Jack Du Brul - Charon's landing

Siri went back to her office to make the arrangements, leaving Khalid alone with his thoughts, which frustrated him to the point of distraction. Rather than deal with the summary reports Siri had left for him as preparation for the OPEC meeting, he swiveled around in his chair and looked out across the Persian Gulf. Immediately, he noticed the tanker he had seen when returning from his reconnoiter with Bigelow. The vessel was still hove to, although today he couldn’t see any movement around the behemoth. She looked like a ghost ship.

Khalid spun back to his desk, putting the ship out of his mind. He spent a few minutes working on the papers before curiosity got the best of him. Jim Gibson, a consulting petroleum geologist, occupied an office a couple of floors below his. The American had a beautiful brass telescope next to his desk that he used to ogle sunbathers at the Sheraton Hotel. Khalid grabbed the telephone and dialed the in-house number. Gibson answered on the first ring.

“Jim, Khalid Khuddari. Anything worth looking at up the beach?”

“No, last time I checked there was just a couple skinny broads and some woman who must weigh four hundred pounds, Minister.” The north Texas twang made the phone lines resonate.

Khalid laughed with the libidinous American. “In that case, can you do me a favor and tell me the name of that tanker sitting out in the bay?”

“Sure, give me a second.” Gibson set down the phone and was off the line for about a minute. “My angle is pretty poor, but it looks like Southern Arabia .”

“Thanks, Jim. I noticed her yesterday and just wondered who she was.”

“Yesterday, shit. That tub’s been here for two weeks.”

“Know anything about her?” Khalid’s interest was piqued.

“Sorry, I just find the stuff. I don’t haul it around.” Gibson was referring to crude.

“Well, thanks anyway. Let’s get together after I come back from London.”

“Surprised you’re not there now.”

“A bureaucrat’s job is never done, no matter how highly placed.” Khalid hung up before Gibson could ask any questions about Khalid’s delay at attending his first OPEC meeting as the UAE’s official representative.

Khalid’s personal computer was already working, the screen saver bouncing geometric shapes against the VDU’s edges like Ping-Pong balls. It took him a few minutes of scrolling through countless menus to find the information he wanted, an alphabetical list of tankers that regularly plied the waters of the Gulf. Using the mouse he jumped down through the list but found no reference to the Southern Arabia . Curious, he was just about to call the port authorities when Siri’s melodious voice came over the intercom.

“Minister, Trevor James-Price is on line one.”

“Thanks, Siri,” he said, reaching for the phone. Smiling to himself, he recalled the times he and Trevor had spent together at Cambridge.

During their university days, Trevor had been the only one of Khalid’s friends who didn’t see life as a series of obstacles to be overcome. He viewed each day as a precious commodity to be maximized until every second of every hour was used to its fullest potential. Whether it was cramming for final exams or relaxing at a pub with a pint and a pretty girl on his arm, Trevor had the knack of making the most of each moment. He’d once explained the mathematical improbability of any person’s life, the innumerable random events that had occurred since the creation of the universe to allow one person to exist while denying another. He’d summed up by saying the chance that we were alive was somewhere in the realm of infinity-to-one. Why not make the best of living through the greatest long shot in history? Trevor had taken a double first in philosophy and classical literature, graduating with one of the best academic records in Cambridge’s long history.

Trevor had published his first work of philosophy when he was only twenty-four, and by thirty he was the darling of the European intellectual elite. By thirty-five, he was a burned-out alcoholic with an ex-wife and three kids he hadn’t seen in years. He now eked out a living as a freelance journalist and was currently working on an expose of the OPEC cartel. Khalid had asked James-Price to keep an eye on Hasaan bin-Rufti during his time in London.

“Trev, how’re things in soggy old England?”

“I don’t know what’s more damp, the weather or the lasses’ knickers.”

“Come to think of it, I’d heard it hadn’t rained in Blighty in quite some time.”

“Allow me a little fantasy life, won’t you, old boy? God, how I hate a harsh taskmaster.” Trevor moaned theatrically.

“How’s the meeting going?”

“The preliminaries are over with, and all of the little functionaries have scurried around enough to ensure they’ll stay off the dole for another year. As you know, the heads of OPEC meet tomorrow. The static over the wire leads me to believe that this isn’t a local call, am I right?”

“I’m still in Abu Dhabi. Is anyone else missing?”

“Just you and Juan De la Bruille from Venezuela. All of the other petro-nabobs are present and accounted for, including your corpulent friend.”

“Rufti’s no friend of mine,” Khalid reminded James-Price mildly. “So what’s he been up to?”

“Do you want the full room-and-board itinerary or just the highlights?”

“Keep it short. I’ve got a ton to do before I leave the Gulf.”

“So the anointed one is going to join us, then?” Trevor teased.

“As that American you had as a roommate for your second year would say, anoint this.”

“Touchy, touchy.”

“Actually, Trev, I am. Things aren’t so hot here. In fact you could say that our house of cards is facing a stiff breeze.”

“Trapped between Scylla and Charybdis, eh?”

“You could say that, but I’ve no idea what it means.”

“Classical Greek mythology. Loosely translated it means caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“That sounds about right,” Khalid breathed.

“We’ll talk about that later, then.” Trevor had caught the undertones in his friend’s voice and wisely backed off the subject. “Well, Rufti has been very chummy with the handmaidens and even with a couple of the scullery wenches.”

Trevor referred to the representatives of the Seven Sisters, the seven great oil companies, as the handmaidens. The scullery wenches were officials from any one of the smaller petroleum companies.

“Anyone in particular?”

“Actually, yes. None other than Max Johnston himself. He and Rufti have been as thick as thieves since Johnston’s arrival this morning.”

“Any rumors flying about them?”

“The latest I heard is Rufti wants some of Petromax’s money to sink exploratory wells in Ajman. It sounds like they’re talking about a smash-and-grab operation. Bleed whatever oil they can and move on to the next site. Given the Yank’s time line for oil importation, it seems to be the only thing they can do.”

“It makes sense,” Khalid conceded. “Ajman does have some oil reserves that they’ll want out of the ground before the American moratorium.”

“Qatar and Kuwait are negotiating similar deals with the Big Seven,” the journalist agreed. “They’re taking a massive price cut just to get the oil to market.”

“Do you get the impression OPEC is planning an across-the-board price reduction?”

“No way,” James-Price said. “These deals are sub rosa; the mercantile exchange boards won’t know a thing about it. In public, the ministers are talking about a four-cent-per-barrel increase in response to the rise in Brent Light Sweet prices.”

“So you don’t see anything suspicious about Rufti’s behavior?”