October 14, 2018
Dallas, Texas
It was a crisp fall day in Dallas when Chris and Marnie stepped out of the elevator and onto the floor which housed the offices of the EPA Region 6. On their early flight from Houston Hobby Airport, the plane made a broad circle to the east over the Port of Houston. The ship channel was lined with refineries and teamed with tankers, barges, and tugboats. Chris wondered what his ancestors would have thought. How on earth had sleepy, backwater Houston surpassed Galveston as the commercial hub of the Gulf Coast?
Dave Yardly greeted them as soon as they entered the office suite. The two men shook hands. This was their first face-to-face meeting. They had been in close phone and email contact for days, working out their game plan.
“Good flight? Coffee? Anything to eat?” Dave rushed through the amenities, clearly anxious to get to work.
Chris was smiling at Dave’s energy. “Good flight. I’m fed and caffeinated.”
“I’ll take some coffee,” Marnie said.
Anne stepped forward. “Hi, I’m Anne Hallam. So glad to meet you.”
Marnie and Chris each warmly shook her hand. “Same here,” Marnie said. “We would never have gotten to the bottom of this mess without you. Nancy’s so excited to see you after this meeting. She was happy to have a reason to come with us to Dallas.”
“We decided to spend the night so we would have plenty of time to catch up,” Anne said. “It looks like a beautiful day to be outside. We’re thinking about a visit to the sculpture garden.”
Dave indicated it was time to get started and the group took their seats. He reviewed the agenda.
“Let me go over the guest list,” Dave began. “The most important attendee is William Oakes, Acting Deputy Director of the EPA.” He then rattled off the names of five more participants, all from the uppermost echelon of leadership at the EPA.
“Why so many with “Acting” in their titles?” Marnie asked.
“The agency has been running on a skeleton staff since the election. The new administration cleaned house to make sure the EPA would be amenable to a ‘business friendly’ relationship. But the work of the agency didn’t stop. There were reports to sign, invoices to approve. Those who remained were mostly pigeon-holed as acting until the new director could find loyal replacements.” Dave escorted them to the conference room reserved for the meeting. Dave’s assistant, Jarred, helped Chris load his presentation. The title blandly announced “2018 Initiative for Biosafety in the U.S. Energy Industry: Loosening Regulations.”
The intern was excused from the room and instructed to meet the attendees in the reception area and direct them to the meeting.
“This is a closed-door session, Jarred. No one else comes or goes without my okay. I’ll ask you to wait outside,” Dave said.
With Jarred out of earshot, Dave chuckled. “Nice title, Chris.”
Promptly at 10:00 a.m., the participants began arriving one by one. Dave introduced them to Chris Hill. Marnie assumed the role of assistant and took a seat next to Chris.
Acting Deputy Director William Oakes took his place at the head of the table. He gave Dave and Chris appraising looks and nodded in what seemed to be a supportive fashion. He cleared his throat and brought the meeting to order. “I want Dave to use the next few minutes to bring the group up to speed on several issues of grave importance. What you are about to hear is going to make waves, big waves, at the agency. The information was too sensitive to share electronically, so you will be hearing this for the first time.”
Dave explained that he was prepared, with the help of Mr. Chris Hill, the editor of the Bay City Daily, to present a proposed exposé with the potential of changing the current course of the EPA.
“Chris will be taking you through the materials,” Dave said.
Chris hoped he looked more confident than he felt. He advanced the slide show from the “2018 Initiative, etc.” to a mockup of the front page of his newspaper with the headline:
GULF NATIONAL LAB IMPLICATED IN SUPPRESSION OF CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH. DIRECTOR RESIGNS.
Murmurs of surprise arose from the group in attendance. When they turned their attention back to him, Chris began speaking.
“Thank you, Dave. And many thanks to all of you for taking the time to assemble here today. What you see on the screen is the headline of what we have been calling Version One of our exposé. Let me summarize what happened in Galveston between September 23 and October 9 of this year.”
With that, he led them through the gruesome confluence of events that resulted in the attempted suppression of climate change research and the murder of its author, the murder of the unscrupulous surveyor, and a police shootout that took the life of corrupt Gulf National Lab Insectary Division Chief, Roy Williams.
Chris continued with the next slide which read:
“The investigation uncovered evidence that Mr. Williams was being paid by the director of the lab to destroy research with implications for climate change. A member of his division was on the verge of publishing startling research on the spread of a deadly tropical disease in the southern U.S. as a result of global warming.”
There was a knock on the door. Dave opened it a few inches and spoke to Jarred who escorted a late arrival to the meeting room.
Chris replaced his slide with the “2018 Initiative…”
Dave motioned the late arrival to take the remaining seat at the round conference table.
“Sorry I’m late. My secretary had this meeting starting at 10:30.” He stated somewhat gruffly.
The group turned their attention to the well-dressed sixtyish gentleman with an impressive head of silver hair. He was clearly put off by the perceived miscommunication.
“Don’t worry, I’ll catch up. Relaxing biosafety regulations, right?” said the late arrival.
“Let me introduce Dr. Thomas Thatcher, Director of the Gulf National Laboratory,” Dave said. “Why don’t you get back to where we were, Chris?”
The “2018 Initiative…” was replaced by the front-page mockup. It took Thatcher a few seconds to realize that the slide had advanced. As he was reading it, those in attendance turned from the screen to Thatcher. The slide directly implicated him.
“What is this? I’m not going to listen to this crap,” Thatcher barked. He stood up ready to go.
All eyes were on him.
“I think you better stay right where you are until we’re done here.” Dave motioned to the two security guards, who, as instructed, were monitoring the door after the arrival of Thatcher.
Chris proceeded. “As I said, there is a Version Two.”
He advanced to a second headline:
EPA LEADERSHIP DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR SUPPRESSION OF CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH. MONEY TRAIL AND PAYOFFS LEAD FROM GNL SCANDAL TO DIRECTOR OF THE AGENCY.
Dave took over the meeting at that point. He explained how two hotline calls had set a series of events in motion. With the urging of concerned EPA employees and some inventive financial audits, he was ready to go on the record with the assertion that the director of the EPA had a network in place from the top down charged with suppressing climate change research.
Dave continued, “Then, from the bottom up, the Bay City Daily and local law enforcement have connected the dots in Galveston to implicate Dr. Thatcher in the payoffs to former division chief, Roy Williams.”
All eyes returned to Thatcher.
Chris watched the man.
He was unrecognizable from the cocky, self-assured man who blamed his secretary for his tardiness. The tan he had acquired from his daily beach walks had been replaced by a grey pallor. He was visibly sweating.
Director Oakes poured Thatcher a glass of water. The rest of the meeting played out like a Greek tragedy in front of the audience of career EPA professionals in attendance.
Thatcher sang like a canary. He readily accepted and signed an agreement for an offer of early retirement with no indictment in exchange for names, dates, and account information regarding the payoffs. He swore he had no personal knowledge of the murders.
Chris explained to the group that the police investigation could not implicate Thatcher in the murders. It appeared that Williams and his henchmen had gone rogue. After another twenty minutes, Thatcher was allowed to slink off, followed by angry and mystified stares.
As had been previously worked out between Chris, Dave Yardly, and Director Oakes, the paper would only publish Version One of the exposé if the Director of the EPA and those on his unofficial payroll were forced to resign. The EPA would have an opportunity to clear the rot from its ranks and get back to its original mission. Eliminating the corruption at the top of the hierarchy would minimize the damage done to the integrity of the Gulf National Lab. As far as the public was concerned, that would be the extent of it.
The group approved a strategy and timeline to bring this to fruition. Initially shocked by the degree of transgressions, they were elated about the leverage they now had to turn the EPA in a different direction.
Chris and Marnie gathered their few things together and said their good-byes to Anne. They were taking an earlier flight back to Houston. Chris needed to get to the newspaper. He knew he and Dave would be in close contact over the next several days.