Viking Raid

by Matthew McCleery

  Robert was instantly embarrassed that the teacher had repeated the Wall Street lingo that he had thoughtlessly emailed her while still high from a successful investor lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dallas. When the teacher spoke the words “private jet” Robert watched every head, large and small, instantly crane around to examine him. Their facial expressions ranged from curious to contemptuous. Never in history had a mode of transportation been as pregnant with images of malfeasance as private air travel.

  “Mr. Fairchild is in the shipping business,” she added while waving him up to the large oak teacher’s table in the front of the classroom. “Take us away, Mr. Fairchild. Take us on an exciting adventure!”

  The third-grade classroom was silent as Robert made his way to the chalkboard at the head of the class. Just as he cleared his throat and prepared to speak a tiny girl sitting next to Oliver thrust her arm high into the air. “Oliver’s daddy,” she said as Robert strained to read the paper nametag stuck to her pink sweater. “Are you a pilot?”

  “Am I a what, Daisy?” Robert laughed.

  “Mrs. Martha said you are in the business of shipping and she said you just flew here on a private airplane. We’re learning how to make predictions and based on the information we have been given, my prediction is that you are a pilot for FedEx,” Daisy said.

  “That’s a very astute prediction, Daisy,” Robert said, “but I’m not a pilot, which is a very important job by the way.”

  “Are you a trucker?” a boy asked. “Since Mrs. Martha said you came in from the road.”

  “Another insightful deduction,” Robert said. “But no, I’m not a pilot and I’m not a truck driver, but I am in shipping. Can anyone guess what my job is?”

  Robert gazed across a sea of blank faced children and their parents. To him, this was the amazing thing about America; not only had ships carried most of the kids’ great grandparents to the New World, ocean shipping was also one of the most fundamentally important components of the U.S. and global economy. It was the critical link when it came to the import, export and prices of everything from energy to building materials to consumer products to food. It was everywhere, but it was invisible.

  “I am in the ocean shipping business,” Robert finally said and prepared for a robust reaction that never came. To compensate for the appreciable lack of interest in his confession, Robert picked up a stub of white chalk from the tray behind him and wrote the word shipowner on the chalkboard.

  “I am a shipowner,” he announced dramatically even though, technically speaking, he wasn’t a shipowner at all; he was a shipowner’s bagman. Coco had put the 10% of Viking Tankers in Oliver’s name which meant the miniature pirate in the front row was actually more of a shipowner than he was.

  “Oliver’s daddy,” Daisy said as she raised her hand, “I just don’t think shipowner is one word.”

  Robert was stunned; the precocious little tyke had instantly seized on one of the fundamental questions that had always puzzled him, too. Even having looked up the word in the dictionary and searched for it on Google he still didn’t know if “ship owner” was one word or two – or maybe even hyphenated.

  “That’s a good question, Daisy,” the teacher said delicately. “But this is Mr. Fairchild’s profession so I imagine he knows how to spell it.”

  “But truck owner isn’t one word,” Daisy said.

  “Either is train owner,” added the little boy sitting on the other side of Oliver. His son’s face was red with embarrassment.

  “How about this?” Robert Fairchild said as he erased the word “shipowner” with his now sweaty palm and replaced it with the words “Shipping Man.”

  “No,” the boy said.

  “No?” Robert asked.

  “No, because oilman is one word,” a boy said. “Are you really sure Shipping Man isn’t one word? And why do you capitalize it?”

  “Besides, Oliver’s Daddy, aren’t there any women in your business?” Daisy asked.

  “Of course there are women, just not as many as I’d like, as anyone would like,” Robert stammered when he noticed Grace’s elevated eyebrow. “I mean, um, Shipping Man is just an expression. It’s old-fashioned. I think it’s Norwegian. There are women in Norway. They are mostly blonde and very tall. I guess maybe it doesn’t translate because…”

  “Now children, let’s give Mr. Fairchild a chance to talk about his career,” Mrs. Martha laughed and gave him a consoling look. She urged him to press on with a fluttering of her hand.

  “Thank you,” Robert said and demonstrated his relief by pretending to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “You guys are tougher customers than the Iranian National Oil Company,” Robert laughed.

  “Did you just say Iran?” one of the fathers probed in a deep voice. Robert ignored him.

  “The first thing I want to tell you kids is that 97% of all international trade is carried on ships,” Robert said after ignoring the father’s comment.

  Robert was hoping this mind-blowing statistic would amaze the children as much as it had amazed him when he first learned it, but when he surveyed the crowd all he saw were slack jaws, glazed eyes and a robust bloom of stifled yawns. Then a hand went up – Daisy’s hand.

  “Oliver’s daddy, what are you doing to reduce its carbon footprint?” She asked.

  “What am I what?” Robert said.

  “Your carbon footprint,” she said “What are you doing to make it smaller?”

  “That’s a great question,” Robert said. “I am proud to say that shipping is the most environmentally efficient form of transportation in the world. Ships contribute just 5% of all emissions even though they carry 97% of trade,” he said. “That’s less than one-third of what trucks produce in terms of CO2. And air freight pollutes more than forty times as much as ocean shipping.”

  “That wasn’t my question,” she said.

  “It’s wasn’t?” Robert asked.

  “No,” she said. “Please focus. My question was what are you doing to reduce your emissions. Everyone in Mrs. Martha’s class is making an effort to reduce their carbon footprint, so I was just wondering what you’re doing to reduce yours? We can all do better, Mr. Fairchild.”

  These little kids were hitting all the hot buttons, Robert thought. He wouldn’t have been surprised if one of them asked him about the impact of fracking on the tanker market. The truth was that whether by modifying the hull configuration of a vessel or using smaller, fuel-injected engines, the development of ships that produced fewer emissions was an important one in the shipping industry.

  The sad part for Robert was that as important as the issue was, it wasn’t particularly relevant for a cash-poor shipowner like Coco. The Viking Tankers fleet was a fuel-thirsty one, built at a time when oil was $20 per barrel and when the world was more terrified about the impact of global cooling than global warming.

  Just as Robert was preparing to update the children and parents on the subject of “eco-ships,” despite the fact he didn’t even know if the pre-fix “eco” was short for “ecological” or “economical,” he felt his telephone ring inside the pocket of his suit jacket. He pulled out the device out and silenced it without looking down to see who was calling.

  “Where was I?”

  “I believe you were about to tell us about doing business with Iran,” the baritone in the back said.

  “No,” Daisy said, “he was about to tell us about how he is reducing the environmental impact of his vessels,” Daisy said. “Are you using renewable resources like wind turbines or kites aboard the ships? Have you looked into solar power?”

  “The shipping industry has entered a revolutionary new phase in which shipowners are working hard to reduce the…” Robert stopped midsentence when he heard the distinctive bark of Oliver’s iPhone.

  Despite criticizing his father for using his BlackBerry at inappropriate times – including soccer games, during meals, while walking down the street, in church, in bed and eve
n in the delivery room of his only child’s birth – his son didn’t hesitate to answer his own device during Career Night. Had Robert Fairchild’s life been set to music the opening chords of Harry Chapin’s haunting hymn Cat’s in the Cradle would have begun playing softly in the background.

  “What are you doing, Oliver?” Robert finally said.

  “It’s Uncle Coco,” Oliver said and moved the phone away from his ear. The Norwegian’s booming voice was so loud that Robert could hear it from ten feet away.

  “Please tell Uncle Coco that I’ll call him back later,” Robert said calmly but sternly.

  “He doesn’t want to talk to you, Dad,” Oliver said. “He’s calling because he wants to tell Mommy something,” Oliver said and added, “something urgent.”

  Robert reached forward to snatch his son’s phone but Grace Fairchild, driven by the mysterious and preternatural instincts that come along with motherhood, fluidly maneuvered through the scrum of children and plucked the device from Oliver’s hand.

  “What’s so urgent, Coco Jacobsen,” Grace snapped, “that you have to call a third-grader’s cell phone during career night?”

  Robert heard only Coco’s “Ja, but…” before his wife disappeared into the deserted hallway and he continued his remarks. After he had provided a two-minute explanation of the various ways in which the international shipping industry was trying to reduce its emission of particulate matter (by slowing down, burning higher-grade fuels like LNG, and using more efficient, fuel-injected engines), Mrs. Martha said “thank you” and welcomed the next parent. Daisy had no further questions for the witness.

  By the time Robert tiptoed out of the classroom and into the hallway to find Grace, her conversation with Coco had just ended. “What did he say?” Robert asked his wife.

  As he waited for her reply, Robert looked back into the crowded classroom and watched as the next presenting parent, a neurosurgeon, brutally excised the word “Shipping” from the chalkboard and leaving behind only the emasculated residue of the word “Man.”

  “I can’t tell you what it means,” Grace said, “but I can tell you what he said.”

  “Okay,” Robert said slowly, “what did he say?”

  “He said that someone named Rocky DuBois has threatened to default on all the time charters to Viking Tankers and start redelivering ships. He also said that your IPO is on hold and Magnus Magnusen wants you to stop the roadshow,” she said. “They are giving back the airplane tonight and they will leave your luggage at Teterboro.”

  Coco asked Grace to deliver the dramatic message to Robert even though she had no idea what it meant or why he wanted her to be the bearer of the bad news. All she knew was that judging from the withering expression on her husband’s face, the parroted words had dealt him a crushing blow.

  “But how can Rocky just default on the charters?” Robert complained. “We have contracts!”

  “Coco said that you entered into those contracts with an undercapitalized subsidiary called American Refining Transportation and not with American Refining Corporation,” Grace said. “That’s why Coco is upset; he said you didn’t even read the documents. Is that true, honey? Did you really not even read the documents?”

  The funny part was that Robert had read the documents. He had to read them since Coco didn’t want to pay a London lawyer to perform the task. Poring over the papers, Robert had learned that like so many of the traditions that still governed shipping deals the time charter of ten supertankers to American Refining for five years, an agreement worth $900 million of gross revenue, had been documented on twelve pages of eighteenth century boilerplate with more fill-in-the-blanks than a Mad Libs.

  Robert clearly remembered reviewing the English Law documents while sitting in the Starbucks on the corner of 51st and Park Avenue, trying to read the lines of legalese that had been redacted and added by hand. He had been curious about the reference to an entity called American Refining Transportation but his analysis was forever suspended when he answered an urgent call from Alistair on an unrelated topic.

  “If what you are saying is true, Grace,” Robert said quietly, “I am ruined.”

  “It will be okay, honey,” she said and rubbed her husband’s shoulder.

  “No, really, we are ruined,” he said to his shoes. He was too ashamed to even look his wife in the eye. Robert Fairchild was suddenly face-to-face with the thing he feared most in his life: doing something patently stupid that adversely affected people who were counting on him.

  “Come on, Robert,” Grace said, “we can always find a way to work things out and we don’t really need a $3 million house on Martha’s Vineyard; after all, I’m not even sure if we can get the good kale out on the island year round,” she added.

  In order to get his wife’s complete attention, Robert knew it was time to drop the O-bomb. “Oliver is ruined,” Robert said softly.

  “WHAT!” his wife snapped and leaned-in to shoot him a soul-piercing glare.

  “I think I went a little too far this time,” Robert said as he resumed staring at his loafers. “This is my fault,” Robert groveled as he wandered down the deserted hallway trying to locate locker number 333, the same one he’d been assigned when he attended Malone Academy three decades earlier. He longed to go back to that simpler period of his life.

  “You didn’t play around with the shares Coco gave Oliver, did you?” she asked. “I sure hope not because the children of shipping men need nest eggs!” Robert thought briefly of telling Grace the joke about how you make a million dollars in shipping, by starting with a billion, but thought the better of it.

  “Did Coco say anything else?” Robert replied.

  “Yes,” Grace said and Robert froze with his back to her. He slowly ran his hand over the air vent on the top of the maroon locker as he waited for his wife’s next words. “He said there’s still a way you can get everything back on track,” she said. “He said there’s still a chance to make things right.”

  Robert exhaled two lungs full of stress and turned around to face Grace. “I knew we could find a way out of this. So what did he say? What do we need to do?”

  Grace pulled the leopard-covered iPhone from the back pocket of her Levi’s and began to read the notes she’d jotted down during her call with Coco. “He said Rocky DuBois needs to get an MOA signed for a fleet of fifteen high-spec LNG tankers under construction at a shipyard in Korea.”

  “Excuse me?” Robert said. He was startled to hear the commercial jargon coming out his wife’s lovely mouth; it was as if she’d been possessed by the spirit of a shipbroker.

  “Coco said that if you can broker a deal for Rocky to get control of these fifteen LNG tankers, then he will keep paying for the time charters and you can finish the IPO,” Grace repeated Coco’s words. “Does that make sense?” she asked.

  “Nothing in the shipping industry makes sense,” Robert said, “but that’s what makes it so exciting!”

  When Robert recalled the conversation he’d had with Prasanth aboard the Viking Alexandra, the one about shale gas and the super-cooled ships needed to transport it, Rocky’s request did make sense. Once again, the shipping industry had pushed Robert Fairchild to the brink of emotional and financial disaster and then carried him up to a euphoric high – all within the span of a few short minutes; it was like bungee cord jumping.

  Robert reached into the pocket of his jacket pocket and pulled out his telephone. He didn’t know if he and Coco would be successful in their quest to gain control of the fifteen coveted gas carriers but at least he now had hope for the future – and hope for the future was precisely what kept people interested in the shipping.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Grace said as she seized his forearm and held it, as if practicing a martial art.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Robert said. “I am calling Coco.”

  “Oh, no you’re not,” Grace said as she yanked the telephone from his hand.
/>   “Give me that thing back, Grace!” Robert barked, searching her eyes for an explanation. “What are you doing?”

  “Coco said he won’t take your calls anymore,” she said.

  “What do you mean he won’t take my calls?” Robert laughed.

  “That was the last thing Coco said,” Grace replied. “He said, ‘Ja, but little Fairchild is the one who got us into this mess and little Fairchild is the one who get us out,’” Grace said with an adorable attempt at imitating Coco’s never-ending Norwegian laugh.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, and he also said not to bother looking for the answer on the computer. He said “the Google” won’t save you on this one.”

  “Are you being serious?”

  “Yup,” she inhaled and smiled at her husband. “It looks like you’re on your own this time.” Grace raised her hand to her forehead and saluted. “It’s your ship now, captain.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Gracie,” Robert laughed, “I don’t know the first thing about buying LNG carriers. This is absurd.”

  “There must be someone who can help you, honey. I mean, you really shouldn’t rely on just Coco; what if something were to happen to him some day?”

  “But I don’t know anyone else in the shipping business, Grace,” Robert said. “I’m focused on the money people, not the shipping people,” Robert said.

  “But you bought your own bulk carrier last year,” she said. “Surely you met some shipping people.”

  Just before Coco had ended the phone call with Grace, the Norwegian had instructed her to make sure Robert went to Greece immediately to meet with Spyrolaki Bouboulinas. Although she didn’t understand why, she agreed to use her charms to get him there.

  “I guess I could call Spyrolaki,” Robert said.

  “That’s a great idea, honey, but I thought you always told me that shipping deals were best done face-to-face,” she reminded him. “That’s why you told me you have to go to Europe every other week, remember?”

  Grace Fairchild suppressed a giggle when she hugged Robert. If she had learned anything about managing her husband and son over the years it was this: if she wanted either male to do something, anything, she had to make sure they believed it was their idea.