Ark Storm (16 page)

Remember
, said the voice in her head,
how Messenger likes head games, how he likes to read people.

She felt light-headed, emotionally exhausted, but in some strange way armored by her resolve and by a kind of mastered terror. She just hoped her armor was Messenger-proof. She flashed her pass, entered her PIN, and strode into the office, raising a hand to greet Mandy, who scurried across her path like a black cat.

Mandy opened her mouth to speak, but Gwen’s determined stride brooked no interruption, and Mandy must have seen something in her eyes, so she just mouthed a silent “Hi” and went on her way.

The phone rang just as Gwen walked into her office. She checked the number, grabbed up the handset.

“Joaquin, what’s up?”

“The good news is I got your new sensors, chica, and the new buoys. I’ve spent the past three days getting them into position. I gave them a day to settle; I’ve just looked at the readings they kicked up. I’ve checked, then triple-checked them. They should have hit your screen an hour ago. I take it you have not seen them.”

“I’m looking now.”

Gwen eyed the new readings marked in green, scrolled down to the conclusions.

She swore under her breath.

“I’ve never seen sea temperature readings rise so fast,” she murmured. “And the colorscope results have moved onto a whole new stratum. You know what this means, Joaquin?”

“A mega-Niño. Wild weather, wilder than we’ve ever seen.”

“It’s the butterfly flapping her wings, Joaquin.”

36

THE LAB

Gwen stilled her breathing. She was good at it, bringing down her pulse, slowing her breath, using less oxygen, calming herself. It was a survival skill for all surfers of big waves. A multi-wave hold-down was not uncommon, and it could keep you underwater for several minutes. If you could hold your breath when you were getting the shit kicked out of you, you could sure as hell master your breath, and your nerves, during a conversation in an office, reasoned Gwen. She pushed to her feet. Showtime.

“Dr. Messenger, I’ve got kind of bad news,” said Gwen, standing in his open doorway.

“What, your model doesn’t work?” asked Messenger, looking up from his computer screen, eyebrows pinched.

“Oh, it works all right. It’s what it’s telling me that’s the problem. My sensors have been picking up extreme readings. We have checked and triple-checked them. They are accurate. We’ve got a mega-Niño brewing up, so fast and strong that as far as I can tell, no one else is onto it.”

Messenger jumped to his feet. “Mandy,” he called out. “Get Peter and Kevin in here now.”

Messenger turned back to Gwen. She felt his gaze, intense as always. She met it, steady-eyed.

“Come in, please,” he said, gesturing to a chair, pulling it out for her, old-world charm ascendant.

“Thank you,” replied Gwen, sinking down elegantly into the seat, flicking a smile at him. She could do charm too.

Weiss and Barclay hurried in. Weiss was carrying his laptop, as always. Barclay brandished his iPad.

They all sat round the table. Messenger turned to Gwen. “Tell them what you just told me,” he said urgently, as if the flood were coming even now.

“Oracle is predicting a mega-Niño,” said Gwen. “It’s brewing up as we speak. To put it in context, the last mega-Niño hit in nineteen ninety-seven. It caused twenty-two thousand deaths worldwide and cost thirty-three billion dollars in flood and drought-related damage.”

“Ugly,” proclaimed Barclay.

“It gets uglier. A mega-Niño means superfuel for the Pineapple Express. A warming sea causes more evaporation, giving a massive boost to the water vapor in the atmospheric rivers. These rivers are the ammunition, if you like, for an ARk Storm.”

“And what’s the detonator?” asked Messenger.

Gwen smiled. God, he was quick. In another world, she would have liked him.

“Pole-to-equator temperature differentials,” she replied. “And get this. A mega-Niño causes global weather chaos. It is more than possible that it will ramp up those differentials, in layman’s terms, detonating an ARk Storm.”

“Shit!” said Weiss, eyes going faraway. “The ARk Storm cometh. What would it look like?” he asked, eyes snapping back to Gwen.

“Read the article in the
San Fran Reporter
this morning!” instructed Barclay, pointing at a folded paper on Messenger’s desk. “That describes it pretty well. Scared the shit out of me!”

Thanks, Dan,
thought Gwen; an element of scaremongering to generate interest was a common journalistic tool, but then some things we should be scared of, she reckoned, remembering Riley’s words.

“Think of forty Mississippis slamming their way across the Pacific, hitting California.”

Weiss paled. Barclay’s eyes, flickering in thought, came to rest on Gwen with a kind of awed speculation.

“How sure are you, Gwen?” asked Messenger.

Gwen held up her hands. “I cannot be one hundred percent sure, obviously. All I can say is that the chances of an ARk Storm have increased dramatically.”

Messenger nodded. “Timing?”

“It’s a winter phenomenon, so sometime in the next two to four months, I’d say.”

“And the market view differs to this?” queried Barclay.

“Yes,” answered Gwen. “The prevailing academic opinion is that an ARk Storm is a possibility, not a probability, let alone a high probability.”

“Sure, academic opinion, gimme the
market
opinion,” pushed Barclay. He leaned across the table with the controlled aggression of an interrogator.

Gwen paused for a moment, registering that she did not
have
to reply. When she did, her voice was coolly impassive. “There is nothing like Oracle out there, so the market opinion will follow the consensus academic opinion as broadcast by the ARk Storm Project on its Web site.”

Barclay’s mood changed with the rapidity of a spoiled child granted the toy he’d screamed for. He leaned back, grinning. “So Oracle beats the market. I’m loving it!” He tapped away on his iPad. “You want me to buy some puts?” he asked Messenger, glancing across at him. “I’ve already prepped a short list of companies with the most exposure.”

Gwen stared at Barclay in disbelief.

“Good anticipation,” replied Messenger, rising to his feet. “Give me ten minutes. I want to check Falcon’s liquid funds.” He eyed each of them in turn. “I don’t need to tell you we have an information lockdown on this.”

“Wait a minute,” said Gwen, jumping up, slamming her hands on the table, locking eyes with Messenger. Outside at her desk, Mandy shot Gwen a worried look.

“We need to start warning people,” argued Gwen. “I need to talk to my friend at Hazards so the whole ARk Storm Project can be alerted.”

“We alert no one,” said Messenger.

“What, we just sit on this information?” asked Gwen, fury building, voice rising.

“Until I say so, yes we do. We need to get these trades on ahead of the market.”

“What, you mean benefit from my inside knowledge, from Oracle’s predictions?”

“Of course. Why would I not act on that?” asked Messenger, visibly impatient.

“But isn’t that insider trading?” asked Gwen.

The German burst out laughing. “Welcome to the world. Private equity is legalized insider trading. That’s why we all do it!”

37

HIGHWAY 1

Not trusting herself to speak, Gwen marched out of Messenger’s office, stormed across to her own, grabbed Messenger’s laptop, and marched back.

Messenger looked up in surprise as she walked back in. He stared at her, mouth set in disapproval.

“Here, lock up your baby,” she said, handing over the laptop.

“Where are you going?” Messenger asked, glancing at his watch.

“Surfing! I’ve had enough of the Lab for today, and if you or anyone else has a problem with that, too bad.” Without waiting for an answer, Gwen turned and stalked out. Tapping on his iPad, Barclay followed her.

“I hope I did not make a mistake there,” Messenger said to Weiss, eying Gwen through his window as she threw open the door to her Mustang and jumped in.

“She’s a scientist, not a money person,” said Weiss softly. “She’s ill at ease with the commercial imperative. I was too, way back when. Give her time. She’ll get over it.”

“She’ll have to, won’t she. If she wants to survive.”

*   *   *

On Highway 1, Gwen made a call.

“Hi, Dan, Boudy here. Look, you once said you were a good listener. I could really do with some of that now. … . I’m heading to Hurricane Point.… I’ll be there in thirty minutes.… OK, great … see you then.”

Gwen ended the call, turned off her cell. She felt as if she were on a collision course with fate. Fury, as it always did, made her reckless. Bring it on, she thought, accelerating along the coast road, hugging the contours as hundreds of feet below her the waves smashed into the cliffs.

38

THE SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION REGIONAL OFFICE, NYC, LATE MONDAY AFTERNOON, EARLY EVENING

Agent Pete “Rac” Rodgers sat at his desk, headphones clamped to his ears, elbows braced, chin in his hands, listening to the stream of verbal diarrhea that was Ronald Glass’s life. He was onto his fourth Red Bull. Domenica had kept him and Marlee up most of the night, and he found himself fantasizing about an all-white hotel room with blackout drapes, empty of everything save a big soft bed and him. He felt like he could sleep for a week.

Abruptly he sat up, knocking over the thankfully almost-empty Red Bull. He listened to the clip three times, then halted the recording and pushed himself stiffly to his feet. He rubbed his back like a pregnant woman. He was carrying too much weight and he knew it. Damn-all he could do about it. He’d given up cigarettes nine months ago, soon as Marlee told him she was pregnant. He’d replaced nicotine with sugar, and he and his wife had grown large together.

He barreled into Wilkie’s office. She was standing, back to him, headphones clamped to her ears, looking out the window. She was barefoot, doing perfect calf raises, like a ballerina warming up. She had a ballerina’s calves too—muscled and lean. Rodgers knew she did aikido, was some kind of black belt, and it showed in the parts of her powerful body that the suit did not conceal. A blond wig lay coiled on Wilkie’s desk like a dead animal. One of her disguises. She wasn’t pretty, her features were all a tad large for that, but she was handsome with her open face, ready smile, sharp gray eyes, and her striking red hair.

In her customary skirt suit—gray, anonymous-looking—she could have been any one of the thousands of PAs and lower-ranking executives who thronged Wall Street and its environs, but to anyone who looked closely enough, or who knew what they were looking for, she stood out. It was partially the stance. Even at rest, she stood like a sprinter on the blocks, leaning forward slightly on the balls of her feet, keen eyes focused on some finish line only she could see, and with an awareness that took in faces and memorized them, and names and bytes of information that would have defeated a lesser brain. The woman was encyclopedic; she was also one of the most energetic people Rodgers had ever met. He wished he could borrow some, just for a day.

As Rodgers reached out to tap her shoulder, Wilkie spun round in a perfect pirouette and beamed at him, pulling off her earphones.

“Saw your reflection,” she said with a grin. “No, actually, I felt your presence with my finely honed skills. What’s up Rac?”

Her partner grinned.

“We got Ronald Glass at it! Well, the foreplay, not the act. But it’s a start!” The mantle of exhaustion lifted and Rodgers’ dull eyes managed a sparkle. “Picked up a reference to
personal cell phone
. Come ’n’ listen.”

Wilkie followed Rac into his tiny office. “Hit it.”

The disembodied voices drifted through the room.

“Hi. It’s me,” said an excitable female voice.

“Call me on my personal cell phone,” snapped Glass.

“Sure thing.”

The recording ceased.

Wilkie studied her manicured hands. “The insider trader’s mantra. Call me on my fuckin’ personal cell phone.” She looked up at Rodgers. “He’s dirty.”

“Just a few weeks since we got the wiretap. Think how much went down before.”

Wilkie grimaced. “And the woman calling Glass, the one who no doubt gave him a big, juicy insider tip on his personal cell? Any ideas?”

“Unregistered cell phone,” replied Rodgers. “Pay as you go. She’d have trashed it after the call.”

“Profile?”

“Blue collar. Sounds like fuckin’ Minnie Mouse,” observed Rodgers, sliding into his chair, swiveling round to face Wilkie, who stood alert and straight, gazing down at him, her gray eyes cool and clear. No red veins for her. “Got access to some valuable info. Probably a PA somewhere. I’ll get the accent people to run her voice.”

“Good one,” said Wilkie. “I want to bring this bastard down, and all the crooked little shits he runs with.”

“You sound like Bergers:
eradicate the contamination
!”

“I’m a woman on a mission.”

“All we can do is do what we’re doing.”

“And pray for a lucky break. Wait for Glass or one of his tipsters to get just a bit too greedy. Then they’ll mess up.” Wilkie gave a nasty smile. “Wouldn’t it be nice to tap that bastard’s cell phone.”

“Nice if we could tap his home too.”

“I don’t think we’d ever get Judge Bustillo to agree to that,” said Wilkie.

“What would it take?” Rodgers asked.

“Evidence of terrorist activity. National Counterterrorism Center can get NSA to tap whoever the hell they like. Find some terrorist crap, and we’re sitting pretty.”

Rodgers screwed up his face, gave her a wry look. “Dream on.”

39

HURRICANE POINT HOUSE, MONDAY AFTERNOON

Daniel found Gwen on her deck, attended by her dog, who stood to meet him, alert, head raised. Dan trotted up the stairs with the fluidity of movement of the truly fit. He was wearing a suit. It should have looked incongruous with his tousled hair, but he wore it with a casual ease that only made it more elegant. He took Gwen’s face in his hands, kissed her lips lightly. Pulled back to study her.