Michael Crichton - State Of Fear

Standing beneath the crashed Ferrari, Evans endured another ten minutes of grilling by the plainclothesmen who encircled him. Fundamentally, the story didn't make sense to him.

Evans said, "George was a good driver. If all these changes were made to the car, wouldn't he have noticed something was wrong?"

"Perhaps. But not if he was drinking heavily."

"Well, he was drinking, that's for sure."

"And who got him the drinks, Mr. Evans?"

"George got his own drinks."

"The waiter at the banquet said you were pushing drinks at Morton."

"That's not true. I was trying to limit his drinking."

Abruptly, they changed course. "Who worked on the Ferrari, Mr. Evans?"

"I have no idea."

"We know you rented a private garage outside Sonoma on Route 54. It was fairly quiet and out of the way. Any person or persons who worked on the car would have been able to come and go as they wished, without being seen. Why would you choose such a garage?"

"I didn't choose it."

"Your name is on the lease."

"How was the lease arranged?"

"By phone."

"Who paid for it?"

"It was paid in cash."

"By whom?"

"Delivered by messenger."

"You have my signature on anything? Fingerprints?"

"No. Just your name."

Evans shrugged. "Then I'm sorry, but I don't know anything about this. It's well known that I'm George Morton's attorney. Anybody could have used my name. If anything was done to this car, it was done without my knowledge."

He was thinking that they should have been asking Sarah about all this, but then, if they were good at their jobs, they'd already have talked to her.

And sure enough, she appeared from around the corner, talking on a cell phone and nodding to Kenner.

That was when Kenner stepped forward. "Okay, gentlemen. Unless you have further questions, I'll take Mr. Evans into custody on my recognizance. I don't believe he is a flight risk. He will be safe enough with me."

The cops grumbled, but in the end they agreed. Kenner handed out his card, and then he headed back toward the entrance, his arm firmly on Evans's shoulder.

Sarah followed some distance behind. The cops stayed with the Ferrari.

As they neared the door, Kenner said, "Sorry about all that. But the police didn't tell you everything. The fact is, they photographed the car from various angles and fed the shots into a computer that simulates crashes. And the computer-generated simulation didn't match the photos of the actual crash."

"I didn't know you could do that."

"Oh yes. Everybody uses computer models these days. They are de rigueur for the modern organization. Armed with their computer simulation, the police went back to the wreck itself, where they now decided that it had been monkeyed with. They never imagined this during their previous examinations of the wreck, but now they do. Clear example of using a computer simulation to alter your version of reality. They trusted the simulation and not the data from the ground."

"Uh-huh."

"And of course their simulation was optimized for the most common vehicle types on American roads. The computer had no ability to model the behavior of a forty-year-old, limited-production Italian racing car. They ran the simulation anyway."

Evans said, "But what's all this about a garage in Sonoma?"

Kenner shrugged. "You don't know. Sarah doesn't know. Nobody can even verify if the car was ever there. But the garage was rentedI'd guess by George himself. Though we'll never know for sure."

Back outside, Evans threw open the door to his limo and climbed in. He was astonished to see Ted Bradley covered in blood, all down his chin and shirt front.

"What happened?"

"He slipped," Jennifer said. "And hurt himself."

On the flight back, Sarah Jones was overcome with confused feelings. First of all, she was profoundly distressed by the fact that George Morton's body had been recovered; in some part of her mind, she had been hoping against hope that he would turn up alive. Then there was the question of Peter Evans. Just as she was starting to like himstarting to see a side of him that was not wimpy, but rather tough and resilient in his own bumbling wayjust as she was beginning, in fact, to have the first stirrings of feelings toward the man who had saved her life, suddenly there was this new woman, Jennifer somebody, and Peter was obviously taken with her.

And in addition, there was the arrival of Ted Bradley. Sarah had no illusions about Ted; she had seen him in action at innumerable NERF gatherings, and she had even once allowed him to work his charms on hershe was a sucker for actorsbut at the last moment decided he reminded her too much of her ex. What was it about actors, anyway? They were so engaging, so personal in their approach, so intense in their feelings. It was hard to realize that they were just self-absorbed people who would do anything to get you to like them.

At least, Ted was.

And how had he been injured? Bitten his own tongue? Sarah had the feeling it had to do with this Jennifer. Undoubtedly, Ted had made a pass at her. The woman was pretty enough in a street-smart kind of way; dark hair, toughish face, compact body, muscular but skinny. A typical speeded-up New York typein every way Sarah's opposite.

And Peter Evans was fawning over her.

Fawning.

It was sort of disgusting, but she had to admit she was disappointed personally as well. Just as she had started to like him. She sighed.

As for Bradley, he was talking to Kenner about environmental issues, showing off his extensive knowledge. And Kenner was looking at Bradley the way a python looks at a rat.

"So," Kenner said, "global warming represents a threat to the world?"

"Absolutely," Bradley said. "A threat to the whole world."

"What sort of threat are we talking about?"

"Crop failures, spreading deserts, new diseases, species extinction, all the glaciers melting, Kilimanjaro, sea-level rise, extreme weather, tornadoes, hurricanes, El Niсo events"

"That sounds extremely serious," Kenner said.

"It is," Bradley said. "It really is."

"Are you sure of your facts?"

"Of course."

"You can back your claims with references to the scientific literature?"

"Well, I can't personally, but scientists can."

"Actually, scientific studies do not support your claims. For example, crop failureif anything, increased carbon dioxide stimulates plant growth. There is some evidence that this is happening. And the most recent satellite studies show the Sahara has shrunk since 1980.* As for new diseasesnot true. The rate of emergence of new diseases has not changed since 1960."

"But we'll have diseases like malaria coming back to the US and Europe."

"Not according to malaria experts."* Bradley snorted and folded his hands across his chest.

"Species extinction hasn't been demonstrated either. In the 1970s, Norman Myers predicted a million species would be extinct by the year2000. Paul Ehrlich predicted that fifty percent of all species would be extinct by the year 2000. But those were just opinions. Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice. Do you know how many species there are on the planet?"

"No."

"Neither does anybody else. Estimates range from three million to one hundred million. Quite a range, wouldn't you say? Nobody really has any idea."!

"Your point being?"

"It's hard to know how many species are becoming extinct if you don't know how many there are in the first place. How could you tell if you were robbed if you didn't know how much money you had in your wallet to begin with? And fifteen thousand new species are described every year. By the way, do you know what the known rate of species extinction is?"