember that the atmosphere weighs fifty-seven thousand trillion tons. Any anthropogenic effect would be negligible in comparison with the natural flux of gases on such a vast scale.”

  “What’s that in plain English?” demanded General Wolfe, fixing Lucas with his steely gaze.

  “I’m referring to any man-made interference in the ecological balance. Its effect would be infinitesimal.”

  “Uh-huh,” the general said dubiously, casting a sideways glance at his aide.

  “While I accept Professor Lucas’s point about there being no apparent signs of oxygen deficiency at the present time,” Winthrop said, addressing everyone around the table, “it’s worth pointing out that changes in the atmosphere can and do happen, and quite quickly at that. There’s been a significant increase in carbon dioxide over the past hundred years, for example—”

  “Which has been noted and measured,” Lucas stated quietly.

  “Yes, true.” Winthrop moistened his lips and plunged on, conscious that all eyes were upon him. “But—surely—what ought to concern us is the speed, the—uh—suddenness of that increase. If it can happen with carbon dioxide, why not with oxygen? Couldn’t Dr. Detrick’s work point to the first signs, be the first hint, so to speak, of a possible decline in the oxygen level?”

  There was a thin note of pleading in his voice that made him feel ill. Just what was he trying to do? Convince them that Theo’s research was valid or that Parris Winthrop was far too clever to be taken in by a bogus scientist?

  “Well, for one, I don’t accept Detrick’s hypothesis,” said an elderly white-haired man opposite. “He might know all there is to know about marine biology, but his grasp of atmospheric physics is highly suspect, it seems to me.”

  There were nods and grunts on all sides.

  The back of Winthrop’s neck felt cold and clammy. He saw that the general’s aide was watching him with hawklike intensity, the faintest glimmer of a smile pasted on his thin lips. Was it triumph? Smug satisfaction? What was going on here, some kind of subversive political ploy to have him removed from PSAC? If that happened his chances of making director were zilch.

  “We seem to have arrived at a consensus,” said Esther Steinbekker, with what sounded in Winthrop’s ears to have a ring of finality about it. “As chairwoman I can’t recommend that this committee include the item on the agenda for the next presidential meeting. Need we take a vote?”

  She looked from face to face, her squint behind the heavy black frames coming to rest on Winthrop.

  The room went quiet. Any committee member had the right to insist on a vote. Winthrop stared down at his manicured hands and white cuffs resting on either side of the neatly stacked files on the leather-bound blotter. He swallowed carefully, making sure that the movement in his throat went unnoticed. A vote would be recorded in the minutes, become part of the official archives of PSAC. It could be referred to in the future, checked up on by anyone who wanted to dish dirt. However, no vote, no record.

  He took care not to move a muscle.

  When the meeting was over, Lt. Lloyd Madden gathered the documentation together, locked it inside his briefcase, and stood by the door while the general made his farewells. A few minutes later the two of them were striding along the corridor, across the marble reception hall, and out through the glass doors and down the broad shallow steps of the NOAA Building.
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br />   A breeze, quite cool for this time of year, stirred the branches of the maple trees along Virginia Avenue as General Wolfe and his aide ducked inside the black limousine with the triangular Defense Department pennant on its nearside wing. The car had been called for 11:25. It was now 11:28. They were only three minutes adrift, Madden was pleased to note, which considering the useful morning’s work was a trifling discrepancy, despite the general’s fetish for living his life to a gridiron timetable.

  As they passed the State Department and headed for Constitution Avenue, General Wolfe clasped his hands together and stared out through the tinted windows while he puffed away at a fat Amorvana Regios. Madden didn’t break the silence, knowing how the general liked to savor his personal triumphs.

  “Children,” remarked the general eventually through the swirling cigar smoke. “Fucking kids, the lot of them. And Jesus Christ, some say we should leave the decisions to the scientists. Where would we be, Lloyd?”

  “I thought you handled the situation with consummate skill, sir.”

  Was that too fulsome? No, not with Blindeye, Madden decided. Gen. George Nelson Wolfe hadn’t acquired the nickname only because of his middle name. His ego was armor-plated. You could pour crap until he was up to his knees in diarrhea and he’d breathe it in like Chanel.

  “What you might call a preemptive strike,” General Wolfe chuckled. He started to choke and removed the cigar. “Want to know something, Lloyd?” Coughing hard. “If there’s one thing I detest more than a scientist, it’s a fucking deskbound scientist. Neither fish nor fowl.” He caught his breath. “They try to play at politics and they don’t have the least idea. Fucking children.”

  “Incidentally, General, have you seen the latest budget estimates from JEG Chemicals? They’re now talking of ninety-seven million to develop new strains in the symmetrical triazines group. That’s on top of the one hundred and fourteen million for chloraphenoxy acid compounds. I think we ought to give that some prime time.”

  The general was dismissive. “Money is the least of our worries. If that’s what it takes, that’s what we pay.” He frowned across at Madden, the cigar jutting out of his face like a post sticking out of parched red earth. “I still get confused with those two. Which is Macy’s and which is Bloomingdale’s?”

  “Symmetrical triazines is Macy’s, chloraphenoxy acid is Bloomingdale’s. I didn’t actually mean that, sir. My concern isn’t about how much it’s costing, but that the amounts are large enough to start attracting attention from the State Department. Till now we’ve managed to lose them under contingency funding categories, but together they’re nudging the quarter billion and sooner or later someone is going to want a breakdown.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Rather a lot to spend on keeping the Pentagon lawns and flower beds free from weeds.”

  “You’re right, Lloyd,” General Wolfe brooded. “As usual, you’re right. We’ll have to do something about it.”

  Not that Blindeye had the faintest notion what to do about it. He would do nothing, wait for Madden to come up with a plan, mull it over for a couple of days, then issue the instruction verbally. Blindeye wouldn’t commit himself to anything, least of all incriminating paper work in triplicate.

  “Know what still bugs me?” the general said, scattering flaky ash over the cushioned armrest that separated them. “Astakhov. If only that bastard had talked we’d have a pretty good idea what the Soviets are up to in Antarctica.”

  “We did our best, sir, but he was in bad shape. Interrogating somebody with a broken spine isn’t easy.” Madden shrugged his narrow shoulders in the tailored tan uniform. “What do you threaten him with?”

  “I’m not blaming you, Lloyd.”

  You’d better not, Madden thought viciously. The meaty hand holding the cigar patted his arm and Madden almost flinched with revulsion, but held himself tense.

  “I’m confident you did all you could to extract the information,” General Wolfe assured him, scattering more ash. “You win some, you lose some. We happened to lose Astakhov. Pity.”

  Madden surreptitiously brushed ash from his sleeve while pretending to examine his thin hands with the polished square-cut nails. “I wish we could lose Detrick the same way,” he said softly.

  “Detrick?” The general turned to gaze at him, his eyes screwed up tight. “That crackpot? Who’s going to listen to him now? Who, for Christ’s sake?”

  “I don’t know, General, but somebody might. It’s an added risk, and one we don’t have to take. Winthrop was right about Detrick having an international reputation. All right, so we’ve choked off Winthrop—you made certain of that, sir—but there might be others who are prepared to listen.” Madden looked into the general’s eyes. “And he’s close to the mark. Too close for comfort.”

  General Wolfe nodded slowly.

  “In that case we’d better do something about it.”

  “Will you need both suitcases?” Nina Stanovnik called to her husband. “Or just the large one?”

  She stood in front of the open doors of the massive oak wardrobe, hands on hips, head cocked for his reply. She knew he didn’t like to be encumbered with too much luggage, especially on a long trip, but left to his own devices her shambling bear of a husband would have gone off without even a change of underwear.

  “The small one. Just the small one,” he said, appearing in the doorway. Despite his graying hair, cropped close to the scalp, Boris Vladimir Stanovnik might reasonably have passed for someone in his late forties if it hadn’t been for the purple pouches underneath his eyes. His voice was deep and resonant, his manner gentle and withdrawn.

  He raised his eyebrows and smiled, seeking her assent.

  “I’ll do the packing,” Nina announced firmly, tapping her shapeless bosom beneath the floral print dress. She manhandled the larger of the two suitcases onto the bed, lid yawning wide. “You can’t possibly wear the same suit and shirt all week, for goodness sake,” she chided him in a long-suffering voice, which both knew was part of the game. Thirty years of marriage had hardened habit into familiar, comfortable ritual.

  “Socks,” she muttered to herself, going to the chest of drawers near the window. Boris watched her fondly for a moment and then returned to the living room, his face creased in a smile.

  A clutter of papers, files, books, magazines, and clippings lay on the inlaid leather surface of the open bureau. The smile faded. How much ought he to take with him to Geneva? Hardly the appropriate question ... how much would he be allowed to take, apart from the paper he was to deliver at the conference? In any case, all the latest stuff was locked away in the safe of the Hydro-Meterological Service, so none of this could be regarded as sensitive material.

  But Boris was too old a hand to antagonize the authorities over even the smallest detail. Unless scientific material had already been published in official journals—and thus available to the West—there was an absolute embargo on working notes and calculations of any description leaving the country. This sometimes led to the ludicrous situation of not being allowed to take out material that could be found in the pages of American and European science journals on thousands of newsstands.

  Boris picked up a buff-colored document and held it to the pale light that filtered in through the window. He searched for his glasses, feeling the arthritic pain in his right shoulder. Moscow was cold and damp and dismal at this time of year and he cursed the apartment’s feeble, antiquated heating system, which even at full blast was unable to take the chill from his bones.

  “Sweaters,” floated his wife’s voice from the bedroom. “You’ll need sweaters in Switzerland, I should think. They have snow there all the year round.”

  “Leave out the English woolen one. I’ll wear it on the journey.”

  He found his glasses, but the light wasn’t good enough to read by, so he switched on the tasseled desk lamp. The document was an internal memorandum, addressed to HEAD OF SECTION, which was a joke, Boris thought wryly, because ever since Peter Astakhov’s disappear
ance his “section” had consisted of himself, Malankov, and two young lab assistants.

  Peter had been a good man too, which was more than could be said for Malankov, whom he detested. A party weasel, not the slightest doubt. Slovenly in his work and always poking his pockmarked nose where it didn’t belong. Surely no coincidence that Malankov had been assigned to his section about the time that Peter Astakhov had disappeared. But what on earth did the authorities hope to discover? Did they suspect that he’d defected and would try to contact Boris secretly? Or that Boris knew something already? If so, they were in for a vast disappointment, for the one question Boris continued to ask himself, all these months later, was what exactly had happened at Mirnyy Station? Peter had been engaged on climatic field research, graded Red A, which was top secret, and Boris knew for a fact that the KGB were keeping a vigilant eye on the project for fear that the Americans might find out what was going on.

  Yet Peter had vanished without trace somewhere in the wastes of Antarctica. Was he dead, or had he really defected? And if the KGB didn’t know, how in high heaven did they expect him to provide the answer?

  “Slippers,” said his wife from the doorway, making him blink. “Shall I pack your slippers?”

  Boris shook his head. “No!” He gave her a pained look. “Nina, dear, I can’t wear slippers to the conference. It isn’t a rest home for retired scientists.”

  She shrugged, gestured to heaven, and went back into the bedroom.

  Boris realized he was still holding the memorandum and ran his eye over it. SUBJECT: PROJECT ARROW, which in plain language meant the Yenisei and Ob rivers diversion scheme. Boris was weary of the endless discussion, as well as having serious doubts about it. Diverting these two rivers, which at present poured 85,000 cubic meters of fresh water every second into the Arctic Ocean, would bring about a significant change in the salinity of the seawater, possibly leading to the gradual melting of the polar ice. Once started, a positive feedback would begin to operate and the process would accelerate until in ten or fifteen years time ...