Michael Crichton - State Of Fear

Evans shook his head.

"I never heard of them," Morton said, "and neither has my lawyer. And I don't rememberno, Ed, if it was a quarter of a million dollars, I'd remember. The check was issued where? I see. And my name was where? I see. Okay, thanks. Yeah. I will. Bye." He flipped the phone shut.

He turned to Evans.

"Peter," he said. "Get a pad and make notes."

Morton spoke quickly. Evans scribbled, trying to keep up. It was a complicated story that he took down as best he could.

John Kim, the manager of Scotiabank, Vancouver, had been called by a customer named Nat Damon, a local marine operator. Damon had deposited a check from a company called Seismic Services, in Calgary, and the check had bounced. It was for $300,000. Damon was nervous about whoever had written the check, and asked Kim to look into it.

John Kim could not legally make inquiries in the US, but the issuing bank was in Calgary, and he had a friend who worked there. He learned that Seismic Services was an account with a postal box for an address. The account was modestly active, receiving deposits every few weeks from only one source: The Friends of the Planet Foundation, based in San Josй, Costa Rica.

Kim placed a call down there. Then, about that time, it came up on his screen that the check had cleared. Kim called Damon and asked him if he wanted to drop the inquiry. Damon said no, check it out.

Kim had a brief conversation with Miguel Chavez at the Banco Credito Agricola in San Josй. Chavez said he had gotten an electronic deposit from the Moriah Wind Power Associates via Ansbach (Cayman) Ltd., a private bank on Grand Cayman island. That was all he knew.

Chavez called Kim back ten minutes later to say he had made inquiries at Ansbach and had obtained a record of a wire transfer that was paid into the Moriah account by the International Wilderness Preservation Society three days before that. And the IWPS transfer noted in the comment field, "G. Morton Research Fund."

John Kim called his Vancouver client, Nat Damon, to ask what the check was for. Damon said it was for the lease of a small two-man research submarine.

Kim thought that was pretty interesting, so he telephoned his friend George Morton to kid him a bit, and ask why he was leasing a submarine. And to his surprise, Morton knew absolutely nothing about it.

Evans finished taking down notes on the pad. He said, "This is what some bank manager in Vancouver told you?"

"Yes. A good friend of mine. Why are you looking at me that way?"

"Because it's a lot of information," Evans said. He didn't know the banking rules in Canada, to say nothing of Costa Rica, but he knew it was unlikely that any banks would freely exchange information in the way Morton had described. If the Vancouver manager's story was true, there was more to it that he wasn't telling. Evans made a note to check into it. "And do you know the International Wilderness Preservation Society, which has your check for a quarter of a million dollars?"

Morton shook his head. "Never heard of them."

"So you never gave them two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"

Morton shook his head. "I'll tell you what I did do, in the last week," he said. "I gave two hundred and fifty grand to Nicholas Drake to cover a monthly operating shortfall. He told me he had some problem about a big contributor from Seattle not coming through for a week. Drake's asked me to help him out before like that, once or twice."

"You think that money ended up in Vancouver?"

Morton nodded.

"You better ask Drake about it," Evans said.

"I have no idea at all," Drake said, looking mystified. "Costa Rica? International Wilderness Preservation? My goodness, I can't imagine."

Evans said, "You know the International Wilderness Preservation Society?"

"Very well," Drake said. "They're excellent. We've worked closely with them on any number of projects around the worldthe Everglades, Tiger Tops in Nepal, the Lake Toba preserve in Sumatra. The only thing I can think is that somehow George's check was mistakenly deposited in the wrong account. Or amp;I just don't know. I have to call the office. But it's late in California. It'll have to wait until morning."

Morton was staring at Drake, not speaking.

"George," Drake said, turning to him. "I'm sure this must make you feel very strange. Even if it's an honest mistakeas I am almost certain it isit's still a lot of money to be mishandled. I feel terrible. But mistakes happen, especially if you use a lot of unpaid volunteers, as we do. But you and I have been friends for a long time. I want you to know that I will get to the bottom of this. And of course I will see that the money is recovered at once. You have my word, George."

"Thank you," Morton said.

They all climbed into the Land Cruiser.

The vehicle bounced over the barren plain. "Damn, those Icelanders are stubborn," Drake said, staring out the window. "They may be the most stubborn researchers in the world."

"He never saw your point?" Evans said.

"No," Drake said, "I couldn't make him understand. Scientists can't adopt that lofty attitude anymore. They can't say, I do the research, and I don't care how it is used.' That's out of date. It's irresponsible. Even in a seemingly obscure field like glacier geology. Because, like it or not, we're in the middle of a wara global war of information versus disinformation. The war is fought on many battlegrounds. Newspaper op-eds. Television reports. Scientific journals. Websites, conferences, classroomsand courtrooms, too, if it comes to that." Drake shook his head. "We have truth on our side, but we're outnumbered and out-funded. Today, the environmental movement is David battling Goliath. And Goliath is Aventis and Alcatel, Humana and GE, BP and Bayer, Shell and Glaxo-Wellcomehuge, global, corporate. These people are the implacable enemies of our planet, and Per Einarsson, out there on his glacier, is irresponsible to pretend it isn't happening."

Sitting beside Drake, Peter Evans nodded sympathetically, though in fact he took everything Drake was saying with a large grain of salt. The head of NERF was famously melodramatic. And Drake was pointedly ignoring the fact that several of the corporations he had named made substantial contributions to NERF every year, and three executives from those companies actually sat on Drake's board of advisors. That was true of many environmental organizations these days, although the reasons behind corporate involvement were much debated.

"Well," Morton said, "maybe Per will reconsider later on."

"I doubt it," Drake said gloomily. "He was angry. We've lost this battle, I'm sorry to say. But we do what we always do. Soldier on. Fight the good fight."

It was silent in the car for a while.

"The girls were damn good looking," Morton said. "Weren't they, Peter?"

"Yes," Evans said. "They were."

Evans knew that Morton was trying to lighten the mood in the car. But Drake would have none of it. The head of NERF stared morosely at the barren landscape, and shook his head mournfully at the snow-covered mountains in the distance.

Evans had traveled many times with Drake and Morton in the last couple of years. Usually, Morton could cheer everybody around him, even Drake, who was glum and fretful.

But lately Drake had become even more pessimistic than usual. Evans had first noticed it a few weeks ago, and had wondered at the time if there was illness in the family, or something else that was bothering him. But it seemed there was nothing a miss. At least, nothing that anyone would talk about. NERF was a beehive of activity; they had moved into a wonderful new building in Beverly Hills; fund-raising was at an all-time high; they were planning spectacular new events and conferences, including the Abrupt Climate Change Conference that would begin in two months. Yet despite these successesor because of them?Drake seemed more miserable than ever.