Dollar Down (13 page)

"I was with him in Houston. As far as I know, he didn't
get any oil samples there. It might have come from Venezuela.
If it did, why would he hide them?"

I had a lot to think about on the flight back to
Paris.

It was nearly nine o'clock by the time we arrived at
Sabine's flat. Alexandra suggested eating out.

"I can't. There's someone I need to see."

"Is it about the oil sample? I could go with you and
interpret. Play detective for a while. It sounds exciting." There
was a lively warmth in her face that I hadn't seen before. She'd
gone from icy to human to mildly enthusiastic in a fast
transformation.

"It's about the oil and a couple of other things that are
not completely legal. I'd better go alone. Thanks for guiding me
today though. If you hadn't been there, I'd probably still be
roaming the hills looking for the cottage."

Alexandra actually might be the best person to help me
find out about the oil. Trevor had gone to the trouble of hiding
the sample. Not in a particularly secure place, but then he
hadn't had much time, if he had brought it back from Venezuela.
He might have gone to Monaco just to hide the vial. From the
look of the dust, he hadn't stayed long enough to disturb
much.

I called Pascal. He said he had planted bugs in the
PDVSA men's apartments and suggested I visit their
neighborhood.

I took the Metro and got off at a station alive with
brightly tiled walls and the sound of music. A nattily-dressed
busker played "Romance" as expertly as I'd ever heard.

A young woman in a short black dress stopped to listen,
then dropped a euro into an open guitar case. He scarcely
acknowledged her, as though he'd come to this spot for no
other reason than he liked the acoustics.

Pascal was waiting on the platform.

"It's just up the stairs and a couple of blocks from
here," he said.

"Good job."

Pascal led the way past the guitarist. He dropped in a
coin.

Outside the street was bright with lights and gaiety.
Small groups laughed among themselves. Couples walked arm
in arm. We turned onto a side street and just at the corner a
shriveled man squatted on the sidewalk, his back against a
building. One hand held out an empty metal cup and the other
covered his face.

I dropped a euro into his cup.

"
Pour quoi?
" Pascal shrugged. "If you are going
to give away money you should give it to someone like that
busker."

Perhaps I should have, but the guitar case had a fair
scattering of coins. I might have tried to explain away the gift
to a cowering beggar to human charity. That wasn't it, though.
I'd skated the edge too many times to think it couldn't happen
to me, to think I could never fall into one of the obsidian-walled
chasms in my psyche. One euro to keep me out of the pit a
while longer was cheap. Mick's charity to himself.

Farther down the street, Pascal handed me an ear
piece. "We're in range."

The sound was faint but there was no interference.
Thumbs up. "Are you recording?"

"Yes, but I don't know what we have so far. I don't
speak Spanish."

That was OK. I did. "I'll buy you a drink." We stopped at
a café that had a swath of glass for its front wall and one
long bar. There were a few tables next to the window. We took
one. I ordered steak and fries. Pascal had a decanter of
claret.

I put the oil on the table. "Do you know anywhere I can
get this analyzed?"

Pascal held it up and rotated it. "You want to know
what this is? It's obvious." He hardly needed words. His facial
expression alone asked me what planet I was from.

"It's heavy crude. I want to know what field produced
it or least what global region. An expert would be able to tell us.
There also might be interesting bacteria in there."

"I have no idea where you could get something like
that done. It shouldn't be hard to find out, but I'd guess it'll be
expensive. Might take a while too."

I nodded and put the vial back in my pocket. Oddsson
had been generous so far, but to have a commercial lab identify
the origin of an oil sample and to check for sulfur-eating
bacteria would probably cost a bundle.

I couldn't even explain why I would want it. There was
no evident relevance to Sabine's death. The only tie-in I could
make was based on gut instinct. I asked Pascal to let me have
recordings from his listening device every twenty-four hours
and headed back to Sabine's flat. If a commercial lab was out of
reach, David the Chinese translator might be able to help. His
friends were chemists working on PhDs. Maybe they had
access to a lab. I called, but there was no answer.

I had planned to try again when I got to the flat, but
Alexandra was waiting when I opened the door. She had the
back of her hand pressed against her mouth and, as I entered, a
mini scream imploded deep in her throat. She stepped forward
and held me almost tight enough to crack a rib. I eased the
door closed.

"What's wrong?" Her hair smelled of strawberry
shampoo.

"Someone tried to come in." She looked into my face.
"It was several minutes ago. Was it you?"

"No." I touched her back and realized that she wore
only a thin robe over a sleeping gown. It was only a fleeting
observation, but her body was softer than I would have
guessed, vulnerable. "What happened?"

"Someone tried to turn the door handle. I thought it
was you, so I went to the door. They tried harder. I heard a key
slide out of the lock. There were voices. I was terrified."

That much was clear. What remained unclear was
whether there was a real threat. "It might have been someone
trying to get into the wrong apartment. Just a mistake."

Alexandra was still for several seconds then nodded
her head. "I suppose. I just..." She let go and stepped back. In a
very small voice she said, "I apologize for accosting you."

"My pleasure." The day before I wouldn't have thought
it possible, but I think Miss Marble Statue blushed a little.

"I guess I'd better go to bed," she said.

"If you hear anything else, knock on my door."

After a shower, I went to bed myself. As I lay awake, I
tried to think through tomorrow's agenda, but the only things
that came to mind were the smell of strawberry shampoo and
the feel of satin.

"Coffee's ready."

Alexandra was dressed for comfort in a lose sweater
and baggy pants. She must have brought stuff for breakfast. I
hadn't stocked Sabine's bare cupboards.

"Smells great." After I said that, a grandmotherly voice
whispered, "See what you've been missing, mister bachelor?"
There was no chance of a long haul for this scene, but I got the
point.

"What's your agenda for today?" Alexandra set out
plates of sautéed vegetables, bread, cheese and
fruit.

"I'm not sure yet. I want to talk to a Chinese student. I
called yesterday, but couldn't reach him."

You could almost hear Alexandra's mental gears
shifting as she tried to find a fit. She finally popped the clutch.
"About the translation?"

"That's correct." I'd only asked her once if she could
help me find a translator. She'd refused.

"You haven't gotten it yet?"

"I have. This time I want to ask him about the oil." No
mental gears appeared to be shifting. The association might
have been too vague for Alexandra to even try. She just cocked
her head.

"He's studying chemical engineering. So are a couple of
his colleagues, who helped him with the translation."

"What are they supposed to do with the oil?"

I thought about how much to say. I didn't know for
sure what the vial meant, but it was obvious Trevor thought it
was important. If it contained the bacteria described in the
Chinese report, it could be worth a fortune. For some people
that might be cause for murder. Now, it seems Alexandra was
involved whether she knew it or not.

"If it is what I believe it might be, it could make
Orimulsion obsolete."

"How?"

"I'm trying to decide whether you should know that for
your own safety."

"You can't be serious. I have to tell Ian."

"The pompous twit?"

"Whether I like him or not, I am a professional.
Obviously, that would change the focus of the study. It would
change everything, but I'm also suspicious. You still haven't
said how."

I decided it wasn't what Alexandra knew that would
put her in danger. It was what someone thought she knew. The
more aware she was, the better she could defend herself.

"The Chinese paper described a process to reduce the
viscosity of bitumen in the field. It involves a hungry bug."

"Sulfur-eating bacteria. That isn't new. The problem is
it works only under controlled conditions."

"The paper said that a strain of
Rhodococcus
,
was genetically engineered. Now it's hearty enough to prosper
in the Orinoco tar beds, yet the paper had no data on the
bacteria itself. It's just a guess, but maybe there's some in
Trevor's oil sample."

Alexandra cupped a mug in her hands and stared into
it as though she was trying to divine coffee grounds. "I want to
go with you."

"I'm not sure that's—"

She held her hand up and hit me with her hazel lasers.
"I have to go with you. That has not come up in the study. If
Venezuela was aware of it, we would know. It has enormous
implications. Venezuela is not the only country with vast
bitumen reserves."

"It's the implications that worry me. There could be a
danger. Remember last night. It might not have been someone
trying to get into the wrong flat."

"Mick—" Alexandra turned off the lasers and gripped
my hand. "If there's any way to reduce the danger, it's to get
this out in the open. Besides, what could happen to me? I have
protection."

"What?"

She leaned over and kissed my cheek. "You."

I wished people would stop trusting me. I also wished
for stronger resolve. I said okay.

David, the Taiwanese student, answered when I called
and agreed to meet us, even though I wouldn't say exactly what
I wanted over the phone.

On the Metro. I told Alexandra what little I knew about
David. She filled me in on details of the study that I hadn't
known before. Strictly business, but I was feeling more
comfortable around her. Even on the trip to Monaco, the ice
had thawed, but there had still been a slight chill.

Now, that was gone. All in all, I'd say warm was
better.

After emerging from the Metro station, we walked
through a wooded park whose trees cast sharp shadows under
a mid-morning sun afire in an azure sky. It scoured the land in
a light that cast both Paris and Alexandra in brilliance.

She took my hand and pulled me toward a pond. A
small flock of ducks patrolled its surface. "As a child I used to
come here and toss bread to them."

"They don't seem to remember you."

Alexandra erred on the side of politeness and smiled.
"New ducks," she said. "Come on, it's a shortcut."

We skirted the bank of the pond and took a gravel path
to a narrow entry to the park. The café where we were
to meet David was down the street. He arrived shortly after we
did.

He didn't look happy at seeing Alexandra. He was
young. He was a man. Hard to figure.

"You know the missing piece of the liquefaction
process," I said.

He didn't answer. He just glanced at Alexandra.

"Don't worry. She knows more than I do about
this."

"You have the bacteria?"

"That's what I want to ask you. I have an oil sample.
Can you analyze it?"

He chuckled. "Do you mean you want me to tell you
how this super bacteria was created? You would have to
examine the DNA structure and understand what you were
looking at. I'm a graduate student in chemical engineering.
Even if I could get the equipment, I wouldn't know how to use
it."

Right. "I don't need to know how to engineer the bugs.
Can you just tell me if the oil came from Venezuela, and if it
contains sulfur-eating bacteria."

"It would be possible for someone to identify where it
came from, but I can't do it. I can tell you whether it contains
the bacteria though. All I need is a microscope. Will that
help?"

I showed him the vial. "How much do you need?"

Enough to make a few slides would do it. I put about
two big drops into the cap of the vial and handed it over. "Bring
that back, when you're done." I put the capless vial carefully
into my shirt pocket.

"It'll take about an hour to get to the lab, check the
sample and come back. Are you going to wait here?"

"Yes."

He was back in forty-eight minutes. The oil was
teeming with beasties that looked right at home. "Teeming"
might not have been the best word, since he said there were a
lot of bacteria, but fewer than he'd expect if they were in an
ideal environment. Maybe they weren't thriving.

That didn't prove what I had was the missing link in
the liquefaction process. It did show that it could possibly be
the link. For now that was good enough.

Alexandra had excused herself to call the office. She
was back in time to tell David good-bye. "Now what will you
do?"

"I'll call an old friend in Houston. Mostly he leases rigs
to wildcatters."

"He does what?"

"Oilfield supply. He might be interested in this enough
to have it tested."

Alexandra didn't exactly wring her hands, but she
looked uncomfortable. "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I don't see how it can hurt. If the paper was correct,
the Chinese developed the bacteria. China isn't part of the
study is it?"

"Of course it is. It's a major customer. I don't know the
details of that region, though. The Asian market is being
handled by our Hong Kong office."