New Empires Rising. Mike Trial
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Cheryl...I have got to start spending more time with Cheryl like I promised I would when I turned the company over to Lori. I haven’t kept that promise.
JD rolled the warming liquor on his tongue, savoring the hint of vanilla. Wonder what the real story is with Mitchell’s arsenal ship. No matter, we’ll fill in until his team gets there, and go home with a fat paycheck.
Chapter 3
In the tropical heat, Challenger was a steam bath belowdecks. And it stunk.
“Somebody relieved himself in the toilet that doesn’t work,” Wendt told Stan as he followed him to where the men were assembled.
The men had rigged their hammocks and sleeping bags on deck to avoid the dark and stinking interior rumbling with continuous engine noise.
For this meeting, the men had put fans here and there to keep the humid air moving. Stan, his shirt off, stood on the bottom step of the ladder in front of his twenty mercenaries crowded into the steel- walled compartment. He opened a briefcase and displayed packets of US $100 notes. “$10,000 for each of you!” Stan neglected to mention he was keeping $100,000 for himself.
“Whose wallet did that fall out of?” Wendt asked.
“And what’s the job?” someone else shouted.
“These beauties,” Stan said with a grin, “are from our mysterious new employer, whose identity is not our concern. Our concern is to sink the oil platform ESTA-20.”
“Thought our job was to defend ESTA-20,” a Midlands-accented voice said from the crowd.
“That was the job Mitchell got for us. We’re now independent. Our job is shorter and very much sweeter.” Stan kissed a bundle of banknotes and closed the briefcase.
“Likely some tribal bloke wants the oil platform blown up because it’s an offence to the old gods.” Wendt guffawed.
Stan barked, “What do you care? You’d go to hell with me if the money was right!” There was a rising wave of talk. Weatherfield raised his hands for quiet, and when only the fans roaring in the dimness could be heard, he continued.
“We approach the platform like we’re expected to so that any oil workers aboard won’t get suspicious. Once on board, we dispose of them, set our charges, and take this ship south to Gambian waters. We sink it, go ashore in the two boats, and catch a flight back to civilization. You’ve all got the Irish passports Mitchell provided, right?”
The next morning Stan rose at dawn. He checked the autopilot, ran through a short set of his fitness routine, then went into the wheelhouse with four packets of tinned field breakfast, sat down at the pilot’s chair, and ate them all. Afterwards he sat watching the autopilot steer the ship up the coast. Mid-morning, he took his two lieutenants aside. “Any rumbles from the blokes?” Stan asked in his Midlands accent, inherited from two generations of workers in the Sheffield wire mill.
“No complaints about the pay,” Wendt said.
“Some don’t like the idea of killing innocent workers,” Pierson, the tall redhead, muttered.
Stan’s black eyes narrowed. “You tell me these complainers’ names so I can keep an eye on them. During a firefight some of our own people sometimes get hit.”
Wendt and Pierson shut up.
“Good,” Stan said. “The fewer the questions, the fewer the worries. Just follow orders and this thing will go like clockwork. Draw what you need from the munitions storage box.” Stan tossed Wendt the keys. “We’ll be there tomorrow.”
Chapter 4
As he walked out of London Heathrow customs, JD was pleasantly surprised to find a limo driver holding up a card with his name on it.
“Mr. JD Iselin?”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Wolfe sent a car for you.” The chauffer took JD’s suitcase and raincoat, and led him out to a parked limo. “It’s about a forty-five minute drive, sir,” the driver told JD. “There’s hot coffee, water, drinks—in the wee cabinet in front of your knees. And Mr. Wolfe sent a note for you.”
JD watched the rain-darkened hedgerows change to brick row houses as they entered the south London suburbs. Despite his fatigue from the flight, he felt exhilarated. London always did that to him. Cheryl and I need to come here for vacation, he thought. His smile faded. Cheryl.
JD picked up the white envelope lying on the seat.
Mr. Iselin,
The driver will take you to the Savoy and wait while you check in, then bring you to my office.
Jason Wolfe
Global Oil, PLC
At the Savoy Hotel, the driver waited while JD checked in, then drove him to Global Oil’s offices, which turned out to be two floors of a smallish office building with one of the best addresses in the city. JD was checked through building security in the lobby.
A woman emerged from the elevator and clacked across the floor to meet him. Dark blue jacket and skirt, subdued jewelry, black heels, beautiful ash-blonde hair, and a classic English Virginia Woolf face. She smiled a fixed smile and shook JD’s hand. She brought with her the sweet opulence of expensive perfume. “I’m Angela Carter, Global Oil,” she said, leading him to the bank of elevators. On the seventh floor, they stepped off into deep cerulean carpeting covered here and there with Bokhara carpets. Angela swiped her security card at a set of frosted glass double doors with the Global Oil logo on them. They glided aside and JD followed her into a quiet but intensely active office dominated by giant screens full of incomprehensible rows and columns of numbers and cryptic lettering.
A man of about fifty, tall and tweedy, with an over-amount of floppy dark hair, approached. “I’m Charles Nesbit,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m Senior Analyst. Mr. Wolfe is delayed, but we are assembled in the conference room.” He led the way to a beautifully appointed conference room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Thames. Four men and one woman were already seated at an oval oak conference table, laptops open.
A secretary asked if anyone wanted coffee or tea, then pulled the door closed.
“While we’re waiting,” JD said, “perhaps you could tell me a little about Global Oil’s presence in Senegal.” The men exchanged glances. Nesbit took the initiative. “Global Oil is an oil trading firm primarily buying and selling oil futures, but we also invest in oil infrastructure—usually tanker leases, but sometimes oil platforms like ESTA-20 and the production concession that goes with it. In this case...”
Just then a slim man, dressed impeccably in Savile Row attire, entered the room. Sandy-haired, with a South of France suntan, he was scowling. “I’m Jason Wolfe,” he said, shaking JD’s hand abruptly before taking a seat at the head of the table. “Thank you for joining us.”
JD was silently amused by tiny changes in the look and posture of Wolfe’s staff as they cowered. Their boss was not happy.
“Another drop in 30-day futures,” Wolfe told the room. “Not Russian production, not American fracking, it’s one of our competitors.”
“Gresham.” Wolfe pointed at a man halfway down the table. “I want you to see what can be done, quietly, about our short position in Nigerian light crude.”
“Right, sir.” A slim man in shirtsleeves jumped to his feet and left the room.
Wolfe smiled at JD, though it seemed to take an effort. “Now, to the business at hand. I see you’ve met Charles Nesbit, my right-hand man. Charles has just returned from Senegal and Somalia.” Wolfe began to sound more cheerful, almost ebullient. “He has my full authority and goes to arrange deals when I am engaged here. He was responsible for getting the Senegal concession, and closing the deal with Cairn Energy to buy the ESTA-20 oil-loading platform,