The Alarmists (12 page)

December 12, 2012, 7:52 P.M.

For an hour Canfield had held his wife’s hand, almost like an experiment to see if heat would transfer between them, but her fingers remained cold to the touch, as if he were holding the hand of a statue. He ran a thumb along the taut skin around her knuckles as he talked quietly to her. The talking was something he performed out of duty, for he wasn’t certain whether he wanted her to awaken. Still, it was one of the duties he felt compelled to hold on to, having abandoned so many others over the course of just a few days.

He thought it incredible how such a short period of time could so alter a man’s life—how it could grant him a completely new perspective. He’d come to realize that he was indeed his own man. Up until he’d learned that Van Camp would likely seek his death once the ice shelf fell into the ocean, he could tell himself that it was the job, and the influence of a powerful man, that had turned him into someone who could kill with impunity. After all, he seldom left anything to chance. That was why the drill team couldn’t have been allowed to return to the States. The chances of even one of those men going his entire life without telling someone how he’d participated in separating an ice sheet from a continent were longer than he wanted to bet.

Now, with the artifice of company loyalty stripped away, leaving only self-interest as motivation, he knew the calculated brutality was his alone. He knew when he’d stood on the windswept Antarctic ice and ordered that the drill team be eliminated, the decision belonged to no one but himself. And he would know it too when he took Van Camp’s life.

And in speaking to his unresponsive wife, Canfield wondered if he was avoiding taking into consideration the new tactical error he had made. He’d made the mistake of allowing his newfound freedom—the headiness that came with commanding his own fate—to cause him to overstep. Worried about the investigation by the NIIU, he’d struck a devastating blow. However, would the deaths of some of their own cause this odd little military unit to back off, or would it breathe new life into the investigation? Had he let the team alone, would they have been able to put together enough of the pieces to make sense of the whole? At this point, he would probably never know.

—

Brent wasn’t sure how he’d managed it, but he convinced one of the soldiers on guard duty to go to his hotel and retrieve his laptop. The professor suspected the man chafed inwardly at running an errand for a civilian, but then it got him away from the hospital for a while, so it was a win for both of them. Brent felt mildly guilty that he didn’t want the laptop so much for his ongoing research as he did for entertainment. They got the Internet in Afghanistan too, and he could find any variety of shows to keep him entertained while he waited for Maddy to wake up.

The captain had come through surgery well. The bullet wound, while horrible looking, showed a strike between her shoulder and sternum, staying clear of the heart. In fact, had it not severed an artery, she could have had the round removed with as little hassle as getting a few stitches. As it was, the severed artery would have killed her had it taken another fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the hospital.

He’d been in to check on her and to show her that he was in good health, and then he let her rest, promising to pop in again in the morning. That left him in a hospital lounge, surfing for something interesting to read to pass the time.

At some point he wound up on CNN, where he perused both the U.S. and international news sections, which now that he’d worked with the NIIU for a while he couldn’t view except through a lens crafted by this consult. It left him seeing ghosts everywhere. After searching a number of news stories, he was about to click on Sports when the video articles did their programmed JavaScript shuffle and moved an interesting looking one to the top. Curious, Brent clicked on it and found one of those Mayan end-of-the-world stories that had so irritated Richards.

He supposed the consult was the reason he hadn’t given more thought to the Mayan 2012 phenomenon. He’d become so involved in this job that a once-in-a-lifetime event with significant sociological implications was passing by him untracked. Almost a year ago he’d considered soliciting a research grant to study the 2012 phenomenon through the prism of Y2K, which was the closest parallel to the forthcoming event. He could have put together a pretty important paper about how far-reaching apocalyptic prophecies influenced the global psyche. It might have been interesting to study the lessons learned from Y2K as they related to the current situation.

He edged the volume up a touch on his laptop. The reporter, a silver-haired man with a serious expression, was standing uncomfortably close to a crowd of people in full riot mode. The text at the bottom of the screen identified the place as Stuttgart. As Brent watched, a group was pelting a line of police with rocks, bottles, and anything else within reach. The police were taking the brunt of the assault using their clear riot shields, and Brent could see that they were close to advancing against the angry mob.

Brent tried to focus on what the reporter was saying, even as the images on-screen pulled at his attention. Part of the draw was the fact that his field gave him an understanding of crowd dynamics, and in studying this one, he could see the fuel for an encounter that would escalate beyond police control.

The camera angle changed, making it clear that the confrontation was playing out against the backdrop of a bank. In light of this, some of the reporter’s words found their way past the professor’s filter:
stock exchange
,
credit
, and
bleak
. It was a moment before Brent noticed the man watching the screen over his shoulder.

“Stocks have been erratic for months,” the marine said—not the soldier who’d retrieved Brent’s computer but another from their unit. The man gestured to the rioters. “Most of these people are probably short-term investors worried they’re about to lose all the money they’ve sunk into companies they shouldn’t have invested in.”

The comment caused Brent to give the marine a second, closer look. He might have been all of nineteen. “You know a bit about investing?” he asked.

“Yes, sir. My father was a day trader before he retired, so I usually have a good feel for what’s going on.”

Brent nodded and glanced back at the screen. “In that case, what’s going on here?”

“That’s a good question, sir. And I’m not sure there’s a real good answer. From everything I’ve seen, most of the stocks that have dropped over the last six months are pretty solid investments. And yet people are short-selling and the prices are dropping.” He shook his head as if puzzled by what he was watching. “It’s like people are panicking without anyone yelling
fire
first.”

Brent considered the marine’s words but didn’t respond, and not long afterward the man left. It took several seconds before he realized that something was troubling him, yet he couldn’t pinpoint what it might be.

He closed the laptop, stood, and stretched, and then went in search of coffee. When he found the dingy pot in what looked like a break room, he poured himself a cup and stepped back into the hallway. The thing that bothered him still had a hold on some part of his brain, and as Brent sipped at the bitter brew he sensed the subversive thought slowly wiggle its way toward the surface. As it began to take form he understood that it had everything to do with the crowd of rioters, which he’d already analyzed using the Le Bon model. It was typical Convergence Theory. Yet that wasn’t all of it. There was something about watching that crowd develop into a dangerous organism for, if the investment-savvy marine was correct, no easily discernible reason that seemed to track with his earlier thoughts.

Brent took another sip of coffee, returned to his laptop, and sat down. He was about to continue on to the Sports section from which he’d been distracted when the idea chose that moment to reveal itself. The next moments were a blur as Brent scooped up the laptop and, leaving the cup of coffee on the floor by the chair, pushed past the two marines guarding the recovery room door.

Maddy was awake when he barged in. Without so much as a greeting, and as if this were just another brainstorming session back in the NIIU offices, he said, “I’ve been overlooking something. We’ve been tracking a tremendous expending of resources over a period of two years to produce a desired outcome. But aside from the fact that whoever’s doing this has a wide reach, everything we’ve seen has been pretty subtle.”

“You call the obliteration of an oil field subtle?” Maddy asked. Still in the insufficient hospital gown apparently ubiquitous to hospitals worldwide, she made a few adjustments of her attire for modesty’s sake.

“Comparatively speaking, yes,” Brent said. “When you’re dealing with sociological change, there are two things you have to consider. The first is gradual change over time. How do small influences alter the social framework over a prescribed period?”

“Which is what we’ve been following.”

“In an accelerated fashion, yes. Usually the kinds of changes we’ve seen would take decades to manifest. But if we can accept the original theory—that this is an artificially induced state—then, yes, what we’re looking at falls within the gradual family.”

“And the other family is . . . ?”

“A polarizing event. It’s also referred to as a catastrophic event, but I think that’s a bit much.”

“A polarizing event?”

“Right. In our recent history, think 9/11. A single event that alters the landscape for everything—from security to foreign policy to the stock market.”

He waited to make sure that Maddy was tracking with him.

“Y2K was a big one too,” he added. “Something that quickly entered the worldwide collective consciousness, which caused people to change behaviors, which affected what people bought and sold, if they went to church or not. Even though Y2K ended up being nothing, it doesn’t change the fact that up until the clock struck midnight, people were prepared for the worst.”

Brent saw the captain taking in everything he’d said. Over the last eight days he thought he’d come to know her pretty well, and he knew she wouldn’t dismiss his new theory out of hand—except that he hadn’t yet arrived at the big reveal.

It didn’t take Maddy long to do the heavy lifting.

“So you’re anticipating an imminent polarizing event,” she said.

“I am.”

The silence that settled over the room had a chill to it. It matched the one moving up Brent’s spine, despite that he’d been privy to the information prior to its delivery. What warmed him, though, was Maddy’s response, which indicated a willingness to accept the professor’s new theory as the truth.

“But how do we recognize this event before it happens?”

Brent shook his head. “I have no idea. That’s the part that I need your help with.”

“I’ll do what I can—you know that.”

“There’s one more thing,” he said.

With some pain, Maddy shifted slowly in the hospital bed and met Brent’s eyes.

“I mentioned Y2K.”

“Yes. What about it?” she asked.

“Y2K was a polarizing event that never materialized,” Brent said. “But the interesting thing about it was that it also contained elements from the gradual school. After all, everyone knew the year 2000 was coming.”

Maddy took that in and, after a few moments, responded with a nod.

“Just imagine what would have happened if 9/11 had happened on December thirty-first, 1999.”

“Global panic,” she said. “Chaos.”

“I think someone learned from Y2K. Someone watched the way the world reacted and realized that should something like it happen again, there would be money in it.” He paused, took a deep breath. “But the real money comes if Y2K actually happens.”

Following the bread crumbs was a lot to ask of anyone. Even Brent wasn’t sure he bought all of it, and he was the one versed in theory. What he did know was that it felt right.

Maddy then raised the question Brent had been hoping she would raise.

“But there is no Y2K right now. Nothing for a polarizing event to piggyback on, right?”

Even as she spoke, Brent kept his eyes on her, almost willing the captain to put the pieces together, as if she were a student listening to one of his lectures.

“Wait a minute,” she said, her eyes widening. “You’re not saying . . .”

“If I’m right, we have less than nine days.”

—

Arthur Van Camp seldom ventured outside the range of a convenient gun—one that he could pick up at any moment. With his position of power came a list of enemies of varying degrees and means, and while he doubted the eventuality of its use, he nonetheless kept it close.

He held the gun in his hand, feeling its weight. The Ruger P85 was a heavy gun—a brick, really. But he liked the solidness of it. It was the first time he’d removed the gun from the desk drawer in at least a year, and he didn’t know why he felt the need to do so now, except that having it in his hand made him feel better than he had when he’d walked in that morning.

He’d spent some time in the office at his apartment before giving up and having his driver thread him through Atlanta’s morning traffic to the massive house in Buckhead. The painting over the apartment fireplace refused to let him work without sending accusatory vibes in his direction. Still, he’d tried to sip his coffee and muscle his way through a few reports. In the end, his wife’s painting forced him from his workspace.