Kate Beckett, Investigator Chapter 25
"So, did you get your paper for Naysmith finished?" Castle asks as Kate closes the lid of her laptop.
"Mmm-hmm. I just sent it off to him. But please don't suggest a celebration. I only want to get some sleep. I just hope Eleanor will let me."
"Don't worry about Eleanor. The way you've been pumping full blast, we have enough breastmilk in the fridge so I can feed her if she wakes up while you're trying to nap. Just try to grab some ZZZs while you have a chance. I'll hold down the fort."
"Have I told you that I love you lately?"
"We haven't exactly had the time for amorous adventures, but I think you might have mumbled it in your sleep. I'm not sure."
"Well, I do. And now you can find out if I'll mumble some more."
"Much as I would love to eavesdrop on your journey into dreamland, I need to get some more work done on Adley while I have the chance. She's about to encounter some guards after grabbing samples of effluent from a chemical plant, and I need to come up with a suitably dramatic means of escape."
Kate winces at her back's stiffness as she levers herself out of her chair. "Good luck!"
"Sweet dreams."
Castle smiles at Eleanor's happy coos in her swing before settling himself in his desk chair. The escapes he'd written for Storm and even for Nikki Heat had involved various weaponry and sporadically explosions. Adley carries a multitool, which helps her gather samples and occasionally get past locks. However, the two-inch blade on it won't serve as much of a weapon. The best one she has is between her ears, which makes her more Holmes than Bond. Well, the cops never let him carry a gun either, and he managed to get out of his share of scrapes. And if he could, Adley can.
A Google Earth view of the DePove plant that is serving as a model for the facility in his book is as good a place to start as any. He studies the entries and exits, particularly around the stream that flows nearby, and formulates a plan. The stream in his book will have to be bigger and faster-flowing than the actual waterway, but writing fiction does have its advantages. He decides that Adley is an expert with a canoe, a skill first picked up as a teen at an adventure camp. She's secured and hidden her craft near the edge of the stream and, aided by the current, manages to elude her pursuers. Of course, afterward, she takes a long hot shower to remove the spray she couldn't avoid. She'll find out just how polluted it is when she gets her lab results.
The shower gives Adley time to think about her life and what she wants. Of course, she wants to fight the polluters. But it would also be nice to have someone to scrub her back. She dotes on her nieces and nephews. Wanting to create a better world for them spurs her on. But sometimes, she envies the closeness of her sister's family, the simple things like Taco Tuesday. She can't help wondering if there's someone out there she could share tacos – and a bed – with and yet still proceed with her mission. There might be. She's spotted a few possibilities at meetings. She's even been invited for coffee or a drink a few times. But she's been too focused on the cause to respond. So she was alone in her canoe. And she's alone in her apartment.
Adley shakes herself. She's alone by choice. The work is what's important. She has to concentrate on that. The rest is just the fuzzy thinking of a tired mind. Or is it?
Eleanor's coos are rapidly becoming complaints. Castle sighs as he gets up and walks the few steps to her swing. "Now, listen to me," he instructs, picking her up and joggling her against his shoulder. "Mama loves you very much. But she's also dead tired and needs her nap. So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to feed you, and then we're going for a drive until she's had a chance to get some decent rest. Do we have an understanding?" Eleanor's protests fade out. "Good, then let's get to it."
The coffee cup of DePove's Vice President and Information officer, Emily Brando, comes down hard on the mahogany conference table. "I don't understand what's going on here. Our settlement terms all include NDAs. How is all the negative publicity about PFAS kicking up again? My aide has a room full of people just tracking the postings against us on social media and trying to rebut them."
"There are new suits over the AFFFs in the fire-fighting foam," Company Counsel Dan Ignoso explains. "They are from the firefighters in the Pacific Northwest who weren't a party to the others. They claim that the foam they used on the wildfires up there made them sick. And the Canadians are joining in that claim. They're making a lot of noise on both sides of the border, and there's no legal way we can stop them."
"What about settlement meetings?" Brando demands. "You kept the other parties busy – and quieter – with those. Can't you do the same thing now?"
Strands from Ignoso's generous head of white hair fall on his face as he shakes his head. "They claim they're not interested in a settlement. They want to go to trial so the whole world will know just what's been going on. And they've also filed in as many state courts as possible. That means the trials could be televised. We may also see suits popping up wherever those aqueous film-forming foams are used, including water treatment. That means the East Coast as well. And if those suits go to trial, they could also be televised."
"What? Is cable TV going to devote a whole channel to beating on us and 4M?" Luke Kissass from Capital Partnership sneers.
"That may not be so far off the beam," Ignoso says.
"We have to quash this," CEO Theo Bruck declares. "Emily, you put as many people on this as you need. Hire them out of Hollywood, Atlanta, Vancouver, anyone from anywhere they know how to push a good story. We have to turn the tables and portray these people as fortune hunters and technology haters. And throw in that they want the country to burn and run out of clean water. Whatever it takes and whatever it costs. We'll still make out better than if everything comes out about the AFFFs and other PFAS."
"It's not going to be easy," Brando points out.
"Don't we have a motto about doing the difficult immediately and the impossible taking a little longer?" Bruck demands.
"That's the Seabees, Sir," Cara James, former president of Buck State University, points out, "from the Navy."
"I don't care who the hell it's from," Bruck retorts. "We're putting a lid on all of this now. So what's the next item on the agenda?"
"Rehabilitating our herbicide," Board Secretary Irma Strombeck reports.
"Yes, our campaign claiming that we're striving to end world hunger," Bruck acknowledges. "Have you at least got that one in hand, Emily?"
"Yes, Theo," Brando responds. "That one's going very well."