Oil

by Jeff Nesbit

  “Please,” said an older gentleman seated at a two-person table off to the side of the shop. “You are welcome to sit here with me.”

  “Are you sure?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Certainly,” said the older man. “You look like you could use the break, and that cup of coffee in your hands is calling out to you.”

  “Is it that obvious?” Elizabeth pulled the chair back from the small table and sat down. She was grateful for the offer and the company.

  “You’re holding on to that cup like it contains the water of life.” The man laughed. “So yes, it’s that obvious.”

  Elizabeth took a long, careful sip of the mocha coffee. It was everything she’d heard about and more. She could feel her troubles easing, if only for a moment. She eyed the stranger who’d given her a seat at his table. There was something about him that gave her comfort. He had the look of a genuinely nice man.

  “Wow, that’s a good cup of coffee,” Elizabeth said.

  The man scanned the crowded shop. “Yes, and it looks like the word is getting around. This is the third time I’ve been here recently, and it gets busier every time.”

  “My first time,” Elizabeth said. “But I’ve heard so many good things.”

  “So what brings you here?”

  Elizabeth reached inside the folds of her jacket and pulled out her badge. She unclipped the badge from the chain and handed it across the table so the man could read the ID. “I’m here with World Without Borders, working with the new refugee camps.”

  The man nodded. “World Without Borders does great work.” He handed the badge back to her. “But you’re not just with them, Dr. Thompson. You run the organization. You started it. I’ve heard of you. You’re famous.”

  Elizabeth blushed. She didn’t think of herself that way. In fact, she rarely read newspapers or watched television. When camera crews showed up at a refugee camp or at a hospital and interviewed her, she was always gracious. She answered their questions directly, though always modestly. She had no idea what any of them did with their interviews or where the stories were seen.

  “Oh, not really…”

  “Dr. Thompson, that’s not true. I just read about you in Ha’aretz. They speculated that you might be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize because of your work in the refugee camps. The story was on the front page. It was about the hospital being built in Beersheba for the new Palestinian refugees streaming into the country. There was a picture—of you—on the front page.”

  “I didn’t see that story,” Elizabeth said. “I rarely pay attention to those sorts of things. I just do my work. Reporters show up occasionally. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

  “And the BBC ran a big story about the Beersheba camps as well. There was a long section about you and the work of World Without Borders there. Like I said…”

  “Really, I never pay attention to those things.” She laughed. “I couldn’t even tell you when the BBC interviewed me, or why. It’s not something I care about all that much. The work is what matters, and there is lots and lots of work to be done in the camps.”

  The man laughed. “I’m with you, Dr. Thompson. The work is the thing. Pay attention to that, and other things fall in to line. So what does your organization think of the planned settlements at Beersheba? Is there hope? Can it survive?”

  “Yes, there is most definitely hope,” Elizabeth said, glad to be given the opportunity to move away from media attention about her and the work that her organization did. “It’s chaotic right now. There is a lot of confusion. Families don’t know where to turn for basic information, so they camp outside the US military headquarters and wait for scraps of information.”

  “I’ve heard that,” the man said. “But the American soldiers are generally gracious. They try to answer questions patiently and give out information that they have.”

  “They do,” Elizabeth agreed. “And I’ve seen this thing before, in places where conflict and chaos are turning the land upside down. Soldiers get a bad rap. But they are almost always patient, kind, and giving toward ordinary people and families.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. As ironic as this is, soldiers can be extraordinary ambassadors and great peacekeepers.”

  “The problem, though, is that there’s no real, central authority in Beersheba right now.” Elizabeth sighed. “The American soldiers are doing their best, but this isn’t their country. They don’t speak for the Israeli government. And they certainly can’t do much for the Palestinian refugees who are arriving here in droves. These people are without a country.”

  “A good point. It’s difficult when a person has no homeland to serve as a beacon. They have nowhere to turn to for authority, meaning, guidance…”

  “Or even basic information,” Elizabeth said. “I spend a great deal of my time each day just answering simple questions from people. Where can I get aspirin? Where can I go to have my baby, and what should I do to get ready for that day? If I fall into an open fire and burn myself, where can I go to get bandages? These are simple things. But it can be extraordinarily frustrating when it’s hard to get easy answers to questions like this.”

  “And of course, people also make do with incomplete information,” the man added. “As a result, information is passed along by word of mouth because there’s no other way to receive it.”

  “Absolutely. For instance, the leaders of every single Palestinian refugee camp that my organization serves are telling me that they’re convinced the Americans have an ulterior motive for building in Beersheba. They don’t believe, for a moment, that there will be an independent homeland, or that they’ll truly be granted a capital.”

  “So what do they believe?”

  “They believe that both the Americans and Israelis have another purpose in making Beersheba important. They point to the massive oil refinery that’s been built east of the city as proof.”

  “Proof of what?” asked the man.

  “Proof that the construction in and around Beersheba is mostly about making the city a nexus for refining and transporting oil and gas to world markets. Israelis build and settle, they will tell you. And then they occupy. And they wouldn’t build a massive, world-class oil-refining center in the desert and then simply walk away from that. The leaders of the Palestinian refugee camps believe that they’re just unwitting pawns in some bigger game that they aren’t able to play in. They believe it’s mostly about oil—and incredible wealth.”

  Abe Zeffren leaned forward in his chair ever so slightly. “That’s an astute observation, Dr. Thompson. Truly. There may be something to that thought. It makes you wonder what, exactly, is behind much of this activity we see with our own eyes. I’ve seen interesting developments myself recently in my travels.”

  “Oh? Like what?”

  “I work for the Ministry of Infrastructures, in Jerusalem,” Abe said. “I’ve been out here a half-dozen times to check on developments. And that oil-refining complex you mentioned is perhaps the finest, most expensive in the world, with state-of-the-art technology.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “And it’s being paired, even as we sit here, with a revolutionary new technology that’s allegedly capable of heating shale and rock below the surface, allowing vast stores of trapped oil to rise to the surface, where it can be siphoned and sent down here to this refinery near Beersheba.”

  “You said allegedly?”

  “I haven’t seen it for myself,” Abe said. “I’ve only had it described to me. The technology belongs to one of the largest private companies in the world.”

  “But you said you work for Israel’s government?”

  “I’m just a bureaucrat.” Abe smiled. “This company isn’t required to tell me about their technology or their ultimate aims here in Israel and elsewhere in the region. There is only so much I can know or ask about.”

  She frowned slightly. “I see. That seems unfortunate. I would think it might be in everyone’s best interests to have their governme
nt know, and communicate, things of this sort.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Abe said. “But I’m not in charge. I just do my job, ask questions when I can, and provide a service to those who actually make some of those decisions.”

  “What’s that phrase everyone in government always uses?”

  “‘Above my pay grade’? That one?”

  “That’s the one.” She laughed.

  “It’s an apt phrase and describes my working life perfectly,” Abe said. “But I have to say that your speculation about what the refugee camp leaders think has given me new inspiration today and a thread or two that I intend to follow.”

  Elizabeth smiled broadly. She couldn’t help herself. She liked this man. He seemed so…nice.

  “Well, good for you,” she said. “I’m glad we connected, and that something I said helped you with your own work. I also wanted to thank you for generously offering me a seat at your table in this crowded shop. It’s not often that you get a chance to benefit from the kindness of strangers.”

  “It is a curious world, Dr. Thompson, full of random encounters and disconnected circumstances,” he answered. “We are all strangers only because we choose to be so.”

  51

  The King’s Palace

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  In the end, Nash decided he could at least ask his best data mining engineers to take the list of mobile numbers given him by the Saudi monarch and see what they produced. What he would ultimately do with that information once they’d done their work was an altogether different question entirely.

  Nash knew, in his heart, that the Saudi monarch was fishing. They had no idea, really, what threats lurked beyond the confines of the palace. The Arab Spring revolts had shaken every dictator or ruler to their very cores.

  The revolts were pure chaos. They had no leaders. They were never planned and took sudden, unexpected, random courses of action.

  Yet they’d toppled leaders in any number of countries. Saudi Arabia—and Iran, to a lesser degree—had appeared to be immune from such revolts. Until now.

  Natal had granted Nash access to his team in New York in a second conference room. He was certain his calls and Internet access were being monitored, so he was circumspect in both his call to his staff as well as the mVillage follow-up e-mails he received as his world-class data engineers went through the list.

  Nash was proud of his team. They’d built a novel, first-of-its-kind method of combing through massive stores of data across multiple sites and systems. When given a set task, the system could produce needlein-a-haystack answers. The engineering team, all of them geeks of the highest order, had affectionately named their system after Frodo, the bearer of the One Ring of the Dark Lord from Tolkien’s masterpiece. There was no special reason, really, for the name. They all just loved Frodo and were huge fans of The Lord of the Rings.

  Through word of mouth alone, their data-mining service had been quietly adopted by several of the intelligence-gathering agencies in Washington. Nash and his team didn’t talk about this publicly, largely because they didn’t have to. The mVillage network was privately owned. They answered only to the venture funds that had started the enterprise.

  So, given a defined data set like the list of mobile telephone numbers and tasked with finding threads and connections, the data-mining team and system would produce certain results. And they did, within the hour.

  His lead data-mining engineer called Nash on his mobile. “We’ve found what you’re looking for,” he said when they’d connected.

  “Careful,” Nash said. “Remember that this call is probably monitored. Imagine what the transcript looks like in a cable, the kind that we comb through for threads.” He could almost see his lead engineer smiling on the other end.

  “Understood. So how should I give you the information?”

  “Give me the simple, top-line summary now, over the phone. But be careful.”

  “Okay, it’s this. Mostly, there’s nothing there.”

  “What do you mean—nothing?” Nash asked. “They’ve been monitoring these mobile numbers for quite some time.”

  “They’re worthless,” the engineer said. “That’s what I’m telling you. That’s our highest-level, top-level algorithm. It’s all random, meandering threads with no obvious cross-links. There’s no conspiracy, no leadership, no coordinated effort to oppose the Saudi rulers. The numbers don’t follow any discernible patterns. We just don’t see it.”

  “How can that be?”

  “I’ll tell you how,” the engineer said. “Nearly all of the numbers they gave you are either of students or family members so far removed from any seat of power or government authority that there’s no way they could have any influence. It’s all just noise. That’s what our system shows.”

  “So there’s really nothing there?”

  “Well, there is one thing, but it’s more of an interesting, potentially significant artifact. There isn’t enough there to really give anyone something to go on.”

  “Try me.”

  “The one common thread that we could find was the Saudi National Guard,” the engineer said.

  “The White Army?”

  “Yes, we found a permanent, consistent thread in the data that clearly connected the Saudi’s White Army with al Qaeda, Iran, and even North Korea—”

  “Hold that thought,” Nash said quickly, cutting him off. “I’d like to go over that with you, but not over the phone.”

  “Should I send you an e-mail?”

  “No, not that way,” Nash said. “Do you remember the SIM card application we’ve been working on?”

  “The man-in-the-middle application, the one that overrides some of the SIM card functions from one mobile device to another?”

  “Yeah, that one,” Nash said. “I have the encryption software loaded on my mobile. So can you send me your thoughts over that direct SMS system?”

  The engineer paused. “Outside the data network system?”

  “Yes, with no archive capability,” Nash said.

  “So it will be local once you’ve received it?” the engineer said.

  “Which means I can delete it once I’ve received it.”

  “I understand. You know I’ll send it to you in bite-sized chunks, right?”

  “Yeah, I know. But I don’t see any other option.”

  “Got it,” his lead engineer said. “You’ll have it shortly.”

  Nash looked at the short bursts of information several minutes later. He’d just hit the DELETE button on the damning information about the highly unusual connections the data-mining team had connected to the Saudi White Army when Natal burst through the door to the second conference room. Nash was doing his best to process the information. Given what he’d just read, he’d need to be extraordinarily careful in the next few minutes.

  Natal closed the door behind him and faced Nash. “Man-in-themiddle?” he asked without preamble.

  “It’s just something our team has been working on,” Nash said, choosing to ignore the fact that Natal and his team had heard every word of his private conversation with his lead engineer. “It’s nothing fancy. Sort of like software that runs on an individual mobile device.”

  “So you received information from our list of mobile numbers?” Natal said.

  “Yeah, and you know that they came up with nothing,” Nash said, choosing not to play games with the Saudi minister of the interior. Natal already knew what his engineer had shared with him—except the data bursts that had been sent, encrypted, to his mobile device and then deleted.

  “But they most certainly did not come up with nothing,” Natal said evenly. “We both know that. Your team found connections to the White Army that protects the royal family and the holy sites in Mecca and Medina.”

  Nash didn’t blink or look away. “So it would seem,” he said simply.

  Natal nodded. “I will presume that you are not about to share that information with me. So I am going to make an educated gues
s or two. First, you found connections to General Fahd, the former head of the White Army, who is now in Aqaba. Second, you found connections between White Army leaders at various levels and some of those mobile devices on the list—perhaps to government leaders in some of the towns that are planning to take part in this so-called Day of Anger. Am I close?”

  “As you said, those are educated guesses,” Nash responded.

  “Very well. And I can also hazard that your team found some connection to the royal family, to those who are within the palace compound. Perhaps even to me,” Natal said, his eyes boring into Nash’s. “Do I have that about right?”

  “You do command the White Army,” Nash answered. “I would imagine that all roads, in one fashion or another, lead back to you in the kingdom. Intelligence has a way of doing that.”

  Natal clasped his hands before him. “Yes, that’s accurate, to a point. There’s a lot that ultimately lands on my desk. But that’s far different than saying that something begins there.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “No, I guess you would not,” the minister said. “So I am going to report to the others what your team found and what you have been willing to share with me.”

  “But I haven’t really shared much, Prince Natal,” Nash said.

  “Oh, you’d be surprised at what you’ve managed to reveal to me. And for that, the kingdom will be in your debt.” Natal got up to leave.

  “Am I free to go?” Nash asked.

  “I will let you know shortly,” Natal answered. “It depends on how the information I deliver to the king is received.”

  He left as quickly as he’d entered. Nash knew he only had seconds before his access to the outside world would be cut off. He typed a command into his mobile furiously. Give White Army/Natal info to NSA right away, he wrote to his lead engineer, using his encrypted, direct SMS software. He hit SEND and watched as it successfully made it out.

  The cell signal on his mobile device faded an instant later. Nash was alone again in the bowels of the king’s palace.