Michael Crichton - State Of Fear

"They even sell magnets in the health magazines! Healthy living through magnetic fields! Insanity! No one remembers even a few years ago! George Orwell. No memory!"

"Who is that guy?" Bradley said, as they headed off. "He seems a little wound up, doesn't he?"

"The record of catastrophe is contained within the ice cores," the speaker said, droning on at the podium. He was Russian and spoke with a heavy accent. "These ice cores from Greenland show that, in the last one hundred thousand years, there have been four abrupt climate change events. Some have occurred very quickly, in a few years. While the mechanisms by which these events occurred are still being studied, they demonstrate that there can be trigger' effects in climate, whereby small changesincluding man-made changescan produce catastrophically large effects. We have seen a foretaste of such effects in recent days with the calving of the world's largest iceberg, and the terrible loss of life from the flash flood in the American Southwest. And it is no difficulty to predict we will see more"

He paused, as Drake hurried up onto the stage, whispered in his ear, then stepped down again, looking at his watch.

"Uh, I must beg the forgiveness of you," the speaker said. "I seem to have brought up an outdated version of my remarks. Word processors! That was a part from an old talk from 2001. What I wanted to say was that the calving of the iceberg in 2001larger than many American statesand the dangerously unseasonal weather around the world, including the sunny Southwest, portends further climate instability. It is just beginning."

Sarah Jones, standing in the back, was talking with Ann Garner, the wife of a prominent Hollywood lawyer and a major contributor to NERF. Ann was emphatic as always, and talking nonstop.

"I'll tell you what I heard," Ann was saying. "I heard there is an industry-sponsored campaign to discredit NGOs. Industry is afraid of the growing power of the environmental movement and they are desperate, desperate to stop it. We have had our modest successes in recent years, and it is driving them crazy, and"

"I'm sorry," Sarah said. "Just a minute, Ann." She turned to look at the Russian speaker at the podium. What did he say? she thought.

She walked quickly to the press table, where reporters were lined up with their laptops open. They were getting real-time transcripts of the conference.

She looked over the shoulder of Ben Lopez, the reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Ben didn't mind; he had been after her for months.

"Hi ya, sweet thing."

"Hi, Ben. Mind if I look at something?"

She touched the mouse, scrolling up the screen.

"Sure, be my guest. Nice perfume."

She read:

CAN BE TRIGGER EFFECTS IN CLIMATE, WHEREBY SMALL CHANGES INCLUDING MAN-MADE CHANGES CAN PRODUCE CATASTROPHICALLY LARGE EFFECTS. WE HAVE HAD A FORETASTE OF SUCH EFFECTS IN RECENT DAYS WITH THE CALVING OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST ICEBERG AND THE TERRIBLE LOSS OF LIFE FROM THE FLASH FLOOD IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST. AND IT IS NO DIFFICULTY TO PREDICT WE WILL SEE MORE While she watched, the text changed, the strikeout disappearing, and replaced with new text:

CAN BE TRIGGER EFFECTS IN CLIMATE, WHEREBY SMALL CHANGES INCLUDING MAN-MADE CHANGES CAN PRODUCE CATASTROPHICALLY LARGE EFFECTS. WE HAVE HAD A FORETASTE OF SUCH EFFECTS WITH LARGE EFFECTS. WE HAVE HAD A FORETASTE OF SUCH EFFECTS WITH THE CALVING OF THE ICEBERG IN 2001 LARGER THAN MANY AMERICAN STATES AND THE DANGEROUSLY UNSEASONAL WEATHER AROUND THE WORLD INCLUDING THE SUNNY SOUTHWEST PORTENDS FURTHER CLIMATE INSTABILITY "Holy shit," she said.

"Something wrong?" Ben said.

"Did you see what he said?"

"Yeah. Poor guy. Probably has jet lag to beat hell. And obviously, he's struggling with English amp;"

The original remarks were gone. The record was corrected. But there was no doubt about it: the Russian had known in advance about the iceberg and the flash flood. It was written into his speech. And somebody had forgotten to tell him, when he got off the plane, that it never happened.

He knew in advance.

But now the record was corrected, the remarks stricken. She glanced at the video camera in the back, recording the proceedings. No doubt the remarks would disappear from the video record as well.

The son of a bitch knew in advance.

"Hey," Ben said, "I don't know what you're so upset about. Clue me in, will you?"

"Later," she said. "I promise." She patted his shoulder, and went back to Ann.

"So," Ann said, "what we are facing is an industry-promoted campaign, well orchestrated, well financed, pervasive and ultra right-wing, that is intent on destroying the environmental movement that stands in its way."

After what she had just seen, Sarah was in no mood to put up with this blather. "Ann," she said. "Did it ever cross your mind you might be paranoid?"

"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.