“The Chinese are ruthless,” said Bandar.
“They’re customers, and we value them,” said Fahd. “But they use their size to place themselves in a unique and powerful position. They exploit. It’s their nature.”
“I understand the situation, Your Majesty,” said Putnam, leaning back in the big couch. “But five hundred billion dollars is outrageous. You know it and I know it. America will not pay that much money for your help.”
“In 1973, you invested nearly a hundred and eighty billion to end the oil embargo,” said Bandar. “In today’s dollars, with inflation, that would be nearly nine hundred billion dollars.”
“Unlike you, Prince Bandar, I was alive in 1973,” said Putnam. “I remember what happened. The oil embargo was a mess that was brought on by American policy makers. We paid to correct the sins of our own mismanagement. This situation is completely different. America has been attacked. Not one but two major strategic assets have been destroyed. We didn’t bring this attack on. It was brought to our facilities and our shores and our citizens. And now we reach out to you as allies.” Putnam looked at Bandar coldly. “What if we had asked for an ‘investment,’ to use your term, before we stepped in and saved you from Hussein in 1993, when he was at your doorstep like a hungry jackal? What if we had our hand out then as you do tonight? What would we have asked for? What was it worth to the Fahds to save all that they have?
Two trillion dollars? Five trillion? But no, we asked for nothing. We risked American lives to stop the enemy and beat them back.”
“Let’s be honest,” said Bandar. “That was an act of self-preservation by the Americans. In 1993, the fields of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait produced nearly forty percent of U.S. petroleum. You saved yourselves that night.”
Fahd walked from the window to the couch and sat next to Putnam. “What we offer you is reasonable. What I said about the hundred family members at the restaurant. Imagine a number one thousand times as large. There are princes across the country and their spending only grows. I have my own pressures. Someday, you will not be seated in this comfortable sofa, nor will I. Someday it might not be someone who is willing, at whatever the price, to step into the breach, as you say. You’re lucky. The Americans are lucky. Lucky to have friends like the Fahds, like the Saudis.”
Putnam could feel the redness beginning, first at his neck, then rising through his cheeks and nose, up through his forehead, anger, hatred, beginning to boil. He held the cup of coffee and took a sip. Then, staring at Fahd, he took the small cup and hurled it at the window where Fahd had just stood. The cup smashed against the thick glass, sending coffee all over the window before the shards of white and blue china dropped to the floor.
King Fahd and Prince Bandar remained motionless, in shock.
“Friends?” asked Putnam. “Your own foreign minster plotting with senior Aramco officials to sabotage Capitana as far back as 1998.”
Across the room, Que-Marosali, the Saudi foreign minister, who’d been silent until now, rose from his seat.
Putnam continued. “We have evidence, piles of it, linking members of this government with what happened at Capitana.”
“This is outrageous!” yelled Que-Marosali. “Why would we do this?”
“You know why. You saw what Capitana had the potential to be. You tried to buy it. You offered to pay obscene amounts of money for it. You recognized before it was even built the significance of the strike.”
“There are many elephants out there,” said Que-Marosali.
“Bullshit,” said Putnam. “None that hurt you so severely.”
“This is outrageous,” Fahd whispered, shaking his head. “In all my years, I’ve never been so deeply offended.”
“You’re offended, sir?” asked Putnam. “How do you think we feel?”
“Where is this ‘evidence’ you claim to have?” asked Bandar angrily. “So we were upset at what Capitana has done to us. So what. There’s a giant leap from being upset to committing acts of terror.”
“Do you deny it?”
“Of course we deny it!” yelled Que-Marasoli. “How dare you accuse us of such acts!”
Fahd looked ashen and stunned as he sat in silence and watched his foreign minister and his oldest son scream at the U.S. secretary of state. He held a hand up to silence them. Finally, he looked up at Putnam.
“We’ll continue to honor our military alliance with the United States,” said Fahd. “I’ve known you more than thirty years, Roger. I have to believe there’s something the matter with you. We would never do anything to harm the United States, not intentionally. I want you out of my house. The offer I made earlier is gone. You can find your oil elsewhere.”
It was 6:00
P.M.
Saudi time when Putnam climbed back on the airplane.
“How’d it go?” asked Scalia.
Putnam stopped and looked at Scalia and Stebbens. His face was ashen. “We have a problem,” said Putnam. “I need to call the president.”
He walked past Scalia and Stebbens, shut the door to the stateroom, and dialed the three-digit code that would ring White House Control, which would then find the president.
“How did the meeting go?” asked the president when he came to the phone a few seconds later.
Putnam paused. “Not well. I failed. Went off script. I made the accusation.”
There was a long silence.
“I thought we discussed this.”
“We did.”
“I was crystal fucking clear, Roger.”
“You were. You were crystal clear.”
“God
damn
it!” yelled the president. “Do you understand the situation we’re already in? Do you understand what happens in three weeks, a month, when the tanks start running dry? You arrogant son of a bitch!”
Putnam was silent.
“How clear did I make it to you? What the fuck have you done?”
“I’m sorry. I’ll have my resignation on your desk by the time the plane lands.”
The president was silent.
“I held back,” said Putnam. “We had a deal ready to cut. They wanted five hundred billion dollars.”
“Five hundred billion,” said the president. “Holy shit.”
“I negotiated. Then, at some point, Fahd said something that triggered something in me. I lost it.”
“What exactly do you mean you ‘lost it’?”
“I accused them of being involved with the attacks. I threw a teacup against the wall.”
“My God, what were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about Ted Marks. I was thinking about how angry I am. I lost control.”
“Now we have to rescue this,” said the president. “I can’t accept your resignation. We can’t give the Saudis, or anyone for that matter, the power. I might have to do it later, in case five hundred billion dollars and your scalp gets the oil flowing again. You deserve to be fired, you stupid son of a bitch. What you did tonight wasn’t just a disavowal of my direct orders. You hurt the country. But right now we need to go into salvage mode. In fifteen minutes I want to talk about what we’re going to do.”
Over the next two hours, as the secretary of state’s plane returned to the United States, the president and his senior staff attempted to mitigate the damage caused by Putnam’s accusations against the Saudis. But it was no use. King Fahd had gone to sleep. Prince Bandar was unwilling to speak with anyone. The highest-ranking official reached was Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., who was awakened at the Saudi Embassy near the Watergate in Washington and asked to come to the White House. By the time he arrived at the White House, he’d been briefed,
and instead of discussing the situation used the occasion to lodge a formal diplomatic protest and demand Putnam’s ouster.
By midafternoon, King Fahd called an emergency meeting of OPEC to discuss the incident. At the meeting, held by teleconference, Que-Marosali described the meeting with the U.S. secretary of state. He expressed King Fahd’s indignation at the United States. The governing body of OPEC, the foreign ministers from the seven oil-producing states in the region, expressed their unanimous support for Saudi Arabia and demanded Putnam’s firing. More important, the group agreed to hold production level and not help the United States with its oil problem. A broken teacup was turning into a shattered alliance.
By late afternoon in the United States, someone within the Saudi government leaked the story to
The New York Times.
They ran an online article about the disastrous Fahd-Putnam meeting. As expected, the price of oil futures, already more than $50 a barrel higher in the wake of the attack on Capitana, leaped on the word that a deal to resupply U.S. oil supply had not been reached with the Saudis. By noon, the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, the kind of light, sweet crude oil produced in Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, and a good indication of where oil prices would go, crossed the $200 mark for the first time ever.
PRESBYTERIAN/ST. LUKE’S MEDICAL CENTER
DENVER, COLORADO
Ted Marks awoke and tried to register where he was, to remember something, anything, that would give him a clue as to where he was, why he was here, but he was at a loss.
Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked to the left. He sensed a dull pain on that side of his head and felt a gauzy stupor from what must have been powerful painkillers running through his veins. His nostrils were irritated and he suddenly became aware of tubes up into his nose. The room was a hospital room. Sunlight came in through a large window to the right of his bed and he saw skyscrapers in the air near the building. How long had he been there?
Looking down, he lifted his arm and saw the bandage around his hand. He suddenly remembered the battle; reaching desperately into the fireplace for the handgun. He winced in anger and it all came back. The killer. The fire. The murder of Nick and Annie Anson. He winced again and closed his eyes.
Several hours later he awoke again. Nighttime. Pain from his shoulder intense. The painkillers didn’t feel as strong in him, but he felt much more lucid. The room was dim. A single light shone to his left, a reading light. In the chair, a man sat, reading a book.
Marks swallowed, then spoke. “Anson,” he said.
“I know,” said Savoy. “They came for you. There were tracks through the woods. Blood. You injured him.”
“What day is it?”
“It happened last night. You’ve been out twenty-four hours. You were airlifted here. You’re in Denver. They removed a bullet from your shoulder. You have some bleeding in your skull. He struck you pretty hard with something.”
“Poker, from the fireplace.”
“Ouch.”
“Was it the merger?”
“It’s bigger.” Savoy stood and walked to the side of the bed. “Savage Island is gone; so is Capitana.”
“No,” he whispered. “Tell me you’re . . .”
The look in Savoy’s eyes said it all.
After a few moments of silent shock, Marks asked, “Were there survivors?”
“Yeah. Half of the people at Savage Island survived, far fewer at the rig. We were lucky any survived.”
“Terrorists?”
“Probably. Or mercenaries hired by a foreign government. They don’t know. They’re working on it.”
Savoy brought Marks up to speed on everything he knew; the events at the dam, the reports on Capitana, Dewey Andreas.
“It’s all gone,” said Marks after several minutes of silence. He closed his eyes. “Everything we worked so hard for.”
“We can rebuild it,” said Savoy.
After a long pause, Marks opened his eyes and looked at Savoy.
“You can rebuild it, Terry,” he said. “I’m going to find the motherfuckers who did this.”
J. EDGAR HOOVER FBI BUILDING
Jessica entered Chiles’s office alone.
He turned from the window, looked up at her. “What is it?”
“Madradora,” she said.
“What about it?”
“It failed. The two Deltas are dead. Killed, gunned down in broad daylight.”
Chiles paused, stared at Jessica. “What about Andreas?”
“He called it in. He killed the shooters. He’s running.”
“Killed who? Who does he say did the shooting?”
“He was unequivocal,” she said. “He says they were operatives.”
“Operatives? You mean terrorists?”
“No,” said Jessica. “Professionals, hired guns, most likely. Which, if true, would mean that the planned exfiltration was leaked. It means someone in the room at the time the plan was made—”
“There’s a mole,” interrupted Chiles.
“That’s what Dewey thinks.”
Chiles leaned back in the big maroon leather chair. He closed his eyes, rubbed the stubble that had aggregated on his chin.
“So what do you want?” he asked.
“Authorization,” she said. “We need to start a track protocol. Financials, e-mail, phone records, everything. Mole hunt.”
Chiles looked skeptical.
“I’m not convinced,” he said. “One call from Andreas? Maybe
he
killed them.”
“I’m not convinced either. But if there’s even a chance, we need to start looking.”
Chiles nodded.
“I agree,” he said. “Do it. Run it out of here. But keep it quiet.”