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Palstein was a strategist too.

Her thoughts oscillated between this new information and Bruford’s film recordings, trying to make some kind of sense out of them, knotting the ropes of logic together.

And suddenly she knew who one of the men in the sunglasses was.

* * *

‘Really! I swear to you!’

They were sitting in a small café on the Fifth Avenue Southwest, just a few blocks away from the Imperial Oil Limited headquarters. Loreena was drinking her third cappuccino, and the intern was sucking at a Diet Coke and devouring an awe-inspiring breakfast, composed of porridge, fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes and much, much more. Loreena’s analytical mind couldn’t help wondering why someone would drink Diet Coke in the face of neutron-star-like calorie compression. Fascinated, she watched as he led a spoon of warm gruel, saturated in maple syrup, towards his mouth for processing.

‘The Magnifier can’t perform miracles,’ said the intern. ‘The picture isn’t that sharp.’

‘But I saw the guy just two days ago, and he was
this
close to me.’ She held her hand in front of her face. Through the gaps between her fingers, she saw a sausage disappear. ‘
This close!
’

‘Which makes me a little concerned that you may have kissed him.’

‘Don’t be silly. He wanted to see my ID card. As if Palstein’s house were the Pentagon or something.’

The intern put his spoon down and wrinkled his forehead.

‘There’s nothing unusual about his security people keeping a check on things.’

‘And did they? Did they check up on things? What had they lost in the house anyway?’

‘As I said.’ He picked his spoon back up. ‘They were keeping a check that—’

‘All that cholesterol has blocked up your synapses!’ she said angrily. ‘It’s obvious that he would have security personnel around him, and police too – I mean, he didn’t exactly come bearing Christmas presents. But would you send your private bodyguard into an empty house opposite? After all, Palstein isn’t Kennedy. How likely is it that someone would shoot at him from there?’

His answer got lost amidst a struggle with an oversized piece of pancake.

‘Let’s assume the Asian guy was harmless,’ she continued. ‘He may have just been looking for a bathroom. That would either mean that Palstein’s people overlooked him, or that they weren’t interested in the fact that he went in. Both are unlikely.’

‘The two guys were talking to the policeman. They couldn’t even see him.’

‘And the woman?’

‘Are you sure she was one of them?’

‘She came out immediately after them. And besides, those security types all look the same. So, suppose that the Chinese guy is our killer.’

‘What makes you think he’s Chinese?’

‘Asian. It doesn’t matter.’ She leaned over. ‘Just think, will you, three security
people! One standing close to the entrance. Two others chatting with a policeman, just a few metres away. And none of them notices the grotesquely overweight apparition entering a building they were supposed to be guarding?’

‘Perhaps the Chinese— the Asian guy was security too. Didn’t Palstein tell you that he only started using a security team after Calgary? I find that much more surprising.’

‘No, he didn’t.’ She rolled her cup around, mixing the espresso with foam. ‘Just that they’ve been guarding
his house
since Calgary.’

‘Well, it would have been better to take on someone else.’

Loreena stared at the foam and espresso mixture.

Would have been better—

‘Damn, you’re right.’

‘Of course I am,’ said the intern, scraping together the remains of the porridge. ‘About what?’

‘He can’t trust them.’

‘Because they’re a dead loss. Too dumb to—’

‘No, they’re not.’ Unbelievable! Why had she only thought of it now? The security people let the killer pass! In full knowledge of who he was! More than that, they distracted the policeman and kept their eyes on the surroundings to make sure no one stopped him from entering the house.

‘Good God,’ she whispered.

‘It’s not long ago that the ability to secure the necessary fossil fuel resources was crucial to the geopolitical role of a nation state. It was under this premise that we foresaw China leading the economic nations in the medium term, knocking the USA down to a distant second, followed by India.’

Gerald Palstein’s guest lectureship at UT Dallas, a state university in the suburb of Richardson, had brought around six hundred students into the lecture theatre, most of them budding managers, economists and information scientists. It was very popular, which was as much down to Palstein’s media savvy as to the fact that he was depicting a wide-screen panorama of failure, in which a
Titanic
of an energy industry rammed right into an iceberg called helium-3.

‘Russia’s role at this time was one of a major power as far as oil and gas were concerned.
Gazprom was also referred to as a weapon. And no one used this weapon in the battle for Russia’s geostrategic role as ably as the country’s former president Vladimir Putin. Does anyone here still remember his nickname?’

‘Gasputin,’ called a young woman from the front row. There was laughter. Palstein raised his eyebrows approvingly.

‘Very good. At the time, the Americans looked on with concern as China openly flirted with Russia regarding its energy requirements, and also strengthened its contacts to OPEC. The latter was pleased of course. They hadn’t been courted like that in a long time and were hoping for a renaissance of their former status. And so the oil nations in the Gulf started to invest their money in the accounts of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, in Turkey and India instead of in American institutions, and China began to settle the bill for its oil supplies from Iran in euros instead of dollars. The balance of power shifted, along with the motivation for America’s efforts to free itself from dependence on Eastern oil supplies. In 2006, representatives from Saudi Arabia travelled to Beijing to sign a number of treaties. Even Kuwait was wooing China, because it was afraid of losing ground to Russia. China knew how to exploit all of that. Although I wouldn’t want to encourage any hate-filled stereotypes, one might picture the energy-hungry China of the first decade of our millennium as an octopus whose arms were silently unfurling, largely unnoticed, in the traditional mining regions of the Western oil multinationals. In the White House, they developed scenarios in which radical forces toppled the Saudi ruling dynasties, all based on the expectation that China would be involved and would ultimately station Chinese nuclear missiles in the Saudi desert. This fear was, as we now know, not completely unfounded. The fall of the house of Saud most definitely took place with concealed Chinese participation. And it’s certain that if the recent conflict between Islamist and monarchist forces had grown to epic proportions and caused a public clash between China and America, then the dawning potential of helium-3 would not have led Washington’s interest in another direction.’

Palstein dabbed sweat from his brow. It was hot in the lecture theatre. He wished he were on board a ship on a lake somewhere or, even better, out on the open sea with invigorating winds all around him.

‘We can assume the following: if gas and oil had continued to play the dominant role, the world would look a little different today. China might have overtaken the USA instead of just catching up with them. The Chinese, Russian and Gulf states would have made an energy pact. Iran, relatively recently in possession of nuclear devices, would have more power internally than is the case today, despite its nuclear armament, and would probably have exerted more pressure on New Delhi, who, back in 2006, already had its sights on a pipeline project in partnership with Tehran,
through which Caspian oil would flow to India. This pipeline was supposed to end at the Red Sea, but then the oil wouldn’t have been able to flow to Israel, so for that reason the US was against it. Not an easy situation for India. A collaboration with Iran ran the risk of angering America, while concessions to Washington would have aggravated Iran. In order to escape this Catch-22, the Indians looked to a third power, to help integrate the existing two, having good contacts with both China and Iran. And so the Russians came back into play in the form of Gazprom, taking every opportunity they had to strengthen their nation, for example by turning off the gas taps to their neighbouring states and blackmailing them. Do you recognise the formation of blocs that this heralded? Russia, China, India, OPEC – that couldn’t have been in Washington’s interest. Faced with this situation, George W. Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, turned to diplomacy. He tried to improve relations with Russia and to take the wind out of Iran’s sails, a clever strategy that worked in part. But of course even Obama would have secured the USA’s energy requirements by force if he had to, if the technological advancement which Washington achieved through its collaboration with Orley Enterprises hadn’t opened up completely new possibilities to the Americans—’

A staff member of the UTD office came into the lecture hall, paced briskly towards him and pressed a note into his hand. Palstein smiled out into the auditorium.

‘Please excuse me for a moment. What is it?’ he asked softly.

‘Someone wants to speak to you on the telephone, a Miss—’

‘Can’t it wait twenty minutes? I’m in the middle of a lecture.’

‘She said it was urgent.
Very
urgent!’

‘What was her name again?’

‘Keowa. Loreena Keowa, a journalist. I wanted to put her off until later, but …’ Palstein thought for a moment. ‘No, it’s fine. Thank you.’

He excused himself once again, left the auditorium, walked out into the hallway and dialled Loreena’s number.

‘Shax’ saani Keek,’ he said, as her face appeared on the display of his mobile. ‘How are you?’

‘I know I’m interrupting—’

‘To be honest, yes. I’ve got one minute, then I’ve got to get back to educating the future elite. What can I do for you?’

‘I’m hoping it’s me that can do something for
you
, Gerald. But for that I need a few more minutes of your time.’

‘It’s a bit awkward right now.’

‘It’s in
your
interest.’

‘Hmm.’ He looked out through the window across the sunlit campus. ‘Okay, fine. Give me a quarter of an hour to finish my talk. I’ll call you immediately afterwards.’

‘Make sure no one’s listening in.’

Twenty minutes later, he called her from an isolated bench in the shadow of a chestnut tree, with a view out over the university grounds. Two of his security people were patrolling within sight. All around, students were hurrying towards unknown futures.

‘You sure know how to worry a man,’ he said.

‘Do we have an agreement on reciprocity?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We help one another,’ said Loreena. ‘I get information, you get protection.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Are we in agreement?’

‘Hmm.’ Now he was really curious. ‘Fine, yes, we are.’

‘Good. I’m sending you a few photos on your mobile. Open them while we talk.’

His mobile confirmed the arrival of a multimedia message. One after another, he loaded the pictures. They showed two men in sunglasses, and a woman.

‘Which of them do you know?’

‘All of them,’ he said. ‘They work for me. Security staff. You must have met one of them, out on Lavon Lake. Lars Gudmundsson. He has the internal power of command.’

‘That’s right, I met him. Did you order the three of them to guard the building that you were presumably shot at from on 21 April?’

‘Well, that would be a bit of an exaggeration.’ Palstein hesitated. ‘They were just supposed to keep an eye on the surrounding area. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I should bring them. Having private security makes you seem like you’re putting on airs, like you think you’re so incredibly important. But there had been a few threats against EMCO, and against me too—’

‘Threats?’

‘Oh, stupid things. Nothing that we needed to take seriously. Just resentful people with existential angst.’

‘Gerald, are the Chinese involved in any way with EMCO?’

‘The Chinese?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not really. I mean, there were many attempts to take over our subsidiaries. EMCO itself is – was – too tough a nut for them to crack. And of course they had a good old poach in our coalmines.’

‘Canadian oil sand?’

‘That too.’

‘Okay. I’m sending you another photo.’

This time an Asian face appeared on the display. Long, unkempt hair, a straggly beard.

‘No’ he said.

‘You haven’t seen him before?’

‘Not that I know of. If you could let me in on—’

‘Of course. Listen, Gerald, this man entered the empty building just before you took to the podium. Your security team was in the building too. In our view there’s very little doubt that Gudmundsson’s people not only let the Asian man pass, but also made sure that he
could
.’

Palstein stared at the photo in silence.

‘Are you completely sure that you’ve never seen him before?’ pressed Loreena.

‘Not consciously, at any rate. I would remember someone like him.’

‘Could he be one of your people?’

‘My people?’

‘I mean, do you know all your bodyguards personally, or does Gudmundsson—’

‘Of course I know every single one of them, what do you expect? And besides, there aren’t that many. Five in total.’

‘Whom you trust.’

‘Of course. They are paid by us, and besides, a respected agency for personal security provided them, EMCO has been working with them for years.’

‘Then you may have a problem. If this Asian guy really is the man who shot at you, then there’s good reason to believe that your own people are in on it. I need to ask you one more question, please excuse my abruptness.’

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘Does the name Alejandro Ruiz mean anything to you?’

‘Ruiz?’ Palstein was silent for a few seconds. ‘Wait a moment. That rings a bell.’

‘I’ll help you. Repsol. Strategic management.’