I
“The only clear thing is that we humans are the only species with the power to destroy the earth as we know it. … Yet if we have the capacity to destroy the earth, so, too, do we have the capacity to protect it.”
The Dalai Lama, Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium
“[M]an is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
Rachel Carson (1964)
Chapter 1
Gulf Paper Industries Headquarters
Oyster Point, Florida
late August
Brianna Allen scanned the dense language of the thick, single-spaced memo, looking for words to jump out at her. Words like “harmful,” “deadly,” and “poison.” But the technical mumbo-jumbo avoided such dire and frightening language, no doubt for good reason.
Frustrated and impatient, she dropped the document to her desk and jabbed the intercom button on her desk phone.
“Yes, Brianna?”
Ordinarily, Brianna found her assistant’s smooth, velvety voice soothing, but she was past being soothed.
“Tell Pete Bickman to get his butt in here. Now,” she snapped.
“Right away,” Leah cooed.
“And Carlos Reyes, too,” she added as an afterthought.
When the scientists presented themselves, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in front of her wide glass-topped desk, they wore matching long-suffering expressions.
“You two look like a pair of hostages. Or like your pet just died,” she told them.
Bickman, the senior of the two, mustered up a sickly smile. “Sorry, Ms. Allen. We assumed you wanted to see us about the marine environmental report. It’s bad, as you no doubt know.”
She picked up the report, waved it at them, and then slapped it back onto the desk. “No, gentlemen, I don’t know. I spent the entire morning trying to wrap my mind around the report, but this … thing … isn’t in English. What does it say?”
The men exchanged a look. Reyes stuck a finger inside his collar and pulled it away from his neck. Bickman fiddled with the arm of his glasses and chewed on his lower lip.
“I’m waiting.” She didn’t have the patience for body language theater.
“I’m thinking,” he hurriedly assured her. “It’s a complicated report—it can’t be summarized easily.”
“Try.”
He bobbed his head. “So, the silt isn’t the biggest problem. It’s the other things that get mixed in and go along for the ride. Chemicals such as phosphorus and nitrogen—”
“—Are we polluting the water? Killing marine life? Yes or no?”
“Well,” he hemmed, “it’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is,” she insisted. “Yes or no?”
“Uh … no, not exactly.”
Her voice was solid ice when she said, “Gulf Paper prides itself on not exactly destroying the environment. That’s your answer? That’s what I should tell the Department of Environmental Protection?”
Reyes dropped his eyes and shuffled his feet on the scraped wood floor.
To his credit, Bickman soldiered on—or tried to, at any rate. “It’s possible that inadequate procedures at the development site and certain products—possibly the fertilizer being used on the lawns—are combining to result in some nutrient pollution getting into the groundwater and, conceivably, the waterways. As one piece of a larger, multi-faceted problem, it could be harmful.”
She stared at him, letting the seconds tick by. At the twenty-second mark, he began to squirm. At second forty-two, sweat dotted his brow.
After sixty seconds had elapsed, he swallowed audibly before continuing, “The chemicals could accelerate the growth of algae in the estuary and the Gulf, which in turn could harm the fish. And the, um, people. But if the development is the source of the problem, that’s on the GC. He’s responsible for ensuring the installers and landscapers follow the best management practices set out by the stormwater, erosion, and sedimentation control regulations.”
She seized on the argument he offered, slim though it was. “So the general contractor is equally at fault?”
“Equally, if not more,” he piped up, relief shining on his face.
“Who?”
“Who?” he echoed like an owl.
“Who is it—the GC?”
His shoulders slumped. “Fred Glazier.”
“Cheer up, Pete. At least now we have someone we can point a finger at. You know the saying: don’t fix the problem, fix the blame.”
Pete’s shoulders rounded even further like he was trying to curl himself into a protective ball. “I’m not sure that’s the best strategy. Glazier has a well-earned reputation as a renegade. He’s a serial violator—not just of the environmental rules. I’ve heard stories about worker safety violations, engineering code violations, you name it. Wouldn’t blaming him raise the inevitable question of why we hired him in the first place?”
“You worry about the science. I’ll worry about the rest of it.” She gave them a cool smile to let them know they were dismissed.
As they shuffled out of her office, Carlos whispered, “I think she’s got that saying backward.”
“Shut up, Carlos,” Pete griped, closing the door behind them.
Brianna waited until their shadows fell away from the frosted glass door, then leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and massaged her temples. Some days, days like this, she wondered how she’d ended up this way—as a cynical, hard-nosed public relations flack. It was a far cry from how she’d pictured herself while she was in college, studying sustainability. She imagined she’d be a modern-day Rachel Carson.
She laughed bleakly at the memory. She’d wanted to make a difference. But in the spring of her sophomore year, the career counseling office strenuously suggested she switch her major from Sustainability in Public Policy to Sustainable Business. She’d demurred, promising to think about it over spring break.
On her third day home, her parents made the decision easy for her. “Brianna,” her dad had said, “if you don’t switch to the business program, the money spigot’s cut off. You’ll need to take out loans for the rest of your degree.” Her mouth was still hanging open when her mother chimed in, “And don’t forget about sorority dues and off-campus housing. Maybe you can get a work-study job in the cafeteria to pay for your meal plan.” They left her room, pulling the door shut softly behind them but leaving no doubt the threat was real.
She emerged from her bedroom as a hardened version of her former self. Brittle and cold. But, she graduated with her business degree and landed a six-figure job as the Assistant Sustainability Officer at Gulf Paper Industries. Four years later, she was promoted to Chief Sustainability Officer. Now, she spent her days bullying scientists and polluting the waterways. It wasn’t exactly fitting work for the spiritual heir to the author of Silent Spring, but it did pay the bills.
Pete’s question was valid, though: Why the heck had they hired this Glazier person if he was so slimy?
Chapter 2
One week later
Brianna gazed out over the water, still as glass and lit silver by the afternoon sun cutting through the haze. A lazy white gull swooped low and dove under the surface, setting off a slight ripple as it caught a fish in its bill. As the bird rose in the air, the conference room door opened, and Brianna turned away from the panoramic view of the beige sandy beach and the Gulf of Mexico beyond it.
Sharon Samovar, Gulf Paper’s chief real estate development officer, and Chad Hornbill, the CEO of the entire company, stepped into the room.
Brianna's breath caught in her throat when she spotted Chad. Was this an ambush? She shot Sharon a cool look, then fixed Chad with her warmest, broadest smile.
“Chad, I didn’t realize you were joining us. I would have ordered something more substantial.” She gestured apologetically toward the coconut water and fresh tropical fruit she’d had catering send up to accommodate Sharon’s latest eating regimen—raw fruitarianism, according to her assistant.
Chad waved off her apology. “Sharon and I just had a four-course lunch at Seafarer’s. I’m stuffed.”
So Sharon was a fair-weather fruitarian. Noted.
Brianna set aside the pang of hurt that she hadn’t been included in the lunch and shifted her attention to her colleague. She was pleased to see the other women at least had the self-awareness to color slightly under the weight of Brianna's gaze.
“I called to see if you could join us, but Leah said you had a meeting with your scientists.” Sharon flashed an insincere smile.
Brianna made a mental note to confirm the claim with her assistant later.
“That’s our Brianna. Always working,” the CEO boomed cheerily, evidently oblivious to the murderous undercurrent coursing between his CSO and CREDO.
He plopped himself into the chair at the head of the table with a deliberate lack of grace. Sharon tittered and perched on the seat to his right. Brianna poured herself a glass of water before pulling out the seat opposite her nemesis and joining them at the highly polished table.
“Brianna,” the CEO began without preamble, “Sharon tells me you have some concerns about the Triple E project.”
Brianna took a long sip of her drink while she formulated her response. The Triple E development—Emerald Estuary Estates—was Chad's current hobby-horse. He made no secret of his preoccupation. He thought the upscale gated community, an enclave of custom waterfront homes with one-acre minimum lots and prices starting in the low seven figures, was his legacy. His ticket out of the grubby world of pulp paper products and into the sparkling company of drippingly wealthy real estate scions.
So, it was no surprise that Sharon was trying to shift the problems with the construction away from her department. But that didn’t mean Brianna had to sit there and let her deposit them in her lap like a steaming pile of …
“Brianna?” the CEO prompted.
She placed her glass on the marble coaster at her elbow and turned to him. “I don’t have any concerns,” she said sweetly. She held his gaze until he smiled and nodded before she went on. “But the Department of Environmental Protection does. They sent some questions, which ended up on my desk because of the sustainability implications, so I’ve been coordinating with the science team. As may you know, the general contractor Sharon hired for this project has a bit of a reputation with the state.”
It was an understatement if Brianna had ever heard one, but it hit its mark.
“Fred Glazier? He’s cheap as the day is long. That man squeezes a dollar so tight that it squeaks when you get it out of his hand. But that’s a good thing, ain’t it?” Chad slapped his thigh in amusement.
Brianna's smile tightened.
“Precisely,” Sharon blurted, tripping over her tongue to agree with their boss. “Glazier’s bid was the lowest by a mile. It wasn’t even close. Triple E’s going to be wildly profitable, thanks to Fred and his team. Sure, the bean counters and the suits in Tallahassee might get their noses out of joint over teeny little things. But you know how they are. It’s easier—and cheaper—to pay the de minimus fines for not crossing every T and dotting every I than to comply with every picayune demand.”
Chad bobbed his head in agreement and turned to Brianna. “That all sounds okay to me. You don’t agree?”
“As your Chief Sustainability Officer, I need to be sure you understand that the alleged violations aren’t quite as petty as they might seem. The state sent out inspectors who said Mr. Glazier’s workers aren’t following the statutorily required best management practices for erosion and settlement control practices.”
He shrugged.
“They haven’t been maintaining the sediment pond, Chad. That means runoff flows into the streams on the property, then runs into the bay, and ultimately out into the Gulf. Aside from the regulatory issues, I don’t think you want to buy a bunch of lawsuits from ticked-off homeowners who find out that the water in their new million-dollar mansions is full of sewage, silt, and pollutants.”
The drinking water bit was a bluff, but she willed herself not to blink or look away. In the end, he broke eye contact first, dropping his gaze to the table and clenching his right hand into a tight fist.
When he raised his eyes, they were blazing. “Sharon,” he barked. “Get Glazier in line.” The ‘or else’ was unsaid but not unheard.
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