‘Jardine,’ Crawford acknowledged his presence through gritted teeth. The expression on his face suggested he was there to enjoy a lynching.
‘How’s the leg, Crawford?’ Sam responded.
‘The leg’s just dandy. You should be more concerned about what’s going to happen to your neck in the next few minutes.’ Sam thought that was the first time he’d seen Crawford smile since he had met him.
Sam noticed Sienna Daingerfield had slipped into an empty chair in a quiet corner of the office. Only the smell of her exotic perfume betrayed her presence. She smoothed the pleats of her dress and tucked her legs under her body once more. Even in his agitated state, Sam wondered how this exotic Egyptian woman could be related to Rex Daingerfield. He gazed around the huge office for a few more seconds, and then sat in the proffered seat.
‘Take your time, son. I mean, it’s not as if I’ve got anything useful to do while you gawp at my daughter.’
‘Sorry, Mr Daingerfield. I must say you have a magnificent office.’
‘So are you one of those bleeding-heart environmentalists?’ The words came at Sam like bullets from a Gatling gun.
‘God forbid!’ Sam looked shocked at the suggestion.
‘So why the fuck did you talk the old chief out of signing the drilling permit?’
‘It was the right thing to do.’
‘I’m a simple man, Mr Jardine. So please explain in language I can understand why talking the old chief out of the biggest gas project in Sub-Saharan Africa was the right thing to do.’
‘While I was waiting in the lounge, I couldn’t help but pick up a copy of your daughter’s Corporate Social Responsibility Report. A spectacular document it is too, if I might say so.’
Daingerfield sniffed the air as if a bad odour had drifted into the office. ‘Can you smell bullshit, Chuck?’ he asked Crawford.
‘The air is thick with it, sir,’ replied Crawford.
‘I’m going to go easy on you, Jardine, because I know you’re not a natural-born oilman. But I warn you – do not try my patience.’
‘I assume the report was not something drafted just to impress the royalty owners and shareholders?’
Daingerfield went red in the face and grabbed one of the two remaining crystal glasses from the crystal decanter set.
‘Please allow me, sir,’ Sam said. He picked up the decanter of brandy and half-filled the glass Daingerfield was clutching. He poured himself an equal measure in the remaining glass. Sam watched as Daingerfield considered whether to throw the glass at the far wall or drink the brandy. To Sam’s relief, Daingerfield took a large swallow of brandy.
‘Thank you, Jardine. It is getting late in the afternoon,’ he acknowledged as he took a second sip. ‘We have made good progress with our royalty owners in the last twelve months and our net promoter scores have risen five points.’
Before he could continue, Daingerfield’s mobile phone trilled in his pocket. ‘Fuck it. Excuse me a moment,’ he said as he fished out his phone. ‘This is Daingerfield,’ he barked.
The CEO was silent for a moment as he listened to the voice on the end of the phone. Sam studied the famous oilman. Tall and thin with dark, collar-length hair and an aggressive chin, he presented an imposing and handsome figure that unnerved his business rivals and impressed Wall Street financiers. His ability to raise capital and find new drilling opportunities ahead of his rivals was legendary.
‘Whad’ya mean, we have a major incident on our hands?’ Daingerfield yelled at his mobile phone. ‘This is fucking Greenland we’re talking about, not some Louisiana shithole. Do you know how hard it was for me to get an experimental drilling permit? I want the spill cleaned up before The World Today send in their cameras.’ He disconnected the call with venom and then looked at Sam. ‘Jesus H. Christ! You’d think this company was managed by a truckload of goddamn assholes! Now where were we, Jardine?’
‘The Luangwa Valley in Zambia, Mr Daingerfield.’
‘That’s right. Thank you, Jardine. Now give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kick your ass out of this company right here and now.’
Sam heard a stifled chuckle coming from Chuck Crawford.
‘Because the Luangwa experimental well had several major design faults of which Mr Crawford was well aware. It was another Deepwater Horizon disaster waiting to happen.’
‘That’s bullshit!’ yelled Crawford from the back of the room.
‘The Greenland spill is a storm in a teacup compared to what would have happened in Luangwa had I not pulled the plug.’
‘That ain’t true,’ came the voice from the back of the room.
‘There were three potentially disastrous faults reported on that well.’
‘You Limey bastard! You ain’t got a clue.’
Sam extracted an engineer’s report on the well from his inside jacket pocket that he had commissioned from the Haliburton Oilfield Servicing Company. He slapped it on the oak desk.
‘Haliburton found that a steel coupling located below the blowout preventer was faulty and would have failed with catastrophic consequences had the well been activated. Worse still, there was no redundancy back-up for the blowout preventer, which was itself two years overdue for scheduled inspection and maintenance.’
Daingerfield snatched up the report and scanned it before peering across the room at Crawford. ‘Is this true?’ he growled.
‘We had ordered a second blowout preventer from Houston,’ countered Crawford. ‘But it wasn’t due to arrive until two weeks after the first scheduled frack.’
‘And the second fault?’ demanded Daingerfield.
Sam reached across the desk and poured both Daingerfield and himself a second brandy. He was playing a high stakes game and the liquor helped calm his nerves.
‘Two weeks prior to my arrival, Crawford fired the Luangwa Shale safety manager, Jack De Villiers, for slowing the development of the test well. De Villiers had insisted on a two day “stop work” programme because he was concerned at the lack of safety procedures at the site. Haliburton’s engineering report stated none of De Villiers’ recommendations had been implemented following his dismissal. When I asked the chief engineer Dan Elrod why, he said the time required to implement the equipment and procedures would have lost each worker a twenty-thousand-dollar speed bonus.’
Daingerfield glared at Crawford once more, but took a large swallow of his brandy and directed his attack at Sam. ‘I will deal with Crawford later, but what strikes me, young man, is you wouldn’t have known any of this information at the time of your negotiation with the old chief. It seems to me you commissioned this Haliburton report to cover your own ass after you screwed up.’
‘The reason I commissioned the report was because I knew the well was cased with rotten cement.’
‘That’s a lie!’ yelled Crawford. He tried to rise from the leather chair, but he winced in pain as his broken leg jarred in its cast.
‘Crawford told me that a small quantity of local cement had been used to supplement the specialist cement from Houston that is used to line the fracking wells. But when I asked around the lodge that night, the workers told me the American cement consignment had been stuck in customs at Dar es Salaam for weeks. In fact, the entire Luangwa test well had been lined with rotten cement. Haliburton confirmed the cement casing had set like bad dough. Not only was the well a major safety hazard, but it would have poisoned the Luangwa River for a generation and wiped out the entire ecosystem.’
There was silence in the room until Crawford stood up awkwardly. ‘I can explain Mr Daingerfield.’
‘The best thing you can do right now, Crawford, is to catch the first plane to Greenland and make yourself available to clean up the spill. I’ll deal with you when you get back.’
‘It’s not how it seems...’
‘Right now, Crawford!’
‘Yes sir.’ Crawford picked up his crutches and limped towards the door of the office. The big Dakotan threw a murderous glance at Sam as he passed by
the desk.
Daingerfield picked up the brandy decanter and refilled the two glasses. ‘You’ve made yourself a powerful enemy there, Jardine. Crawford is a respected operations manager in the oil and gas industry. You would do well to keep out of his way for a while.’ He stared out of the large window at the bustling office buildings of the Daingerfield headquarters. ‘Tell me, young man. What are your views on manmade climate change?’
‘Of course, the jury is still out on some of the finer details of what is an inexact science,’ Sam said, tip-toeing around the landmine Daingerfield had laid in his path.
Sam heard Sienna sigh at his response. It was the first sound she had made since entering the room.
‘My daughter is disappointed with your response; aren’t you, sugar?’ He gazed across at his beautiful and exotic daughter. ‘Do you think this Englishman has the balls for the oil industry?’
Sienna uncurled herself from the leather seat at the back of the room and padded towards the empty chair next to Sam. She sat and crossed her long legs so the toe of one of her Louboutin stilettos brushed against Sam’s ankle. She stared at Sam for a long while and for the second time that month, Sam felt his character was under intense scrutiny.
‘He may not have the brutality needed for the company you founded twenty-five years ago, but he has the morality for the kind of oil company acceptable to society today.’
‘You do talk some rubbish sometimes, Sienna,’ said the oilman, looking fondly at his daughter. ‘But on this occasion, I will heed your advice. I won’t fire him just yet.’
Sam breathed a sigh of relief. He could ill afford to lose his job after being chased out of his previous role in Ukraine by a cabal of political thugs six months ago. Most of the respectable London companies regarded him as ‘toxic’ after his association with the failed businessman Leo Wulff. Rex Daingerfield was one of the few CEOs prepared to pay Sam a decent living wage, and who regarded his murky corporate background as an asset.
‘Thank you, Mr Daingerfield.’ Sam drained the last of his brandy and refilled their glasses.
‘Don’t think you are out of the woods, young man. We still have to discuss why you wasted five million dollars of my money sponsoring some hair-brained, solar-powered racing car. What were you thinking?’
Sam looked at the floor. His reputation had taken a beating after the Sirius fiasco. ‘The car was a real beauty, Mr Daingerfield. It was full of amazing technology and I thought it would look good if the company was supportive of the renewable energy industry.’
‘Are you for real? I would be a laughing stock if the Daingerfield logo was blazoned across an ageing boy-racer’s solar car. Sir Roger, God bless his soul, did us a favour when he wrote the car off.’
‘But we own the design and the solar technology. We could rebuild it.’
‘Nice sentiment, but that’s not going to happen, Sam. Do you know how many fortunes have been lost by dreamers who thought they could build a motor car? I do not intend to join that list.’
‘But we can’t kill off the project. A dozen skilled engineers have put their life’s work into that car.’
‘Feel free to buy the design rights with your own money if you are so passionate. Five million should cover it. At least I would recover the sponsorship money you wasted on a pipedream.’
‘I don’t have five million dollars.’
‘There you go, Sam. It’s an easy decision to make when it’s your own money at risk, isn’t it? Nevertheless, Sienna thought you might like to do something useful with those skilled engineers you’ve added to my payroll.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘Tell him, Sienna.’
Sienna uncrossed her legs and sat straight in her chair. ‘We want you to head up our solar energy division in Egypt.’
‘We don’t have a solar energy division in Egypt – or anywhere else for that matter. What about my procurement responsibilities? I’m in the middle of a fifty-million-dollar cost-reduction programme.’ Sam loosened his collar and took a large swig of his brandy. ‘I get it now. I’m being shunted into obscurity because I blew the whistle on Chuck Crawford.’
‘Calm down, Sam,’ said Sienna. ‘Kathryn Lee can have your old job. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to diversity, which you embraced in the executive lounge.’
‘That sounds reasonable, except it’s my career that has to make way for our diversity policy. And what am I supposed to do with this new division?’
‘We want you to build solar panels using the expertise of the engineers who worked on the Sirius project. We might be a fracking company, but first and foremost we are in the energy business.’
‘So apart from the twelve Sirius engineers, who else will be reporting to me?’
Daingerfield and Sienna looked at each other for a moment before Daingerfield answered. ‘Actually, seven of the Sirius engineers walked out when they knew they were being taken over by Daingerfield Oil. That leaves five. And yourself, of course.’
‘Just me?’ Sam looked shocked. ‘What about my budget? How many millions do I get to bring this division to operating capacity?’
‘Um, there’s no budget earmarked for this project in 2018. Things are a bit tight right now. You’ll have to make do with whatever you can borrow until the solar business has proven itself to be financially viable.’
‘I’m not sure I want to do this.’
Sam saw Daingerfield glance at his daughter with an expression that suggested he had told her Sam would not take the role. Sienna’s shoulders slumped and her eyes moistened.
‘Okay, I’ll do it,’ Sam said. ‘But why Egypt for goodness sake?’
‘I won’t lie,’ Daingerfield said. ‘This is Sienna’s idea, not mine, and she wants it there for personal reasons I won’t go into. However, it makes sense for a company working on solar research and development to have guaranteed sunlight all year round.’
‘Will I be reporting to Sienna?’ Sam asked.
Father and daughter exchanged glances once more before Daingerfield answered. ‘Sienna has other… commitments, but you should consider her an interested sponsor. While you are in Egypt, you will be reporting to Cantara Sharif, who is the general manager of our Egyptian Daingerfield Oil affiliate. Her father was once Egypt’s deputy president and her big sister is the current minister for internal security. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to have inherited her family’s impressive business skills, but her family connections are a useful foil to counter Egypt’s interminable bureaucracy.’
Sam let out a long sigh of frustration and downed the last of his brandy. ‘When do I start?’
But Daingerfield had already lost interest in Sam and had moved on from their conversation. He picked up his mobile phone and dialled a number in Greenland. As he waited for the site manager to pick up his call, he glanced at Sam. ‘You have two weeks to prepare for your new assignment, Jardine. And then I expect a full situational report from Egypt. You can thank Sienna for saving your skin. Do not disappoint me again: I will not be so understanding next time.’
CHAPTER 6
Fort William, Scotland
‘Ah’m sorry tae hear aboot yer Uncle Roy. Aye, he were a hero tae th’ end.’ The elderly Scotsman downed his whisky and pumped Sam’s hand.
‘That’s kind of you to say so, Mr McBride. Uncle Roy had a good innings at ninety-four, but it was still a shock when he died. He was an inspiration to me and the rest of my family.’
Two days before, Sam had returned to the London office of Daingerfield Oil only to learn his Great Uncle Roy had passed away while he had been at The Woodlands. He had made the ten-hour road trip to Fort William to attend the funeral, where a cohort of Roy’s Yorkshire-based relatives had assembled. Dozens of Roy’s Scottish friends and neighbours had also turned out to salute the town’s last World War Two veteran, and many had gathered at the wake in the Maryburgh Inn.
It was late in the evening and Sam was feeling jet-lagged and emotional. He decided to se
ttle his bar tab and exit discreetly.
‘Sam Jardine! Well I never!’ boomed a voice from his distant past. Sam turned to greet his late father’s uncle, Derek Lees. The seventy-year-old, self-serving Yorkshireman was a notorious bore.
Sam looked at the red-faced old man and forced a smile. ‘Uncle Derek.’
‘Bloody ’ell,’ said Lees, holding his empty pint glass out towards Sam. ‘Tha’ were nowt but a sprog when I last saw thi.’
‘A pint of Cotleigh Barn Owl for Uncle Derek, please,’ Sam said to the barman.
‘Good lad. Not tight-fisted like yer old man, I see.’
‘My father died of Alzheimer’s last summer.’
The barman glared at Lees as he handed over the beer.
‘So, young Samuel, last time I heard, tha’d been kicked out of Russia.’
‘Ukraine actually. I was President Alexandrova’s chief of staff for six months.’
‘So what ’appened?’
‘The coalition partners of the ruling party gave me twenty-four hours to leave the country or they said they would bring the whole government down.’
‘I always said that job would come to nowt,’ he said, as he downed most of his pint. ‘I’d also heard tha’ were charged wi’ fraud and no bugger would give thi’ a job?’
‘Actually, it was my ex-boss who was corrupt. And yes, it did take me a while to find a suitable job,’ Sam admitted.
‘Tha should’ve looked me up. I have a pal in t’ Rotherham Council who would’ve sorted thi’ out.’
‘Look, it’s been great chatting with you, Uncle Derek, but I need to make a move.’ Sam headed towards the pub’s exit.
‘I’ll let t’ Rotherham graffiti department know tha’s interested then?’ Lees shouted.
Sam was unable to restrain himself and turned around to face Lees. ‘Actually, I’m the general manager of Daingerfield Oil’s Solar division. Solar is the way of the future.’
‘Rubbish, lad. Everyone knows there’s no brass in that solar power nonsense. You’d be better off wi’ t’ Rotherham Council, mark my words! I’ll get straight onto me pal.’ He downed the rest of his pint and held the empty glass towards Sam.
The Last Oracle: A Climate Fiction Thriller (Sam Jardine Crime Thrillers Book 3) Page 4