The Carbon Cross (The Carbon Series Book 2)

by Randy Dutton

  “Did you know that part of the plan?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure Swanson knew either, though he probably suspected.”

  “So Russia got Alaska and more of the Arctic for free.”

  “Russia benefits in another way, too.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Now Russia won’t have to worry about US military radar or missile defense over the Arctic. By controlling America’s former Arctic territory, they preempted the Chinese from offering a better deal down the road for it, and the Chinese still get the minerals they want. The last thing Russia wants is Chinese military control of Alaska.”

  “Clever!” Pete said. “China knows the American president and public would never have struck a deal with them for Alaska for even twice the price...unless our economy was hopeless.”

  “Which President Fernandez is accelerating by implementing the Carbon Law.”

  “The Russian connection to Alaska made it palatable. Now China has a resource base to alleviate the pressure Russia felt China was putting on Siberia. And China has more mineral and energy resources with which to compete internationally.”

  “There’s more.” Anna lowered her shaking head. “China will now have a foothold in North America.”

  “In what way?”

  “Because of its one child policy and”—anger infiltrated her tone—“their culture to select gender by aborting girls.” She breathed deeply to release the tension. “China has nearly 30 million more men than women, many whom will be shipped to Alaska to develop it. This may be the start of a Chinese colonialization of North America.”

  “So the misguided carbon policy really reinforces this being the Chinese Century.”

  “All because progressives can’t balance a budget and want to control humanity!”

  “I’ll wager the Alaskans will turn to open rebellion.”

  Her eyes lifted to him. “Honey, think the Olympic Peninsula will get a little more crowded?”

  “Yes”—Pete nodded—“with a lot of angry Alaskans.”

  Chapter 74

  January 2, 1400 hours

  Spider

  Swanson’s computer screen hummed as it retracted into the conference table. The inlaid wood now concealed the screen’s flush edge. His left hand enveloped a half-full glass of amber sherry. Curling from the ashtray, cigar smoke wafted sideways, blown by forced air ventilation. The old man wore a silk robe and a wide grin while, outside, a storm raged, its rain sheeting off the windows.

  “Well, you look happy,” Gabriel said as he walked in. “Thought you were enjoying the New Year’s party?”

  “I’m taking a break.” Swanson motioned his head in the direction of his stateroom. “I wanted to check something.... Sherry?”

  Gabriel’s brow rose. “Market just opened on the first business day of the new year. Must be a big financial deal.” He walked to the bar and poured a glass of Sainsbury Amontillado, then sat next to his boss.

  “The Russians paid.” Swanson swirled his glass and sipped.

  “Twenty billion dollars. Pretty good commission for a few days work, I’d say.”

  “Makes up for some of the bigger losses.” Swanson’s smile faded. “You’re here for a reason. Got something for me?”

  “Trail’s cold on Johansson. He’s either dead or hiding in a hole...but we’ll keep looking.”

  Swanson eyes drilled into Gabriel’s. “That’s old news. What’s new?”

  “Your Operation Prion, and the Snath Genetics oil and gas well-plugging bacteria.”

  “One of Anna’s ‘black swan’ events. It was supposed to shock the energy futures market. I’ve been betting against the oil companies, but their stock prices have stabilized. I haven’t heard anyone in the fossil fuels industry alerted about sabotaged wells.”

  “And you won’t.”

  Swanson picked up his glass and leaned back. “So the wells weren’t plugged? Why am I finding out five months late?” he growled.

  “Our contacts in the Department of Sustainable Energy said everything went as planned since August. They forced the oil and gas companies to open up nearly half a million idle well holes for inspection.”

  “Brown led that part of Operation Prion.”

  Gabriel flicked a photo of a young, unkempt man onto the overhead screen. “Yes, Devon Brown...hired by Anna over a decade ago to embed an anarchist army within the fossil fuels industry.”

  “From his base at UC Berkeley, he recruited engineers from top universities. His guys were supposed to be there for the field inspections and surreptitiously insert Sven’s oil-consuming bacteria to make the wells useless. Cost me a fortune. So, what about them?”

  “I interrogated him last week,” Gabriel said.

  “What’s his excuse?”

  “The two thousand engineers he helped recruit did as instructed – the packets were inserted into nearly all America’s idle wells.”

  “And?”

  “There was no alarm raised by the fossil fuels management.”

  “So did Devon’s guys fail or did Sven’s bacteria?”

  Gabriel shook his head. “Actually, we’ll never know because the bacterium wasn’t deployed.” Gabriel sipped his sherry.

  Swanson’s expression turned sour. “What?!”

  “I have a standing order to have all non-routine communications to Snath Genetics recorded and forwarded to my office. The president of the packaging company, which put the dried bacteria into the sachets for distribution, called Snath Genetics last week.”

  “How’d he know Snath was involved? Anna was supposed to use dummy companies to keep contractors blind.”

  “Someone at Snath used a heat-treated pallet with a serial number for the July shipment. The company cleverly tracked the pallet ownership to Snath Genetics.”

  “Okay...so what?”

  “With the economy crashing, he was eager to get the order to package the real bacteria.”

  Swanson set his glass down and leaned forward. “What’d he mean, the real bacteria?”

  “Seems the woman who contracted the packaging called him in July and told him to treat the originally supplied product as hazardous waste and dispose of it. After that, he was to insert baker’s yeast into the packets and ship those to Devon’s guys as a test-run.”

  “Damn!” Swanson’s fist slammed onto the table, sending threads of accumulated moss flying.

  “Your instincts were right. It was too quiet for a reason. I can only surmise Anna decided not to allow Prion to move forward.”

  “What possible reason could she have to sabotage an operation she originated?”

  “I really don’t know,” Gabriel said flatly.

  “Maybe she was double-dealing me,” Swanson offered angrily.

  “Paid off by the fossil industry? I doubt it. She wouldn’t survive public exposure a week no matter how much they gave her. Besides, how much more money did she need?”

  “Think she was blackmailed?”

  “Doubtful. She was under your protection so law enforcement wasn’t likely to go after her. Look at the Maldives case. Because of that oil company’s investigation, Interpol had her as the prime suspect in the assassination of Hassan and two crew members on the boat she blew up.”

  “From what you told me, their evidence was circumstantial and weak.”

  “True, but mostly Interpol was afraid of you,” Gabriel said.

  “But she must have had an FBI connection since they went after the hackers.”

  “My sources don’t know where the Krugerrand tracking info originated, just that FBI Director Greene personally was involved. I’m skeptical she would have approached him.”

  Swanson grimaced, then suggested, “Think someone had a different threat against her?”

  Gabriel’s head shook. “She had no family, no drug addiction, no scandals you’d have cared about.”

  “You still think it was that man in Canada?”

  “Yes...and a new-found morality
that made her reconsider her helping you with your carbon trapping technologies.”

  “Hard to believe she found religion,” Swanson scoffed.

  “Either’s a possibility.” Gabriel pondered his nearly empty glass. “But with her death, it’s moot.”

  Chapter 75

  January 5, 1500 hours

  Heyward House

  An image in several shades of blue slowly revealed itself. It was enhanced with a pale golden under-print. Anna wore a bemused smirk while staring at the lengthening photo paper.

  Pete entered their office and his arms gently wrapped around her expanded belly. He kissed her neck. “Happy six-month anniversary, Babe.”

  “Yes, half a year since I caught you in my web.” She chuckled while still focused on the large-format laser printer.

  “You’re grinning. What mischief are you making today?”

  “Just an idea that came to me in a dream.” A second sheet started printing, this one with dozens of serialized coupons.

  He stooped and studied the first sheet’s image laying on the output tray. “Looks like an old Chinese bond.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What’s your idea?”

  “Alaska...buying its freedom...pulling a switcharoo.”

  His brow lifted. “Babe, you’re getting cryptic again.”

  “Come sit at the kitchen island with me. I’ll explain.” She picked up the 13” by 18” copy and its freshly finished companion coupon payment sheet.

  Sitting at the island, he poured two cups of hot tea.

  After stirring honey into hers, she pointed at the bond with the spoon. “First a history lesson. In 1912 the old Chinese imperial Qing Dynasty ended and the modern Republic of China was born.”

  “China? Modern in 1912?” Pete scoffed sarcastically.

  “Bear with me on this. The government was reorganizing and needed money to finance the new nation.”

  “So they issued bonds?”

  “Yes...tens of millions in pounds sterling, much of it at five percent. They’re called Reorganization Gold Loan Bonds.”

  “Well, they’re certainly beautiful.”

  “Should be. They were exquisitely steel-engraved by Waterlow & Sons, a very infamous English engraver.”

  “Infamous?”

  “Waterlow was duped into Portugal’s currency forgery scandal back in the 1920s. That ultimately led to a military coup and 35 years of dictatorship.” “Why the grimace?”

  “Just recalling my undergrad studies.... Taking advantage of, or fomenting, financial chaos is how progressives take control of countries.”

  “Like bankrupting the US and enriching the Agenda 21 financiers. You’re quite the history buff, Babe.”

  “She who ignores history does so at her peril.”

  He looked closely at the bond. “It’s a piece of art with vignettes of Old China with pagodas, junks, peasants, and what looks like a Roman god—”

  “Mercury.” Her expression returned to admiration of the artwork.

  “Thanks.... Sitting on a bale of something. What’s he examining?”

  “It’s called a detailed dynamo – symbols of the future political and economic state China would become.” Her spoon floated above the design. “See the steamship at anchor waiting for exports?”

  “Yes, now that you mention it. What are those red seals?”

  “Chops...for authentication. And the vertical calligraphy at the bottom is in English, German, French, and Russian.”

  “So it’s pretty. But the Republic of China died in 1949. Isn’t the original bond also worthless?”

  She shook her head. “I hope not. You just paid two grand for the original of this copy.”

  His brow furrowed. “I did?”

  “The others cost a bit more. They’re being FedEx’ed.”

  “Others?”

  “I’ll explain in a moment.” She flipped the bond. “On the back, it’s filled with text and financial data, which to this day”—she looked in his eyes and smiled—“entitles the bearer to principal and interest – something that has been the subject of international lawsuits for decades. A single 1913 one hundred pound Gold Sterling Bond could be worth over 20 million dollars today.”

  “Wow! What’s the value of all outstanding bonds?”

  Her eyes sparkled. “About one trillion dollars.”

  “Seriously?! That’s nearly what Russia paid for Alaska.”

  “Exactly!”

  He shrugged. “But what’s your point? If decades of lawsuits haven’t gotten the Chinese to pay up, what’s left to be done?”

  “It’s a matter of leverage. The British got the Chinese to redeem their bonds when they negotiated the return of Hong Kong and to ensure China’s access to British financial markets.”

  “At full value?”

  “I doubt it. It was tied together with other reimbursements. But that’s not the point.”

  “Which is?”

  “Repayment has been selective.”

  “Meaning?”

  “By that act, the Chinese recognize they’re the legitimate government of China. As such they have a responsibility under long-standing international law to pay.”

  “So why don’t they?”

  “China just flat-out refuses when the bondholders don’t have the political will to force them.”

  “If the US government’s afraid of China, and the corporations that hold them fear retaliation, then China has no incentive to redeem them. So how can anyone use these bonds?”

  “Let me answer that by asking you a few questions.” She leaned back nursing her half empty cup. “What does China need more than anything?”

  “Resources.”

  “And who has resources?”

  “Primarily Australia, Africa, Russia, South America, Canada”—he paused and smiled—“and Alaska.”

  “Correct.... And what type of country would China not want to antagonize?”

  “A major resource supplier close to them that didn’t have a manufacturing base susceptible to blackmail.”

  “Right again.”

  “But China already signed a deal with Russia to control much of Alaska’s resources.”

  “But they may not want the fight that goes with it. And a fight seems to be brewing with the Alaskans. They’re an independent bunch.”

  “So I’ve been reading.”

  “Remember Japanese Admiral Yamamoto telling his high command not to invade the US?”

  He nodded as a slow grin formed. “Because every American has a gun and there’d be one behind every blade of grass.”

  “Uh huh. The Alaskans aren’t rolling over, and I believe it’ll be a proxy fight for others.”

  “Proxy fight?”

  “Everyone who hates imperialism will help the Alaskans.”

  He refilled their cups. “I see your point. So what are you suggesting?”

  After Anna had fleshed out her idea, Pete kissed her cheek. “You’re devilish, Babe. I want to listen in when you call him with your Machiavellian plot.”

  Her brow lifted. “Why not right now?” She flipped open a small netbook and picked up a VoIP – Voice over Internet Protocol – phone. “This’ll route this through my virtual private network, then through a slave computer.” She typed instructions into a pop-up box.

  “You’ve taken over someone’s computer?” His eyes narrowed.

  “It belongs to a little old lady in Delaware.” She looked up and shrugged. “She surfs for recipes. Don’t worry...I’m not harming her computer. In fact, I keep deleting viruses she picks up on cookbook websites.”

  “But why the routing? I thought VoIP was safe from government intercept.”

  “Used to be difficult, but the government got VoIP providers to write backdoors into their protocols. Allows them to surveil. My software goes through the slave computer to find idle computers with VoIP accounts and routes the calls through them while always using a different IP address. It never uses the same idle computer twice, a
nd automatically deletes the event from the log.... But just to be safe, I’m using a false subscriber identity and spare netbook that can’t be traced back to me. And I only use it for VoIP....”

  Her raised finger paused the conversation. “The telephone’s ringing.”

  “Mr. Hancock’s office, how may I help you?” asked the officious secretary.

  “May I speak with Jim, please? Tell him it’s Catherine.”

  “Hold please,” responded the secretary.

  Seconds later the older man’s gravelly voice cheerfully answered. “One moment, please.”

  There was a minute-long pause. “Okay, the light shows the connection’s synched. We’re encrypted.”

  “Hi, Jim,” she said cheerfully.

  “Catherine! It’s been quite a while. How are you both doing? I see there’s no caller ID. I hope this is a social call.”

  Anna pressed a button, and put down the handset. “Pete’s on speaker with me. We’re doing great, and no, this isn’t social. I want to pass something by you that may...intrigue you.”

  “Everything about you intrigues me,” he said fondly.

  “You’re sweet. Here’s why I called....”

  The match flared as Pete lit candles. He had made crêpes over the ensuring hour while the two attorneys talked.

  “That’s all I’ve got, Jim,” Anna said over the speaker phone.

  Hancock concluded, “I’ll set it up. I’m not sure whether to charge you for the time it’ll take me, or write it off as patriotism.”

  “Might as well bill me,” she responded casually. “I should have enough in my retainer account for your fees and travel.... Besides, someday I may need your charity.”

  Chapter 76

  January 14, 1000 hours

  Outside Anchorage

  The foursome waited nervously in the windowless green room. The three men and one woman had arrived separately at this large hunting lodge 20 miles outside Anchorage. Each was at the height of their careers – one was a named partner in a law firm, the three others were international bankers. Before this week, they had never met. Now they were sitting around a polished, old-growth Sitka spruce table feeling like conspirators joined at the hip.