"I'm okay. You?"
"A little sore. Well. Very sore. I think I got banged around in the car."
She nodded, and looked out the window for a while. Then she turned back. "When were you going to tell me?" she said.
"Tell you what?"
"That you saved my life. For the second time."
He shrugged. "I thought you knew."
"I didn't."
She felt angry when she said it. She didn't know why it should make her angry, but it did. Maybe because now she felt a sense of obligation, or...or...she didn't know what. She just felt angry.
"Sorry," he said.
"Thanks," she said.
"Glad to be of service." He smiled, got up, and went to the back of the plane again.
It was odd, she thought. There was something about him. Some surprising quality she hadn't noticed before.
When she looked out the window again, the sun had set. The golden band was turning richer, and darker.
TO LOS ANGELES
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11
6:25 P. M.
In the back of the plane, Evans drank a martini and stared at the monitor mounted on the wall. They had the satellite linkup of the news station in Phoenix. There were three anchors, two men and a woman, at a curved table. The graphic behind their heads read "Killings in Canyon Country" and apparently referred to the deaths of the men in Flagstaff, but Evans had come in too late to hear the news.
"There's other news from McKinley State Park, where a flash flood warning saved the lives of three hundred schoolchildren on a school picnic. Officer Mike Rodriguez told our own Shelly Stone what happened."
There followed a brief interview with the highway patrol officer, who was suitably laconic. Neither Kenner nor his team was mentioned.
Then there was footage of Evans's overturned SUV, smashed at the bottom of the cliff. Rodriguez explained that fortunately no one was in the car when it was carried away by the floodwater.
Evans gulped his martini.
Then the anchors came back onscreen, and one of the men said, "Flood advisories remain in effect, even though it is unseasonable for this time of year."
"Looks like the weather's changing," the anchorwoman said, tossing her hair.
"Yes, Marla, there is no question the weather is changing. And here, with that story, is our own Johnny Rivera."
They cut to a younger man, apparently the weatherman. "Thanks, Terry. Hi, everybody. If you're a longtime resident of the Grand Canyon State, you've probably noticed that our weather is changing, and scientists have confirmed that what's behind it is our old culprit, global warming. Today's flash flood is just one example of the trouble ahead--more extreme weather conditions, like floods and tornadoes and droughts--all as a result of global warming."
Sanjong nudged Evans, and handed him a sheet of paper. It was a printout of a press release from the NERF website. Sanjong pointed to the text: "...scientists agree there will be trouble ahead: more extreme weather events, like floods and tornadoes and drought, all as a result of global warming."
Evans said, "This guy's just reading a press release?"
"That's how they do it, these days," Kenner said. "They don't even bother to change a phrase here and there. They just read the copy outright. And of course, what he's saying is not true."
"Then what's causing the increase in extreme weather around the world?" Evans said.
"There is no increase in extreme weather."
"That's been studied?"
"Repeatedly. The studies show no increase in extreme weather events over the past century. Or in the last fifteen years. And the GCMs don't predict more extreme weather. If anything, global warming theory predictsless extreme weather."
"So he's just full of shit?" Evans said.
"Right. And so is the press release."
Onscreen, the weatherman was saying, "--is becoming so bad, that the latest news is--get this--glaciers on Greenland are melting away and will soon vanish entirely. Those glaciers are three miles thick, folks. That's a lotta ice. A new study estimates sea levels will rise twenty feet or more. So, sell that beach property now."
Evans said, "What about that one? It was on the news in LA yesterday."
"I wouldn't call it news," Kenner said. "Scientists at Reading ran computer simulations that suggested that Greenlandmight lose its ice pack in the next thousand years."
"Thousand years?" Evans said.
"Might."
Evans pointed to the television. "He didn't say it could happen a thousand years from now."
"Imagine that," Kenner said. "He left that out."
"But you said it isn't news..."
"You tell me," Kenner said. "Do you spend much time worrying about what might happen a thousand years from now?"
"No."
"Think anybody should?"
"No."
"There you are."
When he had finished his drink he suddenly felt sleepy. His body ached; however he shifted in his seat, something hurt--his back, his legs, his hips. He was bruised and exhausted. And a little tipsy.
He closed his eyes, thinking of news reports of events a thousand years in the future.