“I’ll wait here for you,” the driver said. “We can go straight to the airport when you’re ready.”
The New York headquarters of the Council on Foreign Relations was an unobtrusive neoclassical building on the corner of Park and Sixty-eighth that had once been the home of a Standard Oil tycoon. Its exterior blended seamlessly with the elegant landscape surrounding it, offering no hint of its unique purpose.
Okay, but who is he? She followed the receptionist down a luxurious corridor to a closed door, on which the woman gave a quick knock before opening it and motioning for Elizabeth to enter.
She went in, and the door closed behind her.
The small, dark conference room was illuminated only by the glow of a video screen. In front of the screen, a very tall and lanky silhouette faced her. Though she couldn’t make out his face, she sensed power here.
“Dr. Sinskey,” the man’s sharp voice declared. “Thank you for joining me.” The man’s tautly precise accent suggested Elizabeth’s homeland of Switzerland, or perhaps Germany.
“Please sit,” he said, motioning to a chair near the front of the room.
No introductions? Elizabeth sat. The bizarre image being projected on the video screen did nothing to calm her nerves. What in the world?
“I was at your presentation this morning,” declared the silhouette. “I came a long distance to hear you speak. An impressive performance.”
“Thank you,” she replied.
“Might I also say you are much more beautiful than I imagined … despite your age and your myopic view of world health.”
Elizabeth felt her jaw drop. The comment was offensive in all kinds of ways. “Excuse me?” she demanded, peering into the darkness. “Who are you? And why have you called me here?”
“Pardon my failed attempt at humor,” the lanky shadow replied. “The image on the screen will explain why you’re here.”
Sinskey eyed the horrific visual—a painting depicting a vast sea of humanity, throngs of sickly people, all climbing over one another in a dense tangle of naked bodies.
“The great artist Doré,” the man announced. “His spectacularly grim interpretation of Dante Alighieri’s vision of hell. I hope it looks comfortable to you … because that’s where we’re headed.” He paused, drifting slowly toward her. “And let me tell you why.”
He kept moving toward her, seeming to grow taller with every step. “If I were to take this piece of paper and tear it in two …” He paused at a table, picked up a sheet of paper, and ripped it loudly in half. “And then if I were to place the two halves on top of each other …” He stacked the two halves. “And then if I were to repeat the process …” He again tore the papers, stacking them. “I produce a stack of paper that is now four times the thickness of the original, correct?” His eyes seemed to smolder in the darkness of the room.
Elizabeth did not appreciate his condescending tone and aggressive posture. She said nothing.
“Hypothetically speaking,” he continued, moving closer still, “if the original sheet of paper is a mere one-tenth of a millimeter thick, and I were to repeat this process … say, fifty times … do you know how tall this stack would be?”
Elizabeth bristled. “I do,” she replied with more hostility than she intended. “It would be one-tenth of a millimeter times two to the fiftieth power. It’s called geometric progression. Might I ask what I’m doing here?”
The man smirked and gave an impressed nod. “Yes, and can you guess what that actual value might look like? One-tenth of a millimeter times two to the fiftieth power? Do you know how tall our stack of paper has become?” He paused only an instant. “Our stack of paper, after only fifty doublings, now reaches almost all the way … to the sun.”
Elizabeth was not surprised. The staggering power of geometric growth was something she dealt with all the time in her work. Circles of contamination … replication of infected cells … death-toll estimates. “I apologize if I seem naive,” she said, making no effort to hide her annoyance. “But I’m missing your point.”
“My point?” He chuckled quietly. “My point is that the history of our human population growth is even more dramatic. The earth’s population, like our stack of paper, had very meager beginnings … but alarming potential.”
He was pacing again. “Consider this. It took the earth’s population thousands of years—from the early dawn of man all