He strolled with the director past rows of white-coated researchers crouching over lab benches. At the far end of the long room an illuminated red sign warned sterile area, and beyond, through a double pane of glass, masked and rubber-suited figures moved like priests among glass tanks on metal racks. Everywhere there was a cathedral calm and quiet.
Beneath the red sign Rolsom stopped and pointed through the panel into the sterile inner chamber. The glass tanks were half-filled with seawater in which a greenish-brown scum floated.
'You can see how the bacteria progressively affect the phytoplankton. Each tank represents a time lapse of one week, and by the sixth or seventh week the bacteria outnumber the marine organisms, which then start to decay. The phytoplankton is being choked to death.'
'The change in color is an indication of how the bacteria are consuming the oxygen,' Madden said, wanting to be quite sure he understood.
'That's right. The green is the healthy phytoplankton and the color darkens and turns brown as the bacteria multiply.' Rolsom tapped the glass with his pipe stem. 'The real beauty of this method is that we need only a small amount of chemical bacteria to start the process rolling--after that it's self-generating. Not only is it highly effective, but also very economical.'
'And very fast,' Madden mused. There was a little catch of breath in his throat. 'In three months we could virtually eliminate all phytoplankton growth.'
'Don't be too optimistic,' Rolsom said, sounding a note of warning. 'It's early days yet, a year before we're ready for field trials. And we still don't know what happens over the long term, after the bacteria have taken over. It could be that it will continue multiplying--'
But Madden didn't want to hear. He said brusquely, 'That's irrelevant as far as we're concerned. Have you tested it at Starbuck yet?' He was gazing fixedly through the glass panel at the rows of tanks.
Starbuck was an island practically on the equator, in the dead center of the Pacific Ocean. Once used for naval weapons testing, it had been taken over by ASP for marine trials on herbicides. Its location tickled Madden, being near Canton Island where Theo Detrick had spent twenty-odd years researching his precious diatoms. Madden could hardly resist a chuckle. The proximity of Starbuck to Canton only embellished the poetic irony, he felt.
'No, I told you, it's too soon,' Rolsom said a shade uneasily. That was the trouble with the military, and with Major Madden in particular: too impetuous. Just get the results and forget the groundwork. There were other aspects that bothered him more. He glanced around at the researchers nearby and dropped his voice to a murmur. 'What about the other problem?'
'What other problem?' Madden said, not looking at him.
'The political one.'
'I thought you knew better than to ask.'
'It does concern me, Major.'
'No, it doesn't. This is what concerns you, right here'--nodding stiffly at the tanks with their greenish-brown scum.
'All right then. But if the secretary of defense is going to veto the project I think I have a right--'
'He isn't going to veto the project, so you can stop worrying,' Madden said, turning away. 'It's been taken care of. Let's leave it at that.'
'We still need presidential approval,' Rolsom persisted, following him to the door.
Madden paused, his thin nostrils pinched and white. His face had the consistency of wax under the ceiling panels. 'Yes, Rolsom. I am fully aware of that fact,' he said with a finality that debarred further discussion.
They took the elevator up to the director's office on sublevel B, not exchanging another word. Any kind of personal relationship was out of the question with Major Madden, the scientist realized. Not a spark of human warmth ever ignited those cold dead eyes. He found it impossible to imagine Madden having a home or family life. In fact he was one of those people you couldn't visualize as ever having to use the lavatory: cast-iron bowels, with no need to shit.
Madden collected his cap and gloves. 'I'm going out to the West Coast to look over the plant. Any problems with supplies?'
Rolsom shook his head. 'JEG gives us good service. No complaints.'
'Glad to hear it,' Madden said and departed without bothering to shake hands.
On his way to the phone booth in the rear of the bar on G Street, Gene Lucas asked for a diabetic beer. Why in tarnation couldn't he just use the phone like other people without feeling obliged to buy something? Every time that same stupid pang of guilt.
The folding door was stiff and he had difficulty in closing it. A moment later he regretted he had. The booth stank of beer and cigarette smoke and vomit, making him catch his breath sharply. While he fumbled for change he saw the barman set up the beer and a glass and turn back to the TV set propped in its corner niche. Four customers, all male, slouched over their drinks. The barmen said something Lucas couldn't hear, but he heard the men's laughter, loud and raucous, through the glass.
Lucas gripped the coins in his sweaty hand while he unfolded the slip of paper. He'd no idea whether this was Lebasse's home number or his office. When he'd called before the unidentified voice had said only that Mr. Lebasse wasn't available and would he call back later? A secret service operative or just a clerk in the Defense Department? It was a shadowy, shifting world that Lucas had encountered only in books and movies.
Indeed, before reading the dossier, he'd thought these precautions rather infantile. Surely to God's sake it wasn't necessary to go through the tiresome rigmarole of calling secret numbers from public pay phones, like a spy in some cheap melodrama?
But the dossier had changed his mind quickly enough. It was the most horrifying document he'd ever read. No wonder Lebasse had gone about it in such a clandestine manner. That there were people who calmly and deliberately could contemplate putting the entire world at risk for some spurious tactical 'advantage.' Of course, as Lucas saw at once, the plan would achieve no such thing, because once the process was started it couldn't be stopped--and more to the point, it would affect East and West alike in exactly the same way. These madmen thought that oxygen depletion could somehow be confined or that certain areas of the globe could be made immune from its effects. What suicidal nonsense! Every living thing on the planet was at risk-- every man, woman and child, irrespective of their ideological stance.
Lebasse, thank God, had had the sense to seek another opinion before decisions were made and money allocated. A small mercy that it only existed on paper and in the warped minds of a bunch of military psychotics. Such a scheme would take many years of research supported by a multimillion-dollar budget. Which the secretary of defense, with the backing of the president's senior scientific adviser, would never sanction.
Lucas could feel the sweat prickling his scalp. The receiver was slippery in his hand. He fed a quarter into the slot, checked again to make sure of the number, and pressed the sequence on the touch-sensitive digital pad.
Come on, come on, he fretted, listening to the burring tone. Somebody answer. Through the glass he noticed that the four customers were sitting upright, staring at the TV screen. It was one of the old flat-screen models, not 3-D, and from this angle Lucas's view was of an elongated announcer, like somebody out of a Modigliani picture.
His attention zoomed back to the phone as the burring stopped.
'Hello? Hello? I called earlier. I was told to call back. Could I speak to-'
The name stuck in his throat like a peach stone. He found himself staring goggle-eyed at a face on the TV screen, a familiar face even at this sharp angle.
Lucas struggled with the door and forced it open.
. . apparently having fallen from his office window at the Pentagon. In a brief statement released a few minutes ago, an aide is quoted as saying that Defense Secretary Lebasse seemed perfectly all right during the morning, having participated in a full schedule of meetings, and that there was no reason to suppose . . .'
The voice in Lucas's ear said, 'Are you there? Hello? Who is this?'
He listened stupidly to the voice and then put the receiver down and came out of the booth and walked the length of the bar to the door.
The barman called to him, and when Lucas didn't respond: 'You ordered this beer, fella!'
Lucas walked along G Street in the direction of the White House, massing purple clouds above, oblivious to the large warm spots hitting his face. The threatened thunderstorm was nearly upon them.
