Timeline - Michael Crichton [23]
“After they approve them.”
“Yes. We send our reports to them first. But they have never commented.”
“So you see no greater ITC plan behind all this?” she asked.
Johnston said, “Do you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “That is why I am asking you. Because of course there are some extremely puzzling aspects to the behavior of ITC as a company.”
“What aspects?”
“For example,” she said, “they are one of the world’s largest consumers of xenon.”
“Xenon? You mean the gas?”
“Yes. It is used in lasers and electron tubes.”
Johnston shrugged. “They can have all the xenon gas they want. I can’t see how it concerns me.”
“What about their interest in exotic metals? ITC recently purchased a Nigerian company to assure their supply of niobium.”
“Niobium.” Johnston shook his head. “What’s niobium?”
“It is a metal similar to titanium.”
“What’s it used for?”
“Superconducting magnets, and nuclear reactors.”
“And you wonder what ITC is using it for?” Johnston shook his head again. “You’d have to ask them, Miss Delvert.”
“I did. They said it was for ‘research in advanced magnetics.’”
“There you are. Any reason not to believe them?”
“No,” she said. “But as you said yourself, ITC is a research company. They employ two hundred physicists at their main facility, a place called Black Rock, in New Mexico. It is clearly and unquestionably a high-technology company.”
“Yes. . ..”
“So I wonder: Why would a high-technology company want so much land?”
“Land?”
“ITC has purchased large land parcels in remote locations around the world: the mountains of Sumatra, northern Cambodia, southeast Pakistan, the jungles of central Guatemala, the highlands of Peru.”
Johnston frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. They have made acquisitions in Europe, as well. West of Rome, five hundred hectares. In Germany near Heidelberg, seven hundred hectares. In France, a thousand hectares in the limestone hills above the River Lot. And finally, right here.”
“Here?”
“Yes. Using British and Swedish holding companies, they have very quietly acquired five hundred hectares, all around your site. It is mostly forest and farmland, at the moment.”
“Holding companies?” he said.
“That makes it very difficult to trace. Whatever ITC is doing, it clearly requires secrecy. But why would this company fund your research, and also buy the land all around the site?”
“I have no idea,” Johnston said. “Especially since ITC doesn’t own the site itself. You’ll recall they gave the entire area—Castelgard, Sainte-Mère and La Roque—to the French government last year.”
“Of course. For a tax exemption.”
“But still, ITC does not own the site. Why should they buy land around it?”
“I will be happy to show you everything I have.”
“Perhaps,” Johnston said, “you should.”
“My research is just in the car.”
They started together toward the Land Rover. Watching them go, Bellin clucked his tongue. “Ah, dear, dear. It is so difficult to trust these days.”
Chris was about to answer in his bad French when his radio clicked. “Chris?” It was David Stern, the project technologist. “Chris, is the Professor with you? Ask him if he knows somebody named James Wauneka.”
Chris pressed the button on his radio. “The Professor’s busy right now. What’s it about?”
“He’s some guy in Gallup. He’s called twice. Wants to send us a picture of our monastery that he says he found in the desert.”
“What? In the desert?”
“He might be a little cracked. He claims he’s a cop, and he keeps babbling on about some dead ITC employee.”
“Have him send it to our e-mail address,” Chris said. “You take a look at it.”
He clicked the radio off. Bellin was looking at his watch, clucking again, then looking at the car, where Johnston and Delvert were standing, their heads almost touching as they pored over papers. “I have appointments,” he said mournfully. “Who knows how long this will take?”
“I think,” Chris said, “perhaps not long.”
:
Twenty minutes later, Bellin was driving off with Miss Delvert at his side, and Chris was standing with the Professor, waving good-bye. “I think that went rather well,