Power Down (6 page)

Dewey removed his hand. “Get out of my office. You have one hour.”

Dewey went to the cafeteria. It was empty. He made a pot of coffee, then found some bread, peanut butter, and jelly and made himself a sandwich, even though it was early morning.

After eating, he walked to the
Montana,
climbed the gangplank to the deck, and took the elevator to the bridge.

The
Montana
’s captain, Pablo, stood at the bridge with two other men.

“Morning,” Dewey said as he entered.

“Dewey. Morning. How you feeling? My head’s a little sore.”

“Mine too.”

“We’re almost topping. Should be able to push off by ten, eleven at the latest.”

“I need a word,” said Dewey.

Two officers walked out of the bridge area to the next room.

“Another man died last night. A good friend.”

“Who was it?”

“A foreman, name of Pierre. Kid from California.”

Pablo shook his head. “That’s terrible. I’m sorry.”

“Well,” said Dewey, “the situation’s different now. I think they were trying to send me a message. Yesterday Pierre helped me keep some of Serine’s men in line. This has to stop now, and I’m going to need your help.”

Pablo nodded. “Of course. How?”

“It looks like I’m going to need you to take some men to Buenaventura after all. More than I thought.”

Pablo rubbed his chin. “How many are we talking?”

“A few dozen.”

“That many? Who are we talking about?”

“Serine’s crew. All of them.”

“Hmm. That could be tough.”

Dewey looked at Pablo. “Why?”

“That’s a load of guys.”

“I don’t care if you tie them to the rail or make them swim in the fucking oil. We have a situation that is threatening the livelihood of this rig. That means your livelihood, and mine too. If I need your help in removing that threat, I expect to receive it.”

“But why Serine’s crew?” Pablo asked. “Why not Mackie’s?”

Dewey gave him his trademark glare.

“I’ll do whatever you want,” said Pablo quickly. “You know that. But I just wonder, why the Arabs?”

“I can’t exactly explain it,” said Dewey, thinking of Jim Mackie’s last words. He softened his tone slightly. “If I’m wrong, I’ll be the first to apologize. But Jim Mackie tried to tell me something. Something was going on that I don’t understand yet. Mackie was a good man. He wasn’t
a thug. Serine killed him for some reason. And now Serine’s men have killed again. It stops here, Pablo. That’s it.”

Taking Pablo’s nonresponse as a grudging assent, Dewey rode the elevator down to the deck and headed back to his office.

He sat down at his computer. He had to let Dallas know now. For the next fifteen minutes, Dewey drafted a memo that described the events leading to the three deaths aboard the rig. He called the deaths the result of ethnic tensions. But as he wrote, he wondered about Serine’s death in the infirmary. At first it had seemed obvious that Mackie’s buddies had taken their revenge on him, but now Dewey wasn’t sure he believed it. He couldn’t explain his suspicion. It was illogical, yet something in his gut told him the Irish didn’t do it. Could one of Serine’s own crew have done him?

He finished and sent the memo without speculating formally, then tried to put it out of his mind. Next he wrote a pair of letters, one to Mackie’s widow and the other to Pierre’s. He looked up Serine’s emergency contact on his employment sheet; he hadn’t listed anyone.

Dewey walked out of his office to check on the progress of the searches. Nothing had turned up yet.

As he went back to his office he looked at his watch. Esco’s hour was nearly up. Maybe he’d been too harsh on the engineer. Why should it be Esco’s responsibility to find out who killed Pierre? Glancing at the tanker, Dewey also thought about Pablo. He felt bad about that interchange too. He’d have to find some way to make it up to him. When this was over. When the whole mess was behind him.

Suddenly, the deck phone rang. He picked it up. It was Baroni.

“What is it?”

“I thought you should know. Sing saw Esco and a few others arguing with Jonas last night, before he was killed. It was pretty heated.”

“Why’s he only telling you this now?”

“He’s terrified. He was hiding in his bunk.”

The anger climbed up Dewey’s back as he looked out the window. He stared at the deck outside the hotel. There, on the deck, he saw Esco.

Anger rose like boiling oil in his chest and head. He marched out onto the central deck.

“Esco.”

The older man turned.

“Come with me.”

“I don’t know the answer,” Esco called back, shrugging. “I told you. No one knows.”

Dewey glared and said nothing. Reluctantly, Esco followed him to the office. Dewey closed the door behind him.

He stepped in close to Esco.

“Why did you lie to me about Jonas?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you dare lie to me twice. You were seen arguing with him just before he was found dead.”

“That’s not true. I liked Jonas. We argued about the way we’re being targeted, that’s all.”

Dewey took a menacing step toward Esco. He didn’t know what to think anymore, but he knew he didn’t trust him. He felt the anger boiling over; he wanted to take a swing at the man, to beat the truth out of him.

Footsteps came from the hallway outside the office. Dewey’s door swung open.

It was Chuck Walters and another foreman, Victor Wrede, holding something in his hand.

“We found it in Pazur’s bed. We’ve got him in the brig.”

Wrede handed it over, black-taped hilt first. He glanced down at the blade and saw the word
GAUNTLET
.

THE PENINSULA HOTEL
FIFTH AVENUE AND FIFTY-FIFTH STREET
NEW YORK CITY

“Listen, you son of a bitch, I’m going to say this one more time. We’re not for sale. Not at your price. Not at any price. It’s that simple.”

The speaker, Nicholas Anson, stabbed his right index finger into the air like a dagger, hitting the air dramatically in sync with each syllable. Anson was angry, and it revealed itself in his voice and his eyes; the creases around his eyes furrowed deeply as he delivered his message.

He knew the fundamental importance of leaving absolutely no trace of doubt or wavering in his position. Anson Energy, the fifth-largest energy company in the United States, was, to put it as plainly as possible, not for sale.

It was 6:12
A.M.
, and Anson was standing on the heated marble floor in the ridiculously oversized bathroom in his suite at the Peninsula Hotel in New York City, in front of the big mirror, alone, talking to himself. He was buttoning his blue shirt, wrapping a tie around his neck, getting dressed for what he knew would be a defining day in his long, difficult, amazing career.

“I don’t care how much you’re offering,” he whispered, leaning up close to the mirror. “This company ain’t for sale.”

After a quick breakfast, Anson’s limousine dropped him off on West Street, in the heart of Wall Street. As he walked into the entrance, Anson couldn’t remember how many times he walked Wall Street’s corridors in his long career. For good or bad, Wall Street was an incontrovertible fact of life for a CEO of a public company. It was your most hated enemy and it was your best friend, your ally and your adversary. It had financed Anson Energy’s rise and it would be there, God forbid, if his company faltered, like a vulture, ready to pick through the scraps of his life’s work without apology.

The front entrance to Goldman Sachs was nondescript, elegant, empty. It was an entrance so austere that only the most prestigious financial institution in the world could get away with it. That, of course, was what made it so pretentious. This plain, unadorned space seemed to be saying “Fuck you, buddy, we’re so powerful we don’t need to impress you or anyone else for that matter.”

Anson took the elevator to the fifty-fourth floor and the office of Patrick Perry, a managing director at Goldman, and chief investment banker for Anson Energy.

Anson had known Perry for more than two decades. Perry had handled Anson Energy’s first debt placement, a tranche of high-yield bonds totaling $45 million, a laughable amount of money today, but a creative and crucial piece of financing that allowed the small oil exploration company to acquire first six oil leases, all near its Pecos in the Permian Basin of West Texas. All of them were dusters—dry as the desert, containing less oil than your average backyard swimming pool, except for one, a rocky old section of land they called Saranox 66, a piece of land the owner threw in with the other five leases because he thought it was a dog. A piece of land that struck it big less than a year later and turned Anson Energy into a player.

Perry and Anson liked each other. Anson had grown to rely on Perry’s sage advice, and Perry, in turn, had risen at Goldman on the back of Anson Energy’s astounding growth.

“Morning,” Perry said as Anson walked in. They shook hands.

“Howdy,” Anson said, smiling. “How are you, Pat?”

“I’m good,” said Perry. “You want a cup of coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Black?”

“You know it.”

Perry’s office was large, immaculate. On the walls hung paintings most art history majors would recognize.

“Where is everyone?” Anson asked.

“They’re in the conference room. Your boys are in there already. Ralph Fagen from Debevoise is in there as well. The KKB folks should be along around nine thirty.”

Anson sat and took a sip from the coffee cup.

“Is Marks coming?” Anson asked.

“Marks will be there. So will Romano, their CFO. Their counsel is coming too.”

“So what are they going to say?”

“It should be pretty straightforward. KKB wants to do a deal. They want Capitana and all of that oil you’re pumping down there. They’ll probably offer some kind of cash-stock mix with a truckload of debt. They want to buy Anson Energy.”

“You know, it used to be when one company bought another and the other didn’t really want to be bought they called it a ‘hostile takeover.’ ”

“They’ll make you vice chairman. At least that’s what their bankers are telling us. All your boys’ll be protected. This isn’t a hostile takeover.”

“
Vice chairman?
” Anson shook his head in disgust. “I don’t want to be vice chairman. Vice chairman is when you turn sixty. Vice chairman is golf three days a week and pretending you know what’s going on the other two. I’m forty-six. Alden and I built this thing. I don’t want to be vice chairman. I don’t want to merge. I just want to run this company like I’ve always run it.”

“Well, you won’t be in charge. That’s definitely the downside. But instead of being CEO of the fifth-largest energy company in the United States, you’ll be vice chairman of the largest. For God’s sake, you’ll be creating the second-largest energy conglomerate in the world.”

“ ‘Conglomerate’? What the fuck’s a ‘conglomerate’? I’m an oilman. I’d rather pump gas than work for a ‘conglomerate.’ ”

Perry reclined in his leather chair and paused. A small grin spread across his lips as he let Anson continue his rant.

“I’m serious, Pat. You, of all people, should get it. You’ve been in this whole crazy thing from the very beginning. I had to take a Greyhound bus from Midland to our first meeting. Remember that? I don’t need to be vice whatever of the biggest energy company in the United States or the second biggest in the world. I don’t want to work for a conglomerate. I’m happy with what we’ve got, with what we’ve built.”

Perry calmly stood up. He walked to the corner of his office. On a table in the corner, he methodically opened a leather valise and pulled out a piece of paper. Finally, he turned and walked back to his desk.

“Do you know how much you’re worth?”

“Ballpark, five hundred million, plus or minus. You thieves would know better than me.”

“You’re worth seven hundred and twenty-seven million dollars based on the closing price of your stock last night.”

“So what’s the point? You guys need a loan?”

“The point is, that’s a lot of money. But almost all of it—seven hundred million dollars of it—is sitting there in Anson Energy stock. If you tried to sell any of that you’d scare the shit out of the market and your institutional shareholders, analysts on the street, hedgies, everyone.”

“You’re missing the point:
I don’t care.
I’m not looking to sell my stock. Anson Energy’s my best investment. Know what I did last week? I called my broker and asked him to
buy
me one hundred thousand shares. I have no desire to sell my stake. I don’t need a liquidity event or whatever other fancy term you bankers have for it.”

“At least listen to what they’re offering.”

“I don’t want to hear it. I’ve already made up my mind.”

“KKB is willing to pay a forty percent premium on yesterday’s closing price. Your Anson Energy equity will be worth about one point two billion dollars at the deal price they’re talking. Perhaps more important, nobody will care if you decide to take a bunch of it, all of it for that matter, off the table.”