‘Op what?’ said Gallen.
‘Op-ed,’ said Joyce. ‘You know: opposite the editorial, the opinion pieces.’
‘But not in the business and finance section?’
‘No,’ said Joyce. ‘He’s never written about business, to my knowledge. He usually weighs in with opinions about cuts in defence spending, increasing the deployment in Iraq, that sort of thing.’
‘You speak to him this morning?’
‘Receptionist couldn’t put me through.’
‘Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t?’
‘She said his line wasn’t answering,’ said Joyce, slumping. ‘This is the worst time for this crap. The very worst.’
Gallen looked to Aaron and Florita for a clue, then turned back to Joyce. ‘What’s up?’
‘This,’ said Joyce, tossing a glossy Oasis marketing folder across the coffee table. Picking it up, Gallen saw a white cover that proclaimed ‘Ariadne: Queen of the Arctic’. On the bottom right were the words: Media Pack, Ariadne Launch, April 10.
Opening it, Gallen saw press releases, photos and diagrams of the flying saucer-type structure he’d seen on CNN, which also sat in model form against the wall.
‘April tenth, that’s…’
‘This Friday,’ said Joyce, as if Gallen was simple. ‘You did know about the Ariadne launch? ‘
Looking at Florita and Aaron, Gallen made a face. ‘Well, of course I didn’t.’
Aaron cleared his throat. ‘It wasn’t going to be an issue, Gerry, until Florita decided she wanted to go down on the first journey.’
There was silence in the room as Gallen stared at Florita.
‘I was going to tell you this morning,’ said Florita. ‘Feedback from the Street wasn’t good.’
‘Wall Street?’
‘Yep,’ said Florita. ‘There’s an idea that a female can’t run an oil company. We thought this would be a good way to make the analysts and fund managers see me as a chief executive, not a woman.’
‘By going to the bottom in this tin can? ‘ said Gallen, holding up the photo. ‘You coulda gone sky diving, taken a raft down some rapids.’
‘It’ll be a photo op,’ said Joyce, defending what was obviously his idea. ‘She won’t go to the bottom. That’s almost a thousand feet.’
‘So?’ said Gallen.
‘We’ll submerge her with the Ariadne for the networks and news channels, but only fifty feet down. Then we’ll just bring her to the surface.’
‘Oh, you will?’ said Gallen. ‘How will you do that, Dave?’
‘Well…’ Joyce looked at Aaron.
‘Gerry, the take-off would be your team,’ said Aaron.
Breathing out, Gallen tried to stay calm. ‘I think everyone in this room should remember that two weeks ago the former chief executive of this company — sorry, the managing director — was bombed out of the sky in his corporate jet. I remember it well ‘cos it was my third day on the job.’
‘I’m sorry, Gerry,’ said Florita. ‘This was dreamed up yesterday, after a link-up with our New York PR firm. They thought it was time to redefine the story; take it away from Harry and the plane wreck, make it about the future.’
‘It’s high-impact stuff,’ said Joyce, leaning his elbows on his knees as he gained confidence. ‘After BP’s image disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, this is a game-changer: female CEO, ecologically responsible drilling, might even have a penguin swimming nearby, right, Gerry? Networks will love that.’
Gallen looked at the communications man in his four-thousand-dollar suit and Italian shoes and all he could see was the kind of administration fool that the Pentagon produced like spring flies.
‘That’s great, Dave,’ he said. ‘But penguins live in Antarctica, okay?’
‘Really?’ said Joyce, trying to make a joke of it.
‘Yeah, really. Secondly, I think BP’s spill in the Gulf was slightly more than an image disaster.’
‘Of course, of course,’ Joyce said, waving it away, now red in the face.
‘And lastly, Dave, let’s talk about high impact.’
Joyce gulped.
‘High impact is a hit team killing Harry Durville and trying to bring the rest of us down with him.’
As he waited for Joyce to leave, Gallen could feel Aaron’s gaze on him.
‘So that went well,’ said Florita, walking to the side-board and pouring herself a glass of water. ‘Can we finish with the pissing contest already?’
‘Sure,’ said Gallen. ‘I’ll work up a security plan for the dive, but I think we have to find this newspaper reporter.’
Florita grabbed the TV remote as the Oasis logo appeared behind a business anchorwoman. The woman told the audience that Oasis had lost eleven per cent of its stock price in early trading on the NYSE based on unconfirmed rumours that the late Harry Durville had been secretly dealing with the Russians over Arctic Ocean oil.
The anchorwoman switched her attention to Microsoft sales and Florita hit the mute button again. ‘Right now, I need less details, more results.’
‘We’re on it,’ said Aaron, gesturing for Gallen to leave the office.
Gallen raced south along the river to the southern rail yard precinct of Calgary, an area known as Ogden. The text message from Winter had been brief: 2 @ Fallback 1.
He was driving too quickly and his head was filled with plans and contingencies: the CEO was going down in the submersible, only to be taken off to a waiting boat. That’d be a job for Mike Ford. The reporter on the Calgary Herald would have to be collared and questioned. He still had the broader question of who bombed the plane. And where was Paul Mulligan?
Pulling off the Deerfoot Trail, he negotiated the maze of warehouses and truck loading hubs and drove along alleys filled with containers and machinery, loaders and security dogs.
At the end of a cul-de-sac called Ogden Dale Plaza, Gallen aimed under a sign for Britannia Oil Refining and drove into an abandoned oil storage area that Oasis had bought and mothballed six years earlier. Parking beside a white Chev van, Gallen scanned the area for unwanted eyes and climbed the outside stairs that led to the old administration offices looking over the Britannia switching yards and storage tanks.
Pushing into the building that doubled as the ‘Fallback 1’ in Winter’s text message, Gallen pulled the SIG from his waistband. ‘Anyone home?’ he called as he scanned the panoramic view available from the elevated offices.
The internal door inched open twenty seconds later and a handgun was pointing at his chest.
‘What have we got? ‘ said Gallen, as Winter lowered the gun and walked to him.
‘Two unfriendlies.’ A shiner was starting around Winter’s left eye. ‘Followed them into the motel room and persuaded them to leave with us.’
‘Put up a fight?’
‘Sure did,’ said Winter, reholstering his SIG. ‘The big dude wanted to fight — Mike dropped him with a leg shot.’
‘Cops?’ Gallen looked across the vast rail yards for movement.
‘I think we’re clean,’ said Winter.
‘Think?’
‘No tails, but you never know with these guys.’
‘What do you mean?’
Winter shrugged. ‘If they’re Agency, then they’re being tracked as we speak.’
‘You got their phones?’
‘No phones.’
That was good news and also bad news.
Moving towards the door, Gallen realised Winter wasn’t getting out of the way.
‘What’s up, Kenny?’ he said, trying to look over the big man’s shoulder.
‘I don’t know who they work for, but I’ve seen these guys before. One is that lawyer dude from behind the Spanish bar in Del Rey.’