Last Gasp

'You tried to make it everyone's concern when you were with the EPA,' said Chase. 'It didn't come off.'

'Made me damned unpopular into the bargain,' Prothero said with feeling. 'You wouldn't believe the crank calls, the hate mail, the abuse, the threats. Anyone would think I was trying to destroy the environment, not save it.'

Chase smiled grimly. 'I know. People get the strange notion you're somehow personally to blame. If only you'd shut up the threat would go away.'

'Of course, you get all that crap too.' The eyes behind the thick lenses softened a little, as if the shared experience had forged a common bond between them. 'Well, that probably makes it easier for you to understand our feeling, Dr. Chase. As concerned citizens we have to act--independently of government--and try to find a way out of this mess. We have no choice, because if somebody doesn't we might just as well walk out onto the street down there, take a couple of deep breaths, lie down in the gutter, and wait for the meat wagon.'

'You have a son, Daniel, sixteen,' said Ingrid Van Dorn. She was watching him closely. When Chase looked at her without responding, her lips twitched in a smile. 'We have investigated you in depth, Dr. Chase. Background, career, family, everything. We had to.'

Chase continued to look at her steadily. 'What has my son to do with this?'

'I mention him simply to make the point that the only hope of survival for future generations is if people like us are prepared to take upon ourselves the responsibility that the governments of the world have abdicated. It is we who must act.'

This sounded to Chase like part of a speech she had prepared for the General Assembly. It began to dawn on him that all this, including the informal atmosphere, had been deliberately engineered. His being here was the culmination of a long process whose aim was to achieve . . . what?

'We greatly admire the work you've been doing,' Prothero told him. 'Earth Foundation is a most laudable concept. However, we don't believe it can provide the solution to the problem. What's needed is a concerted effort by a group of dedicated specialists--scientists, ecolo-gists, engineers--and yes, even though the. coinage has been debased, politicians too. People with a common goal who will do what must be done.'

'Are you planning a world revolution?' Chase said. 'Or is it something simple like overthrowing the government of the United States?'

'This isn't a joking matter,' Ingrid Van Dorn rebuked him, showing more of the Nordic iceberg that resided below the surface.

'It isn't? Then let me get this straight.' Chase raised two fingers to point to them both. 'You're proposing that a group of private individuals--specialists in their own fields--should band together to halt the slide toward ecological disaster that all the world's governments are unable or unwilling to achieve. Is that it? Have I got it right?' The skepticism in his voice was thinly veiled.

Prothero nodded gravely. 'It's possible, Dr. Chase. It can be done.'

'How?'

'You're the scientist, you tell us. Surely it isn't beyond the wit of man to devise the means of saving this planet from extinction? The misuse of technology has brought us to this state; therefore technology, properly applied, can rescue us. You must believe that.'

Chase had heard, and debated, this argument many times before. He said curtly, 'There's no 'must' about it, Senator. Maybe it can, but there's the very real possibility that it can't. It could be too late.'

Prothero plucked at his crisp white cuffs through force of habit. 'Then we shall all perish,' he said calmly. 'If what you say is true. But I believe, quite passionately, Dr. Chase, that we at least have to try. We have to find a solution.'

'A scientific solution.'

'Yes.'

'Without government aid.'

Prothero nodded, his long tanned face stiff and without expression.

Chase was silent. Was this any more crazy than what was already happening to the world? In the face of governmental inertia and political funk it was clear that something had to be done. For if nothing was done, what was the alternative? He said quietly, 'Have you the remotest idea of the cost of such an undertaking? The top line is a hundred million dollars, and I could go on adding noughts until you got dizzy. Have you considered that?'

'Funding is available.' Ingrid Van Dorn smoothed her skirt and laced her slender white fingers around a blemishless knee. 'We have obtained pledges and offers of support from wealthy individuals, trusts, and organizations. Money is not the problem.'

'Then what is?'

'You're a scientist,' Prothero said. 'You have proved organizational ability. More important, from our point of view, you are known and respected and have an international standing. You could find and recruit the right people. They'll listen to you.'

'You want me to head this thing?'

They looked at him without answering.

As for Chase, he could only gaze unseeingly at the sculptured horse/ soul in the center of the table, bathed in the room's discreet light. Did this preposterous scheme have a chance of succeeding?

'You do realize why it would be a serious mistake to make this public knowledge,' Ingrid Van Dorn said. 'The United States government would not look kindly on an independent research project on its own soil. For that reason we must proceed cautiously and in the utmost secrecy. For obvious reasons, neither the senator nor myself can be involved because of our roles as prominent public servants.'

'Very properly you raised the matter of funding,' Prothero said. 'One of the biggest items of expenditure will be a research base large enough to accommodate several hundred personnel and all the necessary facilities. Also it will have to be isolated, hidden away somewhere. That's a pretty formidable specification,' Prothero said, though he was smiling. 'It so happens we already have such a facility, courtesy of the Defense Department.'

'They're going to rent it out by the month?' Chase said tartly.

'No, it's entirely free of charge. The Desert Range Station at Wah Wah Springs in southwestern Utah. It's part of the MX missile silo complex that was abandoned a number of years ago when the Defense Department decided to phase out nuclear weapons in favor of the environmental war strategy. The total MX program came to eighty-six billion dollars, but it was outmoded before it was even completed. They left behind workshops, maintenance bays, living quarters, and plenty of room for laboratories and other facilities. What's more, the entire installation is buried under millions of tons of reinforced concrete in the middle of the Utah desert. The nearest town of any size is nearly a hundred miles away.'

'You say it was abandoned, but wouldn't they leave a small military unit behind to keep guard?'

'As a representative of a Senate committee I toured the area in 1997,' Prothero said. 'It's an empty shell. There isn't a soul there.'

Ingrid Van Dorn said, 'We've mentioned the need for secrecy, and I'm sure you appreciate the necessity. But there's another reason, one that might not have occurred to you.'

'Which is?'

'You've heard of what the media call pyro-assassinations.'

Chase nodded. 'There was another in Paris last week. Claude Lautner.'

'Lautner was an undersecretary in the French government with special responsibility for environmental matters. He was involved in negotiating the nine-nation Mediterranean Treaty to ban effluent discharge. The Treaty was to have been signed next month. The talks have now broken down.'

Chase glanced blankly from one to the other. 'What are you suggesting? Some kind of conspiracy?'

'These assassinations aren't random,' Ingrid Van Dorn said. 'Every target has been someone--scientist, politician, administrator--working to improve the environment in some way. They are too well planned and executed to be the work of lone individuals. There's an organization behind them.'

'You could be right,' Chase said, not having made the connection before now. 'But who? What organization?'

'My money is on one of the intelligence agencies,' said Prothero. 'Take your pick--ours, the Russians, the Chinese, Libya, South Africa.'