by Jack Du Brul
Khalid’s personal computer was already working, the screen saver bouncing geometric shapes against the VDU’s edges like Ping-Pong balls. It took him a few minutes of scrolling through countless menus to find the information he wanted, an alphabetical list of tankers that regularly plied the waters of the Gulf. Using the mouse he jumped down through the list but found no reference to the Southern Arabia. Curious, he was just about to call the port authorities when Siri’s melodious voice came over the intercom.
“Minister, Trevor James-Price is on line one.”
“Thanks, Siri,” he said, reaching for the phone. Smiling to himself, he recalled the times he and Trevor had spent together at Cambridge.
During their university days, Trevor had been the only one of Khalid’s friends who didn’t see life as a series of obstacles to be overcome. He viewed each day as a precious commodity to be maximized until every second of every hour was used to its fullest potential. Whether it was cramming for final exams or relaxing at a pub with a pint and a pretty girl on his arm, Trevor had the knack of making the most of each moment. He’d once explained the mathematical improbability of any person’s life, the innumerable random events that had occurred since the creation of the universe to allow one person to exist while denying another. He’d summed up by saying the chance that we were alive was somewhere in the realm of infinity-to-one. Why not make the best of living through the greatest long shot in history? Trevor had taken a double first in philosophy and classical literature, graduating with one of the best academic records in Cambridge’s long history.
Trevor had published his first work of philosophy when he was only twenty-four, and by thirty he was the darling of the European intellectual elite. By thirty-five, he was a burned-out alcoholic with an ex-wife and three kids he hadn’t seen in years. He now eked out a living as a freelance journalist and was currently working on an exposé of the OPEC cartel. Khalid had asked James-Price to keep an eye on Hasaan bin-Rufti during his time in London.
“Trev, how’re things in soggy old England?”
“I don’t know what’s more damp, the weather or the lasses’ knickers.”
“Come to think of it, I’d heard it hadn’t rained in Blighty in quite some time.”
“Allow me a little fantasy life, won’t you, old boy? God, how I hate a harsh taskmaster.” Trevor moaned theatrically.
“How’s the meeting going?”
“The preliminaries are over with, and all of the little functionaries have scurried around enough to ensure they’ll stay off the dole for another year. As you know, the heads of OPEC meet tomorrow. The static over the wire leads me to believe that this isn’t a local call, am I right?”
“I’m still in Abu Dhabi. Is anyone else missing?”
“Just you and Juan De la Bruille from Venezuela. All of the other petro-nabobs are present and accounted for, including your corpulent friend.”
“Rufti’s no friend of mine,” Khalid reminded James-Price mildly. “So what’s he been up to?”
“Do you want the full room-and-board itinerary or just the highlights?”
“Keep it short. I’ve got a ton to do before I leave the Gulf.”
“So the anointed one is going to join us, then?” Trevor teased.
“As that American you had as a roommate for your second year would say, anoint this.”
“Touchy, touchy.”
“Actually, Trev, I am. Things aren’t so hot here. In fact you could say that our house of cards is facing a stiff breeze.”
“Trapped between Scylla and Charybdis, eh?”
“You could say that, but I’ve no idea what it means.”
“Classical Greek mythology. Loosely translated it means caught between a rock and a hard place.”
“That sounds about right,” Khalid breathed.
“We’ll talk about that later, then.” Trevor had caught the undertones in his friend’s voice and wisely backed off the subject. “Well, Rufti has been very chummy with the handmaidens and even with a couple of the scullery wenches.”
Trevor referred to the representatives of the Seven Sisters, the seven great oil companies, as the handmaidens. The scullery wenches were officials from any one of the smaller petroleum companies.
“Anyone in particular?”
“Actually, yes. None other than Max Johnston himself. He and Rufti have been as thick as thieves since Johnston’s arrival this morning.”
“Any rumors flying about them?”
“The latest I heard is Rufti wants some of Petromax’s money to sink exploratory wells in Ajman. It sounds like they’re talking about a smash-and-grab operation. Bleed whatever oil they can and move on to the next site. Given the Yank’s time line for oil importation, it seems to be the only thing they can do.”
“It makes sense,” Khalid conceded. “Ajman does have some oil reserves that they’ll want out of the ground before the American moratorium.”
“Qatar and Kuwait are negotiating similar deals with the Big Seven,” the journalist agreed. “They’re taking a massive price cut just to get the oil to market.”
“Do you get the impression OPEC is planning an across-the-board price reduction?”
“No way,” James-Price said. “These deals are sub rosa; the mercantile exchange boards won’t know a thing about it. In public, the ministers are talking about a four-cent-per-barrel increase in response to the rise in Brent Light Sweet prices.”
“So you don’t see anything suspicious about Rufti’s behavior?”
“I didn’t say that. Rufti as well as the Oil Minister from Iran and the newly reinstated representative from Iraq have been holding very quiet meetings, usually in out-of-the-way places.”
“Iran and Iraq? What in the hell is he doing with them?”
“Haven’t a clue, old boy. Security around those meetings is tighter than a vicar’s robes though not as easily bought. During the day, all three men keep their distance from one another, but for the past two nights, their limos have all been seen parked in front of the same hotel or restaurant. Whatever they are discussing is high level and extremely hush-hush.”
“Trev, I need you to find out what they’re talking about.”
“I would, but I do have a piece to write. Playing detective for you has been a nice diversion, but I’ve got child support payments higher than most countries’ gross national products. I need to get back to my story. I’m sorry.”
“I’m writing a check right now for one hundred thousand dollars. Get me that information and it’s yours.”
“Khalid, I don’t need your beneficence,” Trevor said angrily.
“But I need yours.” Khalid set down the phone without saying good-bye.
Alyeska Marine Terminal Valdez, Alaska
As a frequent traveler, Mercer had developed an immunity to jet lag. He could force himself to stay awake or fall asleep upon arrival, depending on how much time he’d shifted. He could be fully acclimated in only a single day, whether he got thirteen hours of sleep or three. However, his flight to Alaska, by way of Chicago and Sea-Tac in Seattle, had been interrupted by both weather and a mechanical delay at Midway, forcing him to spend a night at an airport hotel. He finally landed in Anchorage at a little past ten in the morning, clear-eyed and sharp.
Mercer rented a four-wheel-drive Blazer and drove the three hundred miles south to Valdez, stopping only for fuel, coffee, and the occasional al fresco bathroom break. He arrived in town shortly before four and decided to head straight for the marine terminal rather than checking into his hotel.
He rolled the Blazer to the small guard booth at the entrance to the sprawling facility and was relieved to find his name still on the guest list from when he and Howard Small had used the terminal as a base for their mini-mole tests. Mercer drove into the terminal, around the East Manifold building that monitored oil pouring down the pipeline at 88,000 barrels per hour, and past the huge holding tanks that processed the contaminated seawater that ballasted tankers on their runs to the s
ite.
He slid into an “Authorized Vehicle Only” spot in front of the Operations Center, just inland of berth number four, where a midsized tanker was having her belly filled with North Slope crude. Once he was out of the protective cocoon of the truck, the biting cold struck him head-on, the wind coming off the Sound like needles. Snow had blanketed much of the terminal, but it had all been plowed into huge mounds in parking lots and just beyond the sharp curves of the roads that crisscrossed the installation. To say the weather was unseasonably cold was to say that Cain and Abel only argued on occasion.
Quickly, Mercer dashed from the Blazer into the Operations Center, unzipping his coat as soon as he felt the blast of warm air from the building’s heaters. The receptionist was reading a thriller novel and regarded Mercer so angrily that he was sure he’d interrupted a climactic scene. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Yes, I phoned earlier. I’m Philip Mercer.”
“Oh, yes, you’re here to see Andy Lindstrom.” She got up from her chair, the metal legs scraping as she shifted her considerable bulk. “Right this way. He’s not expecting you for a while, but I’m sure he won’t mind.”
Lindstrom, the terminal’s Chief of Operations, stood behind his desk as Mercer entered his office. He wore jeans and a heavy flannel shirt, his head covered by a Seahawks baseball cap. Of average height and build and still in his forties, he looked much older, his skin heavily weathered by twenty years in Alaska and a two-packs-a-day cigarette habit. His jaw was stubbled with a couple days’ worth of reddish beard, and his blue eyes were wearier than Mercer remembered from the last time he’d seen him.
The office was small and institutional, the light provided by a single window and a bank of fluorescent fixtures suspended from the drop ceiling. Lindstrom’s desk was piled with papers placed haphazardly in spiraled stacks that seemed in imminent danger of toppling. A credenza and file cabinet were also buried under papers, thick technical manuals, and parts catalogs. The only furniture not covered was a pair of old wooden chairs in front of the desk. On one wall was a large topographical map of Alaska crudely bisected by a jagged red line representing the pipeline. On the opposite wall was a garish travel poster of a well-bikinied beach.
Lindstrom acknowledged Mercer with a raised finger, then pointed at the telephone receiver clutched in his other fist. His complexion was reddened by whatever was being said on the other end of the conversation.
“Now wait just a goddamn minute. I sent the armature up to the depot in Fairbanks two days ago. If you haven’t gotten it yet, bend their ear, not mine.” He paused and rolled his eyes at Mercer. “Hey, listen to me, I’m not your fucking whipping boy. This sounds like an internal problem to me. I just tried to do you a favor. Don’t think it means I want you calling me every time you have a glitch with one of your machines. Maybe next time you’ll buy American.”
He set the phone down and blew out a long breath.
“Let me guess,” Mercer said as Lindstrom lit a cigarette. “One of the oil companies up in the Refuge.”
“You got it. Alyeska promised to help them out, and the next thing you know they’re calling me when they run out of toilet paper. Christ, it wasn’t like this when we opened up this state. Those roughnecks knew how to work.
“I was a little surprised to get your call yesterday,” Andy said as they shook hands. “I thought you’d left the state after completing those tests with Howard Small. And I’m downright curious why you wanted my Chief of Security present for this meeting. Mike Collins will be here in a few minutes. Mind telling me what you’re doing back in Alaska?”
“I’d prefer to wait until Collins gets here. It’s a pretty complicated story, and I only want to tell it once.”
“Am I right in guessing this has something to do with your project up on the hill?”
“Indirectly. Have you heard about Howard Small?”
“No, what about him?”
“He’s dead, I’m afraid. Murdered. And whoever killed him has made two attempts on me.”
“Jesus. All for that tunnel-boring machine of his?”
Before Mercer could reply, there was a knock at the door, and without pause, Mike Collins entered the office. He was big, a solid two hundred twenty pounds, and old enough that Mercer assumed the scar jagging its way across the right side of his face was a constant reminder of the Vietnam War. Like Lindstrom, he was dressed casually, jeans and a flannel shirt, a pair of Tony Lamas on his size-thirteen feet.
Because he and Mercer hadn’t met during Mercer’s earlier stay in Valdez, Lindstrom made introductions. Collins’ grip was sure and firm, his hands almost as callused as Mercer’s. The Operations Chief told Collins about the death of Howard Small and the two attempts on Mercer’s life.
“So this is about Minnie?” Lindstrom asked again.
“No, not at all. After we finished up our tests, Howard and I went fishing with his cousin in Homer. While we were out, we found a burned-out derelict fishing boat floating maybe forty miles offshore. What we found aboard her got him killed.”
“Yeah, and what was that?” Collins asked with the sharpness of a cop who couldn’t take retirement.
“It took the full efforts of the FBI lab in Washington to figure out that a piece of steel I’d salvaged from the wreck was a fragment of a liquid nitrogen containment tank. Our best guess is the boat was smuggling cylinders of the stuff into Alaska.”
“Why would someone do that when it’s commercially available, and why would someone then try to kill to cover it up?”
“The Feds are working on that right now,” Mercer answered. “What concerns me is what they’re going to do with it.”
“You think this may have something to do with us?” Collins asked.
Before Mercer could answer, Lindstrom spoke. “How much liquid nitrogen are we talking about?”
“Before I left Washington, I called the Harbor Master in Seward, the boat’s home port. He told me that the Jenny IV had gone out eighteen times in the past year, yet none of the canneries or fish-processing plants that I called have any record of buying fish from her. The Harbor Master also told me her captain had just paid cash for a new pickup, so he was making money somehow. Figure she went on at least eighteen runs and had a capacity of about thirteen tons. You do the math. That’s a shitload of liquid nitrogen.”
“I still don’t get it. It’s not a drug or explosives or anything illegal. I mean, it’s just cold. What’s the big deal?”
“The only thing that makes sense to me, and I believe that Dick Henna of the FBI agrees, is sabotage,” Mercer continued over the startled looks of the two men. “Liquid nitrogen can alter the molecular strength of any material exposed to it. It weakens steel so badly that it can fracture under its own weight. And there would be no trace of tampering. Say someone sprays a piece of equipment with the stuff. Later, when it’s used, the equipment would fail with no logical explanation and no detectable cause. What if they use the nitrogen to weaken a section of the pipeline? When it collapses you’ve got a major spill on your hands for no reason. You’ve been under the media microscope since work started on the new pipeline from the North Slope, so I figured you guys would be tailor-made for this kind of terrorist action.”
Mercer could see he’d caught Andy Lindstrom’s attention. But by no means was the third-generation oilman convinced. Instinctively, Mercer stayed quiet, letting Lindstrom think through the logic. But still he had to struggle not to show his agitation. He’d just dropped a bombshell on the Operations Chief’s desk, and Lindstrom didn’t know that Mercer wasn’t given to paranoid fantasies and conspiracy theories. Come on, damn it, come on. You know this could be a possible threat.
“The pipeline would make a choice target, but it wouldn’t work,” Lindstrom said at last, pulling a fifth of bourbon from a desk drawer and splashing some into three small cups. “The pipe walls are high-tensile steel, about a half-inch thick, with a maximum rated internal pressure load of nearly one thousand two hundred psi. Even
if someone froze a section, they’d still need a bulldozer to crack it open, and our response team would be there long before they made their getaway.”
“What about the VSMs?” Mercer fired back, knowing he had to work fast or his warnings weren’t going to amount to anything.
The aboveground sections of the pipeline were supported above the frozen tundra by 78,000 VSMs or Vertical Support Members. The towers were spaced approximately sixty feet apart and were designed to allow the pipeline to shift within its bed up to twelve feet horizontally and two feet vertically to compensate for expansion and contraction of the pipe casing. The VSMs also served as a buffer in the event of an earthquake like the one that devastated Alaska on Good Friday of 1964. The bases of the stanchions were buried anywhere between fifteen and sixty feet deep, depending on the depth of the permafrost. They utilized passive ammonia cooling to ensure that conductive heat from the flowing oil didn’t melt the frozen soil that kept the pipeline stable.
“Same again. Even if you weakened the supports with liquid nitrogen, you’d still need heavy equipment to make them fail. Remember, it took 1347 state and federal permits to get the line constructed, and you can bet dollars to doughnuts that they covered their asses and made sure the whole system was so over-built that God himself couldn’t take it apart.”
“They said the same thing about the Titanic.” Mercer let his last statement hang in the air for a minute before continuing. “How about some of the bridges? Isn’t there one over a thousand feet long?”
“Where the pipeline crosses the Tanana River, there’s a suspension bridge of twelve hundred feet, but again, even after weakening the anchors and caisson supports, you’d need dynamite to bring it down. Why bother freezing the steel if you have to use explosives?”
“I know you guys have to put chemicals in the oil to augment its natural heat and make flow easier on the way from Prudhoe. What about just freezing the oil in the line, plugging it up solid? Would something like that cause severe damage?”