JONNIE LOOKED AT THE COPY of Inside the Environment draped loosely on the stacked papers. The newsletter/scandal sheet lay folded back to the third-page story suggesting that the bizarre and irrelevant disclosures of one J. B. McDarvid, III, might stampede environmentally conscious Representatives into insisting that the metals initiative be withdrawn. An unnamed source stated, “McDarvid’s respectable enough that a lot of people are running for cover.”
Jonnie shook his head. Jack was thoroughly respectable—that was the problem. But why had Jack done it? Snapping off the computer, he stood up.
McDarvid’s door was open.
Jonnie stepped inside and closed it.
McDarvid leaned back in his chair. “Hell of a way to make a living.”
“Jack, we need to talk.”
“About what?” McDarvid answered. “About how we start a business when the roof falls in here—which it has? Or about the strange and wonderful workings of the media?”
Jonnie took off the silver rimless glasses and laid them on the desk. McDarvid’s desk was always clean. So were his bookcase and the credenza. “Let’s start with you. What in the hell have you been doing? That I don’t already know about? George Ames, our good fussy senior partner, has never bothered to notice my existence. Today, I’m hanging up my coat. He glares at me, sniffs, and walks away. Heidlinger turned around in the corridor and went back into his office.
“Last month, the Lao Systems rep comes barging in with all that crap about the Lao Foundation. You tell me that it all fits, but there’s no way to prove it, and you really don’t want to speculate until you know more.”
McDarvid nodded slowly. “I’ve never liked speculating. My dad was a lawyer. Used to chop me up for making statements I couldn’t prove. Maybe that’s why I always try to prove everything—even when I know the answers.”
“Jack, I’ve heard that before. You always get folksy and personal when someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer.”
“I don’t know if I can come up with answers.”
“Then what do you think? I’m not asking for facts proven in blood. I want to know why the law firm and half the environmental community are running scared of good old respectable Jack McDarvid.”
McDarvid smiled. “Scared of poor old insecure…”
“Jack…” Jonnie’s voice was low.
“All right. But there’s no proof.” McDarvid sat up straight. “It’s simple enough, even if … Maybe it’s not that simple.” He paused. “I’m not really sure I believe it.” There was another pause. “Let’s start with the Lao Foundation. They give scholarships to bright kids who are almost uniformly the children of federal civil servants. I’d bet that almost all of the parents are involved in such jobs as risk assessments for regulations, setting critical dosages for toxics, all the sort of baseline assumptions that determine the regs.”
Jonnie shrugged. “That’s what Lao does with their procurement. They work on the people who set the specs, usually not as honestly.”
“Fine. So the assumptions ensure that critical industrial processes can’t economically continue in the U.S.” McDarvid frowned. “Then we have Jerry Killorin living well beyond his means, and Jerry was one of those spec-setters before he got control of Standards and Regs. He had the procedural choke hold on the processing for regulations—before they did him in.”
“He’s missing.”
“I say the poor bastard’s dead. They found his car in Rosslyn. No traces, no fingerprints except his and a garage attendant’s, according to the Post. There won’t be any.”
“How do you know?” Jonnie asked slowly.
“I can’t tell you how I know. That’s just what my guts say. I mean, Jerry never had enough guts to run from an ex-wife who was bleeding him dry, or to stop drinking, or to stop gambling. He didn’t run from that hearing. Something stopped him. Anyway, the other thing is JAFFE. They’re moving into high tech, right in the areas where U.S. companies are being forced offshore, and they hire us. And they know exactly who Larry is and we are and what Larry did and what we do. Larry’s killed. Devenant insists on continuing. Us—not even lawyers. He just shuts out Heidlinger. And they keep tabs on what we’re doing. They’re playing for high stakes. Why? What do they know?”
Jonnie frowned. “I’m not sure where—”
“It’s simple. Assume there is this crazy plot, the one I hate to even think about, to destroy U.S.-based high technology, especially space and weapons stuff. That’s what you suggested, anyway. That creates incredible market opportunities. JAFFE is ready to take them, except the deal sours all of a sudden.”
“Sours?”
“Yeah.” McDarvid looked out the window. “The Europeans and the third-world countries start adopting U.S. environmental standards.”
“Shit. Then…”
“Right,” affirmed McDarvid, “there’s a delay, but the U.S. standards threaten business worldwide. What do you do if you’re a hard-bitten French multinational?”
“You go to the root of the problem,” said Jonnie. “You really believed that about the Russians? All this rests on the assumption that someone is using environmental regulations as a weapon.”
“It’s worse than that. I’m saying that they’re smart enough to act at the level of the underlying assumptions—the risk assessments, the critical dosages. For example, you’ll notice that they always use animal studies, even if there are epidemiological studies available. Why? Because the human exposure history studies—just like we showed with cadmium—prove the real-life effects of chemicals are not nearly as catastrophic as the extrapolations from animal studies.”
“That would mean somebody has been doing this for years.”
“Longer, probably.” McDarvid pulled himself out of the chair. “What could I really say? Without convincing you and the whole world that I had totally gone off the deep end?” He paused. “Maybe I have. Maybe I have.”
Jonnie leaned forward and picked up his glasses. “I see all the pieces. There’ve even been articles on every point you mentioned.”
“But no articles about conspiracies, right?” The older man turned toward the window and the light drizzle that cascaded down on Nineteenth Street.
“I’ve even seen a couple of small articles about environmental protests in the Soviet Union.” Jonnie paused for a second. “They’ve gotten green groups trying to shut down industry—just like some U.S. environmentalists.”
McDarvid shut his eyes. “Fine. They’ve grown enviro-nuts in Russia. But have you seen any articles about conspiracies to destroy U.S. industry?”
“Haven’t seen any,” Jonnie admitted.
“You won’t. If it is a plot, no one will say anything, and if it’s not”—McDarvid shrugged as he turned from the window—“then I’m as crazy as I seem.”
“The facts are there,” Jonnie admitted, thinking about McDarvid. Jack jumped to conclusions. But Jonnie had learned early that you never bet against Jack, no matter how screwy his reasoning. He stood up. “I guess I need to think this over.”
“Be my guest. Be my guest.”
As Jonnie stepped back into his office, he looked out the window, pursing his lips. McDarvid had still not told him what he had been doing—only why. Jonnie wondered what else he didn’t know about the friendly but silently intense man he had worked with for nearly four years. Some of that was Washington, the side of the city that outsiders never saw, where people hid their personal lives because so much of their lives were public performances.