The Icarus Prediction: Betting it all has its price

by RD Gupta

  Irgut was looking toward the dawn when the earth erupted with a BARRRUUMMMPPP! Flames shot into the air and created a compression shock wave that slammed Irgut to the ground with a stupefying impact. He looked up and saw a river of fire race across the landscape from horizon to horizon, as if a fissure had ripped the earth apart, and the gates of hell had opened.

  Panicked sheep and cattle scattered in all directions as the orange inferno made the sky bright as daylight, and Irgut’s wife stumbled out of their farmhouse, babbling about Armageddon.

  Gaping at the river of fire that traversed the earth as far as he could see, Irgut wondered if she might be right.

  *

  The supervisor had just turned to run back to his Lada when a WHAM! sent a concussion wave across the parking lot, followed by a giant orange mushroom cloud erupting in the place where the pumping station had been.

  Dazed from being thrown to the concrete, the supervisor looked up in horror to see and feel the heat as fire and debris poured out of the pumping station like lava from Vesuvius.

  *

  In the face of so much death for so long, Arkady Lemontov had become a stoic figure, somewhat numb to the emotions of fear, lust, and laughter. He and his comrades watched the orange ribbon of fire bloom on the western horizon, then race east and out of sight in a heartbeat, creating a sound like a chainsaw in the distance and penetrating Lemontov’s thick veneer.

  A deep-throated cheer rose up from his band of misfits. They had endured years of hiding, planning, and penury—but now their dagger had been plunged into the heart of the Russian bear. Lemontov found himself screaming in exultation, clapping his comrades on their backs and hugging little Kordan, the janitor master spy whom he called a hero.

  With a sense of sweet victory, he pulled the satellite phone out of the holster and began tapping out a message. Then he plugged the umbilical into the video camera, rewound the tape, and began sending the feed.

  *

  CPC Pipeline Loading Terminal

  Novorossiysk, Russia

  The pipeline technician looked up as the alarm in the control room sounded. The lighted icon for pumping station number two had gone dark, indicating it had fallen offline. Other than for scheduled maintenance, this rarely happened because the pipeline and its equipment were relatively new and largely automated, but it did happen.

  “Get number two on the phone,” he ordered his deputy. “See what the problem is.”

  The deputy nodded and picked up the phone while the technician checked the inventory levels. He wasn’t worried. Most of the tank reservoirs were full, and he could keep the stream of offshore tankers going for four to five days before his supply of crude began to run dry. Usually these unscheduled episodes at the pumping stations were cleared up in hours, if not minutes.

  “Uh, sir?” said the deputy.

  “Da?” replied the technician.

  “I can’t seem to raise pumping station number two.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Al-Jazeera Headquarters

  Doha, Qatar

  Shamir, a journalist had just come on shift and was sifting through the pecking order of stories for the day. He flipped from one screen to the next, hoping he would find something interesting for the al-Jazeera television network. An innovative idea that was founded and bankrolled by the Emir of Qatar in 1996, al-Jazeera was originally envisioned to be the BBC of the Middle East—i.e., an independent voice covering the issues of the region. Unfortunately, it turned out to be something akin to the Fox News Network for the militant views of the Arab world.

  He sat at the desk near the center of the newsroom. Behind him was a glass wall that separated the newsroom from the studio where an on-air anchor was reading copy from the teleprompter.

  Shamir was a frustrated young man. Educated in England, he had hoped al-Jazeera would grow into a progressive voice of professional journalists for the region. But it had devolved into a drumbeat of Israel-and America-bashing with an increasing strident voice. And all too often, the network itself seemed to be the topic of news, the latest episode being when a group of female anchors had walked out because management required them to wear headscarves and forbade pantsuits. A giant leap backward. Could an anchorwoman in a burka be far behind?

  So Shamir was wrestling with the idea of giving up on his homeland and returning to the West to try to carve out a new life. He was scrolling through his e-mails when he came across one with an intriguing subject line: Shamil Basayev Is Not Dead—Russian Pipeline Destroyed.

  This piqued his interest, and he opened the e-mail. There was only a link to a secure server. Probably some Israeli hackers pulling al-Jazeera’s chain. That happened all the time. His mouse hovered over the delete button as he thought about deleting it, fearful he would only be importing a virus. But his instinct told him otherwise. The IT department would give him hell if it turned out badly, but he clicked on the link and began watching a grainy video of a bearded man in a peaked cap quoting Mark Twain.

  Ninety-eight minutes later, the senior editorial staff of al-Jazeera were crowded into the network’s main conference room, having watched the video for the third time. The deputy managing editor, a wiry combative type named Tallud, spoke up first, saying, “We have to put this on the air right away! We’ll be the first with it. Nothing has shown up on the Internet. We can beat everyone if we act now.”

  “But we have no confirmation,” said Shamir. “Yes, the man looks like Basayev and sounds like Basayev. But what if some Israelis are trying to dupe us? The man was supposed to have been dead for years.”

  “So how do you explain the pipeline fire?” demanded Tallud. “That looked real enough to me.”

  Shamir shrugged. “Could be old stock footage from somewhere. Easy enough to obtain. This might be genuine, but it could be a giant ruse to make us look foolish. We have as many enemies as we have viewers. I should think something would have appeared on the Internet from Russian sources if their pipeline was truly damaged. And the Kremlin swore up and down years ago that they had killed Basayev. They will certainly deny it.”

  Tallud was about to rail again when the managing editor cleared his throat, a sign that he’d made his decision.

  “As Shamir said, this may be genuine, but we can’t rush it onto the air if this is an elaborate hoax. The Israelis could very well be behind it. Contact our bureau chief in Moscow. Have him get a response from the energy ministry, or even directly from the Kremlin, to confirm there has been damage to this Caspian pipeline. If that can be verified, we go with the story.”

  “But it’s Sunday in Moscow!” protested Tallud, reflecting the fact the Arab world was out of sync with most of the planet, in that the Arab weekend fell on Thursday and Friday, and Saturday and Sunday were regular workdays in Qatar. “Trying to get a response from the Russians can take forever on a normal workday. This story will slip through our fingers!”

  But the managing editor had spoken.

  *

  New York City

  10 Days to Options Expiration

  Jarrod Stryker slept in and finally rolled out as the clock neared 11:00 am. Scratching his scalp, he reflected on the disappointing evening. How could an intimate dinner with a lingerie model turn so sour? It was sort of like driving a Maserati with sand in the gears.

  He looked out the window at the glorious spring day and grudgingly admitted to himself he was still carrying a torch for a woman even a lingerie model couldn’t extinguish. Damn her eyes—which were a radiant emerald green, by the way. It had been six years since Beirut, over a decade since they’d had that one night of distilled rapture—from his point of view at least. And he sensed from hers as well.

  Was he ever going to be free of Sarah Kashvilli?

  So far, it didn’t seem so.

  He shook himself out of his funk, threw on his bathrobe, and went to the front door to pick up his Sunday New York Times.

  He fired up the coffee pot and toaster, brushed his teeth, and took his brunc
h out on the terrace overlooking Central Park. Though the major exchanges were closed, he still checked his phone for over-the-counter future trades that took place at night and over the weekend. They served as a bellwether for what would happen when major exchanges opened on Monday. West Texas Intermediate was unchanged, which meant nothing was on the horizon to disrupt his high stakes trade.

  He savored going through the Times, and it helped purge the tension of the last week. As he read about one foreign hot spot after another, it brought to mind the life he’d left behind. Where would he be now if he hadn’t fallen on his sword for Sarah Kashvilli? Afghanistan? Columbia? Dead? He didn’t want to, but he had to admit part of him missed the life that had been of that world. But that was then. This was now.

  The past week had been such a rollercoaster he hadn’t planned anything, so he changed into some jeans and decided to see what the city had to offer on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon.

  The security desk was manned by an NYU student with an open physics textbook—someone clearly swimming upstream against the surging river of overpriced tuition. Jarrod gave him a wave and exited through the revolving door, then made his way to Central Park.

  He never looked up the factoid on how Central Park remained intact on this island of concrete, glass, and steel, but he thought it the primeval soul of the city. Joggers and Frisbee-throwers were out in full force under a sky that was crystal blue. He walked past a hot dog vendor and thought, what the hell, and turned around. He ordered one with all the trimmings and a lemonade. Sitting on a bench, he took a mouthful, knowing it was pure poison but oh, sooooo good.

  He wandered past the architectural jewel of the Plaza, largely vacant now as the bulk of the hotel had been converted to condos that belonged to out-of-town owners. He was always surprised—and a little disconcerted—by the people he passed, many chatting away on cell phones, because he rarely heard English spoken. Somebody once told him eight hundred distinct languages were spoken in New York City. He didn’t know if that statistic was for real, but it wouldn’t surprise him.

  He found himself on Madison Avenue by the imposing Gothic structure of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. By upbringing, he was an Episcopalian—Catholic light, as his Dad used to say. But the family had a laissez-faire attitude toward religion, with church attendance being relegated to Christmas Eve and Easter. He’d never been inside Saint Patrick’s, and since it was midafternoon and between Masses, he walked up the stone steps and entered.

  The vaulted ceiling was supported by massive Gothic columns and was awe-inspiring, and the solitary worshippers sprinkled about seemed to be on earth looking at a portal up to heaven.

  Duly impressed, he wandered back outside to see a vagrant sitting on the steps. The poor bastard was maybe fifty but looked seventy, with a patina of dried grime on his skin. A set of ethereal eyes looked out blankly, framed by the unkempt hair on his face. His hand held an open baseball cap for any stray offering that might come his way. He held no sign advertising his circumstances. None was needed.

  People like this were the standard-issue background noise to a major metropolis like New York, and like any residents, Jarrod had developed the ability to tune them out—much like the omnipresent construction noise one heard during the week. But seeing as it was Sunday, he dropped a twenty in the hat and went on toward Times Square. He checked his Rolex. Maybe there was a late afternoon matinee worth seeing. Maybe that would get his mind off Blackenford for a while.

  *

  Tbilisi, Georgia

  In the wake of the text message and video from Lemontov, the euphoria in the warehouse had slowly given way to impatience, then to frustration, and then to rage. The two TV screens set up on the workbench were tuned to the al-Jazeera satellite channels—one in Arabic and the other in English. Shamil Basayev had remained glued to the screens for hours, only taking his eyes off them to relieve his bladder and upbraid his computer geek.

  “Are you certain the link to the server worked properly?” questioned Basayev.

  “Da, Commander.”

  “And the video was downloaded?”

  “I am certain, Commander, almost immediately after the e-mail was opened by the al-Jazeera journalist.”

  “Then why are we not seeing it here?” He jabbed at the screens with his finger.

  “I have no idea, Commander. Perhaps we should notify the other media.”

  Basayev made a sound like a rusty valve opening. “I strike a blow for our brothers and what do they give us in return? Silence! That is what they give us!” He paced some more. Finally, he said, “We wait.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  New York City

  Mike Ripley had obtained a very expensive MBA from Columbia, but he was the junior guy in the energy-trading group at Blackenford Capital, having only been employed there for six months. As such, he pulled the scrub assignments.

  Because the Asian Pacific markets opened on Monday morning, thirteen hours ahead of New York, Ripley was the “the monitor” on Sunday evening, reporting for work at 8:00 pm when the Tokyo exchange opened in the Pacific.

  He sat down at his station and powered up the screens. The Tokyo exchange had opened, and he scanned the pricing for Russian D2 oil, North Sea Brent Crude, and other energy commodities. Pricing was largely unchanged from Friday’s close, so he had nothing of substance to report. Still, he prepared a meticulously worded e-mail to Jarrod, Sergei, and Chet, stating exactly that. His job was to provide the management team with immediate feedback on any significant price fluctuations.

  He hit the send button, then opened his briefcase and took out a study guide for the Certified Financial Analyst Exam. He put his feet up on the counter and began to read.

  *

  Other than the subway, most New Yorkers have no clue as to the subterranean labyrinth that lies underfoot. The city operates on five fundamental systems that run through the warren of tunnels and pipelines beneath the streets—water, electricity, communications, natural gas, and sewer. At different places, some or all of these systems share the same tunnel. And of course, maintenance is a continuing enterprise. To avoid traffic disruption, quite often maintenance operations are performed during the dead of night.

  Two blocks away from the Arcadia Tower, a city water crew put up yellow tape and pylons around a manhole. A maintenance engineer (fancy way of saying welder) named Randy Gates climbed down a ladder into the tunnel. He carried a mechanic’s light that provided stark illumination as he counted off the sections of pipe. He found the pipe section that was spewing a tiny stream of water, and after inspecting it, he spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Bring down the rig and a six-foot section. We got a leaker. Shut off flow at J-24 junction.”

  “Roger that,” came the response.

  Gates and his crew rigged up the lights as a valve closed and the water flow came to a halt, causing the tiny stream to disappear. The water department would get a flurry of calls from customers downstream complaining their toilets wouldn’t flush, but he’d be finished and have the flow restored before any real inconvenience ensued. He put his mask on in the flip-up position and flicked the flint starter to ignite the acetylene gas coming out of the torch. He flipped down his mask, then adjusted the oxygen flow to where the blue flame was spewing out of the nozzle at five thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

  His welder’s view was truncated by the heavily darkened visor, as were his assistants’ views as they looked on through their welding goggles.

  The welder was down on one knee, concentrating on the path of his torch as it cut through the pipe, so he didn’t notice the Norwegian rat as it walked into the little tunnel forming in the gap of his trouser leg. When he felt something furry up near his knee, his leg involuntarily went into a spasm. This, in turn, panicked the rat, which defensively sank his teeth into the soft skin of the hairy calf.

  Reflexively, the welder dropped the torch to grab his leg, and the heavy metal nozzle clattered to the ground. There, the flame tip wound up pointing at the natural
gas pipeline that ran along the tunnel near the floor. One of the assistants reached to grab the nozzle, but it was already too late. At five thousand degrees, the flame turned the metal into a molten liquid in a heartbeat, igniting the natural gas within.

  Topside, a young urban veterinarian was walking his girlfriend back home following a late Sunday evening dinner with friends. He was confident the rest of the evening was going to go according to plan, as her fingers were entwined with his, and she was caressing his inner arm with her free hand. They’d stopped for a lingering embrace, when suddenly the earth rumbled and a tongue of flame erupted from the street with a BLAM! The manhole cover shot into the air.

  Mesmerized, the couple watched as the steel disc came down like a Frisbee to bury itself in the passenger windshield of a passing FedEx truck. And then the lights on a string of office buildings suddenly winked out as the vet’s girlfriend ran the other way, screaming.

  *

  Mike Ripley swore quietly when everything went dark at the trading desk.

  He put the Certified Financial Analyst manual he had been studying aside and stood, waiting for the power to come back on. When nothing did, he left the trading room and went through the reception area, using the screen of his cell phone as a flashlight. He tried the light switch and got nothing. Then he punched the elevator button, and it was stone dead as well.

  While the building did have an emergency generator, the Arcadia Tower was so new it had not yet been teched out and plugged into the grid.

  In a quandary as to what to do, he decided to go back to his desk, but when he swiped his security card through the access lock, nothing happened, causing him to groan. Now he was locked in the reception area. He tried the phone at the receptionist’s desk. Dead. Then he tried his cell phone. Even up on the forty-second floor, he usually could get a signal, but now he couldn’t get any bars on his screen.