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  Duncan unmuted the speaker phone. “Yes, we do agree with your assessment. Professor McAllen needs to be dealt with.” He could not bring himself to say killed.

  “Very well then, we will add this to your bill. We have the coordinates of the professor, and we will let you know when this is done. Thank you, gentlemen, have a pleasant day.” The speaker ended the call.

  Duncan’s face turned even more shades of angry red to match his fiery red beard. Randall took his opportunity to leave.

  7

  Randall Sat In His Office, watching the three monitors on his desk. The commodities of oil, copper, gold, and silver no longer interested him. He had just agreed to kill Professor Alistair McAllen, the one he had recruited, and whose technology they would use to sabotage the oil fields in Alaska and Canada.

  He had found the professor in a science magazine article. Randall read everything and did constant research for Ironstone Investments, which was why he was a major asset to Duncan. Randall could find out who owned what gold or silver mine and the union situation, the oil tanker traffic that could be stopped by a tanker running aground, and which tanker captain had bad gambling debts.

  He had been focusing his latest research and reading on looking for the big score. Randall wanted to move world markets. He had found his first ally in the black ops voice on the phone. Actually, the black ops had found him, called him up. The voice had known his name and everything about Ironstone, and asked if he wanted assistance on any “larger projects.” The message was implied: greater risks, larger profits.

  Soon after the conversation with the disembodied voice on the phone, which would not give a name but promised great assistance, Randall had come across the article on Professor Alistair McAllen and polywater.

  Randall had thought the article was a hoax, perhaps a joke from the scientific community. He should have known better, as the scientific community laughs at very little but loves to poke holes in others’ research for its own sport. The article discussed how Professor Alistair McAllen had redeveloped polywater.

  The term “polywater” was not new, Randall discovered. A Soviet physicist, Nikolai Fedyakin, claimed he invented it in the late 1960s. It was supposedly a new form of water with a higher boiling, lower freezing point and a much higher viscosity than ordinary water, about that of syrup.

  When English and American scientists finally did studies on the Soviet’s research, they could not repeat the results. They finally determined that the Soviet had not cleaned his instruments properly and that the residues in the beakers were giving him his results. Case closed, except for several science fiction writers who used the scenario to scare the wits out of readers.

  Professor McAllen, head of the chemistry department at the University of Victoria, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, was adamant in the article that his invention was not a hoax. He invited several researchers to verify his findings, and they stated he used clean equipment and changed the nature of water each time; although they claimed his water was closer to Jell-O in substance than syrup. The stuff actually “wiggled,” they said.

  In the article, after listing all the merits of the new and improved polywater, such as its ability to slow floods and act as ballast for ships, the professor went on to remark that oil companies might not like it. He said, “If this were injected into an oil well, the oil would no longer rise to the top. You see, oil needs water for pressure. This would make the water heavier than the oil. No pressure.”

  It was then that Randall had had his “fucking genius moment,” and it was not oil wells—it was oil fields. Two places in the world needed a central source of water. The first was Alaska’s North Slope. The high Arctic oil field drew its water from the Arctic Ocean, purified it, and injected it into the oil field to bring the oil to the surface. The other was the Athabasca oil sands near Fort McMurray, Alberta. Each large oil sands mine used a large amount of water drawn from the Athabasca River to generate steam to separate the tar-like substance from the sand. Each of these mines had a central pumping station.

  Randall knew the professor would probably not be willing to sell his invention, but wondered if he had a weakness, if he could be recruited. His search of the professor’s history had turned up the results he was looking for. The good professor had worked for a large oil company in the alternate energy division in Corpus Christi, Texas. He had been married with two children and had raised his children in sight of some of the largest refineries in the world.

  Randall found much better leverage than he could have imagined. Both of McAllen’s children had died of leukemia, and the professor and his wife had been listed in a class-action suit against the refineries. The professor had been fired from the oil company, his wife had filed for divorce, and he had moved north. Revenge, Randall Francis found, was often one of the best motivators in the world.

  Randall had taken his idea to Duncan, simply announcing that they were going to “grab world oil by the balls!” Duncan liked having anything by the balls—his pirate persona demanded it. He had given Randall his blessing to pursue the project and called him a “fucking genius.”

  The professor did not agree to a meeting for several months, but Randall kept pressuring. Finally sometime in August, the professor agreed to meet with him but in his home on Galiano Island, near Vancouver.

  The trip would take an entire day, but Randall was up to the challenge. He flew from New York to Toronto, and then to Vancouver. The island, a mere seventeen miles long by four miles wide, was accessible from Vancouver by boat, ferry, or float plane—Randall chose the latter, although the thought of landing on water on purpose scared the hell out of him.

  Professor McAllen was hard to miss. He towered over the other people on the dock. He was extra-tall, extra-lean with long gray hair that topped an unshaven face with angular features. He wore a ragged T-shirt stuffed into faded jeans and tennis shoes that had not seen tennis but miles of rugged beach. He sported a brand new Seattle Mariners hat, his favorite baseball team.

  The professor walked right up to Randall and introduced himself. Randall wondered how he’d picked him out of the crowd, as he had worn his Armani jeans and calf-skin loafers to “blend in.”

  The professor smiled. “Son, you would look like a New Yorker anywhere you landed in those rags.” He slapped Randall on the back and ushered him to his rusted-out pickup truck. The accumulation of dirt seemed to hold it together.

  They drove the short distance to the professor’s home, as the old truck weaved across the highway as the professor noted points of interest. Other drivers got out of his way with a friendly wave. There were only two thousand permanent residents on the island, and they all seemed to know him.

  His home was a two-story log house with a large deck that jutted out on three sides. The view from the deck was impressive, high above a rocky beach overlooking sea, sky, and boats in the channel. The professor made appetizers of mussels, shrimp, oysters, and scallop ceviche with homemade sourdough bread, and served a few beers to wash it down.

  When Randall could not take the small talk anymore, he finally broached the subject of the polywater. The professor just smiled and replied, “Of course. I knew you came for the show.”

  Next to the wine in the kitchen cupboard sat two vials. The professor grabbed them and led Randall downhill on a switchback trail to the beach. The sun was getting low. The professor chose a tidal pool, scooped out any small fish, and put them in another pool.

  Randall remembered standing there breathless; the professor looked like a magician. He reached into his jeans, and with a flourish of his wrist, emptied the contents of the vial into the pool. In just a few seconds, the water began to shimmer. Randall touched the surface and it bounced back—it wiggled.

  The professor dumped the second vial into the pool, and the shimmering stopped. The process had been reversed. To Randall, the parting of the Red Sea would not have been more of a miracle than this. He stood there, the setting sun bouncing light across the w
ater, and felt as if he could now control the flow of North American oil—he had never felt such power.

  Back in the professor’s house, over a dinner of bouillabaisse filled with fresh West Coast crab and fish, Randall laid out his plan to the professor. He was sure to mention several times how Ironstone Investments could use this to sabotage oil fields and hurt the very companies that the professor had sued over the deaths of his children.

  Randall saw the light go on in the professor’s eyes; saw that he was willing to become an accomplice. He had already thought of devices that would implement his polywater and just how the installation could be done. He had just needed someone like Randall to get his devices there.

  A price was attached. The professor was not about to let his polywater invention go for cheap. He wanted five million up front, five million on implementation, and four of his own people—people he trusted, who had been students of his—to be part of the implementation team. He was adamant on this, and Randall could not budge him off either point.

  Randall had great respect for the professor and his bargaining skills. McAllen was no pushover. He was eccentric—he repeated himself and lost his train of thought often, as if one thought crowded another too quickly in his head—but he knew the power of the polywater. Over the course of the evening, Randall had become fond of the professor; there was a charisma behind the eccentricity, something you wanted to believe in.

  Randall and the professor toasted their newfound partnership, and after several bottles of wine and some fine Cognac, Randall was shuffled off to a bedroom sometime late in the night or early morning. The next morning, the professor handed him his cell phone, which he had left somewhere, and took him back to the dock to catch his series of flights back to New York. Two small vials of polywater were stuffed safely in his bag for a demonstration when he returned home.

  On Randall’s return to New York, he got Duncan to agree to the professor’s terms only when Duncan had realized how much they could profit on the price of oil, if two of North America’s largest fields were compromised. Randall also enlisted the cooperation of the black ops, for another ten million, and they were in business. The profits would be in the billions, so ten million to McAllen and the same to the black ops “contractor,” as they called him, had seemed small in comparison.

  They had started the project in late November with one team going to Alaska and the other going to the oil sands in Canada. The plan seemed perfect; the devices McAllen manufactured looked like small thermostats and housed four large vials each: two to start the process and two to reverse it. The professor claimed that these small vials were all that would be needed, as once the vials were injected, a chain reaction would occur. The effect would be dramatic, Randall and Duncan were told: two large oil fields would stop pumping oil and oil prices would rise, and Ironstone Investments would know exactly when.

  Now, as Randall sat in his office, he realized his dream of riches had killed four people, and he had directly commanded the killing of a fifth. The charismatic and eccentric professor would be dead in the next twenty-four hours. Randall cleared his desk and looked at his watch; it was approaching 7:30 p.m. He was hungry. He decided to hit the street for some sushi.

  8

  Detective Frank Mueller of the Anchorage Crime Unit kicked his duffel bag in front of him as the line of oil workers moved slowly towards the airport check-in counter. Frank had been called at 6:30 a.m. and told to be on the 8:00 a.m. flight to Prudhoe Bay to investigate a murder-suicide at an oil camp. The flight would not be with a regular commercial airline. This flight was with Shared Services, and the aircraft was owned by the major oil companies in the Alaskan Arctic. To get on the aircraft, you had to be cleared by the oil companies. Detective Mueller had been cleared quickly.

  Frank was a tall, sixty-two-year-old veteran of three failed marriages and two attempts at rehab. He was just coming back from his third. He thought maybe three was his lucky number. The last marriage had ended well; he had nothing left to offer for alimony, so the last wife had wished him well and left for California. He hoped his third time in rehab would prove just as lucky.

  Frank was lean and muscular, and you could see he had once been a very handsome man. The hair had gone. What was once a long mane of dashing brown waves had started to leave far too early and had been combed over, then trimmed, and then finally “taken down to the deck.” Now, his head was smooth-shaven and, he thought, attractive.

  “You have a firearm?” the gate agent asked when Frank reached the gate and flashed his badge. She was a pretty forty-something brunette, and Frank could easily see her as his fourth wife.

  “Why, yes I do.” Frank beamed his best smile. He had great teeth that had never seen an orthodontist—just naturally smooth, purely aligned beacons of come-hither-my-darlings that, he thought, worked the very moment he turned them on.

  “Then please put it in your checked luggage.” She smiled back, but it was a quick, enough-of-you-mister smile. No warmth, just down to business.

  “Why, yes, yes of course,” Frank answered, a little flustered. He was not usually turned down this quickly and this early in the morning, especially after flashing his badge. He put his Glock .40 firearm with holster into his duffel bag and handed it to the unsmiling gate agent.

  The agent put an official tag on the bag, allowing it to go through screening with a firearm, and handed Frank a small piece of paper with a gate number, time, and seat number. No boarding pass.

  “Thank you,” the agent said, and with a crisp “next please,” Frank was dismissed.

  He wandered off to look for his gate, a newspaper, a coffee, and perhaps a mirror to see if he had lost his charm entirely. Perhaps he was in fact getting too old to attract the ladies, or his charm was waning, or, most obviously, the gate agent was a lesbian. He smiled as that last thought crossed his mind.

  Frank headed through security, picked up his paper, and scanned the Anchorage Daily Mirror. There was no news on the incident in Prudhoe Bay—it was still too fresh for the paper’s numerous newshounds. Several other investigations into murders in Anchorage and Fairbanks had taken place in the past few days. There was always one month every year when Alaskans shot the asses off of each other. This year it was January. Last year they had waited until March.

  There seemed to be a time when the darkness and cold, combined with hard liquor and access to firearms and ammunition, provided the right mix for killing a fellow human being. The police and detectives in both Anchorage and Fairbanks were stretched thin. Frank’s captain had said the reason he was on his own for the investigation was that they were tight for personnel, and the Arctic Oil Company had a good squad of security personnel in place to assist him. He never mentioned the real reason he had put him on the case, which Frank knew. It was the elephant in the room: the Arctic Oil Camp was dry. No liquor, no drugs. Frank was on rehab and probation, and a dry destination could not hurt.

  The flight was called, and Frank headed for the gate to board. He moved slowly amongst the sea of workers in navy blue parkas adorned with yellow and silver reflective stripping. It was a small herd of men and women heading for the cold depths of the Arctic.

  Frank had a window seat, on the left side just ahead of the wing. The plane filled quickly—these were not tourists. The passengers stowed their carry-on items, sat down, and buckled in. They were heading to work.

  As the plane lifted off, Frank watched the lights of Anchorage below, lights that made shadows on the snow. The plane banked and turned north over Cook Inlet. The black, icy water mixed with the ice flows, and the ice flows shone back in the moonlight.

  Sunrise would be at 9:34 a.m. this morning in Anchorage, but in Prudhoe Bay, light would not come until 11:19 a.m. The sun would set around 3:00 p.m. He was traveling from darkness to darkness.

  He settled back in his seat as the plane leveled off. An eerie quiet surrounded the passengers. Some slept, some talked quietly. They were headed for two to three weeks of twelve-hour days, s
even days a week. In between, they would fit in eight hours of sleep and four hours of meals and personal time. They had left behind family, friends, and recreation rooms with big-screen TVs for the desolate Arctic.

  The acrid stench of oil filled the air. Frank turned on the air above his head. The smell came from the clothes of the oil workers. It was ground into their clothes—they breathed it and they lived in it. It was their cologne, the smell of money. Frank drifted off to sleep and woke up when they landed in Fairbanks fifty-five minutes later.

  The aisle seat beside Frank was empty. He watched more passengers enter and immediately recognized the crime scene investigator that was to join him on his trip. She was small and square—she had a square face that sat on square shoulders that framed a square body and hips. She could have been turned out by a high school woodworking class. She was thirtyish, brunette, and wore thick glasses that framed blue-green eyes. What gave her away as a CSI was her shoulder bag, which read: FAIRBANKS CSI. Frank wondered where low-key had gotten to. Obviously it had not reached this lady. She threw her bag in the overhead, dropped into her seat, and buckled up while glancing at her watch. She was an efficient and concise package of energy.

  Frank quietly said, “I believe you’re Joanne Franklin, my CSI.”

  She snapped her head in Frank’s direction, a bit of surprise registering on her broad face. “Yes, I am, and you must be my detective.” She had slightly emphasized “my” to show Frank that he had already pissed her off.