Though the American threats are mostly hot air (aside from being bogged down in a prolonged war with the Chinese, where would they get the fuel for their tanks and troop carriers?), they underscore the crisis now threatening the world.
Let’s face it – there are no alternatives to oil. All the blather about ethanol, hydrogen, wind and solar power is just so much nonsense. Without oil, the world economy will collapse. Of that there is no longer any doubt. The only question is, how devastating will that collapse be?
“This McAllister sounds like a real piece of work,” said Richard. “So we owe a lot of our current problems to him?”
“Some…” said Gupta, “but only some. People believed that the reserves controlled by Can-Cartel could bridge the transition to alternate forms of energy, and that the company chose not to release them simply out of greed.
“The company’s true motives have never been established, but ironically, Can-Cartel probably did humanity a favour by denying them the oil they were so greedy for. Developed nations were forced to confront the ‘C’ word – ‘Conservation’, in the deadly serious manner required, and they were better able to make the transition to a post-oil economy.”
Gupta picked up a tiny model train and turned it in his fingers as he spoke. “But nobody saw it that way back then. Governments around the world pressured the Canadians to investigate Can-Cartel’s books, looking for an excuse to nail McAllister. It turned out they didn’t have to look very hard. The auditors found scores of accounting irregularities and fraud on a massive scale. Billions of dollars of company funds had mysteriously disappeared.
“It was the scandal of the century. It was in all the papers for more than a year. There was even talk of a secret bunker and a fuel reservoir McAllister had supposedly built to hold the world for ransom when the anticipated Armageddon arrived. It was just after they came up with an additive that extended the shelf-life of gasoline almost indefinitely, so in theory the cache could still be usable today.
“The rumours were discounted as the ravings of conspiracy freaks and paranoids, but they resurfaced periodically, and their persistence gave them credibility.”
“Wow!” said Richard. “So what finally happened to McAllister?”
“Well, it’s not pretty,” answered Gupta setting down the model. “He was indicted for fraud and racketeering, convicted, and packed off to jail, and Can-Cartel was forcibly broken into a half-dozen pieces. What remained was still one of the most powerful business entities on the planet, but gone were the days when it could tell world governments what to do.
“In the end, McAllister died in prison. I think his heart gave out on him. He never did say what happened to all the money, though it’s assumed that one or more of his cronies at Can-Cartel ended up with it, with or without his blessing.”
“And the fuel cache?”
“Rumours have continued to circulate about a secret cache, but if anybody knows anything, they’ve never talked, and they’re not likely to now – anyone with firsthand knowledge has been dead for at least thirty years. Treasure hunters have poured over most of the province of Alberta, without success. So, the mystery remains – we may never know the answer.”
“How big was this cache supposed to be?” asked Richard.
“Assuming there ever was a cache, it’s hard to imagine it being very large. How could McAllister have built something of any size without attracting major attention?”
“Danny’s journal has a picture of what looks like a Wild Rose in it,” said Richard. “I found a building in Surrey with the same picture. Does that make any sense to you?”
“I can’t imagine what your brother could have found that would relate to Wild Rose. As I said, Wild Rose Energy was an Alberta company. Maybe the picture refers to something else.”
“Another journal entry that recurs is the word ‘Eldorado’ – can you think of any relationship between the word Eldorado and Wild Rose Energy or McAllister or Can-Cartel?”
“No – sorry…I don’t think I’ve ever come across that word in any context that relates to what we’ve been discussing.”
“What about an unusual spelling of ‘Wild Rose Energy’. Have you ever come across any literature where the ‘i’ in ‘Wild Rose’ is replaced by an asterisk – like this?” Richard grabbed a scrap of paper and reproduced the ‘W*ld Rose Energy’ entry he’d found in Danny’s journal.
“I’m afraid not. It means nothing to me.”
“Well, thanks, Amir” said Richard, rising and shaking Gupta’s hand. “You’ve been incredibly helpful.”
They returned to the respite room, and Richard started organizing his pack.
“You don’t want to do any more research?” Carrie said.
“I don’t think so,” Richard said. He thought about it and sat down at the little table. Carrie sat across from him.
“There’s one entry in the journal that’s sort of away from all the others,” he said. “It’s nothing I could research. Danny says something like ‘F says C can get transportation’. F and C are obviously people. Fred, Frank, Chuck, Clarence…”
“It sounds like Danny went to this ‘C’ looking to rent a vehicle.”
“One of his friends from school said that Danny called what he was doing in Surrey ‘prospecting’.”
“Prospecting? Like for gold or jewels or something?”
“I don’t know. Prospecting in Surrey? Is it possible that people left valuables in their houses that he found lying around…”
“If people left anything behind it would have disappeared a long time ago. Surrey may be uncivilized, but there’s still lots of people there. Those abandoned houses would have been looted a thousand times by now. Anyway, whatever he found doesn’t sound like jewelry or gold. It must be something he can’t move himself. Maybe it’s too big, or too obvious. So he needs some way to transport it. He goes to this ‘C’ person, who’s probably some underworld type. That would be the only way Danny could get his hands on a car or truck.”
“God, why didn’t he just come to me?” said Richard, shaking his head.
A Slave
When Lacy awoke, her head was pounding. She peered around her drowsily, but had no idea where she was. The light was dim, maybe from candles, though she couldn’t make out the source from where she lay. The room smelled of decay and body odour. She tried to move and realized that, while she could change position, her left arm was securely tied with a chain to a pair of heavy concrete blocks. She lay on a filthy mattress in the middle of a large auditorium-like space. When she looked more closely she could see that there were many others around her in the same predicament.
“What is this place?” she called out.
“Shhh,” came a reply from nearby. Then a whisper: “Don’t talk now. They’re coming. Talk later.”
She raised her head. Three men were walking through the room’s only door. The center man appeared to be the leader. The two surrounding him guided him through the room, commenting on various people lying on the floor. As her eyes grew more accustomed to the light, she could see that all of the captives were women.
The trio approached more closely, and she overheard one of the underlings say, “Yeah, another one from the Asian refugee boats. Doesn’t speak any English. Not a bad body and face. Should be okay.”
Finally the three men walked up to where Lacy lay. The leader was an unshaven, paunchy, little man, with a few strands of his greasy black hair combed ludicrously over his bald head. He stared down at her as if she were the main course at a banquet. She recognized the two men beside him as Frank and Jun, the two thugs that had kidnapped her. Frank sported a bandage on his nose, and he touched it as he scowled at her. She cringed, and tried to back away, but the chain held her in place.
“Here’s a nice one,” The leader said, unabashedly leering at her.
“We found her in the city,” Frank said. “Yeah, she’s a cut above the usual trash we get in here. We should make a bundle on her – she’s got the ‘sweet young virgin’ look the Johns all love.”
The leader scanned Lacy up and down, licking his lips and rubbing his stubbled chin.
“Wavy corn silk hair…” he leaned down and twirled a lock of Lacy’s hair in his fingers, “pale white milky skin…” He traced a dirty fingernail down Lacy’s right arm. She shuddered and tried to pull away.
“And just a sweet little frosting of freckles,” The leader’s speech was tinged with drool as he continued to stare at her.
“We should see if we can dig her up a school-girl outfit,” said Frank. “They’d go wild!” All three men laughed uproariously.
“Let me go!” Lacy yelled, pulling on her chain. “You can’t keep me here!”
“Is that right sweetie?” laughed Jun. “Oh – our mistake – I guess we’d better let you go, then.” Again they all laughed.
The leader crouched down to inspect Lacy more closely.
“Watch this one, Boris,” warned Frank. “She looks harmless, but she’s a wildcat.”
Boris reached a hand out toward one of Lacy’s breasts. She threw out her free arm to stop him, and he grabbed her wrist and twisted it back until she thought it would break. She was almost overpowered by the stench of his breath.
“You’re right,” drooled Boris. “She could be one of our star assets once she’s been properly broken in.”
As if to demonstrate who was in charge, he maintained his grip on her free hand, reached out with his other hand, and squeezed her left breast so hard she yelped in pain. She tried to kick at him, but he jumped out of reach. This brought renewed hails of laughter.
“Good work, boys,” said Boris. “For once you guys showed some resourcefulness. Keep an eye on this one.”
The three continued on to the next new victim.
When the men had moved some distance away, the voice that had answered Lacy earlier spoke once again, in a whisper,
“What’s your name?” it said.
“My name’s Lacy,” Lacy answered. She twisted around searching for the source of the voice. Another girl was lying on the mattress to her right. She was Asian, and quite beautiful, though her long, black hair was unkempt and she looked underfed. She was chained to a set of blocks identical to those that held Lacy.
“My name is Mei-Lien,” the girl said.
“What is this place?” asked Lacy.
“You don’t know?” said Mei-Lien. “This is a whore-house, and we’re whores – all of us – you too.”
“Whores?” said Lacy.
“You don’t know what a whore is?” said Mei-Lien.
Lacy shook her head, embarrassed.
“Where have you been all your life!” said Mei-Lien. “They force you to be with men – to have sex with them. When you’re not with a man they keep you here. They only feed you enough to keep you alive and attractive enough for men to pay for.”
Lacy was stunned. She hesitated for a few seconds, trying to grasp what the other girl had told her.
“H…How long have you been here?” she finally asked, swallowing hard.
“About three months, I think,” said Mei-Lien. “It’s hard to tell here. We came from Asia about a year ago. It was a terrible journey on a rusty old boat. Many died on the way. When we finally arrived, we had nowhere to go and we had to sleep on the street. One night I was out searching for food, and those two caught me and brought me here.”
She nodded in the direction of Frank and Jun. The three men came back in their direction, and Mei-Lien, whispered “Shhh”, once again. They passed in front of Lacy, and once again Boris shot her a leering glance. She cringed.
When they had left the room, Mei-Lien continued, “Some of the girls are allowed to walk around freely – once they’ve shown that they won’t try to run away. Nobody likes them because they collaborate with our torturers. Those girls come by here every hour or so. If you need to go to the bathroom, you have to tell them.”
Lacy finally grasped what had happened to her. She started to cry.
“You’ve got to get away if you can,” said Mei-Lien. “Nobody lasts long here. They’ve sent me out a hundred times already – with these filthy, stinking pigs of men. They’ll come for you, too – soon – very soon.”
That first night Lacy slept fitfully. She had a dream about Danny. In her dream, she lay next to him, and peered into his clear blue eyes, touched his taut, smooth skin, ran her fingers through his golden hair.
Once again he kissed her – just as he had the night before they left. And he touched her – in ways she’d never considered before – ways that frightened her. Auntie Becky had hinted at the feelings that a man and a woman could experience, but had never gone into detail.
She awoke from the dream suddenly, only slowly becoming aware of what had disturbed her. As her eyes were finally able to focus in the dim light, she realized that she was being watched. It was Boris, crouched down beside her, staring and breathing heavily.
He looked as if he’d been trying to decide something, and her awakening had cemented his decision. He moved closer, whispering, “You really are a virgin, aren’t you, sweetie.”
Lacy cringed and tried to crawl backwards away from him, but was held in place by her chains.
Boris put out both his hands towards her. “It’s alright – we’re just going to have a little fun, you and me. Don’t be afraid. Didn’t they tell you? It’s part of my job to break in the new girls.”