State Of Fear

Page 27

 

  "If I recall," Kenner said, "Brewster came here with two graduate students. Wheres the other one?"

  "Interesting. He left from McMurdo yesterday, the day you arrived. "

  "So they all got out," Kenner said. "Got to give them credit: Theyre smart. " He looked at his watch. "Now lets see what, if anything, they left behind. "

  The name on the door said "Dave Kane, U. Mich. " Evans pushed it open, and saw a small room, an unmade bed, a small desk with a messy stack of papers, and four cans of Diet Coke. There was a suitcase lying open in the corner.

  "Lets get started," Kenner said. "Ill take the bed and the suitcase. You check the desk. "

  Evans began to go through the papers on the desk. They all seemed to be reprints of research articles. Some were stampe u mich geo lib followed by a number.

  "Window dressing," Kenner said, when he was shown the papers. "He brought those papers with him. Anything else? Anything personal?"

  Evans didnt see anything of interest. Some of the papers were highlighted in yellow marker. There was a stack of 3-by-5 notecards, with some notes written on them, but they seemed to be genuine, and related to the stack of papers.

  "You dont suppose this guy is really a graduate student?"

  "Could be, though I doubt it. Eco-terrorists arent usually well educated. "

  There were pictures of glacier flows, and satellite images of various sorts. Evans shuffled through them quickly. Then he paused at one:

  ISS006. ESC1. 03003375 SCORPION B

  What caught his eye was the caption. "Listen," he said, "on that list of four locations, wasnt one of them called Scorpion?"

  "Yes amp;"

  "Its right here, in Antarctica," Evans said. "Look at this. "

  Kenner started to say, "But it cant be" and abruptly broke off. "This is extremely interesting, Peter. Well done. It was in that stack? Good. Anything else?"

  Despite himself, Evans felt pleased by Kenners approval. He searched quickly. A moment later he said, "Yes. Theres another one. "

  ISS006. ESC1. 03003375 SCORPION B

  "Its the same basic pattern of rock outcrops in the snow," Evans said, excitedly. "And, I dont know about these faint lines amp;roads? Rocks covered in snow?"

  "Yes," Kenner said. "I think thats almost certainly correct. "

  "And if theyre aerial photographs, there must be a way to trace them. Do you think these numbers are references of some kind?"

  "Theres no question. " Kenner pulled out a small pocket magnifying glass, and scanned the image, peering closely. "Yes, Peter. Very well done. "

  Evans beamed.

  From the doorway, MacGregor said, "You found something? Can I help?"

  "I dont think so," Kenner said. "Well deal with this ourselves. "

  Evans said, "But maybe he will recognize"

  "No," Kenner said. "Well get the ID off the NASA image files. Lets continue. "

  They searched in silence for several minutes more. Kenner took out a pocketknife and began cutting the lining of the suitcase lying open in the corner of Brewsters office. "Ah. " He straightened. In his fingers, he held two curved arcs of pale rubber.

  "What are those?" Evans said. "Silicon?"

  "Or something very similar. A kind of soft plastic, at any rate. " Kenner seemed very pleased.

  "Whatre they for?" Evans said.

  "I have no idea," Kenner said. He resumed his search of the suitcase. Privately, Evans wondered why Kenner was so pleased. Probably he was not saying what he knew in front of MacGregor. But what could two bits of rubber mean, anyway? What could they be used for?

  Evans went through the documents on the desk a second time, but found nothing more. He lifted the desk lamp and looked under the base. He crouched down and looked under the desk, in case something was taped there. He found nothing.

  Kenner closed the suitcase. "As I thought, nothing more. We were very lucky to find what we did. " He turned to MacGregor. "Wheres Sanjong?"

  "In the server room, doing what you requestedcutting Brewster and his team out of the system. "

  The "server room" was hardly larger than a closet. There were twin racks of processors running floor to ceiling, and the usual mesh ceiling for cabling. There was a master terminal in the room, on a small steel table. Sanjong was crowded in there with a Weddell technician at his side, looking frustrated.

  Kenner and Evans stood outside, in the hallway. Evans was pleased that he felt steady enough to stand. His strength was coming back quickly.

  "It hasnt been easy," Sanjong said to Kenner. "The procedure here is to give each Weddell researcher private storage space and also direct radio and Internet connections. And these three guys knew how to take advantage of it. Apparently the third man with Brewster was the computer guy. Within a day of his arrival, he got into the system as root, and installed back doors and trojans all over the place. Were not sure how many. Were trying to get them out. "

  "He also added a few dummy user accounts," the technician said.

  "Like about twenty," Sanjong said. "But Im not worried about those. Theyre probably just thatdummies. If this guy was smartand he washed have given himself access to the system through an existing user, so hed go undetected. Were looking now for any users who have added a new secondary password in the last week. But this system doesnt have a lot of maintenance utilities. Its slow going.

  "What about the trojans?" Kenner said. "How are they timed?" In computer slang, a trojan was an innocent-looking program installed in the system. It was designed to wake up at a later time and carry out some action. It derived its name from the way the Greeks won the Trojan warby making a huge horse and presenting it to the Trojans as a gift. Once the horse was within the walls of Troy, the Greek soliders who had been hiding inside it came out and attacked the city.

  The classic trojan was one installed by a disgruntled employee. It erased all the hard drives in a business three months after the employee was fired. But there were many variations.

  "Timing on all of the ones I found here is short," Sanjong said. "One day, two days from now. We found one that is three days from now. Nothing after that. "

  "So. Just as we suspected," Kenner said.

  "Exactly," Sanjong said, nodding. "They intended it to happen soon. "

  "Intended what?" Evans said.

  "The calving of the big iceberg," Kenner said.

  "Why soon? They would still have been here. "

  "Im not sure they would have. But in any case the timing was determined by something else. "

  "Yes? What?" Evans said.

  Kenner gave him a look. "We can go into it later. " He turned back to Sanjong. "And what about the radio connects?"

  "We disabled all the direct connects right away," he said. "And I assume you did work on the ground at the location itself. "

  "I did," Kenner said.

  "What did you do on the ground?" Evans said.

  "Random disconnects. "

  "Of what?"

  "Tell you later. "

  "So were redundant," Sanjong said.

  "No. Because we cant be sure theres not someone else embedded in this place who will undo our work. "

  "I wish," Evans said, "I knew what the hell you guys were talking about amp;"

  "Later," Kenner said. This time the look was sharp.

  Evans was silent. He felt a little wounded.

  MacGregor said, "Ms. Jones is awake, and getting dressed. "

  "All right," Kenner said. "I believe our work here is done. Wheels up in an hour. "

  "To go where?" Evans said.

  "I thought that was obvious," Kenner said. "Helsinki, Finland. "

  Chapter 40

  EN ROUTE

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8

  6:04 A. M.

  The plane flew back through the dazzling morning light. Sarah was sleeping. Sanjong was working on his laptop. Kenner stared out the window.

  Evans said, "All right, what did you disconnect rando
mly?"

  "The cone charges," Kenner said. "They were laid out in a precise pattern, four hundred meters apart. I disconnected fifty at random, mostly along the eastern end of the line. That will suffice to prevent the standing wave from being generated. "

  "So, no iceberg?"

  "Thats the idea. "

  "And why are we going to Helsinki?"

  "Were not. I only said that for the benefit of the technician. Were going to Los Angeles. "

  "Okay. And why are we going to Los Angeles?"

  "Because thats where the NERF Conference on Abrupt Climate Change is being held. "

  "This is all related to the conference?"

  Kenner nodded.

  "These guys are trying to break off an iceberg to coincide with the conference?"

  "Exactly. All part of any good starburst media plan. You arrange an event with good visuals that reinforces the point of the conference. "

  "You seem awfully calm about it," Evans said.

  "Its the way things are done, Peter. " Kenner shrugged. "Environmental concerns dont come to the publics attention by accident, you know. "

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, take your favorite fear, global warming. The arrival of global warming was announced dramatically by a prominent climatologist, James Hansen, in 1988. He gave testimony before a joint House and Senate committee headed by Senator Wirth of Colorado. Hearings were scheduled for June, so Hansen could deliver his testimony during a blistering heat wave. It was a setup from the beginning. "

  "That doesnt bother me," Evans said. "Its legitimate to use a government hearing as a way to make the public aware"

  "Really? So youre saying that in your mind, theres no difference between a government hearing and a press conference?"

  "Im saying hearings have been used that way many times before. "

  "True. But it is unquestionably manipulative. And Hansens testimony wasnt the only instance of media manipulation thats occurred in the course of the global warming sales campaign. Dont forget the last-minute changes in the 1995 IPCC report. "

  "IPCC? What last-minute changes?"

  "The UN formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the late 1980s. Thats the IPCC, as you knowa huge group of bureaucrats, and scientists under the thumb of bureaucrats. The idea was that since this was a global problem, the UN would track climate research and issue reports every few years. The first assessment report in 1990 said it would be very difficult to detect a human influence on climate, although everybody was concerned that one might exist. But the 1995 report announced with conviction that there was now a discernable human influence on climate. You remember that?"

  "Vaguely. "

  "Well, the claim of a discernable human influence was written into the 1995 summary report after the scientists themselves had gone home. Originally, the document said scientists couldnt detect a human influence on climate for sure, and they didnt know when they would. They said explicitly, we dont know. That statement was deleted, and replaced with a new statement that a discernable human influence did indeed exist. It was a major change. "

  "Is that true?" Evans said.

  "Yes. Changing the document caused a stir among scientists at the time, with opponents and defendants of the change coming forward. If you read their claims and counter-claims, you cant be sure whos telling the truth. But this is the Internet age. You can find the original documents and the list of changes online and decide for yourself. A review of the actual text changes makes it crystal clear that the IPCC is a political organization, not a scientific one. "

  Evans frowned. He wasnt sure how to answer. Hed heard of the IPCC, of course, although he didnt know much about it amp;.

  "But my question is simpler, Peter. If something is real, if it is a genuine problem that requires action, why does anybody have to exaggerate their claims? Why do there have to be carefully executed media campaigns?"

  "I can give you a simple answer," Evans said. "The media is a crowded marketplace. People are bombarded by thousands of messages every minute. You have to speak loudlyand yes, maybe exaggerate a littleif you want to get their attention. And try to mobilize the entire world to sign the Kyoto treaty. "

  "Well, lets consider that. When Hansen announced in the summer of 1988 that global warming was here, he predicted temperatures would increase. 35 degrees Celsius over the next ten years. Do you know what the actual increase was?"

  "Im sure youll tell me it was less than that. "

  "Much less, Peter. Dr. Hansen overestimated by three hundred percent. The actual increase was. 11 degrees. "

  "Okay. But it did increase. "

  And ten years after his testimony, he said that the forces that govern climate change are so poorly understood that long-term prediction is impossible. "

  "He did not say that. "

  Kenner sighed. "Sanjong?"

  Sanjong pecked at his laptop. "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 1998. "* "Hansen didnt say that prediction was impossible. "

  "He said quote The forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change endquote. And he argued that, in the future, scientists should use multiple scenarios to define a range of possible climate outcomes. "

  "Well that isnt exactly"

  "Stop quibbling," Kenner said. "He said it. Why do you think Balder is worried about his witnesses in the Vanutu case? Its because of statements like these. However you attempt to reframe it, its a clear statement of limited knowledge. And its hardly the only one. The IPCC itself made many limiting statements. "

  "But Hansen still believes in global warming. "