Polar Shift (13 page)

“This is a fascinating discussion, but let's get back to something we both agree on.
Technology.
When we started this gig, you said you could keep a rein on all the power we're unleashing.”

“I also told you it would be an imperfect system without the proper frequencies,” Barrett said. “I've done the best I could without those numbers, but there's a big difference between a rifle shot and a shotgun blast, which is what we're using. The waves and gyres we created far exceed anything we saw in the computer models.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I'm thinking of pulling out, Tris. What we're doing is too dangerous.”

“You
can't
pull out. The project would go down the drain.”

“That's not true. You could plunge ahead on the basis of the work I've done. As your friend, I'm urging you not to continue.”

Instead of reacting with anger, Margrave laughed. “Hey, Spider,
you're
the one who discovered the Kovacs Theorems and brought them to my attention.”

“Sometimes I wish I hadn't. The man was brilliant, his theories dangerous. It may have been a blessing that his knowledge died with him.”

“If I told you Kovacs had come up with a way to neutralize the effect of his theorems, would you reconsider your decision to leave the project?”

“Having a fail-safe option would make a big difference. But it's a moot point. The knowledge died with Kovacs at the end of World War Two.”

A sly look came into Margrave's eyes. “Pretend, for the sake of discussion, that he
didn't
die.”

“Not a chance. His lab got overrun by the Russians. He was killed or captured.”

“If he was captured, why didn't the Russians expand on his work and make superweapons?”

“They
tried
to,” Barrett said. “They caused the Anchorage earthquake and screwed up the weather.” He paused, and light dawned in his eyes. “If the Russians had Kovacs, they would have done better. So he
must
have died in 1944.”

“That's the common assumption.”

“Wipe that smug grin off your face. You
know
something, don't you?”

“The story was true, as far as it went,” Margrave said. “Kovacs publishes the paper about electromagnetic warfare. The Germans kidnap him to develop a weapon that will save the Third Reich. The Russians capture the lab and take the scientists back to Russia. But one of those German scientists left Russia after the Cold War ended. I located him. Cost me a fortune in bribes and payoffs.”

“Are you telling me he had the data we need?”

“I wish it were that easy. The project was strictly compartmentalized. The Germans held the Kovacs family hostage. He held back crucial data hoping to keep his family alive.”

“Makes sense,” Barrett said. “If the Germans were aware there was an antidote to his work, they would no longer need him.”

“That's my guess too. He didn't know that the Nazis disposed of his family almost immediately, and forged letters from his wife urging him to cooperate for the sake of the children. Hours before the Russians arrived at the lab, a man showed up and took Kovacs off with him. Tall, blond guy driving a Mercedes, according to our scientist.”

Barrett rolled his eyes. “That description would fit half the population of Germany.”

“We got lucky. A few years after he left Russia, our German informant came across a picture of the blond man in a ski publication. Sometime in the sixties, the guy who snatched Kovacs won an amateur ski race. He had a beard and was older, but our source was certain this was the guy.”

“Have you tracked him down?”

“I sent some of our security guys to invite him for a talk. Same company that supplies the island guards.”

“Who is this company, Murder Incorporated?”

Margrave smiled. “Gant suggested them. I'll admit that the security company we're using is hard-assed. We wanted pros who wouldn't be shy about pushing the boundaries of the law.”

“Hope you're getting your money's worth from these law pushers.”

“Not so far. They blew their big chance to talk to the Kovacs contact. He smelled them coming and took off.”

“Cheer up. Even if you find him, there's no assurance he knows anything about Kovacs's secrets.”

“I came to the same conclusion. So I went back to Kovacs. I programmed a massive search of everything written and said about him. I started with the premise that if he had lived, he would have continued his research.”

“Quite the leap of faith. His work destroyed his family.”

“He'd be careful, but his fingerprints would be hard to hide. My program combed every scientific publication written since the war. It found a number of articles mentioning unique commercial uses of electromagnetic fields.”

Barrett leaned forward in his chair. “You've got my attention.”

“One of the pioneers in the research was a company incorporated in Detroit by a European immigrant named Viktor Janos.”

“Jan
us
was the two-faced Roman god who looks to the past and the future.
Interesting
.”

“I thought so. The parallels with Kovacs's work were too weird to be true. It's as if Van Gogh copied Cézanne. He might master impressionistic light, but he couldn't stop himself from using colors that were bold and basic.”

“What do you know about Janos?”

“Not a lot. Money can buy anonymity. He was supposedly Romanian.”

“Romanian was one of the six languages Kovacs was fluent in. Tell me more.”

“His lab was in Detroit, and he lived in Grosse Pointe. He must have run whenever he saw a camera, but he couldn't hide the fact that he was a generous philanthropist. His wife was mentioned in the local society pages. There was a birth notice of their child, a son, who died with his wife in a car crash.”

“A dead end, literally?”

“That's what I thought. But Janos had a granddaughter. I referenced her name and struck gold. She had done a graduate thesis about woolly mammoths.”

“The ancient elephants? What's that got to do with Kovacs?”

“Stay with me. She maintains that the mammoths were wiped out by a natural catastrophe that was a more devastating version of what we're trying to do. Here's the interesting part. In her writing, she said that had this happened today, science would have been able to neutralize the catastrophe.”

“The antidote?” Barrett snorted. “You're
kidding
.”

Margrave retrieved a portfolio from the table and tossed it into Barrett's lap. “After you read this, I think you'll change your mind about the project.”

“What about the granddaughter?”

“She's a paleontologist, working with the University of Alaska. Gant and I decided to send someone up there to talk to her.”

“Why not hold off on the project until we find out what she knows?”

“I'll wait, but I want to get all the pieces in place so that we can hit the ground running.” Margrave turned to Doyle, who had been quietly absorbing the discussion. “What do you think about all this?”

“Hell, I'm just a dumb air jockey from Southie. I go with the flow.”

Margrave winked at Barrett. “Spider and I will be busy for a while.”

“I got you. I'll grab another beer and go for a walk.”

After Doyle left, the two other men huddled over a computer. When they were satisfied their plan had gone as far as it could, they agreed to meet again. Doyle was puttering around the dock when the meeting broke up.

“I appreciate you changing your mind about leaving the project,” Margrave said to Barrett. “We've been friends a long time.”

“This goes beyond friendship,” Barrett said.

They shook hands, and minutes later the plane was skimming across the bay for takeoff. Margrave watched until it became a speck in the sky, then he went back into the lighthouse. He stared out the second-floor window for a moment with a smile on his strange face. Barrett was a genius, but he was unbelievably naïve when it came to politics.

Despite his assurances, Margrave had no intention of delaying the project. If ever a time existed when the end justified the means, it was
now
.

I
NCREDIBLE!”
Barrett said with a shake of his head.

He sat in the seaplane's passenger seat, his nose buried in the portfolio Margrave had given him.

Doyle looked over. “Good stuff Tris gave you?”

“
Good!
This material is
fantastic
!”

Barrett raised his head from the papers he had been engrossed in and glanced out the window. He had paid little attention to the world outside the cockpit and expected to see the same rocky coastline they had followed on the flight to the lighthouse island. There was no sign of the Gulf of Maine. Instead, thick pine forest spread out in every direction.

“Hey, Mickey, did you have one beer too many back there?” Barrett said. “Where's the water? This isn't the way we came in. We're lost.”

Doyle grinned as if he'd been caught playing a practical joke. “This is the scenic route. I wanted to show you where I go deer hunting. It will only add a few minutes to the trip. Sounds like there's good stuff in the homework Tris gave you.”

“Yeah, it's pretty amazing material,” Barrett said. “Tris is right. The subject is arcane, and the author generalizes a lot. And there's a difference between naturally occurring phenomena and the kind of thing we're trying to stir up. But she writes with firsthand knowledge about this so-called antidote. She sounds as if she had talked to Kovacs personally.”

“Good man. Guess that means you're sticking with the project.”

“Naw.” Barrett shook his head. “There's nothing here that will make me change my mind. Even if we talked to this woman, there's no telling how much she actually knows or how much is simply theoretical. This craziness can't go forward. The only way to head off a disaster is to go public.”

“What do you mean?”

“I've got a friend on the science desk at the
Seattle Times
. I'm calling him as soon as we land, and I'm going to lay out the whole story.”

“Hey, Spider, you can't tell people the skinny on this deal,” Doyle said with a vigorous shake of his head. “You sure you want to go public? You could get in one hell of a big mess.”

“I'll have to take that chance.”

“This will wreck Tris as well as the project. He's your partner.”

“I've given it a lot of thought. It will be better for him in the long run.”

“I dunno about that.”

“
I
do. He may end up thanking me for scuttling this crazy scheme.”

“Why not wait? He said he would hold off until someone talked to Kovacs's granddaughter.”

“I've worked with Tris a long time. He only said that to calm me down,” Barrett said with a smile. “The world has got to know what we've been hatching, and, unfortunately, I'm the one to spill the beans.”

“Ah hell.”

“What's wrong, Mickey? You said I was the one being gloomy.”

“How long have we known each other, Spider?”

“Since our MIT days. You were working the cafeteria. How could you forget?”

“I haven't. You were the only one of those smart-assed college kids who didn't treat me like scum. You were my friend.”

“You paid me back, big-time. You knew the best bars to find girls in Cambridge.”

“I
still
do,” Doyle said with a grin.

“You've done okay for yourself, Mickey. Not everyone can be a pilot.”

“I'm small potatoes compared to the Man.”

“Tris? I guess he is larger than life. I've always been a tinkerer. I'm like the architect who builds one house. He's like the developer who sells thousands of those houses. His vision was what made us both fortunes.”

“You believe all this anarchy stuff he talks about?”

“Some of it. Things are way off balance in the world, and I'd like to shake up the Elites, but I was more interested in the scientific challenge. Now that's turned to crap, and I have to set things straight.”

“And I'm telling you, like a friend, that's not a good idea.”

“I appreciate that friendship, but I have to say I'm sorry.”

Doyle paused a moment before answering, then said, “I'm sorry too,” with sadness in his voice.

With the matter apparently settled, Barrett went back to the portfolio, occasionally glancing out the cockpit window. They were flying over dense forest when Doyle cocked his ear. “Whoops! What's that?”

Barrett looked up from his reading. “I don't hear anything except the engine.”

“Something's not right,” Doyle said with a frown on his face. The plane dipped several feet. “Damn, we're losing power. Hold on. I'm gonna have to set her down.”

“Set her down?” Barrett said with alarm. He craned his neck, looking at the thick woods below. “Where?”

“I used to know the countryside pretty well, but it's been a while since I hunted up in these parts. I think there's a lake not far from here.”

The plane lost more altitude.

“I see something,” Barrett said, pointing at a flash of reflected sunlight.

Doyle gave Barrett the thumbs-up sign and steered toward the patch of blue water. The aircraft descended rapidly at an oblique angle that looked as if it would end in the tall pines. At the last second, Doyle pulled the plane up, skimming the treetops before making a pancake landing on the lake.

The plane coasted on its momentum toward shore and scraped up onto a narrow beach. Doyle was laughing. “That was a hell of a ride. You okay?”

“My ass is up around my ears, but other than that I'm fine.”

“Getting in was easy,” Doyle said, glancing at the surrounding woods. “Getting out will be the hard part.”

Barrett pointed at the radio. “Shouldn't we be calling for help?”

“In a minute. I want to check for damage.” He climbed out onto the pontoon and stepped onto the beach. He stooped a couple of times to look under the fuselage. “Hey, Spider, take a look at this.”

Barrett got out of the plane. “What's up?”

“Here, under the fuselage. It's amazing.”

Barrett started to get down on his knees. He was still carrying the portfolio.

“I don't see anything.”

“You will,” Doyle said. “You will.” He slipped a pistol out from under his windbreaker.

Barrett bent lower, and the leather folder dropped from his hand. The thick wad of papers spilled out onto the ground. Some of the sheets were caught by a lake breeze and scattered across the clearing as if they had a life on their own.

Barrett bolted after the wayward portfolio, scooping up the papers with the skill of a shortstop. He managed to gather all the papers before they blew into the trees. He tucked them back into the folder and hugged it close to his chest. He had a grin of triumph on his face as he started to walk back to the plane.

He saw the gun in Doyle's hand.

“What's going on, Mickey?”

“Good-bye, Spider.”

He could tell from the tone of Doyle's voice that his friend wasn't joking. His grin vanished. “Why?”

“I can't let you sink the project.”

“Look, Mickey. Tris and I can talk this out.”

“It's got nothing to do with Tris.”

“I don't understand.”

“I'll hoist a beer in your name the next time I get back to Cambridge,” Doyle said.

The .25-caliber pistol in his hand went
pop-pop.

The first bullet buried itself in the leather folder. Barrett felt the thud against his chest, but he was still in a state of disbelief when the second bullet grazed his head. Survival reflexes took over. He dropped the folder, turned and bolted into the woods. Doyle got off a couple more shots, but the bullets dug harmlessly into a tree trunk. He swore and gave chase.

Barrett ignored the low-lying tree branches that slashed at his face and the briers that grabbed at his jeans. His surprise and dismay at being shot by a friend had given way to sheer terror. Blood was trickling down the side of his head and neck. As he crashed through the forest, he saw a silver shimmer ahead.
Oh hell.
He had circled back toward the lake, but there was no going back.

He burst from the woods onto a sandy beach a hundred yards or so from the plane. He could hear Doyle crashing through the brush just behind him. Without hesitating, he slogged into the water, and then took a deep breath and dove under the surface. He was a strong swimmer, and, even with his boots on, he got several yards from shore by the time Doyle arrived at the water's edge. He went as deep as he could go.

Doyle stood on the shore and carefully aimed at the ripples marking the surface where Barrett had disappeared. He peppered the water with bullets, patiently reloaded and shot off another clip.

The water was crimson where Barrett had disappeared. Doyle decided to wait five minutes until he was sure Barrett wasn't holding his breath, but he heard someone yelling from the other side of a patch of tall weeds growing in the water off to his left.

He glanced back at the stain growing on the surface of the lake and tucked the gun in his belt. Walking briskly, he made his way through the woods and back to the clearing. He gathered up the papers that Barrett had dropped and slipped them into the folder, first noticing the bullet hole in the leather binding. He cursed. Served him right for using a popgun. Minutes later, he was in the plane, flying over the treetops.

As soon as he thought he had telephone service, Doyle punched out a number on his cell phone. “Well?” said a man's voice at the other end.

“It's done,” Doyle said. “I tried to talk him out of it, but he was determined to spill the beans.”

“Too bad. He was brilliant. Any problems?”

“Nope,” Doyle lied.

“Good work,” the voice said. “I want to see you tomorrow.”

Doyle said he would be there. As he clicked off, he experienced a twinge of Irish sentimentality at having to kill his old friend. But Doyle had grown up in a neighborhood where a friendship could end with a nighttime burial over a drug deal gone wrong or an imprudent comment. This was not the first time he had dispatched a friend or acquaintance. Business, unfortunately, was business. He put Barrett out of his mind and began to think of the riches and power that would soon be in his grasp.

He would have been less at ease if he knew what was going on back at the lake. A canoe had rounded the weed patch. The two fly fishermen in the canoe had heard the pop of Doyle's handgun. They wanted to warn whoever was hunting that people were in the area. One of the men was a Boston lawyer, but, more important, the other was a doctor.

As they emerged from the weeds, the lawyer pointed toward the water and said, “What the hell is that?”

The doctor said, “It looks like a melon with a spider on it.”

They paddled until they were a few feet from the object. The melon disappeared, and in its place were eyes, a nose and a gaping mouth. The lawyer raised his paddle and prepared to bring it down on the floating head. Spider Barrett looked up at the two astonished faces. His mouth opened.

“Help me,” he pleaded.