Blowout (30 page)

Wood was at a loss for anything meaningful to say. He was being manipulated and there was little or nothing he could do about it. At least not for the moment. “I'm listening,” he said.

“If you'd done your own homework you would have picked up the signals that someone was making a run against your positions. For the past three years an organization that I have a controlling interest in—let's call it the XYZ Fund for the sake of simplicity—has been buying and leasing oil storage facilities all over the world, including retired single-bottom tankers, to store as much oil as we can get our hands on. But slowly, so as not to cause any major concerns. Price of oil falls, we buy and store. Prices go up, and we sell. Simple and more immediate than your plan with a lot less risk.”

“There've been pressures against my futures, we're not blind,” Wood said. “But your strategy and mine amount to the same thing. If oil is allowed to rise past the one-hundred-dollar mark again alternative energy research will go ahead full steam. We'll both lose in the end.”

“You want the Initiative to be delayed so that you can make your money in the short run,” Guisti said.

“That's what I was attempting to do,” Wood said. “But Bob hired the wrong people.”

“He did not, Señor Wood. He hired exactly the right people, good and loyal Americans, all. Many
cojones
but
mucho loco.
But what if I were to say to you that instead of delaying work at the Initiative, it was to be destroyed along with its principal science team? The operation carried out by the same loyal Americans right under the noses of the authorities?”

“There's not enough time, not if the experiment is to be conducted within the week.”

“Oh, but you are wrong. In fact the personnel and equipment are already very nearly in place.”

“Just who the hell are you?” Wood demanded. He felt as if he'd been treading water all of his life, and now he was getting tired and at any moment he was going to sink and drown.

Guisti smiled. “Either your best new friend or your worst new enemy.”

 

45

SITTING IN HIS
empty office around noon Osborne couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so alone. Maybe for the first month or so after Carolyn had left with their daughter, when he'd begun to realize that they were never coming back. Maybe when his folks were killed in a car crash; he was the only child, no brothers or sisters, an uncle and a couple of cousins out in Washington State somewhere he had not seen since he was a kid, so there'd been no one to lean on.

And maybe especially now after Christmas Eve and Christmas Day when Ashley had been here in his life. They'd not been intimate because both of them had been pretty battered, but in Osborne's mind it had been enough that they'd been together. They'd shared a couple of days of domestic bliss, even putting up a Christmas tree and getting drunk and singing Christmas carols that neither of them knew all the words to.

She'd gone back to Bismarck the day after, and had jumped right back into work, filing a blizzard of stories about the government's ELF program in the Badlands and the accident that had claimed the lives of several of the personnel. The paper had run an editorial about the absolute necessity of these government projects, especially after 9/11 and subsequent events in the Middle East, but called for more oversight, more care: slow and steady would win the race.

And Osborne had chuckled because slow and steady had never won him any races.

He'd called her on Wednesday but her editor said that she'd gone to Washington, D.C., on assignment, and she'd left a message that she would call him as soon as she got back.

That had been two days ago and he hadn't heard from her, and he supposed he had been a little depressed, because he'd been moody and had jumped on his people, until even Trembley had asked if maybe the sheriff shouldn't take another couple days of sick leave.

“The excitement has pretty much died down,” the deputy had argued. “Anyway the feds are in charge. Practically taking Belfield apart. Glad it was them and not us. Terrible, just terrible.”

Trembley sometimes acted like an old woman, but he'd always meant well. Except this time he was wrong. The situation wasn't over, Osborne could feel it in his gut, almost taste it on the wind. And it had made him uneasy that no one else was seeing it the same way.

“Even Nettles has pulled out,” Cameron had told him on the phone this morning.

“Just you out there?” Osborne had asked.

“He left behind a half-dozen new guys in civvies, but they're definitely military. Ex–Special Forces, though they're a little vague about who they work for. General Forester gave the approval. Said he wanted me to have some low-key help.”

“You're expecting another attack?”

“It's not likely. These new hired guns are just that—low-key help just in case.”

“Just keep your eyes open.”

“Have you come up with something I haven't?”

“Just a hunch,” Osborne had said.

“I hear you,” Cameron said. “In the meantime, unless you have something planned for tonight, why don't you and Ashley come down? We're having a little celebration. Whitney's people need to blow off some steam, and the new power plant techs over at Donna Marie seem to be the right sort.”

“She went to Washington, and I don't think she's back yet, but it's been a rough week, you know.”

Cameron was quiet for a beat. “Yeah, I do know. Just take care of yourself, okay? Shit like this has a way of working itself out. But if Ashley gets back and you change your mind, give me a call.”

And after Osborne had hung up he wondered exactly what “shit” Cameron had been talking about, because it sure wasn't about the Posse, at least not exclusively. Someone was directing them, and although the FBI had finally put Barry Egan's face and particulars up on the Net as a person of extreme interest, the media had still not gotten into the real work of the Initiative.

Repairs had been made to Donna Marie. Ashley was safe. Barry Egan had disappeared into the woodwork somewhere. The experiment would take place sometime in the next week. And tonight Cameron and Lipton along with her postdocs and techs, and presumably the power plant personnel and maybe the handful of low-key hired guns were going to have a New Year's Eve party.

Osborne phoned Gerald Kasmir, the sheriff over in Stark County, who'd with the FBI's help along with the state crime lab had worked the Belfield murder scene. They'd talked immediately afterwards, but Kasmir had promised to call back if and when he had anything or when, if ever, the dust settled.

“Never been anything like this on my watch,” Kasmir said.

He'd been sheriff for nineteen years, and like Osborne had seen his share of drunk ranchers, domestic disputes, and the occasional miscreant rodeo cowboy or tourist, but nothing like what had happened at the Thompson ranch.

“How are you doing, Kas?” Osborne said

“I don't have anything new to tell you, if that's what you're calling about, Nate,” Kasmir said. “The feds took over, so there wasn't much I could do except look over some shoulders.”

“It was the same for me down at the Roundup Lodge. Looked like the rodeo cowboy I found shot to death outside the ELF facility did the work. Don't know his motive, but for sure he worked alone.”

“Yeah, so'd this guy. Leaves us with nothing.” Kasmir sounded bitter. Like Osborne, and just about every small-county sheriff, he felt a strong sense of ownership over his jurisdiction. These were his people, he was their shepherd.

“Anybody in town see or hear anything?”

“Three people swore they saw Clyde heading toward the interstate in his pickup just after dark. He even waved at one of them. The son of a bitch was wearing Thompson's clothes. Flew out of Minneapolis on Clyde's credit card and driver's license. Doesn't say much for the TSA.”

“Don't beat yourself up,” Osborne said. “This guy is either well trained or just plain lucky.”

Kasmir chuckled. “When's the last time you ever heard me beating up on myself? It is what it is, can't change the facts.”

“Yeah. Happy New Year.”

“Is this over, Nate?”

“Don't know,” Osborne said. “But I think not, so keep your eyes open.”

He hung up and went to get his coat when Ashley drove up in her pickup truck and he met her at the back entrance to the courthouse, the only unlocked door.

After the snowstorm, the weather had turned bitterly cold, and Ashley's breath was white on the still air and her cheeks were red. But her smile lit up the rear hall like the high noon August sun.

He reached down so she could brush a kiss on his cheek, and he couldn't help but grin, his loneliness completely forgotten.

“You had lunch yet?” she asked.

“I was just going.”

“Good, I'm starved, and I have a million things from my dad that you've got to hear.” She stopped. “I've got the next couple of days off, thought I'd hang out here if that's okay, big guy.”

“I was hoping you'd come back.”

She laughed, the sound magical. “Don't be so easy.”

“That's supposed to be my line,” Osborne said. “Anyway, we've been invited to a party down at the Initiative tonight, if you want to go.”

“Absolutely. There's something I want to talk over with Jim Cameron and the doc.”

“Well, we've got the afternoon after lunch.”

“I brought a few things this time, thought I'd drop them off at your place before we went anywhere.”

 

46

THE DIRECTOR OF
the CIA's office suite was on the seventh floor of the Old Headquarters Building with double-paned windows, the dead airspace of which was filled with white noise to defeat laser eavesdropping. In fact, the entire building, the same as every other structure on the Langley campus, was protected from any sort of mechanical or electronic surveillance. Anything discussed inside these walls was secure.

Edwin Rogers had been driven over from his office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building at three on a blustery overcast afternoon, all of Washington shut down for the holiday, and was immediately escorted upstairs where Walter Page was waiting.

“Good of you to come out on such short notice, but this couldn't wait,” Page said, getting up from behind his desk and extending his hand.

“I assume you've come up with something on the Initiative investigation,” Rogers said, shaking hands. The aide who'd escorted him upstairs took his overcoat and left.

“Yes, actually something quite disturbing. But first bring me up to date with what your people have come up with. Any sign of Mr. Egan?”

“Nothing. Once he reached Louisville he disappeared. But we'll find him sooner or later, even if he has dug himself a hole and crawled in.”

“I saw the APB. Clever of you not to have mentioned the attack on the Initiative, only the murders and robbery of the rancher and his wife and employees, but we think that you may be wrong about him going to ground.”

“No reason for him to return to North Dakota. Even if he were to show up at the head of an armored column, the rapid response teams from Ellis could be back in a matter of an hour or two. If need be I'm told that a couple of jets could be scrambled and be on scene within minutes.”

Page looked pessimistic. “That's what the president said, but I don't agree, especially in light of a couple of possibilities Dan Herbert brought up this afternoon. It's why I called you.” Herbert was the CIA's deputy director of intelligence, and was considered the company's reigning intellectual.

“Tell me.”

“For starters we're just about certain now that SEBIN was behind the first attack on the power station. Their chief of North American operations, Hector Guisti, was spotted in Havana the week before the attack, and again very late last night or early this morning where my people on the ground think he met with a person or persons unknown at José Marti Airport. Coincidentally a private jet belonging to Trent Holdings flew from Mexico City to Havana at about the same time, stayed only a short time, and then showed up back in Mexico City where it refueled and returned to Des Moines.”

“D. S. Wood,” Rogers said. “The SEC has been looking at him for the past year, something to do with irregularities with one or more of his derivative positions. We were asked to do a criminal BI, but we found nothing. But even if he did meet with a SEBIN officer, what does it have to do with Egan?”

“It's speculation on Dan's part, but SEBIN and Wood essentially want the same thing: a delay in the development of anything that would seriously impact the oil business—Venezuela because of their exports to us, and Wood because of his derivative holdings, which Dan thinks might be on shaky grounds. With oil at one hundred dollars a barrel alternative energy is getting a fair amount of attention, and investor's money. And the Initiative, so far as we understand it from Pat Sheehy, is on the verge of producing industrial quantities of clean-burning methane. Sustainable quantities that could seriously impact our need for imported oil.” Sheehy was the director of ARPA-E.

Rogers was skeptical and he let it show. “That's a possibility, I'll concede that much, but it's a stretch, unless you have something else to back it up.”

“There was a third person at the meeting with Guisti. But it was someone already on the ground, because they drove out to the airport. Assuming that whoever it was has an interest in maintaining oil imports from Venezuela we looked at every American currently in Cuba, especially not ordinary tourists. We came up with one intriguing name: Margaret Fischer, who is the chief investments officer for Hodding Brothers, coincidentally one of the inventors of credit default swaps, along with some other exotic financial gimmicks. And who just as coincidentally has lately steered her company away from alternative energy investments into oil futures.”