Sea of Greed

On the screen, Errol Flynn was getting ready to attack the Crimean artillery in The Charge of the Light Brigade, one of Flynn’s biggest hits.

“Half a league, / half a league, / Half a league onward,” a voice said from behind them. “All in the valley of Death / Rode the six hundred.”

Kurt turned to see the President coming down the aisle. Both he and Rudi stood.

The President motioned for them to sit. “I hate to inform you gentlemen, but we’re heading into an abyss of our own.”

He handed each of them a newspaper and took a seat. Kurt received the The Wall Street Journal. On the front page was a bold headline declaring a new oil shortage.

OLD WELLS DRYING UP.

New Finds Disappoint. Demand Growing.

The paper in Rudi’s hand was the pink, UK-published Financial Times. Its headline was more ominous.

Why Is the World’s Oil Suddenly Vanishing?

“You can read them later,” the President said. “For now, let’s just say the cat’s out of the bag.”

“Intentionally?” Rudi asked.

“Of that, I have no doubt,” the President said. “There are enough identical details in both articles to suggest the information was leaked from the same source.”

Rudi put his paper down. “What’s the reaction been like?”

“Oil prices opened thirty dollars a barrel higher this morning,” the President said. “The front-end contracts have been riding higher ever since. The price could double by the end of the week. The shock is going to be sudden and severe. On top of what we’ve experienced since the Alpha Star catastrophe, and the slow rise before that, we’re looking at prices three times what they were a year ago, with more to come.”

“Not good,” Rudi said.

“No,” the President added. “All other stocks are tanking. The talking heads on TV are spouting off words like correction, recession and depression. If you look in the rearview mirror, you’ll see that economic meltdown I told you about coming on fast. I was hoping NUMA would help us avoid that.”

“We’re making progress,” Rudi said.

“Blowing up a sunken ship in Bermuda is not the kind of progress I’m interested in.”

Kurt spoke up. “I took a chance and it went wrong. If that’s indefensible, then the blame falls on me.”

The President paused, surprised that Kurt would come right to the heart of the matter. Most men called on the carpet preferred to talk about other things as long as humanly possible.

“So, you prefer a quick death,” the President said.

“I prefer not to die at all,” Kurt said. “But we’ve lost too much time to talk around the issue.”

The President crossed his long legs and nodded thoughtfully. “Rudi briefed me on your missing colleagues. You have my condolences. That’s quite a blow. By the sound of it, you’re not ready to get out of the fight. I admire that. Now, tell me how the next round is going to come out differently.”

“Because we have a target now,” Kurt said.

“We do?”

“Tessa Franco,” Kurt said. “We get her, we get the truth.”

A perplexed look swept onto the President’s face. “Tessa Franco?”

“You’ve heard of her?”

“Everyone has heard of her,” the President said. “She announced an IPO this morning and a plan to build fuel cell factories in seven different states. The senators and congressmen are falling all over themselves to praise her and vie for the business.”

“Of course they are,” Rudi said.

“You’ve picked an interesting target,” the President added. “At this moment, she’s as close to untouchable as any person on earth. For one, she’s not an American. She has dual American and French citizenship. We can’t simply go get her. Beyond that, she’s the darling of the press. She’s being treated like an international hero who’s single-handedly going to save us from this oil crisis.”

“She is the oil crisis,” Kurt insisted. “Her people created this bacterium, snuck around the world pumping it into oil fields and then sat back waiting for the inevitable.”

“Ah, yes, the bacteria,” the President said, looking at Rudi. “I understand your people brought in samples of that last night.”

“Not without trouble,” Rudi said. “Paul and Gamay were attacked on their way in. They survived and made it to Biloxi by the skin of their teeth. A saboteur working on the FEMA staff was the initial problem. But they had to fight off some very determined hijackers along the way.”

This was the first Kurt had heard of that. “What’s happening with the samples now?”

“They’ve been divided up,” the President said. “Half to a team from the CDC and the rest to the military germ warfare unit in Nevada. The two groups will be looking for methods to kill the bacteria. But even with a heap of good fortune, I’m told it might be a year or two before we create a method to attack the bacteria and deploy it on a worldwide scale. And that’s if there is any weakness.”