Die-Off by Kirk Russell Read Free Book Online

these same senators and congressmen. They also figure those guys actually know the truth and will roll over when it’s politically correct and excuse themselves later from any responsibility to their children and grandchildren by claiming at the time no one knew whether global warming was real or not.’
    ‘Put them aside, I’m looking for pike hatcheries. If you have information it’s time, Matt. We’re doing a weird little dance that’s making me question where you’re going with everything.’
    ‘You’re not going to intimidate me. That isn’t going to happen, but I do want to stop the pike project before it’s too late.’
    ‘How many people inside ENTR would you guess know about the pike hatcheries?’
    ‘Are you recording this?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘I’d guess less than five people, all of them very well compensated to keep quiet.’
    ‘Does that include your biologist friend?’
    ‘Lieutenant, I have to protect him. I can’t just give you his name. His career is on the line the same as mine.’
    ‘Tell me again exactly what you do.’
    ‘I predict with some accuracy the future climate in specific areas with a focus currently on western states. ENTR is ramping up investment in water rights and want to know what they’ll be dealing with climatically in ten years. They’re investing in fish pens in Chile and in Thailand and Indonesia, and the questions are similar. They’re growing salmon and targeting solving the pen disease problems within eight years. That’s where the research at the legit hatcheries here can help out. They’ll road-test virus vaccines in hatcheries here.
    ‘I have to tell you I have wondered if ENTR is correct in looking at the coming reality with western rivers. That big die-off of salmon, thirty-two thousand or whatever it was on the Klamath some years ago, was about low water and warm water, and that’s what’s coming. Are you married, Lieutenant? My wife is one of my problems. She works for ENTR and she’s not going to be on-board with this.’
    ‘What does she know about the pike hatcheries?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Why are you bringing her up?’
    ‘She’s a lawyer for ENTR and she knows me. She knows I’ve got something on my mind and issues with the company. She told me last night I’d better not do anything that compromises the non-disclosure agreement, and between you and me, Lieutenant—and now you’ll think I’m crazy—I came up with an algorithm to describe the process of our marriage and it wasn’t pretty. We argue about everything and our conversations are dotted with code words. When she hears one of those or even the slightest vibration of one, down she comes from her spider web.
    ‘If I try to talk with her about whatever I’m working on, it’s always too much information for her. She shuts me down. If I go quiet, it’s my fault we don’t communicate. I’m too tall and getting thin and work too much. I’m getting old faster than her. Don’t ask me how she figured that out, but she’s certain of it. Other complaints: I should have stayed in academia and would have made a name and be safely tenured. I know you don’t want to hear about my marriage but it affects my decision to commit with you. She isn’t going to like it.’
    He continued on about his wife for a while and deflected questions and skipped through a variety of topics. He was bright and articulate and for all Marquez knew he had the name and number of the biologist in his cell phone. If not for last night and Soliatano’s visit with Hauser, Marquez might have pushed it to the line with Hauser now. He came close then backed off. He dropped Hauser at the deli and watched him walk back to the ENTR office with sunlight on his back and San Francisco Bay a dark blue beyond him, and decided that Hauser was a cynic and working on a trade with Fish and Game. He wasn’t going to quietly turn over a name and phone number of a biologist, and that wasn’t a moral wrong, but it was a choice.