Blood Oil

by James Phelan

  Simon paused to talk to one of the wounded men. They spoke quietly, slowly. Nods were shared and they continued onwards.

  “What happened to them?” Fox asked.

  “Reprisal attacks, yesterday and the day before,” Simon explained.

  “Reprisal for what?”

  “They were found selling black-market oil. They are considered oil poachers—they tap into the oil pipelines, siphon-off oil and sell it to the locals.”

  “Was it a rival group that attacked them?”

  “In a way, yes. It was the security men of oil companies, and government soldiers, Nigerian Mobile Police—MOPOL—and the like.”

  The climate of fear in this part of Nigeria was palpable. It was on the faces they saw, in the air they shared, in the sounds that came. Fox knew that whatever loss and hardship he’d ever experienced was miniscule in comparison. Here was a place where the universe came together in a snapshot of compassion and cruelty. He knew that there was an uneasy truth here that must be told.

  “Lachlan, Alister, this is my uncle, Solomon,” Simon said.

  They shook hands. Sat inside at a timber bench cleared by Solomon’s family, who now sat on a rug in the concrete cinder-block house. Five kids, from teens to five. No wife in sight.

  Simon spoke quietly to his uncle, and handed over a few bank notes which at first were refused but then were taken, thanks being returned in a long, humble embrace.

  Fox reached into his bag, and handed over an MRE. The man accepted it, and passed it to the eldest of his sons who took it away with the other children. Their quiet fascination would last for hours. Fox motioned to Solomon with a digital voice recorder. Simon translated; Solomon nodded his consent.

  “They are offering tea, but I suggest we refuse—they don’t have much drinking water to give away to us.”

  Fox nodded.

  “Why don’t they have fresh water here?” Gammaldi asked. “I know the river system is polluted but they get plenty of rain.”

  “They cannot catch rainwater in this town any more,” Simon explained. “It’s like this in much of the southern states. And the more they rely on ground wells, the quicker they are drying up.”

  “Why is that?” Fox asked. “Why can’t they catch the rainwater?”

  Simon talked to his uncle, then thought about the answer—the translation of the broken English and local dialect.

  “Here, they say that the water is poison,” Simon said. “It makes them ill, kills children and the frail, makes babies deformed. It’s from the gas flares and burn-offs in this area, it makes acid rain. So they rely on rations of water, often having to buy it from water farmers—men who have invested enough to drill the deepest of wells. Sometimes a little government aid arrives, but not more than three or four times a year.”

  Fox took a handful of old faded colour photos from Solomon. “What are these of?”

  “Here—this place,” Solomon said in broken English. “Three decades ago.”

  Fox looked through the photos. They were well-loved, the edges faded and bent. A young Solomon was there, as a schoolboy, among a sea of happy school children’s faces.

  “That was on the first day of independence,” Simon narrated. His uncle pointed to the particular picture of his family dancing in the street. The hope they must have had. The photos changed formats—different camera or film, a later time. The classroom was a shattered wreck, books strewn on the floor. The school in ruins. Bodies in the street.

  Fox’s cell phone rang. He excused himself, went outside to get better reception.

  “Tas?”

  “Lachlan, I’ve got you a meeting this afternoon in Abuja.”

  “With Brutus Achebe?”

  “Yep, at two o’clock. And there’s more,” Wallace said. “You owe me big. Rollins will be there in Port Harcourt later this afternoon, to take you into the delta to meet with some militants. I want you to make sure he’s safe—”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “Well, Rollins will have protection from a guy from the British embassy as well,” Wallace said. “I’ll fly him in on the Airbus. Give me a call after your meeting with Achebe and I’ll let you know which airport we’re coming in to.”

  Fox went back inside Solomon’s house. The Nigerian was reading a part of the Bible to his nephew. Psalm 137. Words of revenge, connotations of displacement and rape. Desperation. Solomon’s voice was scholarly and his Bible-reading English crisp and well-rehearsed. Fox had little doubt that this man could recite much of that book.

  “Solomon, I have a meeting today with a government minister,” Fox said. “Is there anything you want me to tell him?”

  The Nigerian was silent as he searched the faces before him. He looked to his children, who continued to play outside. Their faces wore smiles that Fox knew this father did not see often enough.

  “The only way that Nigeria can be fixed is if all the men in power, all of them, are killed.”

  There was certainty in the man’s tone as his eyes burned into Fox. His face told of the lives he was responsible for, that each of them hung by the tenuous grip of uncertainty that came with being on the downside of disadvantage. As if what he said was the collective consciousness of all the people of this city. “That is the only way…”

  29

  WASHINGTON

  “Tim—where are you going?” Jack McFarland asked, breaking the silence. It was the middle of the night and the White House nurse had been woken from his sleep. He had sleepily walked into the lounge room and now saw the bags packed by the door to his apartment.

  “Out,” Tahir ‘Tim’ Massoud said, his face impassive.

  McFarland looked at the bags again. Not just Massoud’s overnighter, there was the big one with the wheels and the handle. Everything was packed. Everything. Tim had been living with him for a month or more. And now this?

  “With all your stuff?” Jack’s pain was on his face—he knew what this was. He stood there in just his underwear. Tears in his eyes. “Were you going to say goodbye?”

  “I cannot see you any more,” Massoud said. He looked away from the crying man. Picked up his carry-on bag from the floor.

  The dam broke for McFarland and tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Why?” McFarland looked angry now. He got close to his lover, banged on his chest. “Why!”

  “Look—I will … I will speak to you later,” Massoud said. He moved around McFarland and made for the door.

  The nurse was after him, fast. He grabbed Massoud’s arm and spun him around.

  “You can’t do this to me!” McFarland said. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve looked after you for weeks! I love you!”

  There was nothing telling in the man’s eyes. Literally nothing. No emotions, none of the love and adoration that he’d bestowed on Jack all this time. He turned and made again for the door.

  McFarland pulled him around again, and in the same fluid movement the man brought his hand up and slapped the nurse hard across the face.

  “You don’t love me,” Massoud said, his voice low, quiet. “You don’t even know me.”

  McFarland was too shocked to make a sound. He stared at his lover and saw a new look in his eyes. Hatred? Revulsion?

  Massoud turned his back, and McFarland jumped on him, using his full weight.

  The Saudi stumbled forward a step but managed to keep his footing. McFarland’s arms were wrapped tight around his neck, his legs around the man’s body. Massoud charged backwards, into the adjoining kitchen, and slammed McFarland up onto the bench, where the nurse hit the back of his head against the top cupboards. He cried out in pain, and released his grip on the man, who turned and punched McFarland fast—in the face, then the stomach. McFarland was curled up on the bench, crying and sucking for air. His lover turned, picked up a heavy Le Creuset cast-iron frypan from the stovetop. Swung it towards McFarland’s head in a big, arcing swing.

  McFarland moved like a da
ncer. One fluid, graceful move and he’d uncurled off the bench and his fist was hard against Massoud’s sternum. Massoud looked back at Jack wide-eyed. Dropped the pan. Stumbled backwards, and looked down to the handle of the big carving knife pushed up into his chest. Blood began to run over the hilt and down the handle.

  McFarland’s adrenaline came down enough to realise what he’d just done. Instant cold sweat. He was still perched on the bench as his lover collapsed to the ground. Massoud’s throat made a gurgling sound, his eyes still locked in that look of surprise.

  Despite the years of medical training and practice, it would be six hours before Jack McFarland got off the bench to feel for a pulse.

  30

  ABUJA, NIGERIAN CAPITAL, NIGERIA

  “The only way that Nigeria can be fixed is if all the men in power, all of them, are killed. That is the only way.”

  Lachlan Fox pressed the stop button on his tape-recorder. He shifted in his seat, waiting for a reaction from the politician opposite him. Brutus Achebe, Energy Minister for Nigeria. Early forties, political pedigree—read corruption—since Nigeria’s independence in the sixties. He had the universal appearance of a bureaucrat—could be a politician anywhere. A face used to false smiles and far too much hubris.

  “Such things are said in this country all the time,” Achebe said. Spoken like one who conformed to whatever it was that drove him. Money, most likely. That was the common driver around here. Nonetheless, he now appeared annoyed—this had gotten on to a different track than he’d imagined. This was no puff reporting piece. This reporter was out for blood.

  “Then I’m sorry for your country,” Fox said. “I have dozens more interviews like this, it’s painting quite the picture.”

  “Where have you been interviewing?” Achebe asked.

  “Places your oil policies have affected,” Fox said. “They’re educated, smart, capable people. They’ve had their family displaced from the Niger Delta and seen first-hand the brutality that federal and state troops have dished out; your out-of-control security contractors. These people are living off nothing and have little to hope for.”

  Achebe waved his hand in the air. “Whatever. Let them speak. I agree that things must change, and they will.” He offered Fox a cigar—Fox turned him down. “I am from the northern states, Mr Fox. My uncle is the Sultan of Sokoto, a very learned man. The spiritual leader for more than seventy-five million Muslims in this country.”

  Fox watched and listened as the politician shifted into gear.

  “I know my country has had a chequered past, but we have a bright future. We have gone a long way to stamp out the endemic corruption at every level of government. Through the sound economic management that I am applying to the economy, Nigeria will move forward. We will soon be the jewel of Africa, and a beacon of the—”

  “The…?” Fox waited, but, oddly, this conversation had halted. This guy was just getting on message and suddenly stopped himself, mid-sentence.

  “I think you have your statement now,” Achebe said.

  Fox let the moment hang, gave him the room to press on and fill the silence. Achebe leaned back and puffed smoke up to the ceiling.

  “In the north we have Sharia Law. Officially, it has been that way since 1999. And you know what, it works!” Achebe sat straighter in his chair, looked at Fox. “I hope that the rest of Nigeria can some day embrace such laws nationwide. With nearly one hundred and fifty million people under such law, finally we will see an end to the violence you speak of.”

  “Mr Achebe,” Fox spoke slowly, “if you have nothing more to add about the bombing, I’d at least wish to have access to the site.”

  Achebe returned a hard, measuring stare.

  “I would like access to the Port Harcourt bombing site,” Fox stated, clarifying his request, third time lucky.

  “We are not letting press in the area—it is still too dangerous,” Achebe said.

  “I’ll take my chances,” Fox replied, resolute. “It’s been three days and no Western press have had access. I need only an hour, to get a feel for the site.”

  “No press have had access,” Achebe repeated. He leaned back and considered Fox. “This is why you’re here—you are not doing a profile piece on me. You want me to grant you access to the bombing site.”

  “Yes.” Fox looked at Achebe with an unflinching gaze topped with ten tons of defiance and a sledgehammer as back-up. he’d tried the soft approach enough, hadn’t he? Yeah.

  “I can run a profile piece on you, sure,” Fox began. “Brutus Achebe: cabinet minister for seven years, in his current office for four. In control of the energy resources of a country that’s the world’s eighth largest producer of oil. A country where the poor are getting poorer. You have your own companies and charities who have received over ninety million dollars in oil money since you’ve been in office. You have a house in London, worth some four million pounds. You travel there twice a year with the younger of your two wives, not that it stops you from indulging in the company of several prostitutes.”

  “Lies.” Achebe’s face was flushed. Good.

  “I have the paperwork to back this up,” Fox said. “This won’t be something that runs in the local papers. This will be syndicated to The New York Times, the Guardian, the International Herald Tribune. This is above-the-fold stuff—you know, just under the masthead?”

  No reaction. Next card:

  “In 2006 you had a meeting in Northern Nigeria with some of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists.”

  That sentence got a reaction. Fox locked eyes with Achebe. A stare down. Fox wasn’t bluffing. Much. Achebe couldn’t risk it and Fox knew it.

  “That’s not ‘World News section’ stuff,” Fox said. “That’s above that fold in the paper that stares up from first-world news-stands and the front porches of families about to drive to work in their gas-guzzling SUVs. Headlining the nightly news. Running along through the ticker of the world’s biggest news outlets on every television and computer screen in the West.” Fox let it hang in the air. Couldn’t help the faintest of smiles, the not-so-involuntary raise of one corner of his mouth. “That’s career-ending stuff, even here in Nigeria.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Access.” Fox added a little shake of his head as if he’d finally gotten through with chiding a delinquent child. “Port Harcourt is locked down. Three days ago four Dutch oil workers, seven Nigerians, two Italians and two Englishmen were killed in the bombing. I want to see the site. I want to walk it and feel it. To enter the Westerners’ residential compound. To interview witnesses. To have access to your investigators on this. A sit rep on where they’re at.”

  “An hour at the site?” Achebe tapped the ash from his cigar, sat a little straighter as if being observed, despite the fact that it was just the two of them present.

  “An hour at the site,” Fox agreed.

  “Okay,” Achebe said. “I’ll give you access, but not to the police investigators. This is a sensitive issue and we are still in the middle of things.”

  “I want access to the investigators,” Fox said. “I want to speak to the team, see what they’ve got.”

  “An hour on site, Mr Fox. And I will give you the first look at the investigators’ findings.”

  Fox nodded. A small concession. Considering his lack of hard proof of some of the allegations he’d just aired, it was a decent compromise.

  “I can’t promise your security in transit,” Achebe said. “If I give you government troops, then everyone expects them. We cannot spare—”

  “That’s fine, I can take care of myself,” Fox said.

  “I am sure you can, Mr Fox,” Achebe replied. “I am sure you can.”

  In the adjoining office in the Energy Ministry building, Steve Mendes looked at the monitor. Video and audio feed from a concealed device in the ceiling of Achebe’s office gave Mendes a crystal-clear view of what was going on inside.

  Mendes was
making notes on Fox, building a profile from what he heard and saw.

  The fax machine next to him buzzed to life, whirring out pages. Details on Lachlan Fox, the header showing this was from the Department of Homeland Security: “Unclassified Report on Australian national Lachlan Clancy Fox. Age thirty-one, dual US/Aus citizen, department head of New York-based Global Syndicate of Reporters. Height six-two, weight ninety kilos, brown hair, blue eyes,” blah, blah, blah. Mendes looked at the file photo of Fox—the type of eyes that missed nothing. He looked like he could handle himself. “Ex military,” Mendes read. “Australian Navy officer, Intelligence analyst then leader of Special Forces diving team. Discharged in 2005, following the death of a soldier under his command—the result of an un-authorised mission into West Timor…”

  And here he was chasing this story at a time when Mendes would rather he didn’t—but then the ex-CIA operator was used to having to turn things his way. In fact, this was fast becoming a task he relished, the rush that came with playing the game at which he excelled. He had a major operation underway, and this little intrusion was about to hit a dead-end.

  He picked up a radio, pressed talk:

  “This is Mendes. Make sure our guest doesn’t make it back to—”

  He paused, turned up the volume on the monitor. Lachlan Fox stated to Achebe that he was heading back to Port Harcourt. He listened closely to the way Fox pressed Achebe into allowing the one hour at the bombing site. They set a time for Fox to be there, tonight. Fox then mentioned that he would be going to interview some militia accused of the bombing … perfect.

  “Say again, sir,” crackled over his mike.

  “Change that,” Mendes said into the radio mouthpiece. Smiling at how it had all come together. “He’s headed to Port Harcourt. Follow him when he leaves the bombing site. Make sure he’s swept up in tonight’s raid in the delta.”