"No. Anyway, even paranoids have enemies."
"How many industry executives serve on the NERF board right now?" Sarah said.
"Uh, not that many."
Sarah knew that there were thirty board members, of whom twelve were industry figures. This was the case with all modern environmental groups. They had all had industry representatives over the last twenty years.
"Did you ask your corporate board members about this secret industry campaign?"
"No," she said. She was looking at Sarah oddly.
"Do you think," Sarah said, "that it is possible that NGOs like NERF could be the ones who are engaged in a secret campaign?"
"What are you talking about?" Ann said, stiffening. "Sarah. We're the good guys."
"Are we?"
"Yes. We are," Ann said. "What's going on with you, Sarah?"
In the parking lot outside the convention hall, Sanjong Thapa sat in the car with his laptop on his knees. He had easily hacked the WiFi network used by the journalists and was receiving the conference transcript, which was instantaneously saved. He had done it that way because he was afraid he might be discovered and locked out at any moment, but now it meant that he had the complete transcript, including the revisions. Kenner, he thought, was going to love this.
On another screen, Sanjong was monitoring the satellite images from the western Atlantic, off the coast of Florida. A large high-pressure mass was beginning to rotate, forming the ragged beginnings of a hurricane. Clearly an event was scheduled around a hurricane, but for some reason it had been abandoned.
And now he was tracking other investigative leads. In particular, Kenner was concerned about a small research submarine known as DOEV/2, and the tender ship AV Scorpio. That submarine and its tender ship had been leased by CanuCo, a natural gas corporation based in Calgary, to conduct research in the South Pacific, looking for undersea gas deposits. The tender had sailed to Port Moresby, New Guinea, some two months before, and had subsequently left that harbor and had been spotted near Bougainville, in the Solomon Islands.
Nothing of great interest there, until it became known that CanuCo was not a registered Canadian corporation, and that it had no assets other than a website and web address. The owner of the site was CanuCo Leasing Corp, another nonexistent company. The lease payments had been made from a Cayman Island account and paid in euros. The name of the account was Seismic Services, also in Calgary, and sharing the same postal address as CanuCo.
They were obviously the same entity. And it was Seismic Services that had originally attempted to lease a submarine. And presumably had later caused the death of Nat Damon in Vancouver.
Now there were agencies in Washington searching satellite maps, trying to find the AV Scorpio, somewhere in the Solomon Island chain. But the Solomons had scattered cloud cover, and the satellite passes had not yet revealed the ship's location.
That in itself was worrisome. It suggested that the ship had already hidden itself in some way, perhaps by going into a covered dock.
Somewhere in the South Pacific.
And it was a big ocean.
Equally worrisome was the fact that the tender had sailed first to Vancouver, where it had taken on thirty tons of "industrial equipment," in five-ton cartons. The Canadian government had thought the company was illegally transporting automobiles in the cartons, so they opened one. The customs officers instead found some complex equipment that they listed as "diesel generators."
Generators!
Sanjong didn't know what was in those cartons, but he was sure they weren't diesel generators. Because you didn't have to go to Vancouver to get a bunch of generators. So it was worrisome "Hey! You!"
He looked up and saw two security guards walking across the parking lot toward his car. Obviously his WiFi hack had been detected. It was time to go. He turned the key in the ignition and drove away, waving cheerfully to the security guards as he passed them.
"Sarah? What's going on? You're just staring into space."
"Nothing, Ann." Sarah shook her head. "Just thinking."
"About what? And what do you mean about my being paranoid?" Ann put her hand on Sarah's arm. "Really. I'm a little concerned about you."
Sarah thought, And I'm concerned about you.
In truth, it was Sarah who was feeling a distinct paranoid chill. She looked around the room, and her eyes met Drake's. He was staring at her, studying her from across the room. For how long? Had he seen her quick dash to the reporters' desk? Had he deduced the meaning of it? Did he know she knew?
"Sarah," Ann said, shaking her arm.
"Listen," Sarah said. "I'm really sorry, but I have to go."
"Sarah. I'm worried about you."
"I'll be fine." She started to leave the room.
"I'll just come with you," Ann said, falling into step with her.
"I'd rather you didn't."
"I'm concerned for your welfare."
"I think I need to be alone for a while," Sarah said.
"Is that any way to treat a friend?" Ann said. "I insist, darling. You need a little mothering, I can see that. And I'm here for you."
Sarah sighed.
Nicholas Drake watched as Sarah left the room. Ann was sticking with her, just as he had asked. Ann was dedicated and tenacious. Sarah would be no match for her, unless she elected to turn and literally run. But if she did that amp;well, they would have to take stronger action. These were critical times, and sometimes strong action was essential. Just as in wartime.
But Drake suspected dire action would not prove necessary. True, Kenner had managed to disrupt the first two events, but only because ELF was a bunch of amateurs. Their brand of do-it-yourself schoolboy spontaneity was unsuited to the demands of modern media. Drake had said that to Henley a dozen times. Henley shrugged it off; he was concerned about deniability. Well, NERF could certainly deny they knew these clowns. What a bunch of fuckups!
But this last event was different. It had been planned far more carefullyit had to beand it was in professional hands. Kenner would never be able to disrupt it. He could not even get there in time, Drake thought. And between Ted Bradley and Ann, Drake had lots of eyes and ears on that team as they progressed. And just to be sure, he had other surprises in store for Kenner as well.
He flipped open his phone and dialed Henley. "We've got them covered," he said.
"Good."
"Where are you?"
"I am about to deliver the news to V.," Henley said. "I am pulling up to his house now."
Through binoculars, Kenner watched as the silver Porsche convertible pulled into the driveway of the beach house. A tall, dark man in a blue golf shirt and tan slacks got out. He wore a baseball cap and dark glasses, but Kenner recognized him at once as Henley, the head of PR for NERF.
That closed the circle, he thought. He put the binoculars down on the fence and paused to consider the implications.
"Do you know who he is, sir?" the young FBI agent said, standing by his side. He was just a kid, no more than twenty-five.
"Yes," Kenner said. "I know who he is."
They were standing on the cliffs of Santa Monica, overlooking the beach and the ocean. The beach here was several hundred yards wide, from the shore to the bike path. Then a line of houses, packed close together along the coast highway. Then six lanes of roaring traffic.
Even though they abutted the highway, the houses were phenomenally expensivetwenty or thirty million dollars each, it was said, and perhaps much more. They were inhabited by some of the wealthiest people in California.
Henley was putting up the cloth top on his Porsche. He moved in a precise, almost fussy way. Then he went to the gate and buzzed it. The house he was entering was ultra-modern, curving shapes of glass. It glistened like a jewel in the morning sun.
Henley went inside. The gate closed behind him.
"But you don't care about people entering the house," the FBI agent said.
"That's right," Kenner said. "I don't."
"You don't want a list, or a record of who"
"No."
"But it might prove"
"No," Kenner said. The kid was trying to be helpful, but it was annoying. "I don't care about any of that. I just want to know when they all leave."
"Like, if they go on vacation or something?"
"Yes," Kenner said.
"What if they leave a maid behind?"
"They won't," Kenner said.
"Actually, sir, I'm pretty sure they will. These guys always leave somebody to watch the house."
"No," Kenner said. "This house will clear out. Everybody will go."
The kid frowned. "Whose house is it, anyway?"
"It belongs to a man named V. Allen Willy," Kenner said. He might as well tell him. "He's a philanthropist."
"Uh-huh. What is he, mixed up in the mob or something?"
"You might say," Kenner said. "Sort of a protection racket."
"It figures," the kid said. "Nobody makes that much money without a story behind it, you know what I mean?"
Kenner said he did. In fact, V. Allen Willy's story was as typically American as Horatio Alger's. Al Willy had started a chain of inexpensive clothing stores, taking clothes sewn in Third-World sweatshops and selling them in Western cities for thirty times the cost. After ten years, he sold his company for $400 million. Soon after, he became (by his own definition) a radical socialist, a crusader for a sustainable world, and an advocate for environmental justice.
The exploitations he had found so profitable he now attacked with the money he had made from them. He was fiery and righteous, and with the V. added to his name, memorable too. However, his attacks often led companies to pull out of their Third World factories, which were then taken over by Chinese corporations that paid local workers even less than before. Thus, by any sensible account, V. Allen Willy was exploiting workers twiceonce to make his fortune, and a second time to assuage his guilty conscience at their expense. He was a strikingly handsome man and not stupid, just an egotistical and impractical do-gooder. Currently, he was said to be writing a book on the precautionary principle.
He had also started the V. Allen Willy Foundation, which supported the cause of environmental justice through dozens of organizations, including NERF. And he was important enough to rate a personal visit from Henley himself.
"So he's a rich environmentalist?" the FBI kid said.
"That's right," Kenner said.
The kid nodded. "Okay," he said. "But I still don't get it. What makes you think a rich guy would leave his house empty?"
"I can't tell you that," Kenner said. "But he will. And I want to know the minute it happens." He handed the agent a card. "Call this number."
The kid looked at the card. "That's it?"
"That's it," Kenner said.
"And when is this going to happen?"
"Soon," Kenner said.
His phone buzzed. He flipped it open. It was a text message from Sanjong. THEY FOUND AV SCORPIO.
"I have to go," Kenner said.
Chapter 73
405 FREEWAY
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13
12:22 P.M.
"Nonsense," Ted Bradley said, sitting back in the passenger seat as Evans drove to Van Nuys. "You can't have all the fun, Pietro. I know you've been going on these secret excursions for the last week. I'm coming, too."
"You can't come, Ted," Evans said. "They won't allow it."
"Let me worry about that, okay?" he said, grinning.
Evans thought: What's going on? Bradley was staying so close, he was practically holding his hand. He refused to leave him alone.
Evans's cell phone rang. It was Sarah.
"Where are you?" she said.
"Almost to the airport. I have Ted with me."
"Uh-huh," she said, in the vague tone that meant she couldn't talk. "Well, we just got to the airport, and there seems to be a problem."
"What kind of a problem?"
"Legal," she said.
"What does that mean?" Evans said. But even as he spoke, he was turning off the road toward the gate leading to the runway, and he could see for himself.
Herb Lowenstein was standing there with eight security guards. And it looked like they were sealing the doors to Morton's jet.
Evans went through the gate and got out of the car. "What's going on, Herb?"
"The aircraft is being sealed," Herb said, "as required by law."
"What law?"
"George Morton's estate is now in probate, in case you've forgotten, and the contents of said estate, including all bank accounts and real property, must be sealed pending federal evaluation and assessing of death taxes. This aircraft will remain sealed until the conclusion of that evaluation. Six to nine months from now."
At that moment, Kenner pulled up in a town car. He introduced himself, shook hands with Lowenstein. "So it's a matter of probate," he said.
"That's right," Lowenstein said.
Kenner said, "I'm surprised to hear you say that."
"Why? George Morton is deceased."
"Is he? I hadn't heard."
"They found his body yesterday. Evans and Bradley went up and made the identification."
"And the medical examiner concurred?"
Lowenstein hesitated fractionally. "I presume so."
"You presume? Surely you've received documentation from the medical examiner to that effect. The autopsy was performed last night."
"I presumeI believe that we have the documentation."
"May I see it?"
"I believe it is at the office."
Kenner said, "May I see it?"
"That would merely cause unnecessary delay of my work here." Lowenstein turned to Evans. "Did you or did you not make a positive identification of Morton's body?"
"I did," Evans said.
"And you, Ted?"
"Yeah," Bradley said. "I did. It was him, all right. It was George. Poor guy."