Arctic Gold

mere facts to make themselves heard.

Dr. Spencer, standing just outside the broad glass doors, appeared to be engaged in an ugly confrontation with a distinguished-looking Brit, a member of the Royal Society, if Karr remembered correctly.

“Nonsense!” the silver-haired delegate sputtered. “Your data, sir, are contrived and inaccurate! Nothing can be clearer from the record than that the increased temperatures of the past century and a half are due to increased industrial emissions. Human emissions!”

“Bullshit!” Spencer snapped back. “The total effect of the sun on Earth’s climate is overwhelmingly greater than anything we can do to add or detract!”

“Sheer moonshine, sir! You have no proof-”

“I have all the proof necessary, Sir James, if you’re willing to pull your head out of your ass and listen to a dissenting view for a change!”

“Doctor Spencer! I resent-”

“Well, I must say they’re getting on famously,” someone said at Karr’s side.

“If they don’t kill each other first,” Karr replied. He looked the other man over… a nondescript, older man with white hair and the air of a banker, perhaps. Karr had seen him earlier that morning in the conference hall, standing off to one side, and assumed he was a delegate to the symposium.

“Randolph Evans,” Rockman’s voice whispered in Karr’s ear. “GCHQ. He’s one of us.”

Karr extended a hand. “You’re Randolph Evans, aren’t you? GCHQ?”

Evans took his hand. “And you’re Kjartan Magnor-Karr. ‘Tommy.’ NSA.”

Karr grinned. Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, was Great Britain’s equivalent of the NSA. An agreement dating back to 1947 called the United Kingdom-USA Communications Intelligence Agreement, usually shortened to “UKUSA,” had forged an unusually close and highly covert alliance aimed at intercepting and decoding electronic intelligence all over the world. If GCHQ wasn’t a branch of the NSA by now, it was the next best thing… a full partner in global espionage and SIGINT.

He didn’t bother asking Evans what he was doing here. If the operative was here on an op, he wouldn’t discuss the fact any more than Karr would. Karr could guess what GCHQ was interested in this afternoon, though.

“A lot of very noisy people down there,” he commented.

“Indeed. Greenpeace. Greenworld. Several other environmentalist groups. They seem to think the world’s governments aren’t moving fast enough.”

“All in all a good thing,” Karr said, nodding. “When governments move quickly, that’s when ordinary people need to start worrying.”

“As when they make the trains run on time?”

“Exactly. Or promise ‘peace in our time.’”

“Ouch. Touche.”

Karr nodded toward the confrontation near the doors. “Who’s the silver-haired gentleman threatening to throw Dr. Spencer off the roof?”

“Ah. Sir James Millvale. Distinguished member of Parliament. Highly respected Senior of the Royal Society. Environmental scientist. And thoroughly peeved that people like your Dr. Spencer may be about to turn the tide of official opinion against the idea that people are to blame for global warming… after he and his party rammed through some rather expensive and deucedly inconvenient emissions standards here in this country. Millvale and his allies will look like fools, lose professional standing, power, prestige. They have everything to lose, so they have stopped listening.”

“That’s supposed to be our fault?”

“Well, you Yanks do have the reputation for kicking over the apple cart. Boston Harbor, 1773?”

“You’re still carrying a grudge? You people have such long memories…”

Evans chuckled.

Before he could reply, however, Rockman interrupted over Karr’s communications system. “Hey, Tommy? Looks like some trouble is developing downstairs.”

“Excuse me,” Karr told Evans. “I have a call.”

He didn’t know if Evans was cleared to know about the highly secret communications implants used by Desk Three operators-for all Karr knew, GCHQ agents used the things as well-but pulling out a satellite phone and holding it to his ear gave him plausible cover with the surrounding crowd of guests and delegates as he spoke with Rockman.

“Jeff? What’s up?”

“We’re monitoring the situation through BBC Two and the security cameras inside the building,” Rockman said. The NSA, it was said, could tap into any security camera system worldwide, especially if the system was part of a computer-monitored network. “The crowd outside just exploded. About fifty of them muscled past the security guards at the main entrance. That seems to have been a distraction, though, because when the guards started struggling with them, about fifty more vaulted a set of barrier fences and entered the building through a side door.”

“Are they armed?”

“Not that we can see,” Rockman replied. “But you may be about to have company.”

Frowning, Karr said, “Excuse me,” to Evans and pushed through the wide glass double doors into the building’s tenth-floor lobby. Leaning over a railing, Karr could look straight down the center of the staircase spiraling up the inside of the building, all the way to the entrance floor. Shouts and wild yells echoed up the staircase, along with the magnified thunder of running feet coming up the steps. It looked like the mob was up to the third floor already… no, the fourth.

Returning to the promenade outside, he signaled Delgado and Payne, who were flanking Spencer as the American continued arguing with Sir James. With things apparently peaceful enough, other than Spencer’s disagreement with the locals, Rogers had wandered off to find the cafeteria and get something to eat.

“Some of the protestors just jumped the security barriers,” Karr told the two FBI agents. “They’re on their way up. We need to get Sunny here someplace safe.”

“Inside,” Delgado suggested. “In the speakers’ area. There’s a green room.”

The green room was a place for delegates to rest and hang out without being pestered by the news media or other noisy types. Karr nodded. The room had one entrance, which could be easily defended.

Still, he didn’t want to overreact. When Greenpeace activists protesting the Star Wars initiative had broken through the security perimeter at Menwith Hill a few years ago, they’d used similar tactics. A few, designated “hares,” had cut through the fence and run across the compound, drawing off the security guards. Then the main body, designated “rabbits,” had swarmed over the fence, climbed communications towers, and raised banners. They’d stayed long enough to pose for the media cameras, some of them wearing outlandish costumes representing ballistic missiles, before being evicted or, in some cases, arrested and carried off to waiting police vans for trespass.

Most likely, the activists downstairs were going to try to crash the symposium’s party, shout some slogans, maybe hang up some banners, and grab some high-quality airtime on the evening news.

But they couldn’t afford to take chances, not with the death threats against him. They closed in on Spencer.

“Excuse me, sir,” Payne told him, interrupting a diatribe by Sir James. “We have a situation. If you would come with us…”

“I beg your pardon, young man,” Sir James said. He was furious, his face bright red. “We are having a private discussion!”

“You can discuss things with the mob, sir,” Karr told him. “They’re on their way up!”

“Eh?” Sir James stopped, listened, then scowled. “My word. What is that ungodly racket?”

“We have them on the eighth floor,” Rockman said. “They just pushed past a couple of security guards like they weren’t even there. More of them are coming in through the main doors now, too. Looks like this thing was planned.”

“We may not have time to reach the green room,” Karr told the FBI agents. “Come on. Over here.”

Delgado was holding his earphone in place, talking rapidly to Rogers over a needle mike beside his mouth. Karr heard him say, “Get the hell back here!”