Arctic Gold

to before. It demonstrates once and for all that humans really have very little impact on such a large and complex system as global climate. And… No, the oil companies are not paying me for my opinion.”

“Look, I was out of line with that crack, Doc. And I apologize.”

Spencer seemed somewhat mollified. “Accepted.”

“So, this theory of yours. You’re saying global warming is from the sun becoming more active?”

“Essentially. You may know that the sun goes through an eleven-year cycle which oscillates between more and less activity. We’re coming up on the next solar maximum in the next year or two, and so there has been an increase in sunspots, which do cause interference with communications here on Earth.

“However, what I’ve been looking at are cycles of much greater magnitude… hundreds, even thousands of years. According to the computer model I’ve developed, the warming we are experiencing now is perfectly natural, and not a product of human carbon dioxide production through industry or fossil fuel emissions. In fact, it demonstrates that much of the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past century is due to warming temperatures, which release CO₂ from the oceans.”

“So… the rising CO₂ levels are caused by global warming, but global warming is not caused by rising CO₂…”

“Precisely.”

The car swung around a gentle curve, threading its way through a major junction to pick up the M4 near Thorny, heading east toward the city. It was a gloriously clear late-spring day in apparent defiance of the tradition that British weather was always cold and wet.

Karr and Spencer chatted amiably for the next ten miles, discussing global climate change. Occasionally Karr turned in his seat, checking the traffic behind. There was one vehicle, a white Mazda, that was nagging at his awareness.

“So, global warming might be a good thing?” Karr asked.

“I know,” Spencer said. He chuckled. “Absolute heresy. People committed to the gloom-and-doom scenario really don’t like to hear about that part. But higher levels of carbon dioxide mean accelerated plant growth, worldwide. Bigger crops. Expanding forests. Longer growing seasons. Canada and Siberia, especially, could begin producing bumper crops of corn and wheat. But, somehow, the news media doesn’t seem to feel that good news is worth broadcasting.”

“Tommy?” Marie Telach’s voice said in his head. “This is George.”

“ ’Scuse me,” Karr said, holding his left hand up to touch his ear. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “Gotta take a call.”

“I didn’t hear it ring.”

“ ’S on vibrate. George?… Go ahead.” He held the cell phone to his ear, pretending to talk on the phone. It was a useful fiction that avoided unnecessary explanations about high-tech and high-secret gadgetry.

“You seen the white car on your tail?” Telach asked.

“The one that picked us up in the front of the hotel?” Karr replied. The vehicle, a white Mazda, double-parked in front of the hotel entrance, had dropped in on the Lincoln’s tail as they’d pulled out of the parking garage. “Yeah. I’ve been watching him.”

“Think you can give us a close-up?”

Karr glanced back. Traffic was growing heavy as they entered the outskirts of Greater London. On the M4, the other vehicle had fallen back to a comfortable distance, but now, as they skirted a traffic circle and plunged into West London, the Mazda was following closer, only about thirty feet off their back bumper.

“Sure thing.” He turned and aimed the cell phone over the back of the Lincoln’s rear seat. The unit appeared to be an ordinary camera phone, but when he adjusted the lens and pressed the imaging key, the picture that came up on the phone’s display was far sharper, with a much higher resolution, than ordinary commercial cell phone cameras. Karr touched another button on the keypad, and the image grew brighter, with higher contrast. The sky and the surrounding buildings were washed out in the glare, but the people in the Mazda were clearly visible.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asked.

“Getting some snaps for the family back home.”

He touched another key, and the camera zoomed in for a close-up-tight enough that he could image the individual faces of each of the four people in the car, three men and a woman.

“Hold it steady a sec,” Telach told him as the phone transmitted video in real time via satellite back to the Art Room. “Can you adjust to get a better angle on the guy in the back? Okay. Got ’ em all. Have they made any threatening moves?”

“Nah.” Karr turned the camera slightly, studying the man in the left-hand front passenger seat. He was young, dark complexioned, and serious looking, and he was holding a cell phone against his ear.

Karr brought the phone back to his ear. “Who are they?” he asked.

“Don’t know. But we’ll run the video through our database and see if we can pick up some matches.”

“Looks like the guy in front’s talking to a friend.”

“That woman in the back isn’t your, um, little friend from last night, is she?”

Karr felt himself flush. He’d thought he’d disconnected from the Art Room channel before they’d figured out he was spending the night with someone. His night with Julie hadn’t been against regulations, exactly-the FBI agents had been responsible for Spencer’s safety in his hotel room-but there were some back at the Puzzle Palace who might see last evening as an unprofessional mingling of business and pleasure.

“No,” he said at last. He couldn’t see her well, since she was partly blocked by the driver, but Julie was blond while this woman was a brunette. “She’s not.”

“Just checking,” Telach told him. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Yeah… and five or six others who were pulling Art Room duty last night, Karr thought. “Okay. Bye.” He snapped the phone shut and pocketed it.

“I take it we’re being followed?” Spencer asked. Payne started at that, then turned to look through the back window.

“Possibly.”

Spencer looked disgusted. “That’s what I just don’t understand about this. Who would want to kill me?”

“Your work is pretty controversial, isn’t it, Doc?”

“Yes, certainly. The Royal Society is going to have a fit when I give my talk today, because they’ve bought so completely into the gloom-and-doom scenario. And plenty of others in the field hate my guts because I’m threatening their grants. But this is science, damn it! Scientists don’t go around killing each other when they disagree!”

“Gives a whole new spin to the idea of peer review, doesn’t it?” Karr glanced back again. The Mazda had dropped back a little but was still on their tail as they continued east on the Great West Road, now the A4. The Thames River was just a block to the south. They glimpsed stretches of it from time to time through factories, row houses, and commercial properties.

“We’re honestly not sure, Doc,” Karr said. “But the word on the street over here is that someone wants you dead… one of the environmentalist groups.”

“That’s ridiculous. Who? Greenpeace?”

“Almost. Ever hear of a group called Greenworld?”

“Certainly. A militant-activist spin-off from Greenpeace. Started in… I don’t know. Oh-five?”

“Two thousand six, actually.”

Karr didn’t say more. The NSA had a long history of tangling with Greenpeace. Back in July of 2001, Greenpeace protestors had stormed the NSA station at Men-with Hill, in Yorkshire. Later, the NSA had supposedly eavesdropped on Greenpeace members while looking for international terror links… and ended up in an involved lawsuit with the ACLU over domestic spying and abuse of power. The court case eventually had been settled in the Agency’s favor, but there was no love lost between the two organizations. In 2006, some of the more vocal members of Greenpeace had split off to form their own organization-a far-left environmentalist group called Greenworld that embraced the lunatic-activist fringe too violent and extremist for the original Greenpeace.

“Are you saying Greenworld wants me dead?”

“Those blog death threats were by individuals with a Greenworld connection,” Karr said. “And the e-mail of