Polar Shift (21 page)

“We do that a lot,” Trout said. “It's part of the NUMA job description.”

Frobisher stared at Trout and Gamay. Their calm expressions brought him back to earth, and he got a grip on himself. He went into the kitchen and returned with three cold bottles of beer, which he offered around.

“We've told you who we are,” Gamay said with her beguiling smile. “Now perhaps you'd tell us who
you
are.”

“Fair enough.” He gulped down half his beer. “Let me start with a little history. Most everyone knows about the letter Einstein wrote President Roosevelt.”

Trout nodded. “Einstein said that with a controlled chain reaction a reality, an atomic bomb was possible. He suggested that the United State develop such a weapon before the Germans did.”

“That's right,” Frobisher said. “The president appointed a committee to look into it, and the result was the work here at Los Alamos. Few people know that near the end of the war, Einstein wrote a second letter that has never been published. In it, he warned of the dangers of electromagnetic war, based on the theorems. But unlike Kovacs, who was considered by some to be a bit of a quack, Einstein's opinion had weight. Truman was president by then. He appointed a committee to look into Einstein's suggestion, and out of that came a research effort similar to the Manhattan Project.”

“We've heard that the Russians were pursuing the same line of research,” Gamay said.

“That's right. By the mid-sixties, we were neck and neck with the Russians.”

“How far did the research go?”

“
Far.
They concentrated on the land rather than the sky, and created some earthquakes. After the big Alaskan quake, this country retaliated. We caused some nifty floods and droughts in Russia. That was all small potatoes.”

“Floods and quakes hardly seem minor occurrences,” Gamay said.

“That was only the warm-up. Scientists from both countries discovered about the same time that the combined force from their experiments could cause major changes in the earth's electromagnetic field. A top secret meeting between the two countries was held on a remote island in the Bering Sea. Scientists and government officials attended. Both countries were presented with evidence showing the serious consequences of further experimentation using the Kovacs Theorems.”

“How do you know all this if it was so secret?” Gamay said.

“Simple. I was one of the participants. We agreed to end research and get back to lesser evils, such as nuclear warfare.”

“It's hard to believe there is something worse than a nuclear holocaust,” Gamay said, raising an eyebrow.

“
Believe
it.” Frobisher leaned forward in his chair and lowered his voice from habit, as if he thought that the room was bugged. “Keeping the secret was considered of such consequence that a security apparatus was set up in each country. Anyone who became too inquisitive or knowledgeable about Kovacs and his work was discouraged or, if necessary, eliminated.”

“Then the Kovacs Society wasn't formed as a cover for a poker game?” Trout said.

Frobisher smiled. “That story usually turns most people off. No, the Kovacs Society was formed here as part of the setup. The reasoning was that it would be a first stop for someone interested in his work. If you had wandered in here a few years ago asking questions that crossed a certain threshold, I would have made a telephone call and you would have disappeared. You're lucky the unit was disbanded a few years ago.”

“What happened?” Trout said.

“Budget cuts,” Frobisher said with a smirk. “Loss of institutional memory. The few people who were acquainted with the agreement died, taking the secret to the grave. No one was around to support the budget item, so it was cut. As time went on, Kovacs and his work faded into the woodwork. Like Nikola Tesla, Kovacs has become a cult figure of the conspiracy nuts, only lesser known. Most of the people who stop by here are crazies, like one guy who had a spider tattooed on his scalp. The more serious-minded are put off by my Froby act.”

“It's a very good act,” Gamay said.

“Thanks. I was beginning to believe it myself. I've been a one-man gatekeeper, fending people off when they get too nosy.”

“You talked about worldwide consequences from the electromagnetic manipulation,” Trout said.

Frobisher nodded. “What scared everyone was the possibility that the electromagnetic manipulation would cause a shift of the earth's poles.”

“Is that possible?” Gamay said.

“Oh yes. Let me explain. The earth's electromagnetic field is created by the spinning of the outer crust around the solid part of the inner core. Scientists at Leipzig University developed a model that showed the earth as a gigantic dynamo. The heavy metals and liquid magma of the inner-core electromagnet are the clutch. The lighter metals at the crust are the windings. The planet's poles are determined by the electromagnetic charge. The magnetic poles are the result of vortices deep in the molten core. The magnetic poles tend to wander. Navigators take this phenomenon into account all the time. If one pole declines in strength, you might see an actual reversal of the magnetic north and south poles.”

“What would be the effect of a magnetic pole shift?” Gamay said.

“Disruptive, but short of catastrophic. Power grids would be knocked out. Satellites rendered useless. Compasses confused. Atmospheric holes might be punched in the ozone, causing long-term health problems from solar radiation bursts. You'd see the aurora borealis farther south. Migrating birds and animals would be disoriented.”

“You're right about a polar shift being disruptive,” Gamay said.

“Yes, but it would be nothing compared to the effects of a
geological
polar shift.”

As a deep-ocean geologist, Trout knew exactly what Frobisher was talking about. “You're talking about actual movement of the crust over the inner core rather than a change in the earth's electromagnetic field.”

“Precisely. The solid part of the earth moves over the liquid part. There's evidence that it has happened before, caused by a natural event like a passing comet.”

“I'm a deep-ocean geologist,” Trout said. “A comet is one thing. I find it hard to envision that man-made machinations could cause major physical changes.”

“This is why the work of Kovacs was so important.”

“In what way?”

Frobisher rose and paced back and forth a couple of times in the small room to gather his thoughts, then stopped and made a rotating motion with his forefinger.

“This is different. Electromagnetism runs the whole universe. The earth is charged up like a huge electromagnet. Changes in the field can cause a shift in polarity, as we discussed a few minutes ago. But there's another effect, which Kovacs homed in on in his research. Matter oscillates between the stages of matter and energy.”

Trout nodded in understanding. “What you're saying is that by changing the electromagnetic field of the planet, it is possible to change the location of matter on the earth's surface.”

“That might explain the ocean disturbances,” Gamay added.

Frobisher snapped his fingers and smiled in triumph. “Give that man and woman each a cigar.”

“What would happen with a land shift?” Gamay said.

Frobisher's smile vanished. “The forces of inertia would react to the shift of matter. The waters in the world's oceans and lakes would be jerked in a different direction, pounding the coastline, causing massive floods. All electrical devices would fail. We'd have hurricanes and tornadoes of unheard-of force. The earth's crust would break open, causing huge earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and massive lava flows. Climate changes would be drastic and long-lived. Radiation sickness from solar rays penetrating the earth's magnetic field would kill millions.”

“You're talking a catastrophe of major proportions,” Gamay said.

“No,” Frobisher said, his voice almost a whisper. “I'm talking about nothing less than the end of all living matter. The end of the world.”

O
N THE
drive back to Albuquerque to catch their flight home, it was Trout's turn to be silent.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Gamay said. “Adjusted for inflation, of course.”

Trout came out of his trance. “I was just thinking about Roswell, New Mexico, where the UFO supposedly crashed.”

“Maybe we can go there another time. My head is still spinning with conspiracy theories after listening to our friend Froby.”

“What was your take on him?”

“He was either entertainingly eccentric or frighteningly sane.”

“That was my opinion as well, which was what got me thinking about Roswell. Some of the UFO enthusiasts say that after the incident, the president appointed a high-ranking board of scientists and government officials to look into the matter and cover it up. The group was called MJ12.”

“Sounds familiar. Are you thinking that the parallels with what we heard might be too close?”

“Maybe, but there's one way to confirm what he said one way or the other.”

“How is that?”

A plain-bound pamphlet was lying on the car's console between the two seats. Frobisher had given it to them, explaining that Kovacs had printed this single copy of the mathematical underpinnings of his controversial theorems. The booklet contained page after yellowed page of equations. Trout picked the publication up off the console and said, “Lazlo Kovacs couldn't test his theorems. But we can.”

A
USTIN STOOD ON HIS
deck and gazed out at the sparkling ribbon that flowed behind his house. The morning mists had burned away. The Potomac gave off a fragrance of sunbaked mud and wildflowers. Sometimes he imagined that the river had its own Lorelei, a sultry-eyed, Southern version of the Germanic siren whose singing lured Rhine rivermen to their death.

Heeding her irresistible call, he hauled his twenty-one-foot-long Maas racing scull from under the boathouse and eased it down the ramp to the water's edge. He slipped into the open cockpit, tucked his feet under the clogs bolted to the footrests, pushed his sliding seat back and forth a few times to limber up his abdominal muscles and adjusted the outrigger oarlocks for maximum efficiency.

Then he pushed off into the river, dipped his Concept 2 composite oars into the water, leaned forward and pulled the handles back, using the weight of his body. The nine-foot oars sent the needle-sharp scull flying through the water. He increased his rowing rate until the dial of the StrokeCoach told him he was doing his usual cruising speed of twenty-eight strokes per minute.

Rowing was a daily ritual and his main form of exercise. It emphasized technique over power, and the melding of mind and body necessary to send the light craft skimming over the water was a way to exclude the chatter of the outside world and to bring his concentration into sharp focus.

As he glided past stately old mansions, he tried to make sense out of the events that whirled around in his head like the whirlpool currents that had nearly drawn the Trouts to their deaths. One fact seemed indisputable. Someone had found a way to stir up the oceans. But to what end? What profit was there in producing killer waves and huge maelstroms capable of gulping down whole ships? And who was capable of wielding such immense and godlike power?

Austin saw movement out of the corner of his eye, cutting his meditation short. Another scull was pulling alongside his. Austin shipped his oars and coasted to a stop. The other rower did the same. They stared at each other. His newfound companion didn't fit the mold of the clean-cut, athletic types he often encountered on his morning rows. To begin with, long Rastafarian dreadlocks hung down from under the tan baseball cap. He wore sunglasses with blue lenses.

“Good morning,” Austin said.

The man removed his cap with the attached dreadlocks and took his sunglasses off. “Damn, this thing is hot!” he said. He grinned at Austin. “Been to any good kayak races lately?”

The sun gleamed off the bizarre tattoo on the sweaty scalp.

Austin leaned on his oars. “Hello, Spider,” he said.

“You know who I am?”

Austin nodded. “The Bob Marley disguise had me fooled for a second.”

Barrett shrugged. “It was the best I could do on short notice. A guy was selling them at a souvenir booth near the boat rental place. It was either this or Elvis.”

“Good choice. I can't see you singing ‘Hound Dog,'” Austin said. “Why the need to go incognito?”

Barrett pointed to a bandage that was wrapped around his head. “Someone is trying to kill me.”

“Why?”

“Long story, Kurt.”

Austin decided to take a stab in the dark. “Does this have anything to do with extra-low-level electromagnetic transmissions?”

It was obvious from the look of astonishment on Barrett's face that the comment had struck home. “How'd you know about that?”

“That's about all I
do
know.”

Barrett squinted at the sparkle on the river. “Pretty.”

“I think so, but you didn't come here for the scenery.”

“You're right. I came by because I need a friend.”

Austin swept his arm around. “You're in friendly waters here. If it hadn't been for you and your boat, I would have been killer whale bait. Come back to my house and let's talk about it.”

“That's not a good idea,” Barrett said with a furtive glance over his shoulder. He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a black box about the size of a pack of cigarettes. “This will tell us if there's any electronic surveillance in the area. Okay, it's clear right now, but I'd rather not take any chances. Mind if we row? I'm enjoying myself.”

“There's a place we can pull off not far from here,” Austin said. “Follow me.”

They rowed another eighth of a mile and pulled the sculls up onto a low bank. A kind soul had placed a picnic bench in the shade of the trees for the benefit of passing boaters. Austin shared his water bottle with Barrett.

“Thanks,” he said after gulping down a couple of swallows. “I'm way out of shape.”

“Not from what I saw. I was flying right along when you caught up with me.”

“I was on the rowing team at MIT. Rowed practically every good day on the Charles River. It's been a long time,” he said, smiling at the memory.

“What was your major at MIT?”

“Quantum physics, specializing in computer logic.”

“You wouldn't know it from the biker look.”

Barrett laughed. “That's for show. I was always a computer geek. I grew up in California, where my parents were both university professors. I went to Caltech to study computer sciences, then on to MIT for my grad work. That's where I met Tris Margrave. We put our heads together and came up with the Bargrave software system. Made a zillion bucks on it. We were doing fine, enjoying ourselves, before Tris got involved with Lucifer.”

“Lucifer? As in the Devil?”

“
Lucifer
was an anarchist newspaper published in Kansas back in the eighteen hundreds. It's what they used to call ‘matches' years ago. It's also the name of a small group of neo-anarchists Tris has been involved with. They want to topple what they call the ‘Elites,' the unelected people who control most of the world's wealth and power.”

“Where do you fit in?”

“I'm part of Lucifer. That is, I
was
.”

Austin eyed Barrett's head tattoo. “You don't strike me as a conventional person, Spider, but don't you and your partner control a considerable amount of the world's wealth?”

“
Absolutely.
That's why we're the ones to carry on the fight. Tris says men of wealth and education—those that had the most to lose—started the American Revolution. Guys like Hancock, Washington and Jefferson were well-off.”

“What's Margrave's role in Lucifer?”

“Tris refers to himself as Lucifer's driving force. Anarchists don't like the idea of following a leader. It's a loosely organized group of a hundred or so like-minded people affiliated with some of the more active neo-anarchist groups. A couple of dozen of the more violence-prone guys call themselves ‘Lucifer's Legion.' I was more involved in the technical than the political side of the project.”

“What makes Margrave so driven?”

“Tris is brilliant and ruthless. He is guilty about the way his family made its fortune off of slavery and rum-running, but I think he is driven mainly by an obsession with power. He got me into the Lucifer scheme.”

“Which is?”

“We were going to mess up the Elites' empire, so they'd cave in to our wishes and relinquish some of their power.”

“That's a pretty tall order,” Austin said.

“
Tell
me about it. We gave them a taste of what would happen a couple of weeks ago in New York. We shut down the city for a time during a big economic conference, hoping to get them to deal, but it was like an elephant being stung by a bee.”

Austin raised an eyebrow. “I heard about the blackout. You were responsible for that?”

Barrett nodded. “It was just a sample to show them we could cause chaos. Our long-range plan is to cause massive communications and economic disruption around the world.”

“How were you going to do that?”

“By using a set of scientific principles to temporarily foul up their communications and transportation systems and cause general economic chaos.”

“The Kovacs Theorems.”

Barrett stared at Austin as if he had just sprouted a second head. “You've been doing your homework. What do you know about the theorems?”

“Not much. I know that Kovacs was a genius who came up with a way to use extra-low-frequency electromagnetic transmissions to disrupt the natural order of things. He was worried that in the wrong hands, his theorems could be used to alter weather, cause earthquakes and other sorts of mischief. From what you've told me about your Lucifer pals, his fears seem to have been borne out.”

Barrett winced at the mention of “pals,” but he nodded in agreement. “That's about right, as far as it goes.”

“How far
does
it go?”

“We were trying to cause a polar reversal.”

“A shifting of the north and south poles?”

“The
magnetic
poles. We wanted to knock out communications satellites. Mess up commerce, and throw a scare into the Elites. Strictly low-end stuff.”

Austin's jaw hardened. “Since when are killer waves, ship-swallowing whirlpools and the loss of a cargo ship and crew considered low-end?”

Barrett seemed to draw into himself. Austin feared his sharp comment may have shut off further communication. But then Barrett nodded in agreement.

“You're right, of course. We didn't think of the consequences, only the means.”

“What were the means?”

“We built a fleet of four ships, each carrying a device modeled on the Kovacs Theorems. We concentrated the beam at an oblique angle into a vulnerable spot on the ocean floor. The power in each ship is enough to light a small city, but it's feeble when compared to the great mass of the earth. That's where the theorems come in. Kovacs said that at the proper frequency, the transmissions would be amplified by the very mass they were trying to penetrate, in the way a tuba amplifies the sound of air being blown through pursed lips.”

“I saw the giant whirlpool you created. That was more than a set of pursed lips.”

“A
whirlpool
!”

Austin gave him a condensed version of the maelstrom and the disaster it nearly caused.

Barrett whistled. “I knew about the giant waves we created with one of our field tests. The kickback sunk a cargo ship and one of our transmitter vessels.”

“Sometimes the sea gives back what it takes. The whirlpool churned up your transmitter ship. I managed to board her before she sank.”

Barrett looked stunned at the revelation.

“What's going on, Spider?”

The question shocked Barrett out of his daze.

“We didn't consider the violent ocean disruptions that would be caused by the anomalies we created in the earth's electromagnetic field. From what you told me, the disruptions continued even after we stopped transmitting and moved the ships off. The magma under the earth's crust must continue to move even after the initial stimulus. It's like the secondary ripples that bounce around a pond when you throw a rock into the water. That's the dangerous part of the theorems. It's what worried Kovacs. The unpredictability of the whole thing.”

“What were you doing the day I saw you in Puget Sound?”

“After the
Southern Belle
sank, I went back to the drawing board. I was conducting a test, using a miniaturized version of the setup on the transmitter.”

“That's what drove the orcas into a frenzy?”

He nodded.

“What was the problem?”

“The waves were bouncing all over the place. We had made an educated guess, but even if it were off by a nanosecond the transmissions can go haywire.”

“So Kovacs was wrong?”

Barrett threw his arms wide apart. “He published his general theory as a warning to the world, but he withheld the information that would make it work. Look, it's like an atomic bomb. You can find plans for an A-bomb on the Internet, and you can even acquire the materials to put one together. But unless you have specific knowledge about the way things act, it's going to fail, and the best you can get is a dirty, radioactive bomb. That's what we've got here; the electromagnetic equivalent of a dirty bomb.”

“The loss of your ship must have stopped the project in its tracks,” Austin said.

“It only delayed it. We had a ship in reserve. It's being moved onto station for the big, major zapping.”

“Where is that going to be?”

“Tris never told me. There were a number of possible locations. The final choice is all in his head.”

“How did you get into this insanity?”

“In a very routine way. I first brought the Kovacs Theorems to Tris's attention. I thought there might be something there for our company, but he saw it as a way to advance his anarchist cause. He asked me to develop a system that would cause a temporary magnetic shift. I saw it as a technical challenge. Using Kovacs's work as a basis, I filled in the gaps.”