The Emissary

by Patricia Cori

  The waiter appeared, just to refill their glasses, and then disappeared immediately. It wasn’t the first time he had served Mat Anderson in the private dining room. The staff knew that the CEO of USOIL didn’t want anyone around until he wanted someone around, and whoever waited on him had to know how to dance to that rhythm.

  “And now, you have brought me all the way here because you want me to go out and find you some oil, is that right?”

  Mat felt Jamie tightening up and a “no, thank you” forthcoming.

  “Well, yes, I guess I’m pretty obvious about what I’m looking for, here. We’re out searching for oil in the Pacific, up there in the north—well, actually, we’ve been moving north after two years off the California coast.”

  “Brilliant,” she said sarcastically, interrupting. “You’re in one of the richest ocean ecosystems of the planet. Rumor has it, for us mere mortals, that this ocean region is protected against drilling. Are you telling me that is not the case, and that we’ve been duped, yet again?”

  “Well, yes, Miss Jamie,” he replied, ignoring her comment, “and I’d like you to listen up, because I am very aware of the ecological danger that poses. You see, I am in no mood for another big oil disaster out there, especially one with our name on it. That would finish us off, proper.”

  “Not to mention what it would mean for the ocean, of course,” she retorted.

  “Well, of course … that goes without sayin’.”

  “I’d like to think so.…”

  He tossed some almonds into his mouth and washed them down with a big gulp of champagne, as if he were drinking a glass of soda, rather than the most expensive champagne in the world. “I mean, I live on this planet, too, and I’ve got grandkids. I want them to be able to swim out in the big, beautiful ocean, and I want their kids, after them, out there too—but they’re going to have to find a way to get there from here. That’s going to take fuel, ma’am. That is our dilemma, right there.”

  Jamie listened attentively—trying to read him on all levels. “There won’t be any ocean worth driving to if the maniacal, unquenchable thirst for oil keeps leeching the life out of the seas and the rest of the Earth. Your industry is pushing the Earth to its limits, do any of you realize that? It’s insane what you’re doing to the planet.”

  “Well, I know that, ma’am. That is why y’all are here. I want to see that another disaster does not happen.”

  “Well then, why don’t you call your boys off and get, as they say, ‘out of the water’?”

  “Now, you know that isn’t gonna happen. I mean, the world runs on oil and we need more and more to keep things going out here and …”

  Jamie interrupted before he could finish. “… And alternative energy, clearly, is not on the table, because there’s not enough money in it for all the fat cats to build more obscene wealth, right?”

  Mat fumbled with his cocktail napkin, folding the edges, nervously. “We’re workin’ on it,” he replied, knowing, as the words came out of his mouth, that Jamie could see right through them.

  “Why am I here?” she asked, abruptly. “There’s no point us talking about the justifications for drilling for oil. You’re an oil man, period. Tell me what it is you think I can do for you.”

  He knew he was clearly losing ground with her and didn’t know how to get the conversation back on track. “Miss Jamie, I have a five-year agreement with the U.S. and Canadian governments, giving me rights to explore out there, before anybody else gets a shot at it. Two are gone—wasted. I’ve got three more years: I get things done the right way, we get our platform set up out there, and nobody else can move in. We have a clean track record—no accidents directly attributed to our corporation. I do not want anything to happen to the environment. No ma’am. But I have to make the brass in New York and the politicians in Washington happy. I have to find the crude. And I need help.”

  “I can’t believe Martin Kaszlow forgot to tell you that I am done with this work, Mat. I am still coming back from being present during a massive whale death in New Zealand, and helping prevent any more of them is where I am putting my energy now.”

  “Well, I can certainly appreciate that,” he said.

  “So, helping you and your boys dig up the ocean floor just doesn’t flow at all—you’re a very big part of the problem. I’m sorry. Within days now I will be filing for my foundation, to help fight for the whales and dolphins, and you will be part of what I’ll be fighting against.”

  “You can’t win against the oil industry, Miss Jamie,” he said, flatly.

  “Watch me.”

  Mat was keen and alert, looking for a way to win her over, and get the momentum back. “Yes, and I appreciate that, I do. It’s a very honorable thing to do and it’s a ‘feel good’ thing, I can feel that. Y’all are going to need funding, though, I’m sure—a lot of it too. And, well … we can help you.”

  “Funding from an oil company—to save the oceans? Now that is rich.”

  “Yes, ma’am. An ‘ecologically friendly’ oil company. That’s what has to happen now. USOIL is that company.”

  Jamie sighed.

  “But if you really want to help the whales, Miss Jamie, you are going to need a whole lot more than money. You’re going to need connections upstairs: decision makers; friends in high places. My kind of friends.”

  Jamie studied Mat, watching him shift around, working his angle. There was something hidden, inaccessible, something skillfully buried that she just couldn’t read.

  “So please now, just hear me out, before you turn me down. My main research vessel goes out in a few weeks’ time, just as soon as the rough weather passes, and we’re moving up the coast, off Vancouver Island, right out there in the Pacific Ocean. I’m asking if you are willing to go out with my crew for a few weeks and use your powers, or however you want to call it, to look down on the ocean floor and help us find what we’re lookin’ for out there. A few weeks of your life is all I’m asking, Miss Jamie—and you can be sure you’ll be well rewarded for your time, just like you were out there with the Pakistanis. And meanwhile, you have my word of honor … you will have a chance to get to the power players, and we’ll see what we can do to get the military to ease up on those big ol’ whales.”

  “What about the whale communities that live in those waters? You’re talking about some of the most important migratory routes for the whales on the whole planet! How can you ask me to help you destroy the ecosystem, by helping you find what you need to start dredging up the ocean floor? It’s out of the question.”

  Mat took a deep breath, trying to keep cool. “If you don’t help me—and I remind you, I’m a guy who is determined to protect the environment—then some other group is going to come in there and tear the place to hell. Look here, Miss Jamie—I’m the CEO of one of the leading oil corporations of the world, and here I am, turning to a psychic for help. I’m going completely on trust, not asking for anything more than you just giving it a try. Now that must surely tell you I’m an alternative, out-of-the-box kind of thinker, doesn’t it? You see what happened in the Gulf of Mexico? You don’t want that kind of mindless disaster to happen again. I just know you do not want that.”

  Jamie reflected. She couldn’t help but feel there was more to it than what Mat was asking for, and she knew that his purpose for bringing her in had nothing to do with “saving the ecosystem.” It was a ruse that he knew would resonate with her—she knew it. No, there was something more: something hidden.

  “I want you to go out on our ship for a four-week study, and see what you can find out there. You’ll be out on one of the most sophisticated, high-tech vessels, with a fully supportive crew, and my crazy-ass captain, Jimbo, who can out-navigate anything and anybody on the water. And we will steer clear of the whales—you have my word on that. As for terms, I’ll have a contract written up for you before you leave in the morning. I hate to talk money over dinner, and with a fascinating woman like you to boot! But I assure you, we will do way better
for you than your friends overseas, all around. It’ll be a significant consulting fee for going out and, of course, a monumental one if you bring back the prize.”

  “And if I don’t ‘bring back the prize,’ as you say?”

  “Well, then, I will be able to put my mind at ease, knowing I was willing to try thinking outside the box of convention, Miss J.” He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved his checkbook. “Meanwhile, this here is just a little token of my esteem and support for what y’all are doing for the whales,” he said. “Just to help you get your foundation off the ground. There will be more.”

  Jamie watched in disbelief as he wrote her out a check for $100,000. He tore the check out and handed it to her. Jamie looked at the amount and asked herself, “Is this a bribe?” She had the impulse to stand up and walk out, but where was she going to go? As she sat there, the heat flooding her cheeks, she heard Martin’s words running through her head like neon lights in Times Square.

  “Maybe helping him out will be good for the whales.”

  She struggled, but managed to resist the knee-jerk reaction to walk out, grab her suitcases, and catch the next flight back to San Francisco.

  Mat studied her reactions, and she studied his. Looking back at him, she was reminded of the expression “The devil that you know is better than the angel you don’t.” She thought about the monumental task that lay before her: the battles she would have to face; the resistance she would come up against from private interest groups, politicians, the military. She decided, right then and there, that having Mat Anderson as an ally would be, by far, the better alternative to having him as an enemy.

  “There will be a backlash in the community if I take donations from an oil company—you know that.” She slid the check back across the table. “It may be easy for you to buy souls, Mat Anderson, but this one’s not up for sale. Be sure you get that right—from the start.”

  Mat picked up the check from the table, and put it in his lapel pocket. He looked embarrassed and out of his depth. In his world, nobody walked away from easy money.

  “But I will go out on your ship and see what I can do to help prevent you from ripping the ocean floor apart, like they’ve done in the Gulf.”

  Mat never expected her to agree, especially after she handed back $100,000. Jamie was like no one else he had ever met. She had ethics; she had moral integrity. She was clearly not corruptible, at least not for money—that test was over. These were uncharted waters for a guy like him, because he always found a person’s “price.” Always.

  “One month is all I can give you.”

  “One month is all I’ve asked you for.”

  “You’ll help me talk to the right commissioners and subcommittees in Washington?”

  “I can do better than that. I can promise you that they will listen—but I can’t promise that they will hear you.”

  “No matter what happens out there?”

  “No matter what. I know there are no guarantees, and it would be ridiculous to set it up that way. Then again,” he said, wryly, “let’s not forget Pakistan.”

  She said yes. They shook hands and made their deal, and it was more generous than she could have imagined, just as he promised. Whether she liked it or not, Jamie was stepping up into the big leagues, back into the oil world, about to take her work to the next level. She would fly home the next morning, put her house in order, and get the lawyers to work on her PICC Foundation—the Psychic Institute for Cetacean Communications—so that she would be sailing out on the ocean with that intention clearly in place when Mat Anderson’s call to action came in.

  6

  Political Maneuvers

  Just two weeks after the command performance in New York, Mat was summoned to Washington, DC, where he had been “invited” by a White House insider to dine with some of the corporation’s favored congressmen and -women, and a few of the company’s most important investors.

  The employees knew that, if the CEO of the company was being called to Washington, it meant a shake-up was likely to come when he got back. Everybody wondered what he would be serving up after his return to Houston, particularly his team of executive directors, who had all received an official memo, advising them to make themselves available for a top-level management meeting at eleven o’clock that Monday morning. Rumors flew, fueled by Mat’s secretary, Louise, and her gossip network in the secretarial pool. The word was to keep an extremely low profile while everyone waited for the boss to return. Then, they would have to ride out the storm until after the meeting, where, no doubt, the proverbial shit was going to be hitting the big, giant fan.

  In Washington, biting cold pierced the darkness, entombing the capital in a shroud of wintery gloom. Obstructed by ice and snow, the city streets were in mayhem, with traffic in a virtual gridlock. Mat was late. His limousine pulled into the driveway of the private dinner club on the Hill at 7:00 p.m., past the cocktail hour. He was running low on antacid tablets, and the evening hadn’t even begun.

  Already, the temperature had fallen to ten below. Weather forecasts predicted that the light snowfall that had dusted the trees and the lawns of the city earlier that afternoon was just a teaser for what was moving in from the coast. News of the imminent storm had grown more and more alarming throughout the day, with travel warnings issued for Sunday morning, just when Mat would be flying back. It was all the more incentive for him to spend as little time as necessary playing politics, and to leave Washington as early in the morning as possible, ahead of the storm. He would do dinner, take care of business, and then get out of town fast, before his plane got grounded or he simply froze to death, stuck to a sidewalk somewhere on Icicle Hill.

  As he stepped out of the car, Mat told the driver to be back for him at 11:00 p.m. sharp. Four hours would cover what needed to be said and done, and still get him to bed early enough to give him a head start on his way back to Houston—back to his comfort zone. Here, he was out of his element completely … and he knew it.

  He hated the fat cats in Washington. They all placed themselves above the law they supposedly upheld, while meanwhile their palms were out, under the table, waiting to be greased—or up in the air, pointing fingers at everybody else. He always referred to them as “highfalutin politicians and bottom-feeding lobbyists,” and they all came with an agenda … and an extremely high price tag.

  Bracing for an evening of backhanded deals and political maneuvering, Mat tipped the coat check clerk, straightened his tie, and made his entrance. He glanced around the room, gazing at faces he already knew all too well, thinking, “At least hookers are honest about what they do for a living: ‘This is my price; this is what you get; show me the money.’ ”

  Whenever he reflected on who was really running the show on the Hill, he would inevitably make that analogy, reminding himself that he actually respected and trusted prostitutes far and beyond the whores in Washington. Worse yet, he was well aware that that night, there would be guns pointed at his boots and he was going to have to dance for them all, buying time for the corporation and votes in Congress.

  The club’s private dining room was stiflingly overheated, so much so that walking from the freezing night air into the room was like going from a freezer straight into the oven. In the company of people who seemed to suck whatever oxygen there was from the very air itself, Mat could feel his heart pumping overtime … his blood pressure rising. The passage of time was excruciating: the minutes seemed like hours—slow and tedious. Longing for the moment when he could escape into the crisp evening air—to breathe again—he became fixated on the time, like a nervous football coach trying to run down the clock and get off the field, victorious.

  He spent the evening dodging bullets and putting on a show for the power players—divulging nothing and promising everything. He so resented having to be “politically correct” and play their game, a game over which he had little or no control. It was high-stakes poker: you had to know when to bluff, when to call, and when to throw in a good
hand, because even if you were holding all the aces, the guy across the table still had to win.

  After hours of laborious conversation, when Mat was all played out, he said his goodnights, grabbed his coat, and burst out into the freezing night air, where the limo, parked and waiting across the road, immediately pulled into the drive to pick him up.

  “Back to the hotel,” he told the chauffeur, gruffly, and then he loosened his tie, poured himself a drink, and finally relaxed into the seat, grateful to have another command performance behind him.

  Circumventing the primary roads on the Hill, where the Secret Service had set up roadblocks, the driver had to divert at Pennsylvania Avenue, no longer open to traffic. That great bastion of democracy, the White House, was now barricaded and hiding from its own people. He felt a pang of conscience, knowing he was part of the corruption that was helping eat away at the foundations of a dream.

  America, and all it had once stood for—all he had fought for—was dying … on life support, and counting.

  Images of the killing fields of Vietnam, the blood of women and children, flooded his river of memories, as they always did whenever he came to Washington. Something here triggered the haunting; those tiny ghosts still managed to enter and exit through a locked door in his soul. Doing his best to shake them off, Mat promised himself that these visits to the capital were somehow going to have to come to an end.

  Before turning in for the night, he sent two strategic text messages, alerting his team to be prepared to fly him out, at the first available runway slot. He set his alarm for 4:00 a.m., knowing he would have to get out of town first thing in the morning, or be stuck for days in Georgetown, which was not an option, for more reasons than he cared to even think about.

  While the city slept into the pre-dawn hours, the snow intensified, pushed into the region by the massive storm front that had already dumped mountains of snow across the entire Eastern Seaboard. Snow flurries played cat and mouse with the plows, their drivers working through the night to free up the most important districts, and all the main roads, before morning. As they groaned their way through the city streets, breaking the muffled silence of blanketing snowfall, they engaged in a futile game with nature: the powder falling stealthily behind them, instantly covering the pavement just as quickly as they got it cleared. It was as if Mother Nature, with all her graceful artistry and mighty determination, had decided to override the business of man, and to remind those who dared attempt to control her that she was—and would always be—the ultimate authority.