the drill site because of the bandits that had been raiding the platform. At first, they had just stolen equipment, but then several workers had been shot and one killed. And just last week, explosives had been discovered on the rig itself.
But now the US cavalry had arrived: six Green Berets, each man twice as big as the local Paraguayans. They were preparing to leave the camp for the drill site, and Aimee watched them as they got their gear together. Each man wore black and green camouflage fatigues and a green flat cap pulled down on his head. The soldier leading them out had removed the sleeves from his uniform — either due to the heat, or to give an enormous pair of biceps more room to move. Aimee noticed a blue crucifix tattooed on one upper arm and a grinning devil’s head on the other.
Bringing up the rear was their fireteam’s leader, Captain Michaels. He turned and gave her a thumbs-up. He had short dark hair and an easy smile, and, for a brief moment, in the right light, he reminded her of someone.
She kept her gaze flat and uninterested. Out of the side of her mouth she blew more hair up out of her eyes and ignored him, and he gave up with a shrug and turned back to his comrades. Aimee shook her head as if to clear away an annoying irritation;
‘But why do I need to be down here?’
Aimee had the phone wedged between her shoulder and ear as she talked to Alfred Beadman, the elderly chairman of the company she worked for.
While she listened to his response, she picked up mud-stained pieces of clothing, rolled them into a ball and flung them into the corner of the small pre-built cabin, pulling a face at their dampness and smell. She
‘Hang on, Alfred.’
She put the phone on speaker and placed it down on the small folding table, then lifted the T-shirt with the toe of her boot and bent to pick up an ugly brown bug the size of a match-box that lurked underneath. It hissed and vibrated its abdomen as she held it between thumb and forefinger and she curled her lip in disgust as she opened the door and flung the heavy insect outside. She stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry as it opened large translucent wings and fluttered away with a sound like a deck of cards being shuffled. She watched as it alighted on the trouser leg of one of the drill workers standing in the mud.
‘Aimee, are you there, my dear?’
Alfred’s cultivated baritone sprang from the phone, sounding way too civilised in the hot cramped room in the middle of the Paraguayan jungle.
‘I’m back, Alfred. Just had to see someone out … Yes, you’re right, the gas is in a very impure state and will need a lot of scrubbing, but I could have told them that from my lab at home if they’d just sent me a small sample.’
Beadman sighed with good humour. ‘My dear, your petrobiological arm of the company leads the field internationally. You came highly recommended to the Paraguayan energy minister and, well, who were we to refuse such an important request from a friendly neighbour? Believe me, America can do with all the friends it can get right now. You’re doing your country a great service, you know.’
Aimee pulled a face. She picked up a bottle of water, sipped and swallowed, and was about to respond when Alfred continued.
‘You know it’s exactly what you’ve been waiting for: a young gas — there could be viable bacterial DNA — it could be the key to your synthesis tests. A sample might have decomposed in transit. Much better to get it
Aimee expelled a long breath and dropped into the clothing-covered chair beside the small table. Alfred was right. Most gases were created over millions to hundreds of millions of years, but this deposit was young and very dirty — it was perfect. It contained everything: mercury, butane, ground water and all sorts of other base impurities, which meant it wasn’t yet fully cooked. There could still be evidence of bacterial methanogenesis occurring — her holy grail for energy synthesis. Carbon-hungry bacteria in the rock digested the trace hydrocarbons, leaving behind pockets of natural gases. She had worked for years with older samples from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Antrim shale deposit in Michigan, but these had been mature samples. The bacteria had long degraded down to nothing more than gases themselves. For years, her company had proposed the idea that if they could extract viable DNA from these specialised bacteria they could actually bioengineer them to digest polymers and return clean natural gas. In effect, it would be possible to create a cheap fuel source from waste plastics. All she needed were some deep-rock samples from the gas pocket with living bacteria, or at least with identifiable DNA strands. So far, no one had ever found any living microorganisms or even any complete DNA strands — the methanogenesis process was still a mystery.
Aimee sighed and rubbed softly at a smudge on the table with her thumb. They had almost broken through into the subsurface chamber when the drill site had been closed down; and it still hadn’t reopened, even though it had been a week now since the Green Berets had headed off into the jungle to see off the bandits.
She stopped rubbing as she felt a tickling vibration run from the soles of her boots to her stomach. Aimee shook her head and got to her feet — another small tremor. More drilling complications she needed to worry about.
She kept the phone on speaker and carried it with her to the door. As she opened it, a thick wave of air that smelled like decomposing flowers washed into the cabin. She wrinkled her nose; it had rained again last night and the red mud throughout the camp was ankle deep in some places. A warm mist hung over the ground and everything that wriggled, jumped or crawled was heading towards the gathering of humans for a free meal. Aimee took a long swill of water, then pursed her lips and directed the stream at a small red and black snake that was slithering towards her across the muddy ground. It changed course under the bombardment and headed back towards the dense green jungle.
‘Aimee, I understand the drill site is not yet open and you’re all still confined to the camp. Am I correct?’
Alfred’s tone suggested that he already knew the answer.
‘Yep, Camp Boggy’s still home. By the way, did you know it’s the start of the rainy season down here? Or that we seem to be having ground tremors daily? Alfred, I knew the Nazca Plate was close, but never thought its movement might actually affect us. A week ago there was a 5.2 shock in Chile, and it broke a shitload of stuff even over here — we get one like that just a little bigger or closer, and the gas bed will be gone for good … So, hot, wet and shaky; you should really come for a visit, Alfred, you’d love it.’ Aimee paced in a small circle, before turning to stare back out the open doorway. ‘And no, before you ask, I don’t know where the GBs are — still out playing soldiers in the jungle, I guess.’
They ended the call but, despite Aimee’s light tone, she was concerned. She knew a little about Green Berets and they shouldn’t have had any trouble with a few South American mercenaries, no matter how well armed.
Aimee’s camp was over a mile from the drilling site, and, like the drill-rig infrastructure, the pre-built cabins and tents, equipment and nearly one hundred men had all been choppered in. It was a large upfront investment but it cut set-up time by seventy-five per cent and also ensured there were no roads left behind to be reused by loggers or settlers. This way, when they finished, all that remained was a small scar and a pristine jungle — much better for public relations.
Aimee squelched across the muddy camp to the manager’s hut. The groups of men standing around stopped talking to watch her pass. Most of the workers had come from a scattering of local villages, with the mining and engineering specialists from the capital, Asuncion.
She spotted Francisco Herrera, the camp doctor, and waved — he returned the salutation, looking impeccable in a linen suit and manicured silver goatee. She smiled back and stepped around another group of idle men. When the drilling stopped, the men got bored. The clearing for the camp wasn’t huge for the number of men on site, and was only slightly larger than half a dozen football fields. Its size, combined with the period between nightly rains becoming shorter, meant the time spent out in the open was shrinking. Beyond the camp, a hundred foot wall of the almost impenetrable jungle presented little alternative to days spent watching the sporting channels on satellite television, smoking cigarettes that smelled like burning underwear, or playing a card game whose rules, so it seemed to Aimee, appeared to change at every single hand. Some of the men had resisted the enforced idleness by
