Wounded Earth (21 page)

* * *

Larabeth was relieved to hand the cassettes over to Guillaume. She felt like a relay racer who had passed the baton to a fresh runner; she was still running, but the focus was now on someone else.

It would have felt good to simply walk to her car and leave her client alone to handle the embarrassment Guillaume was dealing out. She would feel considerably safer once she was away from this crowd. J.D. thought she should hand Guillaume the tape and slink away.

But Babykiller had said she should live her life “precisely as if she were unaware of his existence,” or he would blow up the Savannah River Plant. What would she be doing if she were “unaware” of Babykiller's existence? She would be right where she was, helping Will defend Consolidated's interests.

J.D. was livid over the security risk she was taking. She had agreed to let him stand guard on the levee separating her from the bulk of the crowd. She could see him there now, scanning the crowd for weapons and occasionally cupping his hand over the weapon concealed under his own jacket.

* * *

Yancey and Lefkoff worked their way back along the levee and into the crowd. They were still hampered in their efforts to be inconspicuous and to stay close to their quarries. Guillaume sat out of reach on a raft and Larabeth was headed back to the cordoned-off area reserved for Consolidated's corporate officials.

The crowd surged toward the top of the levee as the raft arrived and the “hullabaloo” began. Guillaume raised his bullhorn.

“Good day to you, friends,” he intoned. “No, not just friends. Kindred. Brothers and sisters. Children of our Mother Earth. Thank you for joining GAIA in our fight for the health and survival of our species and our planet.”

The crowd was remarkably quiet. Even with mechanical amplification and distortion, Guillaume's voice could dominate an audience. Yancey scanned the throng for the signature blue-and-green headbands of GAIA members. He estimated that the crowd was made up of roughly one-third GAIA people and wondered if Babykiller or any of his henchmen were there.

The size of the crowd was remarkable. GAIA had orchestrated a miracle with their prepublicity. They hadn't just attracted CNN, the networks, and the local media. Those people were desperate for news. They had to have it on a daily basis, because their jobs required it. To attract several hundred ordinary citizens on a weekday to an event like this was a bigger trick, but Guillaume and his followers had pulled it off. And tonight, the media would broadcast their message to several million more ordinary citizens.

Yancey kept on eye on Larabeth and tried to blend in with the crowd.

* * *

Babykiller had been enjoying CNN's live coverage of the GAIA demonstration all morning. The camera periodically panned across the throng while the anchorman gushed over GAIA's powerful grassroots support. Babykiller had seen Larabeth flash by more than once. It wasn't difficult to spot J.D. Hatten, her hired sentry atop the levee. She was also clearly being followed by two men he didn't recognize—probably Feds.

He chuckled. Every one of them—Larabeth, Hatten, and FBI agents—assumed that Larabeth was the target of the day.

* * *

The watchers roared in response as Guillaume steered closer to the levee and closer to his audience. His craft had been designed to attract attention and, though she'd already seen it up close, Larabeth found that it was best appreciated at a distance—if appreciated was the proper term.

From the levee, she could see that the raft itself was brown, with “GAIA” painted randomly over its surface in all the colors of the rainbow. The first sail bore a surprisingly good depiction of the earth as seen from space. The caption said, “She is a watery world.”

The second sail had been painted with a copy of Da Vinci's famous study of the human form. It was labeled, “We are more water than flesh, more earth than blood.”

The third sail bore a primitive drawing of a chemical plant, belching brown smoke into the air and pouring green wastes into the water. The caption said simply, “Why?”

Guillaume's voice boomed over the bullhorn. “Thank you for joining us today in this struggle. Humankind is poisoning the very water we drink,” he said, gesturing at Consolidated's wastewater outfall. “This must stop, but it will only stop if we take our message to the people in power. Congress will vote tomorrow on legislation that will effectively gut the Clean Water Act. We will tie our craft to these wretched sewers and wait. If the legislation is passed, we will begin a hunger strike that will last until the President exercises his veto power.”

The Clean Water Amendments.
So that's what Guillaume is up to
, Larabeth mused.
I suspected as much.

Guillaume waited until the crowd's excited hum died down.

“We prefer to assume that Congress will do the right thing. By attending in such large numbers, you have done your part in expressing the will of the people. To show our thanks, we have prepared a dramatic presentation. And when the presentation is done, we invite you to wait here with us until our elected representatives take action.”

Larabeth moved closer in order to see better. Guillaume hadn't told her about this part.

Her attention was diverted from the spectacle on the water when a newscaster thrust a microphone in her face, saying, “Dr. Larabeth McLeod is the spokesperson for Consolidated today.”

“Dr. McLeod,” he went on, “does Consolidated have plans to halt the wastewater flow today in order to avert a hunger strike?”

She met his eyes and worked at looking confident. “GAIA hasn't asked that the wastewater flow be diverted. Stopping the wastewater flow would require a full plant shutdown and there's no need for that. Consolidated is completely in compliance with its discharge permit.”

Will thrust an open file folder into Larabeth's hands and she silently blessed him.

“As these data show, Consolidated's outfall was sampled three weeks ago by EPA personnel and analyzed in their labs. Their effluent meets all applicable laws, standards, and regulations.”

She handed the reports to the reporter, angling them toward the camera so that the EPA letterhead was clearly visible. The reporter thanked her and went away to find someone willing to say something more sensational.

Guillaume's male companion struck a small, handheld gong. Its amplified boom electrified the crowd and they rushed over to the canal to get a look at GAIA's “dramatic presentation.” Larabeth and Will followed them.

“When Odysseus sailed the wine-dark sea,” trumpeted Guillaume over the bullhorn, “its waters were pure. He cast his nets into the sea for fish to feed his crew. We commemorate their valor with a glass of blood-red wine. This wine, like their blood, will mingle with the water, then it will be no more.”

The young man ceremoniously cast a net overboard, pulled it up empty and threw it behind him. The young woman held up a silver goblet and slowly poured its contents overboard. The drum boomed and the crowd cheered.

Guillaume sat on a low seat by the raft's rudder. His barrel chest, broad shoulders, and sturdy legs were deeply tanned and glistening with sweat. He looked like an earthy Zeus.

Will nudged Larabeth. “This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen,” he said, a little too loudly. A cluster of onlookers glared at him.

“In war after war, the rivers of our Mother Earth ran red. But again, the blood mingled with the water and was no more.” The woman poured a second goblet of wine into the canal. The drum boomed and the crowd, on cue, cheered again.

“But now,” he said, “now, we throw our refuse into the wine-dark sea.” The young man ripped open three fifty-pound bags sitting in the center of the raft and thrust a shovel into the nearest one. He heaved shovelfuls of a white substance overboard, casting it into the water with a flourish that sent a cloud of fine particles rising above them. The young woman turned her head and coughed.

“We cast our waste on the land.” Guillaume's voice was rising. He rose, opened the wooden box at his feet, and removed an ornate cloak. The young woman thrust both hands into one of the bags and cast the powder toward the grassy levees. It fell short and cascaded into the water. She looked down at her hands and arms and began wiping them on her robe as Guillaume went on.

“We have devised ways to cast our refuse into the very air, the breath of Gaia,” he thundered, throwing the cloak over his shoulders and tying it at the throat. All three thrust their arms up to the shoulders into the bags and threw white powder into the air over their heads. It rained down over them.

Suddenly, the young woman screamed, clutched her hands to her eyes, and screamed again. She dropped to her knees at the side of the raft and reached overboard, bringing handfuls of water to her face and moaning. The young man was ripping at his toga and rubbing the skin beneath with one hand as he clutched his throat with the other. He jumped or fell out of the raft and into the canal.

Guillaume extended his arm, palm up, toward the crowd on the levee and cried, “Something has gone terribly wrong. Help us. Help my friends.” His richly colored cloak flowed in the wind. His black eyes glittered. His legendary charisma had never glowed so brightly as it did for the cameras in that moment.

The crowd began to yell for an ambulance. Will snatched the walkie-talkie clipped to his pocket and radioed the plant's emergency response team. Larabeth sat down and started ripping off her steel-toed boots. If she tried to swim in them, they would take her straight to the bottom.

* * *

Yancey's arms were pinned to his sides by a crowd that couldn't decide whether it wanted to rush to the riverbank to watch three screaming people suffer or whether it wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.

He blew his cover, but he didn't care. He yelled, “FBI! FBI! Let me through!” but he couldn't free a hand to reach for his badge or his weapon. He hoped Lefkoff was having better luck.

Yancey was standing on top of the levee and, when the struggling crowd parted enough to give him a view, he could see the whole ugly scene. Langlois and his friends were on the raft and in the water, crying for help, and an emergency team was rowing an inflatable emergency craft out to them.

Yancey was worried about Lefkoff. The man should have gotten to Langlois by now if it meant he had to walk on water. He could see J.D. Hatten struggling toward Dr. McLeod through the crowd below. He was no help to her, but at least he hadn't been trampled.

And Dr. McLeod herself, goddamn her, was sitting at the waterside yanking off her boots as if she were planning to take a swim. If this woman didn't develop some common sense, she was going to get him fired.

* * *

Larabeth grunted as she tugged at her boots and wished she could look away from the horror in the canal. She could see Babykiller's twisted mind in action, right in front of her eyes. He would find nothing so amusing as attacking an environmental leader in front of his tree-hugging followers.

She tried to ignore her guilty suspicion that she had dragged Guillaume into Babykiller's web. Could Babykiller possibly know that she had been passing tapes to the FBI through Guillaume?

Guillaume rose from his seat and fell, entangled in the wet heavy net the young man had thrown across his feet. With one big arm, he pushed the woman overboard. With the other he groped for the rudder, but succeeded only in knocking it further out of reach. The raft careened slowly to the left, toward the water rushing out of the three culverts.

Guillaume was still struggling to free himself when the raft floated under the biggest pipe. The water flushed over him and his cloak burst into flames.

“It is the Greek fire! The fire that lurks in sulfur!” he roared, tearing at the burning cloth. Water filled the three bags in the center of the raft and they slumped over, releasing a thick white slurry. The cloak continued to burn as the slurry flowed over Guillaume's legs and torso and splashed onto his face.

Larabeth started to throw her hardhat down, reconsidered, and put it back on. She held onto it as she jumped into the canal. She was a strong swimmer and the current was with her. Now if Guillaume could just hang on.

The emergency personnel had paused to pull Guillaume's injured friends from the water when Larabeth reached the GAIA craft. She used her hardhat to bail canal water over the raft, flushing the caustic powder away, then she hauled herself onboard.

Guillaume looked bad. The incendiary chemicals had burned themselves out, but the white caustic powder was still caked in his wounds. It had been a quarter-century since she tended wounds like that. She swayed on her feet for a moment, then her instincts kicked in.

She checked his airway. His breathing was labored, but okay. His pulse was fast and thready, but at least he had one. Now she had to get the caustic off him before it did even more damage. She dipped her hardhat in the canal and gently poured water over him. He stirred and groaned, but she spoke his name and he quieted. She thought he recognized her voice. There was no way to tell, but it gave her something to think about other than Guillaume and his wounds.

Bail. Pour. Bail. Pour. Flushing with copious water was the standard treatment for emergency injuries by caustics. Bail. Pour. The emergency team arrived only a few moments behind her, but it felt like more.

* * *

After Guillaume was stabilized and brought ashore, Larabeth allowed the emergency team to spray disinfectant on her mildly burned palms. The medicine was cold, it stung, it felt good. She stood silent and let her clothes drip as she watched the paramedics flush the young couple's damaged eyes with a portable eyewash setup and apply antiseptic spray to their burns.