D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

“Wait,” Chris said.

“What?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I needed to know what you know. What you’ve done.”

“Not that. Why dedicate your life to this whole thing?”

He was now lying down on the bed – emotionally and physically drained.

“Because it’s the root of so many problems.”

“The root?” Chris said, recalling that David had used very similar terminology.

“The underlying cause for many of the ills of the world,” she said. “Call it what you like. Society’s too wrapped up in correctness. No one wants to make the tough calls. It’s really quite simple.”

“So you’ve made the decision for us.”

“That’s right. Name a problem and I can trace it back to over-population,” she said as she raised her eyebrows waiting for an answer that didn’t come. “How about pollution, deforestation, starvation, poverty, illiteracy – even terrorism. They’re all directly attributable to over-population and I’ve come up with a cure.”

He wanted to debate her but the pain, the drugs and the emotions were making it difficult to focus. There were so many arguments. “That’s bullshit,” he finally managed to say.

“Oh, is it? The U.S. has five percent of the world’s population but consumes twenty-three percent of its resources. What’s going to happen when the other ninety-five percent of the world catches up? It’s absolutely unsustainable.”

“But what you’re talking about is a consumption challenge in a developed country, not a population challenge. People consume stuff because they want to. It’s not all population.”

Sarah smiled. “You’re absolutely right, but changing attitudes and desires is impossible. Everyone wants that second car, or house, or big screen TV. And even if it could be done, it would only effect the developed nations which, immigration aside, are already seeing stagnant population growth. Reigning in the population explosion will do the same thing – globally, automatically.”

The drugs were knocking him out. He wanted to think about what she had said but his mind was shutting down. He fell asleep thinking that playing God was simply wrong.

“William told me what’s going on, Arthur,” the President said in his deep baritone that still carried a lilt of his rural Louisiana upbringing. His ruddy, handsome face was framed by closely cropped but thick wavy grey hair. “What’s your read?”

From the data he had received earlier from Cecil and his team and the enlightening conversation with Agent Pelletier this morning, he was confident in his reply. “I think that this virus exists. There are too many connected events to be random coincidences. Sarah Burns and her cronies are out there somewhere. We have to find them before they release it.”

The two men nodded their heads. Arthur’s reputation gave him the luxury of being unquestionably respected by people, regardless of their political affiliation or rank.

“On the second part, this rinky-dink news station has its hands on a woman who has heard about the virus. Her sister’s husband was one of the doctors treating Agent Pelletier. They refuse to let us into their building. I’m afraid that they’re going to broadcast a story about it soon.”

“Jesus Christ,” the President muttered. “We’ll have pandemonium on our hands.”

“And you can bet that as soon as Sarah Burns sees it on TV, they’ll disappear for good,” Arthur continued. “Then there’ll be no stopping them.”

William had been quiet up until now when he said, “So what do you propose we do?”

“Two things immediately. First, I want to use any means necessary to shut down that station and keep everyone who knows anything about this quiet.”

“Like what?” The President said.

“I want to shut down their transmitters – take them off the air,” Arthur replied.

“You know what messing with the media can do, Arthur.”

He nodded. “Sometimes, Mr. President, like right now, it’s for the good of the public. It’s all hearsay at this point. There’re many reasons why we have to do what I’m proposing. We’ll make sure it looks like an accident when they go off the air – some sort of component failure – wire break, something like that. Shit happens, right? But from my perspective, this is a red-level national security issue and as soon as we slap that label on it, we have much broader legal authority.”

“I say we do it,” William Stevens said.

The President was quiet for a minute. “You’re right; let’s do it. What’s the second part of your proposal?”

“We have to find Sarah Burns. I’m going to put every available man on the case.”

“Of course,” the President replied. “You’ve got to find and stop her. I don’t want to hear anything but success on this one, gentlemen. You have my authority to take whatever action you deem necessary to ensure that this virus doesn’t get released. Do you understand me?”

They did.

“Give me updates every few hours, William,” the President said. “I don’t need to tell you how much myself and the country are depending on you two. Don’t let us down.” The President disconnected.

The split screen flashed and returned with only William Stevens on it. “When’s the final briefing going to be ready?”

“In about two hours. That ought to be enough time to get the team-leaders briefed and ready.”

“Okay. Let’s have another video call at five o’clock.” William paused, “This is a big one, Arthur. There’s a lot riding on us right now.”

“I know.”

“You need to be successful.”

No shit. “These people always make mistakes, and mistakes are what make our job doable. We’ll find Sarah Burns. You can count on it.”

“I am,” William Stevens said as he shut down his conference system.

Arthur sat and stared at the blank screen for a few minutes, gathering his thoughts before returning to the conference room. Progress had been made. The white board, which stretched the full width of the room, was covered with all of the available data. He started at the left and walked along, studying the sparse details. They had many holes to fill.

“Mr. Moscovitz, there’s a call for you on line one,” a secretary said to Carl, who was at the conference room table with several agents.

“Can you take a message, please?”

“I tried but he refused. He demands to talk to you. He’s on your private line.”

Carl rolled his eyes and muttered a soft curse.

“Okay, I’ll pick it up in my office.”

As Carl left the room, Arthur and one of his agents exchanged glances. Arthur leaned against the conference table and studied the white board, forcing himself to ignore the Carl Moscovitz situation and focus on Sarah Burns. They always make mistakes. That was what he had told William and it was true. Sooner or later, she would make that mistake. The problem with that scenario was it assumed you had time and they didn’t. The events of the past few days had a crescendo feel to them. Educated guess, he figured at best they had a week – maybe just a couple of days. That was assuming it wasn’t a done deal already. Not much time at all and once this thing was out there was no going back – they didn’t get a redo on this type of thing – no second chances.

An agent ran into the room and up to Arthur. “Sir, a private word if I may,” he said gesturing for Arthur to step outside.

Arthur followed him out of the room.

“He’s gone,” the agent said.

“What? Who?” Arthur said.

“Carl. He just bolted.”

“Bolted? What happened?”

“That call was from someone named Wes. He told Carl that we were onto him, and before we could get to him, he slipped out.”