by Ben Coes
Savoy stood up and walked out. Jessica followed him into the hallway.
“Don’t leave,” she said as he walked down the hallway. Savoy paused and turned around. “We need you in here.”
“You need a scapegoat.”
“Come on. Let’s do this right. Reuben’s an asshole. Come back in.”
He looked at Jessica. For a brief moment, she seemed lost.
“I’ll do it for you, Jessica,” Savoy said.
“Let’s keep going,” said Jessica as she and Savoy walked back into the room. “What do we have on Capitana?”
“We’re still in the middle of a rescue operation,” said Epstein from Defense. “The platform is almost three hundred miles from the coast. The ones we’ve pulled from the water are being interviewed right now. What we know is that there was escalating violence on board the rig, followed by a hostage situation. Then, just before the explosion, there was a gun battle, which nobody saw. The workers were freed by the man who ran Capitana for Anson Energy, somebody named Andreas.”
“Dewey Andreas,” said Savoy.
Jessica checked her notes and nodded, obviously surprised Savoy would know it. “Andreas fled the rig in a helicopter, for what reason we don’t know. We don’t know yet if he was involved.”
“Whose chopper was it?” asked McCarthy.
“We don’t know,” said Jessica.
“Where is Andreas now?” he asked.
“We have no idea,” Jessica said.
“What do you know about Andreas?” asked Ennis from the NSA, looking at Savoy.
“KKB is acquiring Anson Energy. I was supposed to fly down there next week to look at the facility. Andreas runs the rig.”
“We should run a background on him, quickly,” said Jessica.
“He filed a report yesterday,” added Savoy. “Three men died on the rig earlier this week. I learned about it a few hours ago. He said it was ethnic tensions.”
“I want to see the report,” said Jessica.
“Me too,” said Ennis.
“I’ll send it around,” said Savoy.
“What does this do to oil supply?” Scalia from the White House asked Antonia Stebbens from Energy.
“I suggest we look at that later,” the woman from DOD cut in. “With all due respect, we need to get the investigation rolling before we have time to think about the impact on gas prices.”
“With all due respect, it could be directly related to the investigation,” said Scalia. “Think about it. Two direct hits to key U.S. supply nodes.”
“Are you suggesting this wasn’t terrorism?” asked the NSA man.
“I never said it was terrorists,” said Scalia. “It is indisputable that this was a coordinated attack on our nation’s energy supply. And it was pretty clearly timed to coincide with the merger announcement of KKB and Anson Energy.”
Savoy nodded, exactly what he’d been thinking since he’d learned about the Capitana strike.
“We haven’t even begun assessing, but it’ll be grim,” interrupted Antonia Stebbens from Energy. “On the electricity side, Savage Island supplied nearly seven percent of the country’s electricity. It was a major eastern seaboard supplier. As for Capitana, last year roughly nine percent of U.S. raw petroleum supply originated at Capitana. Next year that number would have been more than twelve percent. We’re talking about the largest strike ever outside of the Arabian Peninsula. This was a major reservoir. Let’s put it this way. You could pour Prudhoe Bay, Orinoco Project, Permian Basin, and ANWR into Capitana and barely cover the bottom half.”
“I stand corrected,” said the NSA staffer. “Who would want to maim our supply points then?”
“Let me finish,” said Stebbens. “To maintain supply point, we’ll be asking the president to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. We’ll have to go back to Venezuela, OPEC, et cetera. I won’t even speculate on prices.”
“Again,” said the NSA man, “who would attack supply?”
“Are you suggesting this was a foreign government of some sort?” asked Savoy.
“We’re above your security clearance right now,” interrupted McCarthy.
“Blow me,” said Savoy. “Either I’m included or I walk out of here and call a press conference telling the world about how you all fucked this whole thing up.”
“Please, children,” said the bald man from the CIA, Victor Buck. “Answer the question.”
“I’m not suggesting anything,” said Stebbens. “I assess energy risk and how to prevent it.”
Suddenly, a door opened at the side of the room. A tall, brown-haired man walked in and stood. Everyone recognized him. It was the director of the FBI, Louis Chiles.
“Nothing is off the table,” said Chiles. “If a foreign government is behind this, we’ll find out. But right now we need to focus in on prevention of further attacks. I agree with Terry. Bring in the Arabs, shut down the nukes. Do it all right now. I’ll take responsibility for any blowback. Next, we find Dewey Andreas. He knows more about these attackers than anyone alive. He should’ve made contact by now, and everything could depend on finding him—alive.”
Savoy followed Jessica to her office in silence, partly because he was tired, partly because he was disgusted.
It was still dark, but the winter morning’s first light was beginning to send shadows into the street. Delivery trucks rumbled down the street in front of her office. It was just past 6:00 A.M.
Savoy entered and stood by the window. “These your kids?” He pointed to a silver frame on the windowsill, two teenage-looking girls holding tennis rackets, dressed in white outfits, smiling.
“Nieces,” Jessica said. “Esmé and Katie.”
Savoy stared at the photo for a moment. Then he looked at Jessica. “I gotta go.”
“What? Where?”
“First I have to make sure everyone from Savage Island made it safely back. Then I need to get an answer from an obviously overtaxed Aspen police force about my missing boss. Oh, yeah, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in about a week. I might just take a nap too.”
“I hear you, Terry. Look, I’ll get my people on the Aspen police. But seriously, we need your help.”
“Obviously you don’t. That meeting was a joke.”
“I know what you’re going to say,” said Jessica. “I know what you’re thinking. That was a formality. We had to have that meeting. McCarthy is from upstairs. He’s a lawyer. He’s there to make sure we’re covering our asses with respect to foreign governments, U.S. law, that the CIA doesn’t go where they’re not supposed to, that there’s process around decisions so that we don’t get hauled in front of Congress, et cetera.”
Savoy stepped closer to Jessica. “You have a major strike on the United States of America and you have a bunch of paper-pushing bureaucrats trying to figure out how they can waste enough time in the next seventy-two hours to completely miss any chance of catching whoever’s behind this. Never mind preventing another strike. The largest single point source of U.S. electricity is gone. The largest oil field outside of the Middle East is destroyed. And all our government can do is sit around some fancy table and see who can ask the most clever questions, who can assign blame, and who can avoid taking risks? Forgive me, but I want no part of that.”
Jessica listened to every word patiently. She didn’t look away, but nodded at certain points, and smiled at others respectfully. “I agree with you. But does that mean we give up? This is about defending America, Terry. That’s why we’re in this. That’s why you’re here. It’s why we care. This investigation is going to hinge on four or five people in that room. John Scalia from the White House. Vic Buck from CIA. Antonia Stebbens from Energy, me, and you. That is, if you’ll stay. I need you. You’re right. This thing is going to be over in a matter of days, not weeks. The cement is drying. We need to act now. And there’s one witness who may know more than all the other survivors combined. I need you to help me find him. Dewey Andreas.”
Savoy looked around the off
ice and saw the two chairs in front of the desk. He flopped down in one of the chairs. He rubbed his eyes. “I need a cup of coffee.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” Jessica said, smiling.
“I like you, Jessica,” Savoy said. “I’ll help you find Andreas, but I want no part of the bureaucracy around here. You have to promise me that.”
“I promise. Let’s go get a cup of coffee. I need one too.”
“I’m too tired to walk.”
“I’ll go. Sit down. Put your feet up. Be right back.”
Jessica took the elevator to the lobby, walked to the Starbucks across the street and bought two large coffees.
When she returned to the office, Savoy was still sitting in the same position. He was asleep.
She placed the coffee cup on the desk in front of her. Savoy stayed in a reclined position in the chair, his eyes still closed.
“I know Andreas,” whispered Savoy.
“What?” asked Jessica, leaning forward. “Did you say what I think you just said?”
“Well, I don’t know him. My service overlapped with his. When I was a Ranger, he was Delta. He wouldn’t have known who I was.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I don’t work for you,” Savoy said calmly, opening his eyes. “I don’t trust a person in that room. They’re already setting him up for a lynching. I’m not going to be a part of that, I’ll tell you right now.”
“But Dewey Andreas climbed onto a helicopter and fled the scene of the explosion.”
“After he freed his men. You have no idea why he got on that helicopter, if he got on that helicopter.”
“What do you know about Andreas?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Most things are. We have all day.”
Savoy sipped his coffee cup.
“Aw, hell, I hate Starbucks.” He took another sip, then winced.
Jessica laughed.
“They run Delta out of Fort Bragg,” said Savoy. “I was at Benning, but we all heard the story. Andreas was ex-Ranger. Any Ranger who’s recruited into Delta is a point of pride.”
“Keep going,” said Jessica.
“Like I said, I didn’t know him personally. But one day his wife was found dead, murdered in their apartment near Fort Bragg.”
“Murdered?”
“It was a big story. The local TV stations got it, the papers, that sort of thing. She was shot to death. Because it happened off base, the case went to the local prosecutor, who had it in for Andreas. Tried like hell to convict him, but a jury found him innocent.”
“When was this?”
“Over a decade ago.” Savoy stood up. “After they found him innocent, he left. For good. Nobody ever saw him again.”
“Was he really innocent?”
“Some people thought so. Others thought those Deltas were strung awful tight.”
“What do you think?”
Savoy paused and took another sip, wincing again.
“I think he was falsely accused by some podunk D.A. trying to make headlines and get himself elected to the state legislature. No way Dewey Andreas killed his wife.”
Jessica sat back. In the distance, the sun was beginning to send bright morning light through the window. In the hallway, the sound of people coming to work could be heard. “And he ends up working for Anson Energy? That’s some coincidence.”
“Yeah. I read my manifest on the way to Savage Island yesterday. It’s the first time I’ve seen his name in a long time. It might not even be the same guy.”
“Name like Dewey Andreas? Come on. It’s him.”
“Yeah. What they said about a gunfight on the rig? I guess that cinches it. I mean, when I heard that, it really clicked. Deltas are trained to kill terrorists.”
“Do you believe the memo? What does ‘ethnic tensions’ mean?”
“I just don’t know, Jess. We need to speak with him.”
The intercom on Jessica’s desk chimed and a female voice came on. “Director wants you in five minutes.”
“Got it,” she said.
“Alone.”
The intercom clicked off. “I need to head up. I’ll have my assistant get you a room at the Willard down the street. It’ll be under Tanzer. Go get a few hours’ sleep.”
“I will,” said Savoy. “If you want my help finding Andreas, you got it. But only on one condition: I have access to the same information you do. You get me clearances and all that. If not, forget it. I don’t have the time. I’ll do my own investigation.”
“I think I can do that. Let me talk to the director.”
“Also, I want to bring Paul Spinale in here. I need a Sherpa. I need someone who’ll manage KKB issues, housekeeping stuff, that sort of thing.”
“Makes sense.”
“He should get the same clearances I do. He was Navy, intelligence officer.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Spin and I will need an office. Preferably one with a couch.”
“Christ, you’re demanding. Anything else? Masseuse?”
“If it’s a female, yes. I don’t want a guy touching my body.”
“I was kidding.”
“I wasn’t.” Savoy laughed. They walked toward the door. “One other thing.” He took a last sip from his coffee cup and tossed it in the trash. “And I’m serious about this.”
“What is it?”
“No more Starbucks. Is there a Dunkin’ Donuts around here?”
Jessica entered the director’s suite and walked to one of the two large leather couches in front of Louis Chiles’s massive mahogany desk. Already seated was Reuben McCarthy. Jessica took a seat next to him. Chiles, who was on the phone, finished his conversation and hung up the phone. He walked around his desk and sat down across from Jessica and McCarthy.
“That was John Scalia,” said Chiles. “The president isn’t going to tap SPR. They’re not going to elevate alert levels.”
“I have no comment on the SPR call,” said Jessica. “But I disagree on the terror alert. We have no idea where this could go. This could be a general populace threat, or infrastructure. In either case, aren’t we better off moving to red?”
“We have no idea what happened here,” said Chiles. “If anything we need some time to do some work. The president does, however, want to make sure we have the nukes locked down.”
“Already done,” said Jessica.
“Scalia did reveal something interesting. They’re concerned this is something different, perhaps not a terrorist strike, maybe a sanctioned attack by a foreign government.”
“Which one?” asked Jessica.
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Great. We get to play guessing games with the White House.”
“Chill out. All in good time. Let’s get back to our work.”
“Before we begin, I want Terry Savoy and his deputy Paul Spinale in here on this one,” said Jessica. “We need his help finding Andreas.”
“I don’t like it,” said McCarthy. “He’s a hothead. We need thinkers.”
“Bullshit,” said Jessica. “He’s not a hothead and he’s as smart as anyone else around here. Look, we’re talking about a highly decorated former U.S. Army Ranger. Run his background if you want, but I want him with me.”
“You got him,” said Chiles, looking at Jessica. He turned to McCarthy. “Go.”
“First, we have manifests of all employees at nuclear power plants, LNG facilities, and oil refineries in the U.S.,” said McCarthy. “We’re looking at nationalities, travel patterns, you name it.”
“When will we have that list?”
“By noon. I suggest we reconvene interagency then.”
“I don’t have time for another session like that,” said Jessica. “Just give me the list as soon as you have it.”
“I’ll give you the list as soon as we have it, but I disagree about interagency. We need the meeting.”
“I agree,” said Chiles. “We don’t know anything yet. We
need to make sure we’re getting access to as much information as we can. We also need to make sure we’re sharing whatever we have.”
“Understood,” said Jessica.
“If I may continue,” said McCarthy. “Dewey Andreas. I have information.”
“So do I,” said Jessica.
“Let me go first,” said McCarthy. “It confirms some negative thoughts.”
“Go,” said Chiles.
“Andreas’s American,” said McCarthy. “He’s from Castine, Maine, on the coast. This was taken the day he enlisted in the army.” He pulled out a black-and-white photograph and put it down on the table. It showed a younger Dewey, handsome, with long hair and a tough, smiling face. “He served this country with distinction. Went to Boston College, then joined the army. He became a Ranger, then was asked to try out for Delta. By all measures, he was good, very good. Multiple meritorious achievement medals, two Purple Hearts. Tough as nails. He was in Panama, also on the team that took out Khomeini’s brother in Indonesia.”
“How the hell did he end up on an oil derrick in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?” asked Chiles.
“That’s where it gets interesting. He had a wife who he grew up with. High school sweetheart sort of thing. They had a son who died of leukemia when he was six. One day not too long after that, Andreas came home and found his wife dead. Someone shot her in the head.” The room went silent for a few moments. “It happened off base. The local D.A. tried him.”
“A jury found him innocent,” said Jessica.
“He left the U.S. after that. Nobody saw him again, until now. This was thirteen years ago.”
“What do you have?” asked Chiles, looking at Jessica.
“Savoy remembers the case,” said Jessica, looking at Chiles, then at McCarthy. “He didn’t know Andreas personally, but it was a big story in all the papers, local TV, that sort of thing. The district attorney tried his hardest to convict him and still didn’t convince the jury.”