by James Phelan
“What’s in India?”
“Indians,” Fox said. Smiled. “Water. Or, rather, a lack of it. Conflicts over it. I reckon there’s a good story there, one that needs to be told.”
“Fresh water scarcity? That’ll never fly, who cares about that?”
“Like, maybe about six and a half billion people,” Fox said. “It’s a big issue and it’s happening right now. You seen Chinatown?”
Gammaldi shook his head.
“Well forget the Bond film,” Fox said. “Put Chinatown on. Nicholson, Dunaway, Polanski at their best.”
The door buzzer sounded and Gammaldi went to get it. Came back with Tas Wallace.
“How’s my favourite reporter holding up?” Wallace asked Fox.
“I bet you say that to all your staff when they get shot to shit,” Fox said.
Wallace shook Fox’s hand with ceremony. He put a large envelope on the bed near Fox.
“That was a handshake from McCorkell, who in turn passed one on from the President,” Wallace said. “Next time you two are in Washington, you’ve got an invite to the Oval Office.”
Gammaldi looked impressed. Fox was too exhausted to really appreciate it. He picked up the envelope. Plain manila, not labelled, heavier than it appeared. “What’s this?”
Wallace looked from Fox to the envelope.
“That’s from McCorkell,” Wallace said. “CIA transcripts of Michael Rollins, from his extraordinary rendition … experience.”
Fox considered the parcel. The weight of it. Took a minute to respond.
“You read it?” Fox asked.
His boss nodded.
“I think you should too,” Wallace said. “It explains why Michael was picked up in the first place; his rendition wasn’t exactly an error. Sure, he wasn’t a terrorist, but he was something close.”
“How can that be?” Fox asked.
“This information was locked away in the files of the previous director of the CIA,” Wallace said. “Turns out, Rollins was working a story that started in Russia and led him through New Europe and into Pakistan, investigating business oligarchs and their organised crime outfits, men connected by their old associations as former spies. For a while he passed as one of them, deep undercover. He was so convincing in the role that the CIA flagged him as a legit target and took him in. And what’s more, it’s now known that it was these friends of his on the outside who arranged the attack and break-out at the rendition camp.”
“And so why didn’t these friends pick Rollins up from those guys we met in Afghanistan?” Gammaldi asked. “I mean, he contacted us to come and pay a ransom for his release.”
“I guess he figured this brotherhood of ex-spooks would be more interested in silencing him than sending him off into the sunset with a pat on the back,” Fox said. “And they would definitely have had some questions about what he’d talked about in those three months inside.”
Wallace nodded.
“Rollins would have told those Afghanis that he had a better pay cheque available for them,” Wallace said. “From us.”
“Friends he knew he could trust…” Gammaldi said.
“Until we persuaded him to come to Nigeria…” Fox added. Beyond all the curiosity and numbness and fatigue, Fox now fully understood that death was not an adventure for those who faced it. Quite the opposite. True courage wasn’t the ability to face death; it was the ability to face life. Rollins had taught him that. So whatever was in Rollins’s file, whatever he’d done, whatever his connection with Mendes and how cloudy that might be, Fox wasn’t ready to know that. Not yet. Not after setting out on the path he’d just taken when he’d thought his friend was dead. He had done what he’d done armed with the best information at the time. he’d taken his friend on face value. He couldn’t second-guess himself or he knew he was as good as dead …
“Mendes was a part of this group?” Gammaldi asked, making the connection. “He drew Rollins in when he realised who he was…”
“That’s the conclusion I came to, but it is just the tip of a big iceberg,” Wallace said. “I don’t have any information beyond what’s in that envelope. Although, if either of you were inclined to want to know more…”
“What?” Fox asked. He knew that look in his boss’s eyes—work time.
“There’s an FBI agent working on this who’s very interested to hear if we are able to help out in any way,” Wallace said. He sat at the foot of Fox’s bed. “I said I’d see if I could find anyone willing.”
Fox and Gammaldi traded tired looks. Wallace signalled with raised hands of surrender that there was no rush.
“What are you going to tell his wife?” Fox asked. “Will you tell Penny how her husband really died?”
“Do you think she should know?”
Fox sat up a little straighter. He put the envelope on the table next to his bed, among the masses of mail and newspapers and magazines. For a moment, the eyes of all three men stayed on that envelope.
“No,” Fox said. “Let them keep their memories intact. They don’t need this, this glimpse of a man unknown to them. The doubt, the second thoughts, the confused morality behind deception. I know I can’t afford any more of that right now, either.”
There was a long silence broken only by Fox’s uneven breathing and the beeping of the ICU machines hooked up to him.
“Are we any better than them?” Gammaldi asked finally. He was standing by the side of Fox’s bed, staring down at his own hands. “We—the West, the US, the Brits, Germans, French, Aussies, whoever … Do you ever think, when we take a life in the name of our cause, are we any better than these terrorists and criminals? Are we worse than them when we put a missile in through their window? When we call in air strikes. When we take a life to save one? To avenge one?”
“The saddest thing is,” Fox said, “things far worse than that come too easily.”
Fox put his hand on his mate’s, winced as he squeezed it. It was something that he needed to feel. Through that pain he knew he was alive, and there to fight another day. To continue on to whatever lay ahead.
Glossary
AFRICOM United States Africa Command
ANFO Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
BCT Brigade Combat Team
BCU Battery Coolant Unit (Stinger Missile)
CAS Close Air Support
CBD Central Business District
CCTV Closed-Circuit Television
CENTCOM Central Command
CEO Chief Executive Officer
CIA Central Intelligence Agency CO Commanding Officer
CS Chlorobenzalmalononitrile (Tear Gas)
CSL Cooperative Security Location
DCIA Director Central Intelligence Agency
DDCIA Deputy Director Central Intelligence Agency
DEA Drug Enforcement Administration
DEFCON Defense Condition
DHS Department of Homeland Security
DNI Director of National Intelligence
EMT Emergency Medical Technician
EOB Executive Office Building
FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation
FLOTUS First Lady of the United States
FN Fabrique Nationale
FOI Freedom of Information
GSR Global Syndicate of Reporters
HHT Headquarters and Headquarters Troop
HRT Hostage Rescue Team
HVT High Value Target
/>
IED Improvised Explosive Device
IMU Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
JDAM Joint Direct Attack Munition
JSOC Joint Special Operations Command
KIA Killed In Action
LCD Liquid Crystal Display
LOOP Louisiana Offshore Oil Port
LZ Landing Zone
MEND Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta
MEU Marine Expeditionary Unit
MOPOL Nigerian Mobile Police
MRE Meal, Ready-to-Eat
NASDAQ National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NIE National Intelligence Estimate
NCO Non-Commissioned Officer
NOC Non-Official Cover
NRO National Reconnaissance Office
NSA National Security Agency
NSC National Clandestine Service
NYMEX New York Mercantile Exchange
NYSE New York Stock Exchange
OLED Organic Light-Emitting Diode
OPEC Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
PDB President’s Daily Brief
PFC Private First Class
POTUS President of the United States
PS3 Sony Play Station 3
PTSD Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
ROE Rules of Engagement
RPG Rocket Propelled Grenade
RSTA Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition
RTO Radio Telephone Operator
SAC Special Agent in Charge
SAM Surface to Air Missile
SAS Special Air Service
SAW Squad Automatic Weapon
SEC Securities and Exchange Commission
SIGINT Signals Intelligence
SIPRNet Secret Internet Protocol Router Network
SLR Self-Loading Rifle
SOCOM Special Operations Command
SPR Strategic Petroleum Reserve
SUV Sport Utility Vehicle
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
UCP Ultimate Combat Pistol
UKUSA United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand signals intelligence community
UN United Nations
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
Acknowledgments
Novels are able to encompass all the disciplines and interests of humanity. It is an art where one tells lies to tell the truth. Getting that onto the page is hard, merciless work.
I’d long planned to write a thriller about morality set against an oil crisis and this book was written at breakneck pace. To help the story and I survive I am indebted to all my family and friends who supported and understood me in this insane endeavour. Eternal thanks goes to the creative genius of Malcolm Beasley, who was, again, my go-to guy to bounce ideas off and test scenes on. Tony Wallace, Tony Niemann and Emily McDonald were again my early pro-readers and this story is the better for it, and my mate Al Gammaldi chucked in his usual two cents worth (see Al, you got a girl in this book).
The staff of Hachette Livre Australia have done another beaut job in bringing a Lachlan Fox story to the masses. Getting a novel successfully produced and out there takes extraordinary effort and I’m keenly aware that I continue to work with the best team in the business. My editors Vanessa Radnidge and Sara Foster deserve accolades beyond words as they continue to make sense of my mess of thoughts and dreams on the page.
My agent Pippa Masson and the team at Curtis Brown Australia have dedicated another year to representing me beyond the ordinary. Third time around in this partnership and I couldn’t be happier.
I owe Nicole Wallace a gratuity that knows no bounds. Suffice to say: thanks babe for continuing with me on this journey, you are my closest friend and truest love.
Five Quick Questions with James Phelan
Fox has been through a lot in the past three books—will he ever get a rest?
The time line of FOX HUNT to BLOOD OIL spans about a year and a half, so Fox has been busy. The next novel, titled LIQUID GOLD, is set about six months after the events of BLOOD OIL, and Fox has been to India to cover the water crisis, picked up a Pulitzer, and is teaching writing at Columbia. This relatively quiet life comes to a crashing halt in the opening scene: set in a café on Lake Como, Fox is sitting across a table from a Russian crime boss, a sinister figure at the centre of his reportage of the water crisis. Fox is there to do a trade—stop investigating the story and give up a source, and in turn someone will get to live. That someone, Fox learns in this scene, is a person from his past … As a tip of the hat to Hitchcock, throughout this prologue we are aware that there is a bomb under Fox’s table; even if he does the trade, he’s not going to get out alive.
Does Fox take on the undercover work that Michael Rollins was doing?
In some ways, yes, he does. He doesn’t go so far as to infiltrate the Umbra organisation as Rollins managed to do, but he is working closely with the FBI and CIA to bring these ex-spies to justice.
Much of the previous three novels have come to define who Fox is, so from the start of LIQUID GOLD we know he is equipped to handle pretty much anything that comes his way. Where the first three novels were a search for identity for Fox, dealing with themes of honour, redemption, friendship, loyalty, revenge and betrayal, this next novel will ultimately deal with faith and the myth of sacrifice for a greater good.
What kind of storylines will we see in LIQUID GOLD?
Well, he continues to have some kind of relationship with Jane Clay, who was introduced in BLOOD OIL. But of course it’s not that simple! A past love comes back into his life and he’s going to have to make a choice—not between these two women, but for something much more noble.
In terms of archetypal storylines LIQUID GOLD pretty much has it all: unhappy love, flight, passage, waiting, desire, the triumph of purity, the faithful servant, the love triangle, beauty and the beast, the enigmatic woman, the ambiguous adventurer and the redeemed drunkard—and, of course, some twists!
What kind of tone can we expect in LIQUID GOLD?
As with the first three Fox novels, it will have a three act plot.
Expect the next novel not to be as dark as this one. There is a great appetite in the world right now to look at anything cultural that’s American, English and Australian and try to figure out who we are and who we have become in this War on Terror age. It is as if the war, and the social eruptions in its aftermath, unleashed demons that had been bottled up in the international psyche. BLOOD OIL kind of lived by the mantra ‘Justice is about harmony. Revenge is about making yourself feel better’ which I think was very reflective of the time of the book’s writing. Now, I think we are entering a more hopeful era. So expect LIQUID GOLD to be a little less hardboiled and neo-noir, and more a relentless thriller that’s bigger than anything I’ve written before.
Who’s Fox going to be up against?
Mendes was a good antagonist but the true counterforce for Fox is unfolding over the next couple of books in the form of Umbra, a loose collection of ex-spooks and present-day terrorists. I think readers will be pleasantly s
urprised at the tentacles that stretch into the first three novels from Umbra. Again, Fox is on a quest to uncover the truth, although this time he’s more aware of the cost that comes with that. Ultimately, he’s up against himself: if BLOOD OIL was something of an awakening, this is the next step on his path of enlightenment, and he’s going to show us, again, why we look to stories of heroes to show us the way.
More from Lachlan Fox
Fox Hunt
It’s hard to bury a past. Lachlan Fox is about to discover it’s ever harder to dig it back up.
While most of the world’s Intel resources have been tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq, the president of Chechnya has been making plans— and the clock is ticking. A world away, off Christmas Island, ex-navy operative Lachlan Fox is on a diving trip with his best friend, Alister Gammaldi. From the moment they lift a mysterious metallic object off the sea floor of the Indian Ocean, the two men set in motion a chain of events that will drag them into the corrupt world of international politics and arms races.
From East Timor to Grozny, Washington to New York, and Venice to Iran, Lachlan Fox is forced into an adrenaline-fuelled quest to save his friend, himself … and the world.
Patriot Act
When knowledge is power, every bit of information can be a lethal weapon.
September 11th changed everything. The US Patriot Act has given the UK/USA treaty countries free reign to use their echelon surveillance program to monitor every spoken or written word transmitted throughout the world. In the wrong hands it could bring down governments and threaten the safety of millions.
Ex-navy operative and investigative journalist Lachlan Fox has information hinting at the true reach of echelon, and he is starting to suspect someone is ruthlessly trying to access its power.
Can he uncover the answers before the course of history is altered forever?
Liquid Gold
If there is a person, there is a problem. If there is no person, there is no problem. Time to make these problems disappear…
