Pandora's Temple (12 page)

“Oh, there will be such times,” Landsdale said. “On that much we agree. The source is where we differ and I don’t see much middle ground there.”

“Of course you don’t—I never expected you to. After all, you are the foremost party involved in green and renewable energy. You’ve been investing in it for decades, way ahead of the curve, starting literally with the first paycheck you ever received. So many of your contemporaries laughed at your obsession and excess.”

“But they’re not laughing now,” Landsdale reminded.

“Indeed,” Roy agreed. “When the world finally smartened up, you were positioned to reap the lion’s share of the rewards. Your companies run the gamut of solar, wind, and water power. One of your companies just won an exclusive contract to manufacture the batteries that power every electric or hybrid car manufactured inside the United States. And you control no less than two hundred patents on emerging technology you believe will form the next generation of alternatives to the fossil fuels that, let me see if I can quote you properly here, ‘had raped the environment and threatened to destroy the planet as Roy Industries seems inclined to do.’ How’s that?”

“Close enough.”

“You have my admiration and respect, and I don’t believe our aims or our methods are as disparate as you think.” Roy hesitated long enough to hold Landsdale’s gaze. “I’m prepared to prove that to you in a tangible way by offering you a hundred and fifty percent of the market value of your companies in an amicable merger that will leave you as president with a seat on the board.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Maybe you don’t fully understand the terms.”

“I understand them perfectly. I didn’t come here to sell or negotiate.”

“I have no interest in negotiations either,” Roy told him. “What’s the point if the original offer is as fair as mine is? Life is too short to mince words or play games. It’s like that Minoan jar that so caught your attention. It has survived more than three thousand years, but if I were to drop the jar, it would shatter into a hundred unrecognizable pieces.” Roy hesitated to better make his point. “Life is just as fragile, Mr. Landsdale. I believe we’ve both learned that the hard way. You’ve experienced your own share of hardship, haven’t you? That daughter recently diagnosed with Huntington’s disease, for example.”

Landsdale’s mouth dropped above his lowered surgical mask. “How could you know that?”

“You mean because you only found out recently yourself? You mean because the only way I could know was if I had access to your daughter’s private medical records which, of course, should be impossible? Anyway, I’m sorry too. So we have that much in common. I was hoping we could find more.”

“What makes you think there’s any chance of that?”

“Because in spite of our differences, Mr. Landsdale, we want the same thing: energy for all at the lowest price possible.”

“And in your mind at the expense of the environment.”

“I didn’t invite you here to rehash old arguments.”

“No? Did you think I’d have a sudden change of heart? Did you think your knowledge of my daughter’s illness would intimidate me somehow?”

“What if there was a cure?”

Landsdale found himself speechless again, wondering if there was a message behind Roy’s question. He had vast holdings in the medical and pharmaceutical industries as well, after all. Maybe, just maybe . . .

“There isn’t, of course,” Roy said, deflating Landsdale’s hopes as quickly as he had raised them. “But I imagine you would’ve signed over all your companies to me if I could have provided you one. How did it feel, that slight glimmer of hope?”

“Bastard,” Landsdale muttered under his breath.

“Am I?” Roy asked, stepping farther into the spray of the lamps, his face shining in the light. “For giving you something I have lost in entirety myself? There’s no
hope
for my family, Mr. Landsdale. Everyone I ever loved is gone. All I have left to live for is the world beyond these walls, a world I can never live within again. What I have left, Mr. Landsdale, are my dreams of a country and a world no longer dependent on oil alone to sustain itself.”

“That should make you my ally, Mr. Roy, not my rival.”

“Rival? You aren’t my rival. You’re an inconvenience, a joke filling the minds of the miseducated with distractions collected under the phrase ‘green energy.’ Green for money, since that’s what all your efforts are a waste of. You distract people from the truth of their plight and fill them with the illusion you hold the answers for providing them with a safe and secure future. And these efforts of yours, which have forced up the prices of
real
energy under the mistaken assumption that taxing it and eliminating my tax incentives in favor of your own would improve costs, have led to you progressing from minor inconvenience to major impediment to my far-reaching goals.”

Landsdale felt cold, dank sweat starting to soak through his shirt, sticking the fabric to his surgical gown. “You brought me four thousand miles to lecture me?”

“I’m aware that you and the truth are not well acquainted, Mr. Landsdale. Unlike me, you live with windows that open, but you’re not really seeing the truth of what lies beyond them.”

“My companies are not for sale,” Landsdale repeated.

“Do you recall what I just said about how much you learn to live without when you are given no choice?”

“What’s the difference?”

“The difference lies in the fact that your companies no longer hold very much value at all.”

As cold as Landsdale felt before, he now felt chilled to the bone, Sebastian Roy’s words more icily potent than any thermostat.

“While you were in transit, I purchased four of your five leading suppliers. A terrible investment financially, given the fact I’m about to issue stop orders from their leading buyer, but you forced my hand.”

The breath caught in Landsdale’s throat. He’d taken every possible precaution, thought he had insulated himself from anything Roy, even with all his power, could do. But he had never considered his archenemy would squander a billion dollars in an effort to destroy him.

“My offer is still on the table. We can still fight this battle together, though on my terms. Yes or no?”

“No,” Landsdale managed.

“Then I reduce my level on the order of half, to seventy-five percent of your companies’ market value. Refuse again and the offer drops to fifty percent.” He shook his head, looking almost amused. “People like you never surprise me; you’re all so predictable. I brought you here because I wanted to see the look on your face in person. Since I’ve lost so much myself, I take great pleasure in having others join me in that particular agony. I have more money than I’ll ever have cause to spend now. But before I die I will control all the energy on this planet. Every drop of oil, every ion of natural gas. The nuclear plants, the coal refineries—everything. You know my company’s motto.”

Landsdale did but was of no mind to repeat it.

“‘Energy Is Power.’ Perfectly fitting, don’t you think? And your green energy is now part of my power. Seventy-five percent of current market value. Yes or no?”

Landsdale started to nod, but stopped.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Mr. Pierce is waiting with the paperwork for you to sign. Leave here without final execution and I’ll bankrupt you instead. Your choice.”

There was a buzz, and Roy moved to an intercom built into a wall of the lavish chamber.

“I told you not to interrupt me,” he said.

“We have the latest report from the Gulf, Mr. Roy,” Pierce reported. “You need to hear it. Immediately.”

Roy detected the undercurrent of excitement in Pierce’s voice, restrained but undeniable. “Fine. Mr. Landsdale and I were just finishing up, weren’t we, Mr. Landsdale?”

Landsdale just stood there, watching Roy from across the room.

“Weren’t we, Mr. Landsdale?” Roy repeated. “Why don’t I give you that Minoan jar you found so captivating as a token of our mutually beneficial dealings? The simplest item in my collection to remind you of how simple life is when it’s reduced to a single choice.”

Landsdale stiffened. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“How about a pen to sign the paperwork? It shouldn’t take too long and then you can be on your way back to your simple, pedestrian life. When you die, no one will even remember your name while mine will be part of everyone’s life when they flip a switch, turn on a burner, or fire up the furnace.” Roy steadied himself with a deep breath, that sound wet and labored. “Leave me now. Our business is done. Mr. Pierce is waiting.”

Landsdale started for the door.

“Pierce,” Roy said toward the speakerphone, “Mr. Landsdale is ready to sign the paperwork. Please make sure it’s ready for him. Then come in here and tell me what happened in the Gulf.”

The last few yards were the worst, McCracken stiffening at the uncertainty of exactly what his feet were going to touch down upon. He could feel the increasing winds buffeting him and billowing his hazmat suit. He’d expected his descent to be greeted by any number of noxious odors, from the residue of whatever had transpired here if nothing else. But McCracken smelled nothing through his soft helmet’s respirator, and that was strange indeed, because there should have been
something
.

The main deck of the
Deepwater Venture
looked like a football-field-sized platform riddled with debris. McCracken thought again of his boyhood Erector set rendered unrecognizable. Nothing was left standing, from the derricks that had once spiraled toward the sky, to the bridge and command center, cranes, and storage tanks that had housed water and propane. An offshore oil rig was like a submarine in that space was at a premium, none to be wasted. The clutter that defined the deck in normal circumstances had turned into a serpentine junk pile of unrecognizable elements, as if the component pieces of the
Venture
had been dumped into a blender on high and then poured back out. The only objects to survive whole—a helicopter, some emergency evacuation rafts and life pods, and a forklift—were floating in the waters around the rig itself. McCracken had yet to view the damage on the sublevels, identical in design to the main deck but each constructed with a different set of tasks in mind, including storage and housing for the crew. Ultimately, the efforts of more than a hundred crewmembers spread among all levels combined on massive subsea deepwater rigs like the
Venture
to create a constant din of energy and activity.

But not today.

The latest generation of subsea rigs like the
Venture
boasted four massive floating leglike support columns. From a distance the columns looked more like monstrous pillars rising out of the water. Segments of multicolored piping descended from the support legs, all still intact according to the Coast Guard’s report.

McCracken had been around danger more than enough times to know it carried its own signature, something that alerted the most primordial segments of the brain to a threat so instinct could lay in the proper defensive measures. But no such signature seemed in evidence here, as if that had been sucked out of the very air along with any scents. He felt a profound eeriness intensified by the fact that at the very least there should be bodies in evidence. Yet there were none, the crew having vanished into some unknown ether.

Thunk.

McCracken’s pliable hazmat boots touched down as his eyes were still sweeping the deck, trying to make sense of the sights that up close defied it even more. He unbuckled the harness and watched the winch hoist it back up, then flexed his knees as if to make sure the world was solid beneath him. He’d wait for Johnny Wareagle to be winched down before making any other additional survey. His thoughts turned to Paul Basmajian being among the victims of whatever had happened here and the heightened edge he felt vanished, replaced by the grim awareness of loss and somber realization that someone would have to pay.

Because in McCracken’s experience, nothing ever just happened.

A heavy gust of wind shook the platform, storm clouds now growing thicker to the south and east, as McCracken reached up to steady Wareagle’s legs for the last of his descent.

“Welcome to the party, Indian,” he said after Wareagle had touched down, his words echoing inside his helmet.

Captain Merch tossed them a wave from the Bell 430, which then banked in the air and soared away toward the Coast Guard cutter
Nero
that was now cruising the perimeter where it would wait until the time came to extract them.

“Something here you need to see, Blainey,” Wareagle was saying.

He knelt down and ran a gloved hand about the steel surface of the deck. McCracken mimicked his motions, his hand feeling uneven patches along the steel that felt flat underfoot.

“You gonna tell me evil spirits did this, I’m ready to listen.”

“Not quite. But the steel’s ridged, not bubbled,” Wareagle reported.

“Explain.”

“Bubbling steel would require temperatures of, oh, say a thousand degrees or so. These ridges tell me it actually melted and re-formed. That would take temperatures of several thousand.”

McCracken looked at his friend skeptically. “You saw the satellite imagery. No melting we could detect and the only time the rig wasn’t visible was in that mist cloud, or whatever it was.”

“You’re missing the point, Blainey. Steel would take much longer than that to re-form and harden anyway.”

“I’m not missing it, I just didn’t consider it. There was no reason to, since the satellite images were mere seconds apart.”

“How many seconds was it again?”

“Six, I think.”

Wareagle just looked at him.

“You’re suggesting the steel melted and re-formed in
six seconds
?”

“Or less.”

McCracken studied Wareagle’s expression, trying to see on it what he wasn’t saying out loud. “What is it, Johnny? What do you feel?”

Wareagle seemed to be sniffing the air, watching everything around him at the same time. “We’re not alone, Blainey.”