The 230 acres of grounds were patrolled by guards dressed as hunters in check shirts and Windbreakers. They patrolled with Alsatian dogs, double-barreled shotguns, and shortwave transceivers attached to throat mikes. Infrared scanners planted in the trunks of trees detected every form of life down to the size of a dormouse. A web of lasers crisscrossed the approach to the building, trapping the unwary in a deadly electronic maze.
Inside the building, security was equally as strict. Two elevators, monitored by closed-circuit TV, were the only means of access below. Every visitor had to present an electrosensitized identification disk whose microchip circuitry held a record of the holder's unique physiological profile: fingerprints, voiceprint, biorhythms, and ECG trace. Should anyone attempt the subterfuge of presenting another's disk, the system would automatically seal the elevator doors, locking the intruder inside a titanium-steel vault.
So far no one had tried.
The deepest and most extensive sublevels housed the laboratories and test chambers, equivalent in size and facilities to a medium-size university. Here in the main test chamber a series of rubber-lined stainless-steel tanks contained a profusion of marine animal and plant life. Temperature and salinity varied from tank to tank, ranging from subzero to equatorial with all the graduations in between. Ultraviolet panels mimicked the action of sunlight and sprinklers supplied calibrated amounts of rainfall. Oceanic and climatic conditions were replicated as faithfully as science knew how and technology could achieve.
From the observation booth behind the yellow gantry rail, Dr. Jeremiah Rolsom, scientific director of ASP, watched three masked and rubber-suited operatives manhandling a drum along the gantry to the feeder chute of tank 9. The drum was painted bright pink with a large black
"Is this the last of the batch?" Rolsom asked a technician seated at the instrument console.
"Yes, sir."
"What concentration?"
"Thirty-four percent."
Rolsom nodded and nibbled his lower lip, his round black face bearing the reflection of the arc lights high up in the vaulted ceiling of the chamber. He said over his white-coated shoulder, "We're trying inorganic nitrogen in varying concentrations. It's pretty much the same as the fertilizer used by farmers, except the proportion is what a lake might receive in runoff over five years." He turned to face Major Madden, who was standing with his arms behind his back, pointed chin slightly raised. "Essentially it's the same process, only speeded up by a factor of several thousand."
"How soon before you get results?"
"Three to four weeks. We're trying to duplicate the Lake Erie experience." Rolsom used his large strong hands to illustrate his explanation. "Rainwater draining from the farmlands of the Middle West"-- the hands swept down, the pink pads of his fingers outspread--"took with it the nitrogen from the soil equivalent to the sewage of about twenty million people, which was double the population of the Lake Erie hinterland at that time. What happened? The nitrogen balance of the lake was disturbed. You got these huge algae blooms, which grew unchecked. As the blooms decayed the bacterial action consumed most of the lake's free oxygen, killing off fish and plants. Result?
Madden looked past him into the chamber. "It might work with a lake, but will it work with an ocean?"
"Sure, given time, plus vast amounts of nitrogen-rich fertilizer." Rolsom stuffed tobacco into an old briar pipe and pointed the stem at the rows of tanks through the window. "But don't forget--that's only one option open to us. Out there you've got just about every conceivable combination of herbicidal overkill. It all depends what you want to happen and how quickly."
The sharp angles of Madden's face were softened by the booth's dim lighting. He looked like a boy, except for his eyes, black and hard and shiny. "Are we talking about months or years?" he asked.
The director puffed his pipe into life before answering. "Everything depends on deployment and whether you're going for land or sea targets. Now take Bloomingdale's--the chloraphenoxy acid group. That acts as a plant hormone, causing metabolic changes so that the plant grows at a phenomenal and uncontrolled rate. It grows itself to death."
"More suited to land vegetation."
"That's right," Rolsom affirmed. "Our other main group, symmetrical triazines--Macy's--interferes with photosynthesis. The plant's biochemical processes are halted and eventually it dies of starvation. Macy's would be more effective in the oceans, killing off the phytoplankton. But speed of deployment is the key."
