Michael Crichton - State Of Fear

"A fall? Was that published?"

"Last year," she said. The food came; Jennifer gave a dismissive wave of her hand: enough shop talk for now. She ate her burrito with gusto, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. He saw a jagged white scar running from her palm down the underside of her forearm. She said, "God, I love this food. You can't get decent Mexican food in DC."

"Is that where you're from?"

She nodded. "I came out to help John."

"He asked you?"

"I couldn't turn him down." She shrugged. "So I see my boyfriend on alternate weekends. He comes out here, or I go back there. But if this trial goes forward, it will be a year, maybe two years. I don't think our relationship will make it."

"What does he do? Your boyfriend."

"Attorney."

Evans smiled. "Sometimes I think everyone's an attorney."

"Everyone is. He does securities law. Not my thing."

"What's your thing?"

"Witness prep and jury selection. Psychological analysis of the pool. That's why I'm in charge of the focus groups."

"I see."

"We know that most people we might put on the jury will have heard of global warming, and most will probably be inclined to think it is real."

"Jesus, I'd hope so," Evans said. "I mean, it's been an established fact for the last fifteen years."

"But we need to determine what people will believe in the face of contrary evidence."

"Such as?"

"Such as the graphs I showed you today. Or the satellite data. You know about the satellite data?"

Evans shook his head.

"The theory of global warming predicts that the upper atmosphere will warm from trapped heat, just like a greenhouse. The surface of the Earth warms later. But since 1979 we've had orbiting satellites that can continuously measure the atmosphere five miles up. They show that the upper atmosphere is warming much less than the ground is."

"Maybe there's a problem with the data"

"Trust me, the satellite data have been re-analyzed dozens of times," she said. "They're probably the most intensely scrutinized data in the world. But the data from weather balloons agree with the satellites. They show much less warming than expected by the theory." She shrugged. "Another problem for us. We're working on it."

"How?"

"We think it'll prove too complex for a jury. The details of MSUsmicrowave-sounding units, cross-track scanners with four-channel radiance analysisand the questions about whether channel 2 has been corrected for diurnal drifts and inter-satellite offsets, time-varying nonlinear instrumental responses amp;We hope it will make them throw up their hands. Anyway. Enough of all that." She wiped her face with her napkin and again he saw the white scar that ran down the underside of her arm.

"How'd you get that?" he said.

She shrugged. "In law school."

"And I thought my school was tough."

"I taught an inner-city karate class," she said. "Sometimes it went late. You want any more of these chips?"

"No," he said.

"Shall we get the check?"

"Tell me," he said.

"There's not a lot to tell. One night, I got in my car to drive home, and a kid jumped in the passenger seat and pulled a gun. Told me to start driving."

"Kid from your class?"

"No. An older kid. Late twenties."

"What'd you do?"

"I told him to get out. He told me to drive. So I started the car, and as I put it in gear I asked him where he wanted me to go. And he was stupid enough to point, so I hit him in the windpipe. I didn't hit him hard enough, and he got off a round, blew out the windshield. Then I hit him again with my elbow. Couple, three times."

"What happened to him?" he said.

"He died."

"Jesus," Evans said.

"Some people make bad decisions," she said. "What're you staring at me like that for? He was six-two and two-ten and had a record from here to Nebraska. Armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted rapeyou name it. You think I should feel sorry for him?"

"No," Evans said quickly.

"You do, I can see it in your eyes. A lot of people do. They go, He was just a kid, how could you do that? Let me tell you, people don't know what the hell they're talking about. One of us was going to get killed that night. I'm glad it wasn't me. But of course, it still bothers me."

"I'll bet."

"Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat. Seeing the gunshot blow the windshield in front of my face. Realizing how close I came to dying. I was stupid. I should have killed him the first time."

Evans paused. He didn't know what to say.

"You ever had a gun at your head?" she said.

"No amp;"

"Then you have no idea how it feels, do you?"

"Was there trouble about it?" he said.

"You bet your ass there was trouble. For a while I thought I wasn't going to be able to practice law. They claimed I led him on. Do you believe that shit? I never saw the guy in my life. But then a very good attorney came to my rescue."

"Balder?"

She nodded. "That's why I'm here."

"And what about your arm?"

"Ah hell," she said, "the car crashed and I cut it on the broken glass." She signaled to the waitress. "What do you say we get the check?"

"I'll do that."

Minutes later they were back outside. Evans blinked in the milky midday light. They walked down the street. "So," Evans said. "I guess you're pretty good at karate."

"Good enough."

They came to the warehouse. He shook her hand.

"I'd really like to have lunch again some time," she said. She was so direct about it, he wondered whether it was personal, or whether she wanted him to know how the lawsuit was going. Because like Balder, much of what she had said was not encouraging.

"Lunch sounds great," he said.

"Not too long?"

"Deal."

"Will you call me?"

"Count on it," he said.

It was almost dark when he went home to his apartment and parked in the garage facing the alley. He was going up the back stairs when the landlady poked her head out the window. "You just missed them," she said.

"Who?"

"The cable repair people. They just left."

"I didn't call any cable repair people," he said. "Did you let them in?"

"Of course not. They said they would wait for you. They just left."

Evans had never heard of cable repair people waiting for anyone. "How long did they wait?"

"Not long. Maybe ten minutes."

"Okay."

He got up to the second-floor landing. A tag was hooked on his door-knob. "Sorry We Missed You." There was a check box to "Call again to reschedule service."

Then he saw the problem. The address was listed as 2119 Roxbury. His address was 2129 Roxbury. But the address was on the front door, not the back door. They'd just made a mistake. He lifted his doormat to check on the key he kept there. It was right where he'd left it. It hadn't been moved. There was even a ring of dust around it.

He unlocked the door and went inside. He went to the refrigerator, and saw the old container of yogurt. He needed to go to the supermarket but he was too tired. He checked the messages to see if Janis or Carol had called. They hadn't. Now of course there was the prospect of Jennifer Haynes, but she had a boyfriend, she lived in DC, and amp;he knew it would never work.

He thought of calling Janis, but decided not to. He took a shower, and was considering calling for pizza delivery. He lay down on the bed to relax for a minute before he called. And he fell immediately asleep.

The meeting was held in the big conference room on the fourteenth floor. Morton's four accountants were there; his assistant Sarah Jones; Herb Lowenstein, who did estate planning; a guy named Marty Bren, who did tax work for NERF, and Evans. Morton, who hated all financial meetings, paced restlessly.