by Bart Kosko
John looked at Catton’s confident face. There was a deal after all and so there was hope.
He wished he could hear what their raisins told them.
“Which will it be?” Catton said.
“How about the truth?” John said.
“How about you going to Leavenworth for treason and murder? They have a program there for sex-crime rehabilitation.”
“You are with the CIA. Someday we’ll abolish you cocksuckers and then start the new Nuremberg trials.”
“Let’s review your options. You can go to Leavenworth and get fucked up the ass and fucked in your skull for the rest of your natural life. Or you can cooperate with us and walk out of here. You might even walk out of here a rich man.”
“Something has happened. What? You have the Tabriz chip.”
“I can tell you something about Dr. Hamid Tabriz. He is an expert in neural engineering as well as a Sufi holy man in parts of Iran and Turkey.”
“We all know that. They’re feeding you old data.”
“What you don’t know is that he is dead.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“He is dead.”
“That means at most that someone found his body.”
“That usually is enough. And that body just carried a suicide bomb into a government office in Israel and detonated it.”
“The body but not the brain,” John said. “He lives in chips. Okay. I see what’s happened. The Israelis have panicked and they want revenge. They have put a lot of pressure on you crooks to let me go. Right?”
“We did not murder your fiancée. You did.”
“The Israelis have corroborated my story. Haven’t they?”
“Look at the two articles. Which one do you want to run?”
“You know which one. What do you want?”
“Mr. Rittenhouse has prepared a bill of conveyance for you to sign.”
“Fuck you. What happened to talking about the Israelis?”
“I can tell you something about the agencies we represent. They care a lot more about business than they do about intrigue.”
John had seen the claims on the net that the CIA had tracked down and shot the leaders of the Chiapas rebels in Mexico. The Indians posed little threat to the Mexican government but they had disrupted oil drilling and metals mining in southern Mexico and Guatemala.
The Indian rebels and bandits had grown rich in the drug trade. Drug legalization ended their wealth but not their demands for change and their networks of crime and terror. The CIA focused on trade and foreign investment to justify its yearly budget of $80 billion. New rebels took the place of the Chiapas rebels the CIA had killed and gave the CIA further cause for its mission.
So it did not surprise John that they wanted to buy him out. He just wished Jism could tell him if it was a trick.
“What do you want me to convey? My shares in Water Dragon?”
“That firm ended with the death of its financier. Probate law bogs down in the case of murder. We want you to convey the molecule patent to Horizons Technology.”
“Is that a CIA franchise?”
“Horizons Technology is a limited liability company in Southern California. It pursues start-up ventures in alternative sources of energy.”
“What do I get?”
“Your freedom and a fair-use settlement. You trade your patent rights for a trust fund worth 5 to 10 million dollars over the next five years depending on investor interest.”
“And a lot of fine print,” John said.
“All you have to do is consult for Horizons as needed.”
“The Israelis have a legal right to their patent license,” John said.
“Yes. But the licensee has a sequence of milestones that the licensee must pass to the satisfaction of the licensor. Horizons may not prove as lenient as your firm was.”
“I see,” John said. “I sign and then you shoot me?”
Chapter 33
The White House
District of Columbia
United States
President Vance Jackson sat at his oak desk in the Oval Office.
His staff had advised against his holding a live press conference or even a remote one. Jackson had already acted. Now he would present that action to the world before the press and the Congress and the world financial markets could challenge him.
Jackson had waited all his career to play the card he had just played. He had joked about it in college with his dorm pals as they smoked pot and hashish and watched reruns of Beavis and Butthead. He had researched it in law school when he had first met the woman he would later marry. And he had refused to discuss it during his campaign.
Now Vance Jackson held the power to make a Green dream a moment of history. He did not need notes or a TelePrompTer.
“Good evening. I want to speak to you about a problem we all face and have faced all our lives. That problem is fossil fuels. The world is simply running out of oil and coal and even natural gas. We all know this and deplore it. Yet there has been very little we could do about it.
“The number of cars and trucks on our roads has grown steadily since the 1970s. More wealth in more hands has meant more cars on the road and more fossil fuels converted to the electricity that runs our homes and offices and computer networks. Yes. We have made cars more fuel efficient. We have reduced their drag or wind resistance to almost the lowest limits of what the laws of science allow. And we have seen the welcome growth of electric and solar and even hydrogen automobiles.
“But more than half the cars on American roads still burn gasoline. Each gallon of gasoline we burn gives off a full 20 pounds of carbon dioxide as well as a wide range of dangerous hydrocarbons. It is no surprise that the world’s carbon dioxide levels have also grown steadily since the 1970s as has the very real warming of the earth’s atmosphere.
“Our nation still burns millions of gallons of gasoline each day. And we have paid dearly for that limited fossil fuel in terms of the environment.
“The people of Florida know just how dear a price we have paid. The world watched as a Cuban oil tanker melted before our very eyes. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has already made a preliminary determination that terrorists destroyed the oil tanker. The Florida coastline will suffer an incalculable environmental loss even though we are using the very best chemical techniques to clean the oil spill. The world has also just watched oil disasters unfold in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan.
“And generations to come will still have to contend with the dangerous loss of ozone in the stratosphere from a foolish and elitist fleet of supersonic aircraft. Ozone depletion remains a leading partial cause of both global temperature warming and the global rise in the incidence of skin cancers.
“Let us remember that the people of the United States make up a little over 3% of the world’s population. Yet we consume over 15% of the world’s oil and we consume nearly that much of the world’s coal and natural gas.
“This cannot continue.
“Americans have led the world into the oil age. We drilled the first modern oil well in Pennsylvania in 1859 in a small town called Titusville. We set up the first oil refinery in 1861 as our nation entered its bloody and only civil war. American inventors and merchants developed the automobile and the airplane and the refrigerator. These and many other American products changed the world. They also made the world depend more on oil and its by-products.
“That oil shaped much of America’s legal and political and military history. We outlawed the great oil monopolies in 1911. Decades later we led the world when we repelled Iraq’s 1990 invasion of the Kuwaiti oil fields. We did so again in 2015 when Iraq invaded the Saudi oil fields. And America has supported our oil-laden neighbors from the Middle East to Mexico.
“Now the time has come for America to lead the world out of the oil age and into a safer and cleaner future. We cannot pass this burden on to our children and our grandchildren. We cannot ask the other nations of the world to reduce thei
r use of petroleum and hydrocarbon products if we do not do so ourselves. And we cannot risk the security of our great country or the security of our allies each time a conflict breaks out in the Middle East or in Siberia or anywhere else on this small planet.
“We must break with the habits and the complacency of the past.
“So tonight I am announcing a new policy and I am asking our colleagues in NATO and Central and South America to join us in this effort. I have signed this Executive Order Number 184,326. That executive order bans all use and sale of gasoline in the United States and in its territories. I will ask both houses of Congress to help implement this ban by passing a host of support measures.
“But make no mistake. I have signed this executive order. The ban is now law.
“The ban will take effect in three phases. Phase one bans the use or sale of gasoline and heating oil in automobiles. That ban takes effect exactly two weeks from today. Phase two bans the use of crude oil derivatives for the heating and cooling of homes and buildings. That ban takes effect six months from today. Phase three bans the use of crude oil derivatives in the generation of electrical power. It takes effect one year from today.
“I realize some of you will have to make rapid and painful adjustments. So I have approved $10 billion in relief funds for public transportation and home heating. I will also ask Congress to speed up passage of its package of tax breaks and research supports for those companies that invest in alternate energy.
“We stand at the threshold of a new and better future. Today we have taken the first step toward that future. Together we can show the world how to make that future the reality of tomorrow.
“Good night and God bless you and God bless America.”
Chapter 34
Cyberspace
President Jackson had shocked the world.
Each person on the planet had an opinion about the gas ban. They formed their opinion from the hundreds of TV channels they or their agents scanned and the hundreds of on-line net groups they surfed.
A few even acted on their opinions.
*
WNN Channel 4: A reporter stands in front of the well-lit White House and interviews the Democratic Senate majority leader and the Libertarian Senate minority leader. The Democrat applauds the President’s leadership and vows to support some version of the gas ban and pass the tax breaks for alternate energy. The Libertarian denounces the ban as unconstitutional. She promises to help the oil firms appeal it to the Supreme Court. She also calls for the end of punitive taxes on gas and heating oil.…
*
WNN Channel 9: Late afternoon traffic slows and jams in Los Angeles as cars form long snaking lines at filling stations. The lines block streets and spill out to freeway exits and onto some freeways. A helicopter news team lands at a Shell Oil station and talks to those stuck in the long lines. The drivers curse President Jackson and the Green Democrats. One driver accepts the gas ban as in her long-term best interests but admits she would not vote for Jackson again. Many drivers call for civil disobedience and the impeachment of Jackson.…
*
WNN Channel 17: German youths march through the streets of Bonn and Berlin and Frankfurt. They carry signs that demand the German government ban gasoline and coal even though most German cars use batteries or hydrogen fuel. Crowds of Green youths sit to form a human roadblock on the autobahn. Many of the youths throw rocks at the German police in riot gear who try to move them. Students overrun a small gas station in Munich. They set it afire for the cameras but not all survive the fireball.…
*
WNN Channel 38: National Guardsmen pitch tents outside of highway patrol offices around the country as they prepare to help the mobile policemen enforce the gas ban. Members of private militias drive their trucks in circles around the tents and shout taunts and threats at the guardsmen. A reporter says most federal buildings in the country have received bomb threats. Texas vandals have firebombed department of motor vehicle buildings in Austin and College Station. The reporter shows excerpts of conservative militia e-mail messages that debate a nationwide attack on DMV buildings.…
*
WNN Channel 62: A Moscow special report shows a burning oil well in the Republic of Yakutia in central Siberia. It claims Yakut mining extremists have bombed the oil well and threaten to bomb other Russian-backed wells. The Kremlin now meets to decide how to protect Russian investments in the oil-rich republic that has twice the land of Alaska and much of the world’s diamonds and gold and platinum. Yakutsk Mayor Vasily Bychkov says he thinks Russians or even the Chinese might invade soon to grab the Yakut gold and diamond fields as the U.S. demand for Siberian oil falls. The Moscow station cites its own poll that 81% of Muscovites think Yakutia still belongs to Russia and 54% would not oppose the use of Russian force to secure the republic.…
*
WNN Channel 93: Students burn Uncle Sam dolls at the University of Tehran and call for a new jihad against the Great Satan and its Zionist stooges. The same Uncle Sam dolls burn outside the U.S. embassies in Algiers and Cairo and Khartoum. Firebombs and plastic explosives have destroyed the U.S. embassy in the Pakistani city of Islamabad and the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. Canadian Green radicals from the University of Saskatoon march on the oil fields south of Regina and try to block oil trucks by sitting in the roads. The students yank a driver out of one truck and beat him to death when he drives over four students.…
*
WNN Channel 165: A Chiapas Indian in Paraiso cuts off a young Mexican woman’s head with a machete. He picks up the head and stacks it on the Pemex chief’s desk with four other heads. The leader repeats his demands for social justice in the southern Mexican state. He tells a remote reporter from TV España that the Chiapas guerrillas survived when the United States legalized drugs and now they will survive the U.S. ban on gasoline. The image flickers for a moment as Mexican commandos set off a case of C-4 and level the small Pemex office building.…
*
WNN Channel 664: Graphs show how the internet betting markets view the U.S. gas ban. News that 62% of Americans oppose the ban while only 21% of non-Americans oppose it has switched much of the betting from invasion to U.S. elections. The bettors think President Vance Jackson has only a 23% chance of re-election. They think the Democrats have only a 32% chance of keeping their majorities in the House and Senate at the midterm election. Now only 36% believe Russia will invade Azerbaijan. Only 4% believe Iran will.…
*
WNN Channel 803: Metals prices have jumped up on news of the gas ban. Gold has reached $1,630 per troy ounce and platinum has hit $2,230. Private currencies based on gas and oil still fall as the spot price of oil has dropped to $390 a barrel. The Ukrainian eagle and Thomson petrol have now both lost over 14% of their value. The yield on the U.S. 10-year bond has risen above 10% and depressed all major U.S. stock exchanges. The dollar has collapsed from 34 yen to 28 yen based on heavy selling from European and Mideastern central banks. The basket of precious metals that backs Daiwa metal has pushed the private currency far ahead of all others. Analysts claim that Chinese and Japanese oil traders buy the private paper bills to hedge against the risk that the Russians might invade the Yakut or other Siberian oil fields.…
*
WNN Channel 809: The Chinese government has threatened to close the Shanghai Stock Exchange to stem investor panic and the drop in share prices. Trading volume has grown as traders sell energy stocks and buy metals stocks and technology mutual funds. The Tokyo Stock Exchange has held steady and lost only half of its 2% gain. The increased value of the Shanghai Stock Exchange has fallen to a gain of 14% from its peak gain of 20% since the Dhahran bombing.…
Chapter 35
Gilman Springs
Southern California
John had refused to sign until they brought him a honeydew melon.
Catton would not let him use a carving knife to cut the green melon. John had to use a dull steel butter knife and yank the knife up and down to split
the white rind. Then he scooped the wet pale-yellow seeds onto the table and sawed the halves into slices. Rittenhouse brought him a brown bio-sack to put the seeds and chewed rinds in.
John ate the whole melon and washed his hands and face on a wet towel. He felt the warm start of the blood-sugar rush as his body absorbed the fructose.
Then he signed the two copies of the bill of conveyance.
Catton brought him a shoe box that contained his wallet and Swiss army knife. John felt the raisin through the doeskin of the wallet but did not pull it out. He put the wallet and knife back in his pants pockets. He still did not know if anyone watched him through the whiteboard.
“Where’s my copy?” he said.
“Of what?” Catton said.
“What I just signed.”
“Don’t worry. The documents are valid. The patent office will send you a processed copy within three weeks.”
“The hell with that. I need something to take to my lawyer right now.”
“Mr. Rittenhouse will have to make a copy for you on your way out.”
“You’re not coming?”
“I’m done here. I have to catch a red-eye back to DC tonight.”
John did not want to hear about Catton’s red-eye flight to Washington. He wanted to get free of these men and call Eytan and then get some sleep. The melon still raised his blood sugar but that was not enough to fight the soreness and the deep fatigue. He knew he had forgotten something and now it hit him.
“Shit. Where’s my Jeep?”
“Mr. Rittenhouse will drive you to a hotel or to Richard Cheng’s warehouse if you want. Your Jeep is not functional.”
“You mean you tore it up to search it.”
“That’s a small price to pay for your liberty and a trust fund.”
“What about the speeding tickets I had on it?”
“I don’t know about them. You’ll have to contact the Department of Motor Vehicles.”
“You son of a bitch.”
Catton ignored him and left the room.