“I insist. Though I could use a little help on your end.”

“Shoot.”

“Fill me in on everything you know about any clandestine service aiding the Free Foree Movement.”

FOURTEEN

That’s not something I’m up to speed on,” Doug Case answered.

“You were in communication with their gunrunners.”

“Well, people who knew their gunrunners.”

“You were keeping tabs,” Paul Janson persisted. “You must have heard something.”

“You want hearsay?”

“I’m just getting started. I’ll take anything.”

“Why are you asking?”

Janson said, “Five million dollars is a lot of money. I intend to earn it.”

“Mind me asking what does a clandestine outfit aiding the Free Foree Movement have to do with finding the doctor?”

“You’re stalling me, Doug. What have you heard?”

Viscerally suspicious of his former government masters, Janson would not be surprised that an arm of one of the many U.S. clandestine services had secretly aided the rebels in hopes of securing a potential stable oil supply. Maybe they’d caught wind of new unannounced discoveries. So it was not hard to imagine a covert U.S. outfit stepping out of the shadows to throw a little help FFM’s way just to keep friendly relationships with potential winners.

But who arranged Iboga’s escape was a larger question. Which was why Paul Janson was pulling every string he knew to pinpoint where the Harrier jump jet had come from. There weren’t that many in existence. Less than a hundred. They were complicated machines all supposedly in the service of sovereign nations whose air forces could provide the advanced tech support and maintenance to keep them flying.

Of the players competing in the West African oil patch, China could have fielded a Harrier, perhaps launching and retrieving from a cargo ship. So could Nigeria. So, perhaps, Angola. And so, of course, could the U.S.

The vessel he had been watching draw near on a course that would take her past the island now clearly appeared to be a petroleum drill ship. Comparing her to an oil tanker crossing her wake—an ultralarge crude carrier—he guessed that the drill ship was close to a thousand feet long. The draw-works tower that thrust up from the middle of the ship looked fifty stories high. Was her arrival in Isle de Foree’s waters a coincidence? Janson thought not. If his suspicion proved true, he would do whatever it took to undo ASC’s treacherous schemes even as he pretended to still serve them. But he held hard to the hope that Doug Case was not lying to him.

“You told me,” he said into his sat phone, “that this was not about petroleum.”

Case laughed softly. “Well, let’s say management made it clear that I was not permitted to be entirely forthcoming. Which I gather you guessed yourself.”

“ASC being an oil company, the thought crossed my mind.” Feigning dry humor, Janson listened for Case’s voice to betray a lie.

“Paul, you’re a man of many worlds, including the corporate world. You know damned well the chief of security is not in the policy loop. As I told your young lady, security chiefs are servants. We protect; we don’t command.”

“What’s going on, Doug?”

“Can I presume that your phone is as secure as mine?”

“It’s my own. What’s going on?”

“I would really prefer to discuss this face-to-face in a swept room.”

“I don’t have time to come to Texas,” said Janson.

“Okay. Here’s the deal. Now and then, for many years—decades—American Synergy has helped small nations and their oil companies expand their reserves. I know what you’re thinking: That’s how oil companies seize control of foreign oil. Well, it doesn’t work that way anymore. The producing nations are in the driver’s seat, have been for years. What I’m talking about is essentially pro bono oil exploration that we do on occasion. It burnishes our image and makes friends in places where we might not be loved. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“It sounds reasonable and it sounds like you’re trying to do the right thing.”

“We aredoing the right thing.”

“I’m surprised ASC’s PR department doesn’t flood the Internet with pop-ups advertising how nice and kind you are.”

“Cynicism does not become you.”

“Why keep it secret?”

“We explore quietly so our competitors don’t take advantage and steam in with fleets of oil hunters. We hire subcontractors for the actual exploration that specialize in that sort of thing. Little guys you never heard of. Small independent outfits like Tullow—or like Tullow used to be, Tullow now being the poster child for independents that strike it rich.”

Janson interrupted the digression. “What outfit is exploring for you?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s proprietary. In fact, I don’t even know. In ASC’s chain of command no one below Kingsman Helms knows who. There is a major ‘Chinese Wall’ between them and us, so we don’t get accused of riding roughshod over the poor, downtrodden recipient of our largess.”

“What happens if they find something good?”

“ASC is first in line to help the small nation harvest its discovery. It’s only fair—don’t forget these days the locals have the power to demand enormous royalties. We’re working on tighter margins than we did in the bad old days.”

“Does ‘first in line’ mean ASC gets exclusive development rights?”

“By doing good, we do good—but not just ASC. I mean, look, Paul. We’re an American corporation with a responsibility to supply our country with stable sources of energy. In my book that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Whatever the long-term future of energy, our country can’t make good decisions if we’re scrambling to keep the lights on.”

“Were you doing good at Isle de Foree?” Janson asked, wondering, Good enough to persuade some clandestine echelon of the United States government to launch Reapers in service of an oil company?

“Let me put it this way: ASC just chartered the Vulcan Queen, a seventh-generation exploration drill ship that can sink two forty-thousand-foot wells in water three miles deep and keep her station while the wind is blowing sixty knots and seas are running forty feet. She’s the first billion-dollar drill ship and we’ve dispatched her to Isle de Foree.”

“Good answer, Doug.”

“What do you mean?”

“You had me worried you were jerking me around.”

“I’m not following you, Paul.”

“I see her on the horizon.”

“The ship? Already? Are you sure it’s her?”

Janson said, “She looks like a floating Death Star.”

“That’s the Vulcan Queen.”

“I wondered who sent her the day after the revolution.”

“Now you know.”

“But I still don’t know which clandestine service supported the Free Foree Movement.”

“Why just one?”

“What did you say?”

“It could be anyone. Ours, Chinese, Nigerian, South African. Anyone who wants oil.”

“But no one knew about Isle de Foree’s oil. Except ASC and your ‘pro bono’ subcontractors.”

“ASC didn’t know. We hoped. So why wouldn’t others? I mean, what the hell does it cost to fund a ragtag rebel army? Compared to the value of making friends. If you dug deep enough you’d find that Ferdinand Poe was taking money from a half-dozen sources. Most of whom were also giving Iboga money. It’s chump change compared to what it could yield. Where ASC was smart was spending the big bucks to explore. Now that he’s won, who will Interim President Poe love more, the guys who paid him in machine guns—valuable as they were when the lead was flying—or the guys who set his new nation on the road to riches?”

“I’ll ask him,” said Paul Janson.

“Beg pardon?”

“We have a meeting scheduled.”

“About what?”

Janson decided to answer Doug Case honestly. Give American Synergy Corporation’s chief of global security something to ponder. “A job.”

* * *

“YOU LOOK BETTER, Mr. President,” said Janson.