realize that her people were watching her, waiting for a reaction, just like people watched television when the sweepstakes winner opened the door and was told they’d just won ten million dollars. Only here and now, they were a part of the sweepstakes pot, not just voyeurs.
Then it came to her, what the message said. “Conditional on what?” she asked. Where’s the catch? Banks — oil banks — did not hand out that kind of money to the Queen of the High Seas without a lot of serious strings, maybe unacceptable strings, attached.
“‘When electricity flows from Vanessa Explorer to the U.S Eastern Interconnect, thus proving that your project is a practical reality,’ and I quote again, ‘the full amount of the grant will be made available to you to use any way you see fit.’”
Eve’s people held their breath, practically on the verge of exploding.
“And the last line is sweet and to the point,” Don said. “‘Details to follow. Again, our heartiest congratulations.’”
“What else?” she asked.
Don shook his head. “Lots of other verbiage, about your visionary thinking for the future of the planet, service to mankind despite numerous obstacles and even setbacks.” He looked up. “And brilliance.”
“That’s a gross understatement!” one of her techs shouted, and again everyone laughed harder and longer than the comment deserved.
They were keyed up to the max, and Eve figured today was either going to be a bust, production wise, or set some kind of a record for manic frenzy.
“Speech!” someone shouted.
“No,” Eve said. “We leave for the rig in two days, and I’ve given all the speeches I’m going to give this year.”
“Champagne?” Don asked.
“Work,” Eve said, standing up.
“Boo.”
“Slave driver,” Lisa said, but everyone was getting up, huge smiles on their faces, and heading out the door, chattering like excited schoolchildren. They couldn’t help but look over their shoulders at her, and she couldn’t help but smile back.
Don handed her the fax. “With this kind of money on the table, along with InterOil’s rig, Schlagel becomes practically a nonissue. Oil and money equals power.”
But she didn’t agree and he saw it on her face.
“What are you worried about now?” he asked.
“We’re still facing the same trouble. Only now the stakes are higher.”
Don was vexed. “Landsberg said practically the same thing when I showed him the fax. He wants to see you as soon as we were done here.”
And Eve softened; she couldn’t help it because of Don’s obvious disappointment. He’d gotten over his snit from Oslo, in part because of the shooting, and he refused to understand why she wasn’t over-the-moon happy, why she was still nervous. It’s what all of her team, and especially him, wanted for her. “Did you actually bring champagne?” she asked.
“In the lab. Only four bottles.”
She grinned. “What the hell. Let me talk to Landsberg first.”
Eve walked across campus from the GFDL lab building to Sayre Hall where the AOS program director and staff had offices. Forrestal was also home to the Princeton plasma physics department. A lot of bright people here, she thought, watching the foot and bicycle traffic, most of them dressed in standard scientific uniforms — jeans, sneakers, sweatshirts, and sometimes photographer’s vests with lots of pockets for pencils, pens, markers, scientific calculators, iPods, BlackBerries, and for the older faculty, endless scraps of paper with world-shattering notes, observations, or calculations.
Home. She carried the thought further, places like this were the only homes she’d ever known. She felt comfortable here. Safe. Cocooned — there was something to the ivory tower notion after all — and mostly accepted.
Landsberg’s secretary, an older woman with gray hair up in a bun, scurried around from behind her desk and gave Eve a warm embrace. “My goodness, we’re so proud of you.”
This now was exactly what she’d been thinking about on the way over. “Thanks, Doris, but my team had a lot to do with it.”
“Of course, we know, but, my goodness, what an achievement. Not many lady laureates you know.”
“Well, we’re changing that statistic,” Eve said. “Is the director in?”
“He’s expecting you.”
Landsberg was a tall, lanky man, all arms and legs and angles, who never seemed to sit or stand still. Common campus wisdom was that if he ever did pull up short it would mean that his extremely fertile mind had shut down; his movements were a physical manifestation of his thoughts.
He was seated behind his desk, his fingers flying over his keyboard, and he looked up and smiled. “Quite a surprise, I’ll bet,” he said, without interrupting his typing.
“The money or the assassination attempt? “Eve asked, sitting down.
“Both, but I wanted to talk to you about the money.”
“Do you want to finish what you’re doing first?”
“Nope, just answering a few e-mails,” Landsberg said. “I have a friend on Wall Street who has advised me on how best to manage the occasional big grant we receive. I talked to him this morning and mentioned your good fortune.”
“Might be a bit premature. We haven’t got the rig over to Florida, let alone up and running.”
Landsberg glanced at the screen for just a second then looked back at Eve as he continued typing. “I don’t think there’s any question that you’re on the right track, and you’ll get the money. Problem is handling a billion dollars is complicated. You’ll need help.”
“I don’t know if I trust the guys on Wall Street,” Eve said. “Not after all the crap we’ve gone through over the past few years. A lot of them didn’t seem so smart.”
“His name is James McClelland, manages a couple of successful hedge funds, one of them that includes InterOil who gave you the rig. And he’s done fine by this institution. All I’m suggesting is that you sit down and talk to him.”
“When the experiment is a success,” Eve said, and she knew that she was being stubborn. She supposed it was her British parsimony because of her upbringing, but the grant was hers.
Landsberg read something of that from her posture, because he stopped typing. “You’re a brilliant scientist, but I read your monthly financials and department budget and expenditure reports. If I didn’t know better I would have to assume that you flunked fifth grade arithmetic.”
Eve was startled for just a moment, but then she laughed out loud, all the way from her gut. “You’re right,” she sputtered, spreading her hands. “Damned if you’re not right.”
“Manage your own prize money, but a million or so dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to what the bank has offered you.”
“When the time comes I’ll talk to your friend.”
“Good,” Landsberg said, and went back to answering his e-mails. “If I don’t see you before you head to the Gulf, bon voyage.”
“I’m going to Washington first,” Eve said. “But thanks.”
FORTY-THREE
William Callahan, the FBI’s assistant deputy director for counterterrorism, had never been to the White House except once about five years ago on a public tour with his wife. He’d been impressed then, but he was even more impressed this afternoon as he was escorted by a White House staffer to the West Wing office of Eduardo
