by Moulton, CD
Clint nodded. “So, indeed.”
Clint went to the Hotel California to use his laptop. He had good reception for the internet, so checked first on GHKBHSA.
It seemed it was an “affiliate” of HKBHSA. Hong Kong Best Habitats Shanghai Associates. The “G” was Georgia. The US?
He checked the location of the main office. Georgia, alright! Not the US state. The old USSR state. That would explain Victor. “Habitats” would indicate they were land developers. The company was supposed to be an engineering consultant and mapping company.
Mapping? Engineering? “Habitats” was generally spoken of as housing, but the word had a lot of meanings. It could be the place anything was found, though usually living things. “Natural habitat” was used in all botanical and zoological studies.
This didn’t make a whole lot of sense. They wanted to bring in heavy equipment, so what they’d found wasn’t any plant or animal.
The area wasn’t too far from the copper mines. Cinnabar was found in Panamá, but not in that kind of place. Gold and silver weren’t known to be in that area. Zinc and such weren’t. Platinum definitely wasn’t. Radioactives weren’t.
What could it be? There was sulfur in that kind of place, but the demand wasn’t enough for anyone to try to mine it in the area. What was in demand that would make it worth the trouble and expense? He checked the computer sites for each valuable element in a decreasing value order. Things like sand could be valuable in large pure mines in some places, but that wasn’t under consideration here.
Potassium. Plentiful. Phosphorus was in locations that might make it a possibility, but was there that much market?
He checked the world supply. A lot came from Florida, as he knew. The mines around Lakeland were ... running out? There was too much opposition to expanding the mines into the less productive areas because of the environmental damage they brought with them. Radium was found in phosphorus deposits?
Pretty even distribution. Barely worth the cost of extracting. Not much demand for it.
He looked up the prices and quantities. The uses of phosphorus were well-known. Detergents didn’t use them anymore. Fertilizers were the main use. Certain explosives. The list of uses was pages, but none of it seemed to be the kind of thing that would make it take on a higher value.
He was on page four of uses when he stopped. He went back to the first page to note the tonnages needed for the fertilizer trade today. Impressive. He took each item and added the tonnages. It was getting to a figure far above what Clint would have ever considered.
There was a short piece with a link to a page printed many years ago in a SF magazine. Isaac Asimov. He noted that the most limited supply of an element critical to continuing life on Earth was phosphorus. The main supplies for the Americas were ... Florida. Other deposits weren’t nearly so productive.
Florida was running out. European, Chinese and African lodes weren’t as pure or as large.
He had something to look at, now. He checked on the HKBHSA projects. They were much into mining any number of things. Most were the kinds of things most people wouldn’t consider when thinking of valuable minerals or such.
He remembered a book by Dave where the motive for murder was simply bauxite clay in a huge deposit. While gold was found in a nearby area that was the true motive, the figure for a small bauxite lode at only $3.00 per cubic yard seemed like next to nothing, but there were something like 14 million cubic yards of easy-to-mine bauxite. 3 X 14G, with the profit being $1.04 per yard. Forty two million bucks in two years was a hell of a motive for a relatively small Japanese company to knock off a couple of farmers to get their land (though that wasn’t what happened in the book. It was one of the things considered by CD Grimes).
Bauxite wasn’t as needed as a few years before, but that was an example that sprung to mind. Phosphorus was.
Phosphorus was mined in Georgia. The tumult in that area made doing business very difficult.
It was near enough to dinner time that Clint decided to have a good meal. Where would be a good place?
The Europa was supposed to have a very good restaurant.
Who?
There weren’t many in the restaurant so early, so Clint walked around the area a bit, then returned just before eight. The restaurant was doing a good business, but there were tables available. One was almost next to a table where four men were just being seated. One of them was a fat bullish man who seemed to find fault with everything the girl seating them did. The other three didn’t seem to notice. One had longish very black hair and a tattoo of a tiger on his arm. He had on a “muscle” shirt to show the shoulder joint. He had several gold chains and fancy rings and a gaudy watch. The watch was a knock-off Rolex. There were a lot of them in Panamá.
The other two were the “yes men” type, to look at them.
Clint sat at the smaller table nearby with his back toward them. He moved the bright chrome napkin holder to where he could see them in the reflection. It was to one side and he wouldn’t be seen looking at it. He had exceptionally good peripheral vision that had stood him in good stead many times before.
The restaurant was fairly quiet. He could hear a little now and then, particularly when the fat pig was giving an order or ranting about the terrible service in this backward savage place, mostly in English. He did say things in other languages now and then. French and what Clint assumed was Russian. Clint didn’t remember Georgia as being world-sophisticated in any way. Or particularly modern as to accommodations.
Of course, he wasn’t among the elite the few days he was there thirty years ago. He didn’t get to go to the classy joints, assuming there were any.
Victor called the dark-haired one “Blackie” – which Clint expected the minute he saw him. The blondish larger yes-man was Allen. The nerdy (did anyone say that anymore?) one was Dennis. They called Victor “Sir!” Strictly.
Victor took out a big Cuban cigar as they were waiting for desert and was lighting it. The girl was signaling to the doorman and Genio and a police officer were just coming in the door. Clint winked at Genio. The doorman said something to the cops. Clint heard the part, “... refuses to do it!”
Genio went to the table and slapped the cigar out of Victor’s mouth, which drew gasps from several nearby. Blackie jumped up and was reaching into his back pocket. Clint remembered that the Indios had taken a gun away from him. Now the officer with Genio did the same, but he didn’t just grab it away, he twisted Blackie’s arm up until Clint was sure he’d break it or tear it out of the socket. Blackie dropped the pistol and screamed.
“You, sir, and your thug, are under arrest. If these two others wish to comment I can include them!” Genio said in Spanish. Victor cried that he didn’t speak Spanish (not true! Clint heard him speak it very well, if strangely accented) so Genio repeated it in his precise English.
“Who in hell do you think you are!?” Victor demanded. “I’m going to have you locked up in your own cell!”
“I think I am a representative of the Policia Nacional, that you are breaking the law that is very clearly stated in signs all over this and any restaurant here (pointing to the “Fumando prohibido” sign six feet away on a column). I think your thug may not have a weapon in this country and that he has attempted to threaten myself and this officer with one he was carrying concealed on his person – which is good for four years in the penitentiary. You will only have to pay a five hundred dollar fine and serve ten days, to this point. Should you wish to further expand the charges, you may do so now.”
A rather smooth-looking tall thin dark man came into the restaurant then and came over to say, “Capitan Genero, I believe? I spoke to you about my aeroplane being shot. What seems to be the problem here?”
“I came here merely to ask you a question or two about your lies concerning your purpose here. Martin, the doorman, was coming in to tell this vacuous pig he may not smoke in the restaurant. I removed the cigar from his mouth, this thug threatened myself and my officer wi
th a pistol. I have placed them under arrest and they will be charged and will serve their time. I still have the questions for you, Mr. Duquesne.”
“Er, lies? About my purpose here? I don’t...?”
“You are flying an avion that was much like one reported as having shot and killed two Panamanian citizens in the comarca. You stated you are a tourist with no interest here, yet you fly an avion carrying the same logo as another that was shot down by the Indios when it attacked them. You told me, personally, that you leased the avion to yourself as a tax dodge in Argentina. I have checked with Argentina. They say there is no advantage of any type for such a thing. The taxes and fees are the same for business and for private avions.
“I wish to learn what you were doing flying so very low over the comarca.
“Any further attempts to deceive me will result in charges. Is that clear?”
Clint smirked slightly for Genio to see, stated he certainly didn’t think the restaurant in the Europa was a criminal hangout, Goodbye! and walked out. He was dying of curiosity as to what Genio was doing and if it was somehow to his advantage. He’d learned a bit about Duquesne! He knew what that was about! It was definitely for his own edification. Genio had made it a point to act like he didn’t know who Clint was.
Did the bit with Victor and Company just happen? He didn’t see how that could have been set up.
He stood near the entrance until Victor and Blackie were shoved into the police truck, Victor yelling that he would take very strong action against all of Panamá for this insulting and demeaning attack on a poor private businessman here simply on vacation!
“Then you can explain about your going to the comarca land and threatening the Panamanians there and saying you were going there with equipment whether they liked it or not because you are so important and powerful. They removed another weapon from your thug and chased you from their land with bamboo canes? That should be interesting.
“I never act from personal suspicions. I must have corroborative facts.
“Now. Threaten me again and I will add that charge and you will spend a year in penitentiary. Though it is not required here, I advise that you do or say nothing more that will be used in evidence against you in court.”
Victor looked shocked as the truck drove off. Duquesne, Allen and Dennis were standing in the entrance, staring in disbelief. Genio turned to them when the truck was gone and said, “Mr. Duquesne, I still require answers from you. I will give you some time to think up a story that is not so laughable or to tell me the truth. You may, meanwhile, not leave the bounds of Panamá City.”
Duquesne and friends went back inside. Genio grinned at Clint and tossed his head toward the corner. He walked that direction and around the corner. Clint waited a minute, then followed. Genio was talking with a man and didn’t look at Clint, so Clint passed and went toward the Hotel California. Genio soon came to catch up to him and say, “Meet me at the station!” as he passed.
Clint went on to the hotel, waited a few minutes in his room, then went down and into the restaurant door from the lobby and directly out the front when the view was cut off by the closing lobby door. He went around the corner and waited, but no one followed for a minute or two, then a man who had been lazing around the lobby came to look down the empty street. Clint was behind a large croton, out of sight. The man went back and Clint went to the next corner and flagged a taxi. He went to the police station, where Genio was waiting in his office.
“Have you discovered what this crap is about yet?” Genio demanded, as soon as Clint came in. “The damned Russian mafia seems to be involved!”
“I’m not sure, but I have a clue or two. They’ve found something on the comarca. That’s damned obvious. I think it’s probably phosphorus. Phosphate in huge supply.”
Genio was silent, then went to his desk computer to study. He soon shrugged and looked a question at Clint.
“Dave wrote a book where the motive for murder was a bauxite lode. It only brings three dollars a cubic yard, but there were fourteen million cubic yards on some farmers’ property or something.
“Phosphate is a little more and the supply that’s running out in Florida was billions of cubic yards. If there’s a large lode it will be in demand and is easy to mine, though it’s strictly a strip mine deal and makes a mess out of the environment.”
“The Indios will, of course – and I blame them not – refuse allowance of strip mining on the comarcas. I foresee enormous problems. If they have a weapon such as you suggest ... I fear this greatly.
“I have to go to the comarca again. I want to see if that’s what’s going on. If it is ... I don’t know what to do about it. The government’s gonna get into it and there will be horrible consequences for the Indios.”
“Which is my dilemma,” Clint agreed. “That weapon could mean that, for once in history, the little guy, the Indios, can bring the government to its knees!”
“The old story. The natives had guns before the Spanish. It would be a very different world now. I begin to take seriously the Mayan calendar that ends civilization as we know it in December of next year.”
“The timing seems about right – to a terrifying degree. I just wonder if it would be a bad thing for what we call civilization, that gives us Victor and drug deals and war, to end.”
“It would depend on what takes its place.”
Clint nodded slowly. He would go to the comarca in the morning. He had to know a little more about the weapon and about what those people had found.
“I wanted to ask if you set that bit with Victor and thuggy friends up in some way or if it just happened.”
“It was a fortunate coincidence. I was coming to question Duquesne to determine if he was connected. That isn’t necessary, now. He would not have come to the table if he were not part of what they are doing.”
“You can still ask him some embarrassing questions.”
“I will keep delaying. He will then worry that I already know far more than he has considered. Perhaps he will find it hard to sleep if he is worried, which makes a person prone to making mistakes.”
Clint nodded and grinned, made arrangements for the chopper at six in the morning, and left.
He considered, on his way back to the hotel in a cab, what would be lost and what would be gained if civilization were actually to cease, as we know it now. He was in a large modern city, very progressive, in one of the safest places on Earth – yet he wouldn’t think of going on the streets alone in many sections at night. Contrast that to David, which was the second largest city. There was little (relatively) crime. It was safe to be most places anytime, though there was plenty of petty crime and schemes. Contrast them both to the comarcas.
No contest! The comarcas!
This had to be resolved, or at least understood. It was a long way into the fantastic science fiction scenario. So was television and computers and space travel a short time ago.
What?
It was drizzling as they came into the village in the chopper. Roso came out to greet them and to tell Clint that he knew pretty closely where the company was concentrating. It was very flat land that was under a very shallow sea flat that was not in the water when the tide was low until the time of his great-great-great grandfather, when there was a great tremblor and the land rose. It was maybe three meters above the sea, now.
“It is in the coast?” Clint asked.
“No. There was sea, very shallow, for many kilometers in small bays and runnels that are no longer in the sea, though some near the shore of the sea are now going back into the sea. They were dry for many many years, but there is perhaps two centimeters of water there when the tide is high now.”
“It is far?”
“No. Just past the lomas there (pointing to the southeast hills) maybe two kilometers.”
“It’s all flat land now? Why couldn’t they try to bring in their heavy equipment there instead of bothering the people who would stop them?” the chopper pilot, Ernesto, asked.
“Because it has much swamp on the whole place.”
“How big is the flat land?” Clint asked.
“You will see. It is perhaps four kilometers across and three wide.”
Ernesto said he would fly Clint over the area. Roso said that would be dangerous because the chopper was to come to the village only and would be shot down if it went farther. Clint told Ernesto they could damned well shoot him down. They could shoot down a stealth bomber, if what he suspected was true.
Ernesto would go back to Panamá City and tell Genio that phosphate was more than eighty percent likely to be the root of the problem. He would have to make a sounding probe to see how deep the deposit was.
Roso and Clint went to have a talk with the chiefs later, then Roso would take him to the area. They were walking along the trail toward the spot when a small plane came in low. Roso pulled him under the trees as a Panamanian jet came to dive very close to the light plane. Roso made a call that was answered several places and they waited. The jet circled and escorted the light plane back toward the northwest.
“I imagine Genio has given orders that any planes that come over the comarca at less than three kilometers are to be escorted back away or shot down if they refuse to leave.”
“I think Genio is a good man,” was all that Roso would say. They continued on through the little pass and were on a large swampy flat area with swamp vegetation covering it. Roso made a call and was answered. Three minutes later, two men and a young teenage boy stepped onto the path ahead of them. They spoke in the local dialect that Clint understood only a few words of, then Roso said there was a hole about three hundred meters into the swamp from the path. It was mucky and soft, but Clint had on finca boots, so they proceeded.
The hole was a slight depression with a 6" pipe sticking up a few inches in the middle.
“They did sonic readings,” Clint said. “There will be another hole like this close.”
“There are four, this and three more,” Pedro, one of the men, said. Beto, the teenage boy, said, “One is by the hill there and the other two are by the hills there (pointing across the swamp).”