It was a pleasant spot, with sunlight dappling the forest floor, but even so the television cameras had to turn on their lights to film the third-grade schoolchildren who sat in concentric circles around the famous actor and activist Ted Bradley. Bradley was wearing a black T-shirt that set off his makeup and his dark good looks.
"These glorious trees are your birthright," he said, gesturing all around him. "They have been standing here for centuries. Long before you were born, before your parents or your grandparents or your great-grandparents were born. Some of them, before Columbus came to America! Before the Indians came! Before anything! These trees are the oldest living things on the planet; they are the guardians of the Earth; they are wise; and they have a message for us:Leave the planet alone. Don't mess with it, or with us. And we must listen to them."
The kids stared open-mouthed, transfixed. The cameras were trained on Bradley.
"But now these magnificent trees--having survived the threat of fire, the threat of logging, the threat of soil erosion, the threat of acid rain--now face their greatest threat ever. Global warming. You kids know what global warming is, don't you?"
Hands went up all around the circle. "I know, I know!"
"I'm glad you do," Bradley said, gesturing for the kids to put their hands down. The only person talking today would be Ted Bradley. "But you may not know that global warming is going to cause a very sudden change in our climate. Maybe just a few months or years, and it will suddenly be much hotter or much colder. And there will be hordes of insects and diseases that will take down these wonderful trees."
"What kind of insects?" one kid asked.
"Bad ones," Bradley said. "The ones that eat trees, that worm inside them and chew them up." He wiggled his hands, suggesting the worming in progress.
"It would take an insect a long time to eat a whole tree," a girl offered.
"No, it wouldn't!" Bradley said. "That's the trouble. Because global warming means lots and lots of insects will come--a plague of insects--and they'll eat the trees fast!"
Standing to one side, Jennifer leaned close to Evans. "Do you believe this shit?"
Evans yawned. He had slept on the flight up, and had dozed off again in the ride from the airport to this grove in Sequoia National Park. He felt groggy now, looking at Bradley. Groggy and bored.
By now the kids were fidgeting, and Bradley turned squarely to the cameras. He spoke with the easy authority he had mastered while playing the president for so many years on television. "The threat of abrupt climate change," he said, "is so devastating for mankind, and for all life on this planet, that conferences are being convened all around the world to deal with it. There is a conference in Los Angeles starting tomorrow, where scientists will discuss what we can do to mitigate this terrible threat. But if we do nothing, catastrophe looms. And these mighty, magnificent trees will be a memory, a postcard from the past, a snapshot of man's inhumanity to the natural world. We're responsible for catastrophic climate change. And only we can stop it."
He finished, with a slight turn to favor his good side, and a piercing stare from his baby blues, right into the lens.
"I have to pee-pee," one girl said.
The plane lifted off the runway and rose over the forest.
"Sorry to rush you," Evans said. "But we have to get to the morgue before six."
"No problem, no problem." Bradley smiled indulgently. After his talk, he had taken a few minutes to sign autographs for the kids. The cameras filmed that as well. He turned to Jennifer, giving her his best smile. "And what do you do, Miss Hadley?"
"I'm on the global warming legal team."
"Good, so you're one of us. How's the lawsuit going?"
"Just fine," she said, glancing at Evans.
"I get the feeling you're as brilliant as you are beautiful," Bradley said.
"Actually, no," she said. Evans could see that the actor was annoying her.
"You're being modest. It's very charming."
"I'm being honest," she said, "and telling you I don't like flattery."
"Hardly flattery, in your case," he said.
"And hardly honest, in yours," she replied.
"Believe me when I say that I genuinely admire what you're doing," Bradley said. "I can't wait for you people to stick it to the EPA. We have to keep the pressure on. That's why I did this thing with the kids. It's a sure-fire television segment for abrupt climate change. And I thought it went extremely well, didn't you?"
"Reasonably well, considering."
"Considering?"
"That it was all bullshit," Jennifer said.
Bradley's smile remained fixed, but his eyes narrowed. "I'm not sure what you're referring to," he said.
"I'm referring to all of it, Ted. The whole speech. Sequoias are sentinels and guardians of the planet? They have a message for us?"
"Well, they do--"
"They'retrees, Ted. Bigtrees. They have about as much of a message for mankind as an eggplant."
"I think you are missing--"
"And they've managed to survive forest fires? Hardly--they'redependent on fires, because that's how they reproduce. Redwoods have tough seeds that only burst open in the heat of a fire. Fires are essential for the health of the redwood forest."
"I think," Bradley said rather stiffly, "that you may have missed my point."