The Swiss police, Interpol and unnamed law enforcement agencies have so far declined comment but a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity speculated the action was taken as the result of the discovery of an arms cache in the headquarters of a heretofore unknown branch of GrünWelt in San Juan, Puerto Rico, along with seizure of both written and computer records that implicate the organization in a number of violent acts directed against institutions and persons not subscribing to the concept of man-caused global warming.
Ivor Klingov, CEO of GrünWelt, denied any connection with the San Juan group and was quoted as saying …
Momma folded the paper, placed it back on the desk, and exchanged it for another.
The Washington Post
August 5
SAN JUAN, PR — Heime Norriaga, spokesperson for the Puerto Rico office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced today that records of an alleged branch of the international conservation and anti — global warming organization GrünWelt seized in a raid days ago reveal a course of extreme and violent action against those with whom the organization disagreed as to the source of global warming or the fact of warming itself, as well as possible worldwide industrial sabotage and possible ties to a Chinese-owned company.
Although declining to make public the names of those arrested, Mr. Norriaga stated the charges included weapons possession and possession of false identification, including forged passports. He also stated six of the men had international criminal records, as well as connections to the former Soviet special service.
It is unclear what other charges …
“Go gettum, Jason,” Momma said to no one in particular, again swapping papers.
Chicago Tribune
August 6
LYON — At its headquarters here today, Interpol announced that records seized in Bern earlier this week definitely demonstrate the international anti — global warming and conservationist organization GrünWelt subsidized a secret branch in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was, in turn, owned by a company suspected of having ties to the Chinese government. The duties of the San Juan “office” were not the slogans and peaceful advocacy of ecological “green” causes for which GrünWelt is known but intimidation, violence and, in at least one instance, murder.
Additionally, Interpol claims to be decoding special computer programs that may link the organization to a number of unexplained mine disasters, oil leaks and spills, gas explosions and other catastrophes of which GrünWelt seemed to have knowledge before the events occurred.
Interpol has posted names and photographs of suspects not in custody in all 29 participating nations. A spokesperson for Greenpeace and other “green” organizations denounced GrünWelt as …
Momma drained the last drops of coffee as she dropped all three papers into a magazine rack. Sitting behind the desk, she picked up the phone, the only object other than a computer monitor on the leather-inlay surface.
A response was almost instant. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Our man Jason Peters, find him.”
“How soon do you need that information?”
“No rush,” Momma replied. “But somewhere down the line we gonna need him again an’ I ’spect he don’ wanna be found.”
Epilogue
Painting the placid blues and greens of the Tyrrhenian Sea upon which Ischia floated so placidly was very different from portraying the gray violence of the English Channel. The wind was as native here as the rock outcroppings, the fields of yellow sea oats, and the universally unpaved lanes from which almost all motorized traffic was banned. The wind hummed, sang, or howled. It was rarely silent.
And it changed the seascape from second to second. As Jason set up his easel — he had learned the hard way to make sure it was secured lest it take flight — the dove-colored waves were frothing against the rocks below in rhythmic surges. By the time he had mixed his pigments, the water had become a darker gray, spitting angry foam.
It had all been very frustrating until he had learned how to approximate the shades of dun color and premix them.
Standing on a naked cliff, Jason paused long enough to watch Pangloss in his perpetual exploring expedition, although the dog had covered almost all the tiny island’s three by one and a half miles, including the unfortunate excavation of a neighbor’s flower garden.
The smallest of the inhabited Channel Islands, Sark bore the footprints of stone-age men, Roman conquerors, Vikings, Normans, and invading Germans during World War II. Since the grant of a fiefdom by Queen Elizabeth I and the lord’s right of first night with the island’s brides, all unobserved since long before living memory, were finally abolished, no one was certain if the feudal lord was still required to keep a musket at hand for defense of the island. That was the major change of the century. Or the last several centuries, for that matter. Under elected council or feudal lord, horses and cows still outnumbered the five hundred or so hardy souls who called the hilly, rocky island home. Except for the advent of the bicycle, transportation along the dusty lanes was the same as it had been in the days of Good Queen Bess, lanes that became quagmires with the winter rains. Transportation to and from the island was pretty much the same, too. The Isle of Sark Shipping Company’s vessels were now turbo-powered and steel-hulled rather than wooden sailing ships, making two or three trips a day, but Guernsey was still Sark’s only destination. People still greeted both friend and stranger with cheery hellos.
Here, Jason felt relatively safe. Anyone approaching his house would be on a bicycle, in one of the island’s two-wheeled horse carts, on the back of one of the shaggy ponies, or on foot. True, they would be concealed by the lane being sunken between two rock outcroppings, but it was a good hundred yards from the road to the house, ample time to mount a defense when warned by the sophisticated system of weight and motion detectors.
He had kept this in mind when he had leased the three-hundred-year-old Norman stone cottage on the edge of an apple orchard. The relentless wind had shortened and bent the trees like the rank and file of arthritic old men. Behind the house was the promontory from which Jason was painting today. He had wanted to buy the building, but the Channel Islands’ peculiar real estate laws made purchases by those not living there year-round difficult, in addition to the fact that only about twenty percent of land for sale was on the “open” market — that is, available to nonresidents.
So, he had leased it, moving his entire household from the sun of the southern Italian coast in summer to the gloom and chill of the English Channel in fall. The furniture had survived largely intact, due to Gianna’s close supervision of the packers and movers, all related to her in some fashion no doubt.
Gianna had not fared as well. After ten days of English cuisine and weather, she had begged Jason to forgive her but she needed to leave this place where the fish was salted, meat was cremated, and vegetables were reduced to tasteless mush. And it rained for days on end. Nowhere, she wailed, could one find oregano, cumin, bay, or the other seasonings of her native land. The single store’s selection of wine was a meager and seemingly random selection of French bottles most probably rejected by the better shops in Le Havre, an hour’s airfoil ride from Guernsey. Besides, the grass-fed meat was too stringy to be considered fit for human consumption and the sole butcher had never heard of veal. Admittedly, tomatoes were plentiful, but somehow they were inadequate when compared to those of Italy. Besides, the perpetual damp aggravated her rheumatism, a malaise of which Jason had never before heard her complain.