Power Down

by Ben Coes

  “What’s worse,” said another man, a young brown-haired man with glasses, “is the selling of the stockpiles. Because Ghawar field has such extraordinary baseline cost infrastructure, they have to keep pumping. In our analysis, the Saudis have been selling stockpile to avoid having to shut down certain parts of the field. They’re in a challenging, negative production cycle.”

  The room was silent for a few moments.

  “So what you’re saying is Saudi Arabia is the primary victim of Capitana’s rise?” asked Stebbens.

  “It’s early,” said Griffin. “We have reams of data still to parse.” He paused and removed his glasses, placing them down on the table. “But yes. The Saudis couldn’t have been pleased with Capitana.”

  “Meanwhile, they’re the only ones who can fill the gap over here?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What about kilowatt?” she asked, looking at a young Japanese American woman, Libby Coolidge, who was Griffin’s counterpart on the electricity side.

  “I’ll keep it short,” said Coolidge. “One, even before we stepped in, White House, FBI, et al., massively increased security and monitoring of electric infrastructure. We have piggybacked on that and now have the lead on a cross-agency protocol. We’re monitoring all existing infrastructure above ten thousand megawatt and reporting across the protocol hourly.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Second, replacement dynamics,” continued Coolidge. “There are no silver bullets here. We’re already seeing rolling blackouts along the East Coast, particularly in the South. Savage Island was not just a growing source of raw electric; it was the leading source on the eastern seaboard. We’re talking about a very challenging situation. There’s no way to simply tap stockpile here. Luckily we’re at the lowest consumption time of the year, especially in New England. We’re also increasing output at hundreds of facilities that can fill in the grid loss. They’re increasing electric production at Duke, ConEd, Entergy and Exelon, and other civilian nukes, combined with a much more significant input from Canada Power. We should be okay, but it will take time for it to ramp up.”

  “Got it,” said Stebbens.

  “Finally, looking back at supply and demand patterns,” said Coolidge. “There is an exponentially more distributed population of players on the electric side. Savage Island hasn’t necessarily hurt anyone. Sure, we see a decline in a whole gamut of Midwest and Northeast suppliers. I could give you a list. But no one’s gotten hammered here. Savage did what they said it would do; it lowered costs. In particular, it knocked the floor out of costs for manufacturers along the East Coast.”

  “So, in summary, the problem on the electric side is replacement,” said Stebbens.

  “Exactly. That’s where my team needs to spend its time.”

  “I agree,” said Stebbens, standing up. “I leave here in one hour. Pardon the pun, but I want you to drill into the Aramco thing. If that information proves out about depleting stockpiles at below-market financial recovery, that is potentially dramatic information.”

  “If the Saudis are our only replacement valve, and they had something to do with this, doesn’t that put us in somewhat of a bind?” asked another staffer, a middle-aged man sitting to Stebbens’s right.

  Stebbens paused, looked around the room, and removed her bifocals. “We don’t get paid to answer those questions.”

  Across the Potomac River, in an anonymous-looking, dark glass box of a building in Arlington, Virginia, Rick Ennis walked into a large, windowless room in the bowels of the National Security Agency. The NSA is the U.S. government’s cryptologist; the place where electronic information is gathered, synthesized, and analyzed by the government.

  The NSA serves as America’s electronic eyes and ears throughout the world, using a staggering array of highly sophisticated computers, satellites, and other equipment to eavesdrop on the world’s communications, from the most highly sensitive conversations to the most mundane e-mail, text, or phone call. By spying around the clock, on enemies and allies alike, the agency has archived a vast amount of information, most of which the NSA is not permitted by law to look at.

  Rick Ennis was the NSA’s chief operating officer.

  Within two hours of the attack on Capitana, Savage Island, and the attacks on Ted Marks and Nicholas Anson, Ennis sought permission from his boss, the director of the NSA, General Landon Bossidy, to have his team of analysts analyze archived communications going back five years and containing the terms “Capitana,” “Savage Island,” “KKB,” “Anson Energy,” and “Marks.”

  The agency called this protocol of examining old, “accidentally” captured information, trace intelligence amphitheatre, or TIA.

  TIA, as everyone at NSA knew, was really just retroactive spying.

  General Bossidy in turn asked the White House for authorization. There, the president, who must approve such protocols, took less than ten minutes to authorize the request under executive order.

  Now, eight hours after receiving the green light from the White House, Ennis stood in the doorway of the large room and looked at his team of young analysts, fourteen in all, young, highly educated professionals recruited out of the nation’s top schools, who sat in a room that took up almost a quarter of a floor at NSA headquarters and looked like a cross between a fraternity house and the National Archives. Paper was strewn about the room, in stacks. Coffee was the lifeblood of the event. Empty cups and the aroma of coffee were everywhere.

  “What do we have?” Ennis asked as he walked into the room and sat down.

  The group of analysts looked up from their reading.

  “I have something,” said a young Korean American woman.

  “What is it?”

  “A ton of talk about Capitana within OPEC. I just read a month’s worth of phone calls between a senior executive at Aramco and a senior staffer in Fahd’s oil ministry.”

  “So what?” said Ennis. “Competitive threat. Shouldn’t they be studying their competitors?”

  The young woman flipped through the papers and started reading aloud.

  Chief of Staff: Is it too late to disrupt the project? Does it need to start on time? I thought we had people on the construction team.

  Aramco: We tried and succeeded, but only to a certain extent. It’s moving ahead. With that much oil we’re not going to just stop it.

  Chief of Staff: Can’t we buy the rights from Anson? What’s it worth?

  Aramco: Get in line. They’ve been offered staggering amounts. We missed the window.

  “Here’s another one,” she continued, “between Dubai’s oil minister and a woman whose identity we don’t have. It’s a sanitized phone line.”

  Oil minister: Sahr-lin—

  “The head of Aramco?” asked Ennis.

  “Yes, that’s right,” said the woman, continuing.

  Oil minister: Sahr-lin is going to be fired over this project in Colombia.

  Woman: Yes, yes, I know. I spoke with him yesterday. He says Fahd wants to go to war with the Colombian government. (Laughter.)

  Oil minister: I don’t see why they’re so upset. They have enough oil to last until their great-grandchildren are dead and buried.

  Woman: They’re mad at Sahr-lin. He could’ve stopped it, as they did with Exxon’s Mongolia project.

  Oil minister: Well, if you ask me, it serves the bastard right.

  “That’s a smoking gun,” Ennis said after pondering. “Follow it. Focus on larger patterns here. Evidence of conspiracy, discussion around operative activities involving Capitana, Savage Island, Marks.”

  Ennis stood up.

  “I leave in an hour for the FBI. If anything nasty pops up, ring me.” He smiled at the analysts. “I’ll send in some pizzas. You all look hungry.”

  An hour later, Ennis returned.

  “Anything?” he asked as he straightened his tie and sat down in a chair at the table.

  “We’ve got a new line,” said a blond-haired woman. “The last two years the Sa
udis are growing panicked about Capitana, and the Chinese.”

  “The Chinese?” asked Ennis.

  “The Chinese are playing Aramco against BP. Internally, the Saudis are calling the Chinese extortionists. We really need an energy analyst here. They’re freaking out about Capitana.”

  “But is there anything operational?” Ennis asked.

  “Would there be?” asked a long-haired, bespectacled analyst. “I mean, are these guys stupid?”

  “Good point. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  _____

  By noon, the interagency group had reconvened at FBI headquarters.

  “Welcome back everyone,” said Chiles. “Let’s begin with DOD.”

  “Right,” said Scalia, turning to Jane Epstein. “Is Andreas out?”

  “The exfiltration takes place in fifteen minutes,” said Epstein. “We have the team in place. It’s being run directly from Comm Ops at the Pentagon. Should be a piece of cake.”

  “Good. Then let’s hear from DOE,” said Scalia.

  Antonia Stebbens smiled politely and leaned forward. “First, it’s early. I have a dozen analysts who haven’t slept in two days in the basement of DOE crunching numbers.”

  “And?” said Scalia. “Get to the point.”

  “As I said, it’s early,” said Stebbens. “This is only preliminary, and I reserve the right to completely alter my findings based upon our continued research and analysis.”

  “Antonia,” said Chiles. “Please.”

  “Here goes,” Stebbens continued. “We have a complicated scenario. In terms of replacement dynamics, we need to approach OPEC, and Saudi Arabia specifically, to fill in the hole that Capitana’s loss created. There is no other near-term option as it relates to petro supply.”

  “Okay,” said Scalia.

  “At the same time,” continued Stebbens, “there is clear evidence that the rise of Capitana most directly impacted Saudi Arabia. To the point that we see evidence that production activity, economics, and decision making within Ghawar field were dramatically affected by Capitana in a very negative way.”

  “Explain,” said Chiles.

  “Basically, Capitana pummeled BP’s oil business in the U.S.,” said Stebbens. “But further analysis shows BP made up market share losses here with gains in Europe. In fact, BP’s share gains in Europe more than offset losses in the U.S. BP took share from Aramco. The Saudis lost huge market share across Europe. They’re now making it up by selling to the Chinese, specifically Sinopec, at below-market prices. We believe they’ve sold off their stockpiles of crude to the Chinese at losses.”

  “Why would they be doing that?” asked Scalia.

  “Because they probably feel the need to keep cash coming into Ghawar field operations,” answered Stebbens. “They’ve sold off virtually their entire stockpile.”

  “So what’s the bottom line?”

  “The bottom line is the Saudis were hurt very badly by Capitana. Unfortunately, they are also the only ones who can step in and replace Capitana supply. Without immediate effort to fill in the coming drop-off in Capitana petro, there will be oil shock like we’ve never seen. We need them, and we need them immediately. I’m talking about immediate intercession at the highest levels.”

  The room was silent for a few moments.

  “I should probably pipe in here,” said Rick Ennis from NSA. “We’re deep into the review of more than a hundred and seventy-five thousand pages of phone conversations, e-mails, and other communications. And what is clear is that there was panic at the highest levels of OPEC, of Aramco, of the Saudi oil ministry and the Saudi government, as it relates to Capitana and Anson Energy. We have yet to find anything operative, that is, any discussion of targeting Capitana. But we wouldn’t necessarily see that. They know to have that kind of discussion out of earshot. What we do have is clear discussion of trying to sabotage Capitana: buy off the principals, intervene politically, you name it.”

  The room was again silent for several moments.

  John Scalia from the White House broke the silence. “What will the Saudis want?” he asked.

  “For the oil, we’re talking hundreds of billions,” said Stebbens. “The check that was written to Aramco in 1973 to end the oil embargo was one hundred and seventy-seven billion dollars. They’ll want a major down payment. They’ll also want guarantees going way out. Ghawar is running down. I can’t begin to imagine what they’ll ask for in terms of time commitment and pricing, but it’s safe to assume it will be expensive and long term.”

  “They’ll also want weapons,” said Epstein from DOD. “And not just warplanes.”

  “So the Saudis had the motive,” said Scalia. “The evidence points to them. But even if we wanted to do something about it, we can’t. Is that right?”

  Nobody answered. Finally, Vic Buck from the CIA cleared his throat. “You have to admit, it’s a masterful operation. They fucked us in the ass.”

  “I have to make a phone call,” said Scalia.

  23

  MADRADORA SQUARE

  CALI, COLOMBIA

  In the strip mall off Rua Dista, Dewey parked the sedan at the side of the mall, in the middle of employee parking. He unscrewed the license plate on the back of the Mercedes and quickly switched it with the plates on a minivan parked several rows away. At a pharmacy in the mall he bought new bandaging, first-aid tape, and battery-powered clippers. He ducked into a restroom and cut his hair to only an inch long and shaved away his beard and mustache.

  An hour and fifty minutes later, he had driven to within walking distance of Madradora in the southern part of the city. It was a hardscrabble section and the Mercedes stood out, so he parked it several blocks away. He walked past an empty soccer stadium, coming at Madradora Square from the south, then changed direction and crossed several streets until he arrived at the back entrance to a church that towered over the square. Entering through a large, red-painted doorway, he stepped into the soaring apse, near the altar. A few old women were at prayer and did not look up as he walked down the side of the church. At the back of the church, he saw a stairwell. He climbed the stairs and was soon in the chancel choir. At the back wall, a transparent pane in the stained glass window gave Dewey a clear look down on the square.

  Madradora Square was crowded. Several children played in the middle of the large, grass-covered square, while mothers on benches watched and listened to the laughter as their children ran around. Along the sidewalks at the edge of the square stood several cafés and assorted stores.

  Dewey well knew the drill here. After all, he’d performed similar exfiltrations on many occasions. The Deltas were likely in the square right now. If they were good, even he wouldn’t recognize them. Perhaps the man stooped over on the front step of the town house to the left, sweeping a broom. Or the coffee drinker at the café, far right.

  He looked at his watch and still had five minutes to spare. He was nervous but also excited. He found himself looking forward to seeing how these Deltas did their work—that is, if he still had the skill to spot them.

  The time since his service seemed to have passed quickly. He’d lost track along the way, but right now it felt like yesterday—his last hours as a Delta. With each passing minute, with every step closer he got, the feelings rushed back: the sense of steel-bound commitment to the mission, the willingness to kill and die, all of it.

  It had been a rainy Friday night at Fort Bragg, a cool evening after a hard run. His team grabbed dinner together after returning from a monthlong training jaunt in the Okefenokee swamp in southern Georgia. They’d gone there to learn jungle survival tactics, thrown into the swamp alone, with nothing more than a piece of string and a knife. They were expected to survive, deep in the heart of cottonmouth country. And that was exactly how Dewey had survived, eating cottonmouths and sleeping in the crotch of a tree.

  When he finally got home and opened his front door he saw Holly on the floor of the living room. Her head had been blown apart; his service Colt lying besi
de her. He could still remember the black hockey tape he wrapped around the butt of the old gun, blood pooled around it. Everywhere. Holly’s blue eyes staring up at him.

  They said it was tough to be a military wife. They didn’t have a saying for what it was like to be the wife of a Delta.

  Holly had changed after Robbie died. Of course she had. Dewey had too. How were you supposed to respond to the loss of a six-year-old boy? Dewey was asked to try out for Delta the same week of the leukemia diagnosis. He tried to explain it to Holly, that they needed the health insurance, the income. Should he really just quit? She knew as well as Dewey that it wasn’t about benefits or money. Delta training offered Dewey an outlet for his anger, the bitterness of watching his only child get sicker and wither. But leaving for Delta training left Holly with nothing, not even her husband. At the very end, in Robbie’s final months, Dewey’s commanding officer finally granted him compassionate leave, but only after he threatened to quit. He and Holly endured those last days together, watching Robbie die. After Robbie’s death, Holly’s anger surfaced first, followed by grief, then depression that deepened with each passing day. Finally came the silence.

  Dewey realized later that he could never have understood the depth of Holly’s despair. Even now he could scarcely imagine what it was like for her to suffer her bottomless sorrow alone.

  This was her last statement to him: suicide, with his own service pistol. He understood the message, empathized with it too. She hadn’t meant to make it look like he’d killed her, as the police and D.A. claimed. She had only intended to say, “Look at what you left me to do, you and your precious duty. Look at what you’ve left me to witness alone, so you can be a soldier.” That was the significance of his old service gun. It had been a private, desperate gesture, not an attempt to make others believe Dewey would actually kill his wife.

  Holly’s family had thrown their full support behind the prosecutor, telling them about Dewey’s drinking, his temper and tendency toward violence. They refused to admit their only child could kill herself.