Dollar Down

by Sam Waite

  That was OK. I did. "I'll buy you a drink." We stopped at a café that had a swath of glass for its front wall and one long bar. There were a few tables next to the window. We took one. I ordered steak and fries. Pascal had a decanter of claret.

  I put the oil on the table. "Do you know anywhere I can get this analyzed?"

  Pascal held it up and rotated it. "You want to know what this is? It's obvious." He hardly needed words. His facial expression alone asked me what planet I was from.

  "It's heavy crude. I want to know what field produced it or least what global region. An expert would be able to tell us. There also might be interesting bacteria in there."

  "I have no idea where you could get something like that done. It shouldn't be hard to find out, but I'd guess it'll be expensive. Might take a while too."

  I nodded and put the vial back in my pocket. Oddsson had been generous so far, but to have a commercial lab identify the origin of an oil sample and to check for sulfur-eating bacteria would probably cost a bundle.

  I couldn't even explain why I would want it. There was no evident relevance to Sabine's death. The only tie-in I could make was based on gut instinct. I asked Pascal to let me have recordings from his listening device every twenty-four hours and headed back to Sabine's flat. If a commercial lab was out of reach, David the Chinese translator might be able to help. His friends were chemists working on PhDs. Maybe they had access to a lab. I called, but there was no answer.

  I had planned to try again when I got to the flat, but Alexandra was waiting when I opened the door. She had the back of her hand pressed against her mouth and, as I entered, a mini scream imploded deep in her throat. She stepped forward and held me almost tight enough to crack a rib. I eased the door closed.

  "What's wrong?" Her hair smelled of strawberry shampoo.

  "Someone tried to come in." She looked into my face. "It was several minutes ago. Was it you?"

  "No." I touched her back and realized that she wore only a thin robe over a sleeping gown. It was only a fleeting observation, but her body was softer than I would have guessed, vulnerable. "What happened?"

  "Someone tried to turn the door handle. I thought it was you, so I went to the door. They tried harder. I heard a key slide out of the lock. There were voices. I was terrified."

  That much was clear. What remained unclear was whether there was a real threat. "It might have been someone trying to get into the wrong apartment. Just a mistake."

  Alexandra was still for several seconds then nodded her head. "I suppose. I just..." She let go and stepped back. In a very small voice she said, "I apologize for accosting you."

  "My pleasure." The day before I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I think Miss Marble Statue blushed a little.

  "I guess I'd better go to bed," she said.

  "If you hear anything else, knock on my door."

  After a shower, I went to bed myself. As I lay awake, I tried to think through tomorrow's agenda, but the only things that came to mind were the smell of strawberry shampoo and the feel of satin.

  Chapter 18

  "Coffee's ready."

  Alexandra was dressed for comfort in a lose sweater and baggy pants. She must have brought stuff for breakfast. I hadn't stocked Sabine's bare cupboards.

  "Smells great." After I said that, a grandmotherly voice whispered, "See what you've been missing, mister bachelor?" There was no chance of a long haul for this scene, but I got the point.

  "What's your agenda for today?" Alexandra set out plates of sautéed vegetables, bread, cheese and fruit.

  "I'm not sure yet. I want to talk to a Chinese student. I called yesterday, but couldn't reach him."

  You could almost hear Alexandra's mental gears shifting as she tried to find a fit. She finally popped the clutch. "About the translation?"

  "That's correct." I'd only asked her once if she could help me find a translator. She'd refused.

  "You haven't gotten it yet?"

  "I have. This time I want to ask him about the oil." No mental gears appeared to be shifting. The association might have been too vague for Alexandra to even try. She just cocked her head.

  "He's studying chemical engineering. So are a couple of his colleagues, who helped him with the translation."

  "What are they supposed to do with the oil?"

  I thought about how much to say. I didn't know for sure what the vial meant, but it was obvious Trevor thought it was important. If it contained the bacteria described in the Chinese report, it could be worth a fortune. For some people that might be cause for murder. Now, it seems Alexandra was involved whether she knew it or not.

  "If it is what I believe it might be, it could make Orimulsion obsolete."

  "How?"

  "I'm trying to decide whether you should know that for your own safety."

  "You can't be serious. I have to tell Ian."

  "The pompous twit?"

  "Whether I like him or not, I am a professional. Obviously, that would change the focus of the study. It would change everything, but I'm also suspicious. You still haven't said how."

  I decided it wasn't what Alexandra knew that would put her in danger. It was what someone thought she knew. The more aware she was, the better she could defend herself.

  "The Chinese paper described a process to reduce the viscosity of bitumen in the field. It involves a hungry bug."

  "Sulfur-eating bacteria. That isn't new. The problem is it works only under controlled conditions."

  "The paper said that a strain of Rhodococcus, was genetically engineered. Now it's hearty enough to prosper in the Orinoco tar beds, yet the paper had no data on the bacteria itself. It's just a guess, but maybe there's some in Trevor's oil sample."

  Alexandra cupped a mug in her hands and stared into it as though she was trying to divine coffee grounds. "I want to go with you."

  "I'm not sure that's—"

  She held her hand up and hit me with her hazel lasers. "I have to go with you. That has not come up in the study. If Venezuela was aware of it, we would know. It has enormous implications. Venezuela is not the only country with vast bitumen reserves."

  "It's the implications that worry me. There could be a danger. Remember last night. It might not have been someone trying to get into the wrong flat."

  "Mick—" Alexandra turned off the lasers and gripped my hand. "If there's any way to reduce the danger, it's to get this out in the open. Besides, what could happen to me? I have protection."

  "What?"

  She leaned over and kissed my cheek. "You."

  I wished people would stop trusting me. I also wished for stronger resolve. I said okay.

  David, the Taiwanese student, answered when I called and agreed to meet us, even though I wouldn't say exactly what I wanted over the phone.

  On the Metro. I told Alexandra what little I knew about David. She filled me in on details of the study that I hadn't known before. Strictly business, but I was feeling more comfortable around her. Even on the trip to Monaco, the ice had thawed, but there had still been a slight chill.

  Now, that was gone. All in all, I'd say warm was better.

  After emerging from the Metro station, we walked through a wooded park whose trees cast sharp shadows under a mid-morning sun afire in an azure sky. It scoured the land in a light that cast both Paris and Alexandra in brilliance.

  She took my hand and pulled me toward a pond. A small flock of ducks patrolled its surface. "As a child I used to come here and toss bread to them."

  "They don't seem to remember you."

  Alexandra erred on the side of politeness and smiled. "New ducks," she said. "Come on, it's a shortcut."

  We skirted the bank of the pond and took a gravel path to a narrow entry to the park. The café where we were to meet David was down the street. He arrived shortly after we did.

  He didn't look happy at seeing Alexandra. He was young. He was a man. Hard to figure.

  "You know the missing piece of the liquefaction process," I
said.

  He didn't answer. He just glanced at Alexandra.

  "Don't worry. She knows more than I do about this."

  "You have the bacteria?"

  "That's what I want to ask you. I have an oil sample. Can you analyze it?"

  He chuckled. "Do you mean you want me to tell you how this super bacteria was created? You would have to examine the DNA structure and understand what you were looking at. I'm a graduate student in chemical engineering. Even if I could get the equipment, I wouldn't know how to use it."

  Right. "I don't need to know how to engineer the bugs. Can you just tell me if the oil came from Venezuela, and if it contains sulfur-eating bacteria."

  "It would be possible for someone to identify where it came from, but I can't do it. I can tell you whether it contains the bacteria though. All I need is a microscope. Will that help?"

  I showed him the vial. "How much do you need?"

  Enough to make a few slides would do it. I put about two big drops into the cap of the vial and handed it over. "Bring that back, when you're done." I put the capless vial carefully into my shirt pocket.

  "It'll take about an hour to get to the lab, check the sample and come back. Are you going to wait here?"

  "Yes."

  He was back in forty-eight minutes. The oil was teeming with beasties that looked right at home. "Teeming" might not have been the best word, since he said there were a lot of bacteria, but fewer than he'd expect if they were in an ideal environment. Maybe they weren't thriving.

  That didn't prove what I had was the missing link in the liquefaction process. It did show that it could possibly be the link. For now that was good enough.

  Alexandra had excused herself to call the office. She was back in time to tell David good-bye. "Now what will you do?"

  "I'll call an old friend in Houston. Mostly he leases rigs to wildcatters."

  "He does what?"

  "Oilfield supply. He might be interested in this enough to have it tested."

  Alexandra didn't exactly wring her hands, but she looked uncomfortable. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

  "I don't see how it can hurt. If the paper was correct, the Chinese developed the bacteria. China isn't part of the study is it?"

  "Of course it is. It's a major customer. I don't know the details of that region, though. The Asian market is being handled by our Hong Kong office."

  "Does China have much bitumen?"

  "About ten billion barrels, less than one percent of Venezuela's reserves. That might be enough to try to develop some day, but I doubt they could get the cost as low as Venezuela's in the foreseeable future. If they can't do that, there's not much point."

  "You should read the translation. It says that China has developed a cheap extraction process based on the bug's ability to lower the viscosity of bitumen in the ground."

  Alexandra's mental gears were changing again, but this time she was shifting down to kindergarten level, so little Mick would understand.

  "China could do the engineering for something like that, but it doesn't have the infrastructure to extract and transport petroleum from the source on any significant scale. That ignores the personnel development it would need. Besides, ten billion barrels in reserves is an estimate that doesn't necessarily equate to the actual volume that they could extract."

  "A patent would be valuable."

  "Assuming one could be enforced, I expect it would be worth a great deal. Once you introduce bacteria into a large-scale process like that though, it would be hard keep them from spreading either by nature or by theft."

  David had said there were fewer bugs than the sample should have been able to support. "What if they were shipped with a substance that killed them after a certain period? They would have to be reintroduced periodically, like genetically engineered seeds that can't be produced by the plants they grow into."

  "That might be possible in a lab, but in the field I doubt it. I'm no expert."

  It was a point that didn't seem to matter in the investigation, but all I could think to do now was fill in pieces of a puzzle at random and hope to see a pattern.

  I called David. "Can you check the sample again and estimate how many bacteria per cubic micron or how they compare to the density in, say, a friendly Petri dish? It might help."

  "No."

  "I'll pay you for your time. I should have done that earlier."

  "I can't check because I don't have the slides. I put them in my desk in the lab when I went to the café to tell you what I'd found. When I got back they were gone."

  Bad. "Who did you tell?"

  "No one."

  Very bad. "He doesn't have the samples," I told Alexandra after I disconnected.

  "He washed the slides?"

  I shook my head. "They went missing."

  "Uh oh."

  The first person I thought of was the student from the China mainland who had given me a hard time and intimidated the guys from Hong Kong. Was he being a hard case just for fun, or did he really believe that China's intellectual property was being stolen? With a father highly placed in the party, there could be other implications. What they might be was a wild guess.

  I took Alexandra to lunch and told her I had to see someone alone. The odds that she was actually pouting were slim, but she gave a good imitation. "When are you going to start introducing me to your friends?"

  "When they become less dangerous."

  After we parted, I went to a different café near David's school, where I had asked Pascal to meet me. While I waited, I called David and found out the mainlander's name. He said he would try to bring him by the café. No need to go in, I said, just look toward the window, blink twice and walk on by—slowly.

  Pascal arrived with recordings from his bugs in the apartments of the PDVSA team members. I described David and told Pascal the plan. Just wait for a blinking Taiwanese. I left him and went back to Sabine's flat. Alexandra met me at the door.

  "You're back soon. Did you miss me?" The marble goddess as coquette. My cue for a rakish bon mot.

  "You're here?"

  Alexandra's smile faded at one corner. "Am I being—"

  "I'm glad to see you." I brushed her cheek. "It's such a nice day. I thought you might have gone somewhere."

  "I wanted to be here to help. It makes me uncomfortable to be involved in something that I don't understand? We should work together."

  I doubted she could plant a bug or pick a lock, but she did have a point.

  "Do you understand, Spanish?"

  "Mas o menos, I might be able to translate from Spanish, but don't ask me to translate anything into it."

  "Listening comprehension, that's all you need. There are two recordings that I just received from a colleague." I turned on the sound. After she'd listened for a while, her eyes got wide. "I recognize the voice. It's the head of the client team for the Orimulsion study."

  "Don't ask how I got the tape, just listen. The recorder is voice activated. Some of what you hear will probably be one side of telephone conversations, so it might be hard to follow. Also, these guys are from Venezuela. If you learned Castilian, there could be regional idioms that you might not understand. Just try to get what you can and summarize it."

  "You said not to ask how you got it. I won't, but I have to say I'm very curious."

  I left it at that and went to my bedroom to call the Houston rig supplier.

  "I know diddly about analyzing samples. You probably need a mud-logging type. I might be able to help you contact someone, but I can't do anything myself. Have you thought about contacting Schlumberger? It's a French company and the best there is in analytics. You're closer to them than you are to me."

  "No I hadn't, but I want to keep this as confidential as possible."

  "Give me some time. You want to know where the oil came from and an ID on the bacteria, correct?"

  "Yes, how long?"

  "If you don't hear from me by tomorrow morning my time, proceed without me."

/>   "Thanks, amigo. "

  Until then, I would go on the assumption that the bacteria in the sample was what we were looking for. I could also assume the vials were the only thing that linked the deaths of Trevor and Sabine. I got a pencil and paper and started making notes.

  1. The samples were hidden, so someone wanted to keep them secret.

  2. If they were secret, they must have value.

  3. A possible value was that they contained genetically engineered bacteria that could reduce the cost of refining extra heavy oil into high-grade petroleum products. Assume item 3 to be true:

  a. The patent on the bacteria could be worth a lot.

  b. A patent would have legal protection and no company that had the technology to reverse engineer the bacteria's DNA modifications was likely to violate patent laws and risk a huge settlement.

  c. The bacteria might have a built-in death mechanism to prevent conventional culturing to grow more of the modified bugs.

  Conclusion: The sample had value enough to keep secret, but protecting intellectual property rights was probably not the issue.

  If not about a patent, then what? As regards Trevor and Sabine, I was back to murderous jealousy.

  I still needed to talk to Burroughs, but it was a bad time of day. I checked in with McNulty.

  "All I can say is Mumby is a workaholic. He's at his bank from nine to nine most days."

  "Has he been meeting anyone?"

  "Not since we scared him into running to the LIFFE systems chief. He set up an appointment with someone named Dago, though. It's the only name I heard."

  "What's the agenda."

  "Don't know. I have a time and place. Next Wednesday at 8:30 p.m."

  "That's six days away. The day before Trevor's notes say the dollar tumbles."

  "Yeah, you want to join us?"

  "Maybe." I thought that over for a few seconds. I'd like a clearer identification on Mumby's guest. It might be someone I know. "Are you sure Mumby said 'Dago'? Could it have been 'Diego'?"

  "Same, no?"

  "No, Di-e-go." I said it slowly.

  "What Mumby said could have been one or the other, now I think about it. Not much of a linguist, is he? Me neither."