Max Johnston drifted back into the crowd, leaving Mercer thankfully free again. He finished the first drink Max had given him then took a small sip from the second. He smiled to himself as he looked around the opulent room. It didn’t matter how rich a person was, common problems still reared their ugly heads.
Max Johnston wore his somewhat openly. He was a widower, his wife having succumbed to an alcohol-induced suicide wish. Mercer recalled her drinking problem when he’d first met Max in Houston. An hour into the party, Barbara Johnston was so drunk that Max had to have his chauffeur take her back to their limousine. Six years later, after countless rehab programs that the media intrusively reported, Barbara washed down a bottle of sleeping pills with a fifth of vodka. Her suicide note said, “Gone to sleep, please wake me when life is easier.” And now Max was fighting with his daughter in front of some of the most powerful people in the country.
If that was the price of success, decided Mercer, Max could have it all.
He didn’t see Aggie as he scanned the room, and felt a small measure of relief. Speaking to her now would be uncomfortable at best. Within a few minutes, he was talking with the co-chair of the Johnston Group’s scientific arm, the ugly scene of a moment earlier all but forgotten.
Half an hour later, he became aware of her perfume. He hadn’t noticed it before, it was so subtle. Mercer noted the wolflike stares from the men and the jealous glances from the women and knew Aggie Johnston was behind him. He turned around. She looked as if she’d recovered from the confrontation with her father, but he noticed a shadow behind her impossibly green eyes that hadn’t been there before. Mercer knew it was best to act as if nothing had happened rather than rattle off some platitude about relationships.
“I never got a chance to rebut your attack on my profession.”
Aggie gave Mercer a smile of thanks, a small lift of her lips that pleased him inordinately. Yet when she spoke, sarcasm edged her voice raw. “My father’s company retains four entire law firms and a whole army of public-relations experts. They make excuses faster than the rest of the company produces environmental disasters. I’m sure you can toe the party line with the rest of them.”
She paused, regarding him clinically. “Let me guess. You’ll tell me how what you do creates jobs all over the world and gives hope to starving people who are still living in the nineteenth century. Does this sound about right?”
Mercer guessed she was a typical “cause and effect” protester. If there was an effect in the world, she’d join the cause. She would no doubt belong to numerous organizations, favoring new ones as they gained popularity. Harry White derisively called these people “flavor-of-the-month liberals.” It wouldn’t matter that some of her beliefs might be diametrically opposed to others as long as they were politically correct and au courant.
He used this to his advantage when he came back at her just as hard. “Do you know how many millions of young girls are denied a useful life because they have to carry water to villages often miles away? They are reduced to the level of pack animals because they don’t have access to a well and a mechanical pump. Accessible water is such a commonplace item that you simply take it for granted, but to many in the world it is a luxury that they can only dream of.
“Those jobs that I help create, the ones you scoff at, can free those women. When a company I work for starts paying employees, it affects not only them but their families and villages. It gives people hope. Christ, to deny them that is to return to the colonial period of human exploitation. Is that what you want?”
It didn’t matter how beautiful he thought she was, he would never allow himself to be pushed around. His reputation, both good and bad, stood as his testament and he would defend it no matter what.
Her smile was patronizing and taunting. “Nice try, Dr. Mercer. To most, that would have worked. Though I believe in women’s rights and I deplore our treatment, I am an environmentalist, not a feminist. I’m not a Socialist or an anti-technologist either, so the rest of your arguments are moot. I have my beliefs and you have yours. They do not correspond.”
“Did anything I said during that class yesterday make sense to you?” Mercer was hoping for a common ground, a reason to keep her near him.
“No, not at all. It might have impressed the students, but cliches and hyperbole don’t impress someone who is truly informed. And as to your theory that humans are conforming to evolution by destroying our environment, well that’s just bullshit and you know it.”
He found her use of profanity alluring. “Mark my word, as we learn more about evolution and extinction, we’re going to find that behavior contributes as much to a species’ demise as changes in environment or any other factor. If our actions contribute to our destruction, then that’s the deal nature dealt us. Period.”
“And you see no reason to change that?” she challenged.
“I see no way to stop it. The Chinese government plans to provide refrigerators to every household in the country. The antiquated technology they use would pump out so many CFCs and other ozone-depleting gases that any counteraction in the West would be futile. We couldn’t regulate fast enough to prevent the greenhouse effect you so fear. Why isn’t the Planetary Environment Action League trying to stop them? Groups like yours are adept at stirring controversy and garnering headlines, but you don’t attempt to offer workable solutions. You don’t have enough facts behind your outcries, so you appeal to emotions to get your point across. You probably agree with the results of the Earth Summit in Rio, right?”
“I attended it,” Aggie shot back proudly.
“Do you remember Article 15 of the Rio Declaration?”
Aggie shook her head.
“I forced myself to memorize it because it made me so disgusted, I never wanted to forget it. ‘Lack of scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.’ That means there doesn’t need to be proof for action to be taken. Taxpayers’ money can be spent on some problem that may not even exist. Unbelievably, the United States signed this garbage, potentially handing over billions of dollars with no way of knowing how the money is being spent.
“You think you’re trying to change the way mankind cares for the planet? Another document signed at Rio called Agenda 21 effectively states that the only way to stop environmental damage in the Northern Hemisphere is to pour tons of money into the third world nations of the Southern Hemisphere. Does that make any sense to you? I certainly don’t get it. Like I said in class yesterday, if you’re ashamed of our accomplishments, I’m sorry, but some of us are proud of them.”
Mercer turned to walk away, leaving Aggie speechless and a little slack-jawed. “Just a bit of trivia before I go. The very same scientists you rely on for proof of global warming were writing articles in the 1970s stating that pollution was actually cooling the planet, forcing us into a new ice age. When you can back up your cliches and hyperbole with facts, we’ll talk again.”
He was gone before Aggie could react.
Because Mercer had been the last to arrive at the party and was the first to leave, the valet was able to pull his Jaguar to the porte cochere only moments after he strode through the front doors. Mercer was angry at himself for getting into the conversation in the first place and wished he’d been thinking with his big head rather than his little one. He couldn’t deny an attraction, but that was as far as he’d let it go.
Mercer slid into the seat and closed the door with a slam. Just as he pulled the shifter from park, white knuckles rapped the passenger window. Startled, he pressed the power lock button and Aggie Johnston slipped into the Jag. Without a word, Mercer pulled away, the engine growling happily as he applied too much throttle.