Burn them alive if you can. It brings the rebels together with astonishing fervor. Word of it would give the insurgents sympathy from the outside. If the world were to-”
“Burn them alive?” Marten cut him off sharply. “You’ve seen the CIA briefing video.”
“True.” Kovalenko nodded. “Haupkommissar Franck worked both sides of the fence at the same time, for us and for the CIA. We knew, of course. So while he watched us, we watched him. The minute he learned that the priest killed in Equatorial Guinea was Theo Haas’s brother, he requested the video briefings and began viewing them. The transmissions were simple enough for us to intercept and copy. I must tell you in all candor that we, too, were appalled by what we saw and what General Mariano was able to carry out so efficiently. Yes, we could leak the video, but who knows if blogs or other Internet aficionados don’t already have it in hand? So why not let one of them take credit and keep us out of it. Besides, even if the video is never released, Tiombe’s reign is nearly ended. Abba’s rebel forces are too strong and impassioned for him to survive.”
Marten stared at Kovalenko. What the hell was so important in Equatorial Guinea that it would make White recruit someone like General Mariano and at the same time draw the attention of both the CIA and Russian intelligence, or whoever Kovalenko was working for-which was something he had never been able to find out, not even years before when their lives had been so profoundly intertwined.
Oil, as he had thought earlier?
Maybe. But oil was being found almost everywhere in West Africa, so that in itself it didn’t seem enough to warrant attention like this. There had to be something more. Something else.
“You are puzzled, tovarich,” Kovalenko said. “You would like some explanation as to what all this is centered on.”
“Yes.”
Kovalenko gestured with the Glock. “I think Ms. Tidrow might enlighten you. In this case I would believe what she tells you.” He looked at Anne and smiled gently. “It’s alright, you can tell him. We know.”
Anne’s eyes locked on Kovalenko’s. There was no doubt at all that he did know and that Moscow knew, so there was no point in keeping it from Marten, not now.
“In that case, I will,” she said and turned to him. “A little more than a year ago Striker engineers discovered a massive oil reserve beneath the one we were already drilling. It’s huge, probably fifty times bigger than the entire Saudi field, comparable in size to the North American Great Lakes, with a refining capacity of more than six million barrels a day, or roughly four times that of the Saudis. It’s large enough to supply oil to three-quarters of the world for the next century.
“As soon as the find was confirmed, Sy Wirth called a meeting at Striker’s Houston headquarters. Loyal Truex was there representing Hadrian as Striker’s top security contractor. So was I and a handful of others, including Arnold Moss, our chief counsel. The general consensus was that the find was worth billions, if not trillions. But there was something else-it could be an enormously strategic energy supply for the United States, freeing us from any reliance at all on OPEC. Truex warned that it wouldn’t be long before the CIA learned about it and did something to bring their protective influence to bear.” Anne glanced at Kovalenko as if to say,
“He meant it was important for us to take the first step and get them on board right away. Sy didn’t like it at all. He wanted no part of government interference on any level and said it was Truex’s job, not the CIA’s, to guard the find. The meeting ended on that note. As chairman and CEO of a closely held company like Striker he all but controls the board of directors and whatever else happens in the company. So if he wanted the find kept inside the company, it would have been. But now it seems clear the CIA was made aware of it anyway, maybe by Sy himself at some point, or Truex, I don’t know. Who did it and when doesn’t make any difference. The fact is the Agency is apparently doing everything it can to take command of the situation, including the retrieval of the photographs.” Again Anne looked at Kovalenko. “How Moscow found out, I don’t know either.”
Marten was dumbstruck. So it was oil, an ocean of it.
“That’s why no operatives from the Equatorial Guinean army followed me from Malabo,” he mused out loud. “They were under Mariano’s control and on the same side as SimCo, so they let Conor White do it instead.” Suddenly he pushed back from the computer console and stood up.
His eyes went from Anne to Kovalenko, and then he looked away, trying to put it all together, to shape it into some coherent whole. Finally he stood and crossed the room to stand with his back to them.
“Tiombe controlled everything for years. Took the profits from the pumped crude and built riches for himself and his family while letting the people wallow in poverty. Finally they got angry and started to make demands on the government with Abba as their leader. Tiombe didn’t like it and sent his troops in and the war began. Then Striker, already with leases in the area, had this massive find.” Abruptly he turned to face them.
“Why risk losing it to Tiombe, who might cancel the leases and throw them out of the country while he worked on a better deal with some bigger player?” Deliberately he looked to Kovalenko. “Maybe a country like China instead of a midlevel American oil company. Better to have the CIA in your pocket and help Abba. Send in Conor White and his mercenaries with armaments; become his friend and ally while at the same time secretly setting up Mariano on the other side to brutalize the army’s response, thereby firing up the rebels even more and, who, in turn, bring in hundreds more fighters.”
Marten came back across the room. His voice and manner, cold and cynical. “In two months or three or four, Tiombe is gone and Abba is in place, highly beholden to both SimCo and AG Striker. At White’s suggestion, and Abba’s agreement, the army will be dissolved, replaced by SimCo mercenaries, who will begin to mold Abba’s ragged fighters into a national police force. Another couple of months and the people start to share in the oil wealth so long denied them. A little of it, anyway, but much more than they ever would have had under Tiombe. Clean water starts to flow. New roads, hospitals, decent housing, and schools are announced. A few months later construction begins. Then the big find is revealed, with the geologic details provided for authentication. Once that happens the shock wave will be enormous, politically, economically, and emotionally, as the West, especially, breathes a collective sigh of relief. Right?”
Kovalenko nodded. “And no outsider can touch it-not Shell, not Exxon/Mobil, not Rus sia, not China, not anyone-because Equatorial Guinea is a sovereign nation and because no one can compete with the power that much oil will bring. Overnight, tiny, poverty-stricken Equatorial Guinea will become the paradigm for a modern, peaceful, very successful third world country.
“The catch is that no matter what the public perceives, in essence, the country, its leaders, its army, its grateful population, and its biblical sea of petroleum will be owned not by its inhabitants but by Striker Oil, and will continue to be owned by it for the next hundred or more years.”
Marten looked to Anne. “Is that what your father had in mind for the company’s future? Fiscal growth through slaughter. Expansion by flamethrower.”
Anne’s eyes, her entire being, suddenly turned to fire. “You son-of-a-bitch bastard,” she hissed.
“I simply asked you a question.”
“No,” she snapped. “It’s not what my father had in mind!”
“The world changes, tovarich,” Kovalenko interrupted, “and not always for the better.” Immediately he stood up. “Time is short and I must leave. You have come a long and perilous way for the photographs, and so you may have them. I will take the memory card.” Again he gestured with the Glock. “Would you please remove it from the computer and hand it to me?”
Marten looked at the gun. “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get,” he said flatly, then went to Jacob Cadiz’s desk, leaned in, and popped the memory card from the external port that rested on top of the CPU unit. He glanced at Anne, then looked at Kovalenko.
“Maybe you’d like it better if I put it in the envelope it came in.” Marten’s tone was acidic, even sardonic. “Make it neat and tidy and easy to carry so you won’t lose it.”
“Thank you, tovarich. You are most considerate.”
