“Keep the carbon in the ground. By stopping the fires,” Sue repeated.
“By stopping the expansion of oil fields,” Elizabeth corrected her. “We need to cut our use of oil and gas, not increase it. We need to shut down oil fields, not open new ones, but that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Walker struggled to follow her explanation. She was trying to keep carbon in the ground. Trying to limit the tundra fires. Trying to stop global warming altogether—by shutting down oil fields.
Or stopping new ones from opening?
“What I saw changed me.” Elizabeth tried again. “It made it impossible for me not to do something—something important.”
Walker remembered the phone call when she’d been pacing and yelling about a postponed hearing. She’d been so distraught. He was missing something here, some link that put it all together.
The hearing.
She’d been angry because a hearing was postponed.
“The Renning field in Alaska,” he said. It had been on the news a lot lately that Congress was debating whether to allow drilling there. “Isn’t there a hearing or something coming up about that?”
Elizabeth nodded. “That’s right, and I’m a key witness testifying at that hearing. It’s my job to spell it all out. How more drilling leads to more oil consumption, which leads to more emissions, which leads to more climate change, which leads to more fires, which leads to more carbon emissions—”
“Which leads to disaster in the end,” Walker finished for her.
“We’re heading for a world of heat and storms. More disease, fewer resources, more war, more famine—”
Walker knew exactly where it would lead: a world into which no sane person would bring a child.
And he wanted children—with Avery.
“So why come to Base Camp?” She still hadn’t explained that.
“I never meant it to be like this,” she said again. “I did mean to come last spring and tell Sue that I lied. Let you off the hook. But then talk about opening the Renning field started. And I… I found out some things. I had to pursue that.”
“Why didn’t you break off things when you finally did come home?” Walker pressed her.
“I’ve had… death threats,” she explained. “Credible ones. The government offered protection, but honestly, I wasn’t sure I could trust that offer.”
“Death threats?” Sue breathed.
“And you came here?”
“Ten Navy SEALs,” she explained. “What better security crew could a girl ask for?” She tried for a smile, but it fell short, and Walker suddenly realized how terrified she really was. He thought back over her time here. The way she’d stuck to him like a burr on a shaggy dog’s coat. Everything started to make sense.
“Why pretend you wanted to marry Walker?” Sue demanded. Walker knew she was finding it hard to get past the affront to her beloved Netta.
“Because I’ve watched all the Base Camp episodes, and I know what happens when people appear on the show. Fulsom makes them marry someone, or he kicks them off. I figured it was only temporary—only until the hearing.”
“When’s that?” Walker asked.
“Yesterday,” she said ruefully. “Or it was supposed to be. I was going to tell you everything right before I got on the plane to Washington.”
Walker thought back again to that phone conversation, the one where she’d been furious about a change of dates. “You thought you’d be gone by now.”
“Leaving you plenty of time to marry Avery after I left. I never meant to screw things up for you, Walker,” she went on. “I can tell you and Avery are meant for each other, and I’m happy for you. But I need more time.”
Sue’s eyebrows met in the middle over the bridge of her nose. “Why?”
“When is the new date for the hearing?” Walker asked.
“May twenty-fifth. I’m on at four thirty in the afternoon. I’ll leave first thing in the morning to catch my plane. You’ll still have plenty of time to marry Avery after I go. Look, when we’re done here, you can tell her everything I’ve told you, but you can’t tell anyone else. Everyone else has to think our wedding is still on—for real.”
“No one thinks your wedding is on,” Sue said. “I’ve read the forums,” she answered Walker’s surprised look. “You two don’t care a fig about each other. Everyone’s sure it’s a ploy to get ratings up. And now that Avery’s marriage to that… cowboy… was annulled, they know you’ll dump Elizabeth and marry her.”
“We’ll have to change their minds, then, and that’s mostly on me, I guess,” Elizabeth said. “I mean it, though. No one but Avery can know. I still need you to keep me safe. I need you to remember what’s at stake. Things are bad now, Walker, but if more oil fields are opened, I don’t think there’s hope for any of us. It’s too much carbon. Too much warming. We’re already at a tipping point. We can’t recover from that.”
Walker knew what she meant. They were pushing the world past its limits already. “Boone and the other men have to know. Everyone does. That man Harris saw—he’s here for you, isn’t he?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
“He’s dangerous. We need to protect you.”
“I’ll keep sticking close to you,” she countered. “If you tell everyone else, there’s no way Fulsom won’t find out. He’ll kick me off or interfere in some way. I’ve watched the show—I know he will. It’s only a few more days. Then I’ll be out of your life. I promise.”
Conflicting duties warred within him. She was right; there were too many people at Base Camp for secrets to last long, and Fulsom used every opportunity to mess with them. He weighed his options, not happy with any of them.
“Avery needs to plan our wedding,” he pointed out. He knew she loved pageantry and parties, and she’d once confessed that she’d been planning her wedding day since grade school. It wasn’t fair that she was the loser in all of this.
“She can plan our wedding,” Elizabeth said. “And then take it over when I’m gone. It’s only five more days, Walker.” When
