Pinnacle Event

47

“Don’t get in the TOLL LANES, take the AIRPORT ONLY road,” Ray yelled at Dugout. “You don’t drive much do you?”

Dugout let his sunglasses slip down his nose and looked at Bowman. “I bike to work. I care about the environment, unlike some people whose jet-setting around the world creates a huge personal carbon footprint.”

“Really, Duggie? You don’t think what I just did for the environment has given me some sort of exemption?”

“We don’t know yet. There’s a hell of a lot of radioactive fresh water pouring out of where the Wilkes glacier had been. The computer models differ on what the effect will be, but none of them are good. There will definitely be some sea level rise in the next year. Would have been better if we had stopped all five bombs from going off.”

“Well, maybe next time you and Winston Burrell can get somebody better to do your dirty work,” Ray replied.

Dugout pulled the car over on to the shoulder and stopped. He took off the sunglasses and looked at Ray Bowman. “I’m just pissed off that you’re going back to that island. So is Winston. So are the Presidents. This one and the new one.” He reached into the backseat and grabbed a package. “I was going to give you the Cohibas to celebrate your getting a new job with the new Administration, but I guess you did earn them and a lot more by what you did on this assignment. Nobody else could have done what you did and certainly not in the time you did it. It’s just, I enjoy working for you, with you, and now you’re going away again.”

“You can work with me anytime, Duggie. I can always use a barback, maybe even teach you how to mix drinks.” Ray took the box of cigars. “I just can’t keep working at jobs where people try to kill me, where I have to shoot, where people die all around me. You’ll forgive me, but the next life I save is going to be mine.”

Dugout started the car back up and pulled into the traffic to the airport. “I googled that guy you mentioned who had the New Year’s party, Jost Van Dyke. All right, so it’s an island. How was I supposed to know? Anyway, if Brian, he’s the new guy in my life, if he and I come down for the holidays, can you find a place for us to stay?”

“With us. You two can stay with us, anytime. You’ll fit right in.”

They pulled up to the long, iconic terminal. “Mbali’s flight leaves an hour before yours, from B-34, South African Airways nonstop. Seventeen hours to Joburg. Yours is at B-21,” Dugout said.

“See you next month.”

He found her at a table near the Starbucks by her gate.

“Is it true that the new President offered you the head Intelligence job?” Mbali asked.

“No, it’s not true, and I declined.”

“Did you hear that the British found Sir Clive finally, hunkering in some drafty old castle of his in Scotland? What do you think will ever happen to the others?” she asked.

“The Kinders will be convicted, both of them. We’ll get the guy from Qatar soon enough. The Chinese will probably deal with their guy. Kuznetzov will be okay as long as his boss is running the show, but even that can’t go on forever, especially after this.”

“You really should have taken the intelligence job. You’re not half bad at this stuff,” Mbali laughed.

“I have a job and my boss has been getting testy about my absence. Our Thanksgiving holiday is next week and that is a big-time weekend at the bar. She needs me there,” Ray replied as the two sat at the food court in the middle of the terminal awaiting his flight to St. Thomas and hers to Johannesburg.

“And I have to get back to my son, before he thinks his auntie is really his mother.” She smiled, thinking of Nelson. “Tell me now, Mr. Bowman, what do your big American scientists say will happen to us all now that the ice has begun melting so fast in East Antarctica? Is there going to be a good world for Nelson to grow up in?”

“Let’s hope that explosion was the wake-up call everyone needed,” he replied. “It will raise the sea level faster, but by how much it’s too early to tell. The fact that the tritium gas bottle had been removed meant that the explosion was much smaller than it could have been.” Ray Bowman shook his head in amazement of what might have been. “If all five had gone off, with the tritium, we would not have had a chance to react to it. The flood would have happened. Now we do, we have some time, not much, but some. If we act now, in a big way, we may be able to deal with what is coming, may be able to slow it down, to contain it, maybe prevent the century-long global economic depression that the sea level rise would cause. Let’s hope it was the accelerator, the accelerator for acting on climate change.”

“I pray to God that this incident will wake people up,” she said.

“Don’t just pray. Tell your boss, the President. Tell him what he has to do. Everyone has to do their part.”

“Easy, preacher man. What will you be doing now? What is your part?”

“My part is to live a simple life, with a tiny carbon footprint and hope the sea doesn’t flood my bar. You need to come and visit us. Bring Nelson. Come for New Year’s, we have a big beach party.”

“Maybe next year, if the bar is still there,” she said. “This year I am taking Nelson to Jerusalem for Christmas. Danny Avidar is hosting us. For now, I have to get back for Marcus Stroh’s memorial service in Cape Town.”

“I wish I could be there for that, but there is another Marcus I need to go see about, Marcus Bowman, who is soon to come into this wicked world.”

“Thank you for naming him that,” she said. Ray thought he saw a tear forming, but she quickly put on her sunglasses. “It’s because of your Marcus that we need you, because of all the Marcuses about to join us on this crazy planet. We need you to make this place safer. We can’t be wasting you pouring beers onto that tender bar.” She bent forward and kissed his cheek. He held her hand.

“Perhaps someday again, I’ll go back, if Marcus and his mothers let me.”

She stood and gathered her bags. “Ube nohambo oluhle,” she said wishing him a good trip.

“Sala kahle, Mbali,” he said. “Ukuthula, peace.”