The Icarus Prediction: Betting it all has its price (15 page)

Poindexter chimed in, “But this satellite imagery hasn’t hit the street yet.”

Jarrod hit him with a dour look, repressing an urge to kill the messenger.

Ripley looked up from his laptop. “Jarrod, I’ve been watching the English language feed from al-Jazeera. They’ve interrupted their scheduled programming for a bulletin.”

“Put it on the screen.”

The satellite image was replaced by an anchorwoman wearing a hijab, or headscarf, and the look on her face indicated she didn’t care for it much as she read, “The destruction of the Caspian pipeline in Russia. We have just received a second videotape of the person claiming to be Shamil Basayev, and we play it now in its entirety with English subtitles.”

The image was again replaced with Basayev, wearing his headgear and a smug look.

“This is Shamil Salmanovich Basayev, Commander of the Riyadus Salihiin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs. You have now seen that our threat to plunge the dagger into the heart of the Russian bear was not an empty one, and their great Caspian pipeline that made money flow into the pockets of corrupt and evil oligarchs is now in ruins.

“Now to those in the West who stood idly by and allowed the Russians to destroy our beloved Chechnya, and to the Jews who have violated our sacred land of Palestine, it is time for you to feel the sting of our revenge.”

“What the Caspian pipeline did for the Russians, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline does for the Jews, for America, and the whores of Turkey who have violated my brothers and consort with the Jew whores of Israel.”

“Therefore, I am here to tell you our dagger will strike this pipeline with more destructive force than we inflicted on the Russians. And the day is near. Very near.”

The screen was replaced with the anchorwoman who said, “Our technical analysts have examined the tapes and they agree the person on the recordings is, in fact, Shamil Basayev. More on this special bulletin at the top of the hour.”

The screen went dark as Jarrod almost whispered, “Shamil Basayev? It can’t be.”

“And who, exactly, is Shamil Basayev?” asked Delaney.

Jarrod remembered the name from his CIA days and did not hesitate in his response. “He’s the Russian bin Laden. Chechen militant. Responsible for the Moscow theater hostage crisis in 2002 and the Breslan school attack in North Ossetia in 2004, where 385 people were killed. Most of them were kids. Moscow swore up and down they’d killed him in 2006 in the village of Ekhazhevo in Ingushetia, the Russian republic that neighbors Chechnya. His reported cause of death was that he was riding in a truck filled with explosives when the FSB set off a detonator on board. Or so they said. The Russians released a photograph of a corpse they claimed was Basayev, missing leg and all. He’d lost one below the knee when he stepped on a land mine in Grozny. But even so, it all seemed fishy because Moscow would never allow an American forensic team to assist in examining the remains.”

A strange silence fell over the room, until Ripley delicately inquired, “And you would know this how?”

Stryker ignored the question, turned to Poindexter, and asked, “The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline?”

Poindexter knew oil and gas stats the way baseball freaks knew batting averages. He entered a few keystrokes on his laptop.

“The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline runs from Baku in Azerbaijan on the Caspian coast, through Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. First deliveries began in 2006 and capacity is a million barrels a day. The pipeline is 1,099 miles long, although the route is somewhat circuitous because it goes through Georgia. The Azerbaijanis refused to allow the pipeline to go through Armenia, where they have a long simmering border dispute.”

“So, another million barrels a day offline if that one goes down,” Stryker sighed. “And if they take out a big chunk of it, that would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Da, It would be
months
before prices fell to previous levels,” said Sergei.

“West Texas Intermediate just went back north over a 90 a barrel,” said a mournful Delaney. “Thanks to Mr. Basayev.”

There was a pause. Finally Jarrod said, “We can’t reverse events, but let’s get the best information we can. Canvass your sources for anything beyond what we see on CNN or al-Jazeera. Sergei, Gwen, my office.”

Once they were settled in the office, Jarrod observed, “It’s the Twin Tower strategy.”

“How do you mean?” asked Gwen.

“Simple. Make your initial blast, which arouses the media cameras like a hornet’s nest, then set off your second blast while the world looks on. It demonstrates the powerlessness of governments and puts the terrorist in control.”

“Maximum impact,” said the Russian.

Stryker shook his head. “But how did they take out twenty miles of pipeline? Those things have sensors, surveillance cameras, and guards. I can’t figure it out.”

“We all in shock. Must absorb everything that has happened. In any case, events caught us up. From the time the al-Jazeera story broke to the time the price on European and Asian markets went north of our buy-in position was thirty-four minutes. Given the hour and the power outage, there is no way we could have reacted in time. Now we must accept reality. If governments are powerless, then we be, too.”

Jarrod looked coldly at the Russian. “I refuse to accept that.”

“Then what would you propose to do?”

“I don’t know, what about our piece of shit supercomputer? How come Icarus didn’t predict this? Does it have anything to say?”

Sergei took a moment to pick up a stack of papers he had printed. “Da, Boss, Icarus is providing a lot of stats. It is saying our probability to reverse our losses is less than 2%. Basically we are screwed. There is also more data but Icarus is back to nonsense, it spit out a lot of oil data with a summary.” Sergei shuffled through some papers and then handed Jarrod a printout which read as follows:

Meeting target profit objective is predicated on a Trade Intervention Strategy including neutralization of underlying geopolitical event characteristics. In this scenario the probability of success increases to 58%.

Jarrod’s tension boiled over as his previously strong vocals escalated to flat out yelling “
Sergei, unless you can translate this for me right now, please trash that god damn computer as that makes no GOD DAMN sense!
”

“Sorry Boss, I have call in with support.”

Jarrod sat silently for a moment, then said, “I don’t know what we are going to do. But in the short term, I need to break the news to William.”

Sergei and Gwen glanced at each other, and Jarrod caught the unspoken communication.

“What?”

Sergei looked grim. “When William learn the spike in oil price he…he collapse at office. Perhaps a stroke. He at Mount Sinai emergency, I thought someone tell you.”

Without a word, Jarrod was up and out the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Ankara, Turkey

The special red phone was a direct line to the minister. He was certain it would ring. It was only a matter of time. At this moment, he knew the interior minister was having his ass reamed by the prime minister about the al-Jazeera report regarding how some terrorists were going to blow the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline to smithereens. And as soon as the prime minister was finished with his invective, the interior minister—who was a fire-breathing dragon on a good day—would place the call, and the phone on his desk would ring. The interior minister would bombard him with questions: Why didn’t we know Shamil Basayev was alive? How did he destroy the Russian pipeline? Where are the suspects? Why are they not in custody? What have you done to secure the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline?

Valid questions all, to which he should have the answers. But Bulent Koksol had no answers. He was totally clueless on all points, which was not a good place to be, because Bulent Koksol was director of the
Jandarma Istihbarat ve Terorle’ Mucadele
, or the Turkish Gendarmerie for Intelligence and Counterterrorism.

Ostensibly, his department had the portfolio for fighting terrorism within Turkey, but its checkered past was mainly a history of Kurd bashing, drug trafficking, and assassinations of those who probed too deeply about the existence of this very secret police force. But now Koksol was expected to produce some real intel on a real terrorist threat for a valuable national asset that kept billions flowing into the treasury—as well as lining the pockets of “public servants” along the way.

If the pipeline went down, heads would roll—the minister’s and his.

Yes, the telephone was going to ring.

And so it did.

He picked up the receiver and said, “Yes, Minister?”

Over the next twelve minutes, the conversation was decidedly one-sided as Director Koksol was informed of all the vile and horrible things that would happen to him and his career if the terrorists so much as laid a finger on the pipeline.

Koksol assured the minister that everything that could be done was being done. Well, he would have done so, had the minister not slammed down the receiver when he was in midsentence, which Koksol found particularly galling. He was accustomed to administering the truncheon—not the other way around.

Koksol evaluated his options—which were limited in the extreme. He’d do the obvious, of course. Round up the usual suspects, sweat the prisoners, and coordinate with Georgian and Azerbaijani intelligence agencies. And the army would increase patrols along the pipeline. But instinct told him all those pathetic measures were nothing but pissing in the wind. A fox like Basayev would not broadcast an “in your face” message like that unless he knew such obvious countermeasures were ineffectual. And the Russian pipeline! Putin and his KGB retreads would have the Lubyanka open for business to crack heads on that one. Oh, their humiliation at Basayev being alive! He could hear the skulls being split from here.

Koksol knew he had to come to grips with the situation, for by any measure this was a cataclysm in the making, and he had to deal with reality.

He took a deep breath, then pulled out a key ring from his pocket and unlocked a drawer on his desk. Inside the drawer lay a cell phone. He was loath to pick it up, but desperate times called for desperate measures. He took it in his hand and pressed the button for the single number programmed into the speed dial.

Two rings, then a voice answered with, “
Mehaba
?”

“I need to see you,” said Koksol reluctantly.

“It is not so politically correct these days,” replied the voice.

“It never was, but even less so now. Still, I need to see you.”

A pause. “The usual place, in one hour. Be discreet.”

“Of course.”

*

New York City

Jarrod came off the elevator on the intensive care floor and quickly found the nurse’s station.

“William Blackenford,” he said flatly to a woman looking like a schoolmarm with thick glasses, dark hair pulled up in a bun, and a tense expression.

The school marm looked up without comment, then dabbled on her computer. “He is in 14C, but no visitors are allowed except immediate family. You can see him from the visitor’s waiting area. Just follow the signs.”

He strode down the hall to the waiting room, his nose wrinkling from the antiseptic smell, and walked in to find a solitary figure staring through the glass into the ICU.

“Rosita?”

William Blackenford’s secretary looked up, and it was obvious she’d been crying. She rose and fell sobbing into Jarrod’s arms.

He looked through the glass and saw William in one of the suites, eyes closed, with tubes running into his arms and one up into his nose. A nurse hovered over him looking at some monitors.

“Rosita, what happened?”

Wiping her eyes, she softly said, “He was watching the oil prices. When they went way up, he came out of his office and said, ‘We’re finished.’ Then he collapsed on the floor by my desk. Oh, Jarrod, what’s going to happen to us?”

With all the bravado he could muster, Jarrod said, “I’m working on that, Rosita. But did anyone tell you what William’s medical situation is?”

“The doctor said he had some kind of stroke, and they did some sort of intervention. Inserting a probe through the vessel to clear the clot or something like that. He said they may have gotten to him in time but weren’t sure.”

Through the window, Jarrod continued to stare at his helpless benefactor. He was surprised by the depth of his own feelings for this overbearing, imperious squire who had taken him in, promoted him, and trusted him. The idea of losing William Blackenford was frightening, akin to the Rock of Gibraltar sinking into the Mediterranean.

And in that moment, something within Jarrod Stryker stirred. He could not—
would
not—allow William Blackenford to go down. Exactly how he would do that was somewhat hazy at this point, but he couldn’t let it end this way. The irony of the situation made it even more poignant. Here was a captain of the New York financial world. Yet the only two people who rushed to his bedside were his secretary and protégé. Where were the friends and family? Jarrod knew William’s ex-wife would only show up if she could pull the plug.

So a lifetime of forging a firm was reduced to only two people who appeared at his bedside.

He held the woman by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Rosita. It’s not going to end here. I don’t yet know how, but neither William nor the firm is going down. Do you understand?”

She looked at him mournfully and slowly nodded.

“You stay here with him and call me if there is any change in his condition.”

And with that, he headed toward the elevator.

*

Ankara, Turkey

Bulent Koksol, director of the Turkish Gendarmerie for Intelligence and Counterterrorism, sat at a back booth in a coffee shop in the old part of the city near the Phrygian ruins. This section of the city had grown rapidly around 1000 BC when the populace of Gordio, the Phrygian capital, fled from the destruction caused by a massive earthquake and resettled here.

Koksol used this coffee shop because the proprietor knew his identity and looked the other way if listening devices were installed for this or that purpose or if a “customer” had to have a mickey dropped in his drink behind the bar.

Koksol watched his contact enter. He was a diminutive man and a bit skinny. He wore a black suit and black tie and smoked as he looked around furtively. He spied Koksol and made his way to the back, then slid into the booth where he nodded in greeting and said, “Good evening, Bulent.”

“Eli, good to see you. Sorry it is under such circumstances.”

Eli Manon was the cultural attaché at the Israeli embassy in Ankara. In reality, he was station chief for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. The two men had known each other for several years, having met when both were midlevel in their careers and Turkish-Israeli relations were closer and warmer. It was always discreet, of course, yet it was a relationship of substance. But as Turkey’s secular government grew more Islamic and the Israelis more inflexible over the issues of Gaza and Hezbollah, the relationship had soured. To the point the only thing really holding them together was the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. A little known fact was that the Azerbaijanis were one of the few friends Israel still had in the world, and the pipeline provided a third of Israel’s domestic petroleum supply. And now that was at risk.

“I expected your call,” said the Israeli, in flawless Turkish. “It seems we both have an interest in taking this Basayev fellow off the grid.”

Koksol looked across the table at the intelligent face. Over the years, the lines had grown deeper, and the black curly hair that came down in a pronounced widow’s peak had become heavily flecked with gray. Meanwhile, Koksol had grown fat and balding. On one level, the Turk found it maddening that this Jew was surely running operations on Koksol’s own turf, yet he had to reach out to him for help. Galling, but he might as well get on with it.

“I have to confess, Eli, that I am totally at a loss as to what to do. Shamil Basayev back from the grave? How impossible is that? Forty kilometers of Russian pipeline gone in a heartbeat. And a pumping station to boot? If the Baku pipeline goes down, I go down with it.”

The Israeli nodded. “I understand. The oil supply from the Baku pipeline is critical to our economy. In fact, I’m leaving on a special plane tonight for Herzliya to confer with the office. May I convey your willingness to provide every assistance?”

“Of course. Only be discreet. You and I are to be the only communication channel.”

“I understand,” said the Israeli. “We prefer it that way as well. If we obtain information, we will convey it immediately. In the event we are successful, I suggest you be in a position to act quickly. Preposition troops along the pipeline, that sort of thing.”

“Already done. But, Eli, do you have anything on this Basayev business? Anything at all?”

The Mossad man shook his head. “I have already made inquiries. You must understand that Chechnya falls well outside of our typical sphere of operational interest. However, our sources may have sources that may reveal something. Those traps are being run as we speak.”

Koksol took some comfort in that. “Good, good,” he murmured.

Eli Manon allowed himself a wry smile. “I can tell you that Putin has transformed into Ivan the Terrible over this affair. He has already cashiered a half dozen FSB thugs, and imprisoned two or three who certified Basayev was dead years ago.”

“I am not surprised.”

“Neither am I. Oh, there is one thing I have to pass on.”

Koksol leaned forward. “Yes? Tell me.”

Manon looked around the room, then leaned forward. “This is extremely confidential, but our technical people have long had access to al-Jazeera’s servers— phones, computers, that sort of thing. We were able to track the point of origin of the electronic command that uploaded the Basayev videos to al-Jazeera. It came out of Georgia.”

“Where in Georgia?”

“We are trying to put a finer point on that, but that’s all we know at the moment. My counterpart in Tbilisi is working with Georgian authorities on that issue. The videos were stored on a server farm located in Costa Rica of all places, but the upload instruction link on the e-mail came out of Georgia.”

“Georgia,” repeated Koksol softly. “Perhaps that is where they intend to attack the pipeline?”

Another wry smile. “Not on our turf, ey? Well, let us hope so.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “But a plane is waiting for me. I must be off. I will be back in touch on my return. Have some dinner, old friend. It will make you feel better.”

Koksol watched the Israeli depart, but for the first time in many years, Bulent Koksol wasn’t hungry.