“ Namaste,” Paul Janson greeted the Gurkha security officers guarding the entrance to the American Club with a folding-stock Remington shotgun, a Heckler & Koch MP5, pistols, and khukuriknives. I bow to the God in you.
He was glad to see good men getting paying work, but they had to wonder, as he did, whether their employment was overkilclass="underline" Gurkhas were the fiercest, best-trained fighters in the world and Singapore the safest of nations. Janson’s own club up the street, the Tanglin, whose members were the elite Chinese, Malays, Indians, and English who ran Singapore, made do with doormen who kept the taxis from cluttering the driveway.
Doug Case had left word at the front desk that he was waiting in the Union Bar. It was decorated like a sports bar with a big TV. Janson assumed that homesick American businessmen huddled here Saturday afternoons. It was quiet this morning and Case had the place to himself. He had backed his wheelchair into a corner.
“Welcome to the exotic Orient. May I order you a cheeseburger and fries?”
“Where’s Kingsman Helms?”
“Running late. He’ll be here any minute. Good flight?”
“On time,” said Janson, sitting where he could watch the door. He had dressed for the climate in linen shirt and trousers with a jacket draped over his arm. Case wore a bespoke tropical suit of ultralight 300 wool.
“Where’s Ms. Kincaid?”
“Traveling.”
“I’m disappointed. I was looking forward to laying eyes on her again.”
“She asked you a good question last time: How did you know that the doctor had been kidnapped? You answered that the gunrunners told you.”
“Correct.”
“Still your answer?”
Case had hazel eyes. They offered up a glint of steel. “Why wouldn’t it be? What’s up, Paul? What’s eating you?”
“Did the gunrunners mention what the Amber Dawnwas doing south of Isle de Foree?”
“Not that I recall. Delivering or picking up something, I presume. That’s what service boats do. If you’re interested, I’m sure it’s in the company records.”
“I’ll wait for Helms. Maybe he knows. How long did Terry Flannigan work for ASC?”
“There’s Helms!”
The tall blond executive bustled into the bar and crossed the room in several long strides. “What,” he demanded of Paul Janson, “were you going to ‘blow sky-high’ if I didn’t travel halfway around the world to humor you?”
“How long did Terry Flannigan work for ASC?”
Kingsman Helms sank into a chair and said, “You could have asked that on the telephone.”
“I don’t think you would have answered it on the telephone. How long did Terry Flannigan work for ASC?”
“Briefly.”
Janson looked at Doug Case. Had Doug known? Hard to tell.
“What do you mean, briefly?”
“He was let go for schtupping some VP’s wife.”
“I don’t understand. Why’d you hire me to save him if he no longer worked for ASC?”
“He had been one of our own. And he was taken from one of our boats. It was agreed that it would be good for company morale to see even a former employee rescued.”
“There’s a lot of fear in foreign oil patches,” Case chimed in. “It’s hard to get top people to work in them.”
Janson kept his focus on Helms. “What was the Amber Dawndoing south of Isle de Foree the night it sank?”
“That’s another I could have answered on the telephone. You’re batting two for two.”
“What was the offshore service vessel doing south of Isle de Foree where there were no oil rigs to service?”
“The Amber Dawnwas completing a secret three-D seismic program for the Isle de Foree deepwater blocks. We had contracted a small Dutch company to conduct a seismic acquisition project, and they jury-rigged the Amber Dawnas a streamer three-D seismic vessel.”
A surreptitious glance at Doug Case revealed a minute widening of the corporate security chief’s eyes.
Janson asked, “Why didn’t you just send a real one? What was the big secret?”
“I told you about our pro bono contractors two weeks ago,” Case interrupted.
“You did not tell me Amber Dawnserved an independent subcontractor.”
Case leveled an angry gaze at Kingsman Helms. “Apparently that loop was above my pay level.”
Janson said, “Why don’t we hear Mr. Helms’s version of the truth?”
Helms shrugged. “The truth is, secrecy is bred in the bone in the oil business. Has been from the start. We’re selling a mysterious commodity. How much oil there appears to be at any given time dictates price, from the gas pump all the way back to reserves imagined in the ground.”
“And how much you’ll pay the nation that owns that ground?”
“I see where you’re going with this and you are dead wrong. It’s not like we were hoodwinking Ferdinand Poe.”
“It’s not? Who were you hoodwinking?”
“Our rivals. Other oil companies. But primarily the Chinese. It behooves us when we’re guessing and hoping for a big find to keep it secret until we know for sure. Keep in mind, we are looking for oil where we are not likely to find it. But we never know. The petrological world is full of surprises.”
“You’re not guessingwhat’s in the Isle de Foree deepwater blocks. You know already.”
Helms shook his head. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I’ll admit—in confidence—we’ve got reason to hope. But nothing is in the bag.”
Paul Janson said, “It was enough in the bag for ASC to support both sides of the Isle de Foree civil war.”
Kingsman Helms did not deny the accusation. Instead, he looked Paul Janson straight in the face and said, “The problem with the supply side of oil is a problem of accessing the resources in the ground. But a purely logistic problem becomes a political problem when governments claim access.”
“That’s a common corporate complaint.”
“Complaining is useless until a corporation admits that governments force us to make choices in order to access the product our customers require.”
“What choices did ASC make to drill for Isle de Foree’s oil?”
“Survival choices,” Helms answered blandly. “We at ASC are on our own in an increasingly competitive and contentious world. Gone are the days that the mere existence of American military might covered our back. We’re a global corporation, but big as we are, we compete with companies that are fronts for the Chinese and Russian governments. They’re not afraid of us anymore.”
Helms fell silent.
Janson asked, “What survival choices did you make?”
“Everywhere we explore, the American Synergy Corporation is whipsawed between anarchistic locals and rapacious Chinese. ASC has no choice but to cover our own back. If our government won’t lead us—and I assure you they won’t—we will lead the government. They don’t mind taxing us, but they won’t protect us. Since our government won’t level the playing field, then ASC must meet the Chinese head-on by doing what we have to do to level the playing field.”
“In other words, if the U.S. government won’t help ASC, ASC will help itself.”
“Without apology!” Helms shot back. “It’s a new world, Janson. It’s passed you by.”
“Dr. Flannigan told me as much.”
Kingsman Helms smiled patiently, as if humoring Janson. “What did the good doctor tell you?”
“He told me that ASC did not know he was aboard the Amber Dawn. That’s why he fled. He thought you sent us to kill him.”