John Schettler - 9 Days Falling, Volume I

She raised her eyebrows at that, as did MacRae. It would have been a very bold move, and a strong escalation in the rising tension between East and West.

“Yanks are mad as a hornet about this one. Someone in DC wants red blood, now, if you know what I mean m’lady.”

“I think I do, Mack. Keep an ear on it for me and let me know the moment you have anything else.”

“Of course. The question is, what will the Americans do?”

Elena looked up at MacRae, her mind working hard. “The gloves are coming off, gentlemen,” she said quietly. The Russians traded a very expensive submarine for an even more expensive oil drilling platform just now. They’re letting us know they can hit the oil, and hit it hard. You know what that might mean for our little jaunt into the Black Sea. Thank God we managed to bring in a little more help with the Iron Duke, but I’ll want the Argos Fire trimmed for action the instant we pass the Bosporus.

“She’ll be ready, m’lady.”

“We need to get hold of the Van Ommeren group now. They’re the main player for tank terminal operations in the UAE—and call Vopak too.”

“The Dutch again,” said MacRae, hand on his chin. “I think we may have a play here, Elena.”

“Mississippi Region?” she asked.

“No. First here, in the Caspian region.”

She looked up at him, nodding her head in agreement.

MacRae smiled. “Caspian bandits are shooting up Royal Dutch Shell operations in the region over here, and someone is taking pot-shots at our traffic in the Persian Gulf.”

“While BP, and god knows how many other producers, have big headaches in the Gulf of Mexico.”

“Yes. Now we’re four days at full speed from being able to do Princess Royal any good. But we could offer Royal Dutch Shell a helping hand with their Caspian Region operations. We already have the Chevron contract in hand, but I doubt they’ll be able to bunker two and a half million barrels in Baku. Perhaps Royal Dutch Shell might need a lift for some of their oil in the Supsa terminal. We can split our three tankers between Chevron and Shell. I smell another arrangement.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Elena. “Assuming Vopak and Van Ommeren can save that oil on Princess Royal and bunker it at Al Fujairah. Once Chevron takes possession they may have second thoughts about shipping it to Singapore, particularly after this news in the Gulf of Mexico.”

MacRae smiled. “We couldn’t have planned it better! But what about the Salase deal and Singapore? He’ll lose his brokerage commission.”

“Fuck Salase,” Elena put a fine point on it. “That’s what he was trying to do to me, wasn’t it?”

“He wouldn’t get to first base,” said MacRae, pleased by the warmth of her smile in return.

Morgan noticed the familiarity between them, but pretended not to. He knew that MacRae was fairly close to the CEO, and was grateful for his presence here to take a few arrows for the intelligence lapse. Fairchild was correct. He should have had it—had it all, hook, line and sinker, cut and trimmed in a pan with hot oil, salt and a patty of butter. That was the way Fairchild was accustomed to being served up her intelligence, and he made a mental note to brush up on his cooking skills. He already had men working on the situation they would most likely face in the Black Sea, and was ready with that initial report if needed.

“In fact,” Elena’s eyes leapt ahead to light on some distant thought. “We might even twist this arrangement into a nice new pretzel.”

MacRae was nodding yes.

“Salase has brokered a deal with the Americans to move oil east for the Japanese—and I was to carry it for him, all the way from the Black Sea to Singapore. But if I get my oil, whatever’s left of it on Princess Royal, and bunker it in Al Fujairah, it would be so much closer to Singapore, wouldn’t it?”

“So we make a trade?”

“Exactly—barrel for barrel, just as I suggested to Salase. It would be as if we moved the Black Sea oil round the Cape without even sailing!”

“Lovely,” said MacRae. “And when our three little ladies are all loaded up here with the oil from Chevron and Shell?”

“It becomes ours in trade, and we ship it to the states. They’ll be desperate for fresh deliveries. I can have five buyers in an hour. Oil inventories were down to a 21 day supply after Hurricane Ernesto, for God’s sake. Now this Hurricane Victor is going to shut down refineries for at least another two weeks. They’ll be spot shortages cropping up already. We’ll make a killing, and we don’t have to go to Singapore to collect. They can take my cargo on Princess Royal in trade and we’ll find someone willing to ship it to Singapore in short order. There must be three or four carriers in Al Fujairah we could subcontract.”

The Captain was suddenly relieved. “The thing now is to get Argos Fire and our three princesses out to those Black Sea terminals at all speed. From there we should be close enough to launch helos that could make it in to the Caspian, and we could even pick up a little security money from Chevron and Shell in the bargain. Remember that call for mercs? We have some fellows aboard who are fairly handy with automatic weapons.”

“My fifty Argonauts.”

“Exactly. And with four X-3 Helos to move them. With your permission, Madame, I’ll get the men ready for a mission or two.”

The Argonauts were the fifty man security contingent on board the Argos Fire , a highly trained commando that would be perfect for the job. The four X-3s were a nice trump card in a situation like this, fast, deadly, and with good range.

“That’s four hundred miles to Baku,” Morgan warned, “and another 256 up to Fort Shevchenko where this Chevron Platform is located. You’ll get there, but then what? The fuel tanks will be dry as a bone.”

“We can refuel at Baku in both directions,” said MacRae. “BP has an operations center there and I think they’d support us.”

“They will indeed,” said Fairchild. “But I want this done right. Make sure you dole out plenty of ammunition,” she quipped. After all, boys will be boys.”

He offered a winsome salute and turned for the bridge. Morgan started to follow him, but stopped short of the door when she called his name.

“Mister Morgan,” she said calmly.

“I know I dropped the ball,” he began, but she quickly waved that away.

“Forget that, Mack. But just so you know, Salase threw the damn thing on the dinner table like a cold wet mackerel. Caught me completely by surprise. Don’t let it happen again.”

Morgan nodded gravely.

“Now what am I going to be facing in the Black Sea?”

“Well to put it plainly, Madame, the Russians. The fleet there isn’t what it used to be, particularly after the partition with Ukraine. The Moskva was the flagship, but being the lead ship in its class they renamed it Slava and sent it to the Northern Fleet two years ago. They filled the void with three smaller frigates, Grigorovich, Essen and Makarov . Good missiles on all three, the P-800 Onyx/Yakhont and the P-900 Kalibr cruise missile. NATO calls it the Sizzler . After that they don’t have much else of a threat. They decommissioned the Kerch , though it’s still in mothballs at Novorossiysk. They’ve also managed to keep one old Kashin class destroyer afloat commissioned in 1969, but barely. It spends most of its time in port or dry dock. They’ll have two old Krivak class frigates, and two diesel subs. The rest are coastal corvettes, and I assume we’ll be hugging the Turkish coast so I doubt they could put in an appearance there.”