and most of her technicians and postdocs had survived, rescued by Kirk McGarvey, a former director of the CIA. Drama at sea in the high-stakes contest of big oil’s interest in the status quo versus the green revolutionaries who warned that the planet was at the tipping point and the only way for humankind’s salvation was to stop all carbon dioxide emissions immediately. Alternative sources of clean power from nuclear energy for the time being and then from the wind, the sun, and Nobel laureate Dr. Larsen’s World Energy Needs project. The World Energy Needs project in Eve Larsen’s words; the God Project in Schagel’s.
Wolfhardt had telephoned an hour ago. “Turn on the television. There’s been a development.”
She’d done so while he was still on the line, and she’d immediately realized that her decision not to follow al-Naimi’s warning about her security chief until after the oil platform had been destroyed had been the correct one. Insurance, her father had once told her, is not necessarily a waste of money in itself. And thus had been born, at least in his mind and in the minds of others, exotics and semi-exotic financial instruments, among them credit default swaps, a sort of insurance in a negative sense. Cashing in on failure.
Rightfully she’d made the decision to keep Wolfhardt in play as a credit default swap against DeCamp’s failure, because something would have to be done about the mercenary before he was caught. She could not afford for him to be arrested because the leads would come back to Schlagel and very possibly to her. And whatever else he was, whatever his other agendas might be, Wolfhardt knew what he was about.
“Come here,” she’d told Wolfhardt. “I have another job for you.”
“I expect you do,” he’d said. “I’ll be there within the hour.”
And Octavio had seen the same news stories and had telephoned her from Caracas twenty minutes after Wolfhardt’s call. They spoke via encrypted sat phone and so could be totally open with each other.
“The president has agreed to extend his invitation for you to transfer your MG operation here as soon as you desire,” he told her.
“The CIA has a strong presence in Venezuela.”
“Not so strong as you’d think these days,” he said. “More bluster, perhaps, than actual effectiveness.”
Anne Marie chuckled. Money bought strange bedfellows, usually for the most transparent of reasons. But Chavez was in trouble, and the country was on the verge of becoming unstable and possibly even collapsing. China, on the other hand, was growing exponentially and desperately needed two things that she could supply: oil for that growth and money management services for the more than one trillion U.S. dollars of foreign debt it owned. And Hong Kong, with immunity, was much more to her liking than Caracas with the CIA breathing down her neck.
“The offer is kind,” she said pleasantly. “Please thank the president for me, and tell him that I’m sincerely considering his generosity.”
“My pleasure,” Octavio said, and he dropped his voice. “Be careful, Anne.”
“Langley is no threat to me here.”
“I’m talking about the Saudis. Al-Naimi has a long reach in the region. Longer than yours.”
“I understand,” she said, suddenly feeling chilly. At her level of play she could not defend herself on her own, for that she needed the backing of a government. And Octavio had just offered it in the form of protection from Saudi Arabia. “First I have a few loose ends to clear up.”
“Quickly,” Octavio said and he was gone.
She looked at her hand, it had stopped shaking, and she felt as if she were settling down. Really settling down now for a fight, and she felt the first glimmerings of interest, not dread, about what might be coming next. She wasn’t exactly as rich as Bill Gates, but she was wasn’t all that far away, and at least in her mind that kind of money carried a certain clout. She didn’t know where the threshold of importance started, but it was certainly more than a couple hundred million, or even a few billion, and it had something to do with influence. So since she’d left Florida she’d worked on that principle, easing her way — sometimes bullying her way — into the bank accounts of a diverse group of individuals, corporations, local as well as international, and even a few governments — or at least governmental agencies. It was why she’d felt reasonably safe cruising the Med for the first time, and why she wasn’t convinced that she should head for the hills just yet. Perhaps staying to fight might be the better course after all.
Ramirez buzzed her. “Mr. Wolfhardt is here.”
“Send him up,” she told her bodyguard. Her chief of security hadn’t been pleased about the extra layer of personal protection she’d put in place after her talk with al-Naimi, and she expected that he’d simply put it down to female paranoia. But he’d accepted the change without protest, though a distance had been created between them.
Wolfhardt, dressed in a white linen suit, no tie, stepped off the elevator, came across the hall, and walked directly out to where Anne Marie was seated on the balcony. “Good morning,” he said, not sitting down.
“Would you care for coffee or tea?”
“I don’t believe there’s time.”
“Mr. DeCamp has failed for the last time. I want him eliminated.”
“That may not be easy,” Wolfhardt said. “Most likely he’s gone to ground somewhere to wait and see which way the wind blows.”
“Are you telling me that you cannot find him?”
“No, madam, I’m telling you there will be no need because within the next twenty-four hours he’ll come to me and I’ll kill him.”
For just a moment Anne Marie was vexed. She did not enjoy riddles when it was straight answers she was looking for, but then she understood, and she smiled despite herself. “I see,” she said. “If something were to happen to his woman in Nice he would have the motivation to find you.”
“Exactly.”
Stay and fight indeed, Anne Marie thought. It was her nature after all.
PART FOUR
The Next Few Days
SEVENTY-ONE
It was nine in the morning in Washington when Eduardo Estevez, the president’s adviser on national security affairs, walked into the Oval Office, a scowl on his broad Latin face. Lord’s chief of staff, Robert Russell, his press secretary, Paul S. Green, and his chief science adviser, George Mills, were all watching CNN’s reporting on the attack in the Gulf while the White House photographer snapped pictures. They all looked up.
“With that kind of expression on your face this can’t be good news,” Lord said.
When he had been awakened earlier and told of the developing situation in the Gulf, he’d refused to call a cabinet meeting, demanding instead that he be supplied with constant updates. “This will not be allowed to get out of hand, like Hutchinson Island has,” he’d told Russell. “No more fodder for Schlagel.”
“Kirk McGarvey is on the line from the Coast Guard cutter
Lord went to his desk console, pressed a couple of buttons and the CNN broadcast was replaced by the image of a weary-looking McGarvey seated at a small conference table. It appeared as if he were alone.
“Good morning, Mr. McGarvey,” Lord said. “From what I understand congratulations are in order.” His image was being picked up by the camera in his computer monitor.
“Not yet, Mr. President, because we’re not out of the woods,” McGarvey said. “Is it just you and Mr. Estevez?”
“That’s not important. What do you have for me?”
“As you wish,” McGarvey said. “The same man who hit Hutchinson Island was behind this attack. Which means he’s being directed either by Schlagel, Marinaccio, Octavio, or the UAE International Bank of Commerce, or some combination of all four — and very likely the Saudis are somehow involved.”
