Gabriel's Stand (7 page)

Snowfeather knew the Longworthy name well. “I'd be happy to come,” Snowfeather said.

“Then we should stay in touch. Here,” Berker said, producing a business card bearing a logo consisting of a line drawing of the earth, holding a green eye centered under the words: “Earth's Sisters.”

Snowfeather glanced at it. “Not the Women's League?”

“Same address. The ‘Sisters' are the governing committee, in effect.”

Snowfeather nodded, “And you are the Big Sister, I assume.” Then she slipped the card into her jeans. Snowfeather did not offer one in return. She waved as she turned to head down the path. “Nice to meet you.”

“Will you have any time to meet this week?” Berker asked.

Snowfeather slowed, calling out, “Day after tomorrow? In the afternoon?”

“Excellent. You are staying at Gates Hall, I believe.”

Snowfeather stopped walking. “You seem to know a lot about me. I really am running late.”

“We'd like you to know more about us. Five o'clock?”

“Okay.” She took out the card. “I see you are in Pioneer Square.”

“Yes. Can we pick you up?”

“I'll manage to find you, thanks anyway.”

Snowfeather stepped up her pace. After a moment, she glanced back at Berker's purposeful, retreating form, followed by her slightly uncoordinated companion. Both disappeared into a parking structure. Snowfeather trotted on her way, lost in speculation.

It was a dark Seattle winter afternoon, and the streetlights dimly glowed in the damp air. The office of the Women's League was an unmarked walk-up behind the Earth Planet bookstore. The store occupied a poorly illuminated niche between an office supply and a vacant business.

Snowfeather nodded to the bored clerk in the bookstore and opened a rear door that revealed a dim, musty stairway. As she approached the top of the stairs, she could see Cynthia Thomas and Louise Berker standing near the doorway of the Women's League office.

“Come in, Snowfeather,” Louise Berker said, holding the door to the small office. “It isn't exactly downtown, but it's ours.” Snowfeather entered a spartan reception area, and was escorted to a large, book-lined room. A simple relief globe of the earth, in true color without political markings, hung from the ceiling over a battered oak conference table. “Let's talk,” Berker said, pointing to a chair.

“You have a very interesting library,” Snowfeather said as she looked around the room. “And where is Mr. Longworthy?”

“Oh, that wasn't for today,” Berker said. “We need to get to know you a little better.”

“Every important environmental text and ecological book…they're all here,” Cynthia Thomas said proudly. “As good or better than the University library.”

“I am impressed. You should have these online.”

“Computers,” Berker dismissed. “They can be a dangerous addiction. And we don't trust the cloud. High technology is not allowed here at all. Let me ask you a question.”

“Go for it.”

“What was the single most serious ecological problem of the last fifty years?”

Snowfeather paused, frowning. “There have been a whole series of calamities, of course. Global warming seemed to have stalled, restarted, even while the greenhouse gas situation was improving, then sudden cooling ensued with sudden out-of-season blizzards in temperate zones, followed by intermittent warming. In a word—weather chaos. Precipitation is either too much or too little. For several years running, there were major drought zones blighting forty-five percent of world crop acreage. I think food production in many regions fell during that period almost fifty percent worldwide before it began to recover. The overall picture is one of utter unpredictability and increased stress on the various ecosystems. The single problem is eco-stress, possibly without a single cause.”

“Good enough. And you might have added the food price inflation, riots everywhere, the rich countries buying up most of the food while millions starve.”

“That was ten years ago but, yes, we are still working our way out of that one,” Snowfeather said.

“Icebergs are again breaking away from the Antarctic ice mass in large numbers and masses,” Cynthia said.

“Yes, at least for a couple of years that was the case. I was getting to that,” Snowfeather said. “For a ten year period, ocean water levels at all coastal cities rose rapidly, in spite of the Fossil Fuel Technology Treaty. The current pause may be over.”

“What was most important about that treaty?”

“Well, the two-tier pricing system for basic crops seemed like a great idea, giving poor countries a subsidized low price for food imports in exchange for their retirement of fossil fuels, and restrictions on deforestation. But the unintended consequence was a reckless shift by the same countries to old style nuclear power generation. Worse still, companies like S&S shipping are plying the high seas with the resulting unprocessed nuclear waste. Plus, their expanding industrial base created new environmental problems, in effect repeating the China disaster.”

“Excellent,” Berker said. “You obviously know your stuff. Some computer models of global warming predicted a decline in warming, others an increase. None seem to have got it exactly right. What does this mean?”

“I thought you didn't do computers.” Snowfeather smiled.

“You got me there. There is actually an excellent answer in what you've said: Gaia will do what Gaia will do. But is that really your best answer to my question?” Berker asked.

“I don't follow you.”

“Over the last fifty years, at least one million species of living things have become extinct. The percentage of wild areas, outside the polluted ocean—just the wild land areas—have shrunk to forty percent of what they were at the beginning of the period. Wouldn't you say
that
is the single most serious ecological problem of the last century?”

“I suspect you are counting extinct microbes, but the larger animal extinction figures are pretty disturbing. Most of my Native American brothers and sisters would probably agree that the shrinking percentage of wild areas is a very bad thing.”

“The earth, you see, is injured. That is unacceptable.”

“Damage to humans is collateral,” Cynthia added.

What did she say?
Snowfeather shot Thomas a questioning glance; then she looked back at Berker, whose expression remained impassive.
Did she really mean that?

“So,” Berker continued, “what would you call the prospect of massive spills of radioactive waste products transported in North Atlantic by Ukrainian vessels, and in the Pacific by Brazilian, Indonesian, Ukrainian, and Chinese carriers?”

Snowfeather's answer came without hesitation: “Sounds like another S&S Shipping screw-up. It would be a huge disaster, of course,” she said.

“You know what we would call it?” Berker asked.

“What?”

“An opportunity,” Thomas said.

“To do what?” Snowfeather asked.

“To move opinion to the next level,” Cynthia mumbled.

“We are going to change the world,” Berker said flatly. “And you can be part of this. Can you meet Mr. Longworthy and a couple of special friends later this week?”

——

Two days later, Snowfeather was called to a noon meeting in a downtown Seattle boardroom. The room was on the top floor of the Fowler building, fifty-five stories of faceted green marble, oxidized copper and mirrored glass. The meeting was just one floor above the environmental law firm of Price, Farthwell and Longworthy.

As the elevator opened into a quiet carpeted hallway with rows of unmarked doors all the way to the end, Snowfeather hesitated, looking again at her hand-written directions. The boardroom was identified by a brass sign over the last door on the right: FOWLER. Snowfeather took a deep breath, walked over and opened the door.

At first, no one seemed to notice her arrival. Louise and Cynthia were almost unrecognizable in their tailored suits, seated at the end of a massive table of inlaid woods. The heavily curtained room was filled with plants and a large globe in natural color. Three men in beautifully tailored business suits sat in a row. No one rose.

Snowfeather hesitated; then Berker turned toward her and smiled. “Helen Snowfeather Lindstrom, this is Mr. Fowler.” She pointed to a slender man with snow-white hair, sitting to her immediate right. Knight smiled and nodded.

“
Knight
Fowler?” Snowfeather asked. The name belonged to a huge contributor to green causes, although the Fowler family fortune had been made in coal mining. “
The
Knight Fowler?”

“Yes,” the patrician man said graciously. “You have heard of me, then?”

“No. I just read the sign on the building,” Snowfeather cracked. Fowler chuckled.
A least the old guy has a sense of humor
, she thought.

“His support has been invaluable,” Cynthia said.

No kidding
, Snowfeather thought. “You have been one of my Dad's heroes,” Snowfeather said.
At least my Dad's biggest contributor
.

“Have you met Rex Longworthy?”

“I'm familiar with your work for the Greenspike Coalition, especially in the China spill case. That was amazing work!” Snowfeather took the man's offered hand.
Whoa. A hand like a dead trout!

“I see you have done your homework,” Longworthy said. He was impeccably dressed in a tweed coat.

“And this is Jim Funk.” The last man was in his early thirties, a shaved head and bright, intense eyes.

“Of Coffin and Funk?” Snowfeather said. The man nodded. “Mr. Funk, you have one of the hottest advertising agencies in the country.”

“If you think so, it must be true,” Funk said, also shaking Snowfeather's hand. “Please sit down.” Snowfeather took the seat nearest the door.

“This is a lot of clout in one room,” Snowfeather said. “I hope you all didn't travel on the same plane.”

Fowler laughed and winked at Berker. “Louise, you have outdone yourself. I already can tell that Ms. Lindstrom here has every bit the charisma and talent you advertised.”

“Is it Helen or Snowfeather?” Berker asked.

“I prefer Snowfeather.”

“Snowfeather, you may be wondering why this group is getting together,” Fowler said.

“Let me guess,” Snowfeather answered. “You are preparing for some demonstrations?”

“Not just that,” Berker said.

“This is a campaign. It will be national in scope,” Fowler said. “We want you to coordinate coast-to-coast protests.”

“Wow! Has something happened recently that I missed?” Snowfeather asked.

“Not yet,” Fowler said. “But it will. And you're right to see the need for a triggering event. This is just our readiness strategy, if you will. Something terrible
will
happen. Something always does. In fact, we want you to seize on every disaster,” Fowler said. “There are sure to be several.”

“National media will cover you in Seattle,” Jim Funk said. “And we are designing an ad campaign, the scope and impact of which the environmental movement has never seen before.”

“Snowfeather,” Berker said solemnly, “we need you. With your help, and the people in this room, in the next few weeks we are going to change the face of politics in this country for good.”

Snowfeather left her first power meeting buoyant to the point of giddiness. As the door closed behind her, her fleeting misgivings about Cynthia's collateral damage remark were forgotten. Snowfeather was going to be a player. She could make a difference. She would make a difference.

As soon as Snowfeather left the room, Fowler turned to Louise Berker with a solemn expression. “She is every bit as charismatic in person as on television. Can you control her?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Jim, I want you to show Ms. Berker a sample of your campaign.”

“Certainly,” Funk said. “This one will run in all markets in prime time on the eve of the Treaty ratification vote.” He pointed to the screen at the end of the table. “I have it on good authority that Rex Longworthy will be the regional Commissioner.” Fowler chuckled. Longworthy beamed as Jim Funk played the recording on a large drop down screen.

The scene opened to a 1920's neighborhood in Vermont, as a milkman is carried bottles to a doorstep, a young girl rode a bicycle along a tree-lined sidewalk. The music swelled and the camera zoomed out taking in whole neighborhood.

A voice-over proclaimed, “If the Earth Restoration Treaty is ratified, this can be your future: No television. No computers. No cell phones. No traffic. This was life as it was. As it can be again. Think about it.”

Text scrolled by:

Saving the Earth through Healing Retirement Confiscation.

Your Technology Licensing Commission.

Fighting the special interests. For Gaia.

An image of the earth, small and fragile as if from space, appeared on screen before it faded to green.

“Very good work, Jim,” Fowler said. “But we need something more pointed before the ratification vote.”

“An impressive sample, though,” Berker said.

“This is just an early draft,” Funk said. “I just wanted you to see the approach.”

“You might save the word ‘confiscation' for a bit later in the campaign,” Fowler said.

“Good,” Funk said, making a note.

“Very well then,” Fowler concluded. “Louise, you and I need to meet separately for just a minute. Thank you, Jim and Rex. Call me tomorrow.”

When the two had left, Fowler placed his hands together and faced Louise Berker. “You have to be very careful who you let in the circle and how far.”

“You refer to Snowfeather?”

“To everyone. Need-to-know basis only. Especially at the beginning.”

“Knight, you are aware that I've been in a covert mode for years.”

“Of course,” he said thoughtfully. “The G-A-N.”

“We are very aware of the need for secrecy,” she said.
More than you know.

“This kind of revolutionary social movement. It is structured a bit like a bull's eye,” Fowler said. “Concentric circles of people. At the outside, we present as soft, acceptable,
reasonable
. In each layer closer to the core, where the real message is harder, perhaps less acceptable to the common people, the trust level must be higher.”

And at the very center, some wealthy, foolish men will die
, Berker thought. “Very apt,” she said aloud.

“The treaty clause of the U.S. Constitution is our Trojan Horse,” Fowler said, smiling.

“I'm well briefed on Rex Longworthy's legal strategy for America. We can't wait to roll over the petty nationalism of this country,” Berker said.