The Merchant’s War полностью

"So. You propose that we debrief Agent Fleming, then use him to establish a back channel to the leadership of Group 'A,' with the goal of stalling them with the promise of negotiations while we clean up the missing nuke and get some results from JAUNT BLUE. Is that a fair summary?"

Eric blinked, then rubbed his forehead. "You put it better than I did," he said ruefully. "Long day."

"Going to be longer," James said laconically. He leaned back and stared at the ceiling air vents for a while, until Eric began to think he was planning on taking a nap: but just as he was about to stand up and leave, James sat up abruptly and looked at him. "Your analysis is valid, but incomplete because there are some facts you are unaware of."

Uh? "Obviously," Eric said cautiously. "Should I be?"

"I think so." James stared at him, his expression deceptively mild. "Same rules as the Fleming debriefing. This goes nowhere near a computer or a telephone. You follow?"

Eric nodded.

"Number one. Obviously, I do not want-nobody

wants- to see a terrorist nuke detonated in an American city. Even if it's in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, that would be very bad. But you need to understand this: if the worst happens, if that bomb goes off, a use will be found for it. The bloody shirt will be waved. Do you understand?"

Eric licked his suddenly dry lips. "Who's the fall guy?"

"The Boy Wonder's got a hard-on for Mr. Hussein, and PNAC will fall in line, but-" Dr. James shook his head. "I'm not sure who, Colonel. All I can tell you is, it will be someone who we can hammer for it. The hammer is ready, and if the United States doesn't wield it from lime to time the other players may begin to wonder if we're still willing. So if JAUNT BLUE is ready, the target might be the Clan. And if JAUNT BLUE isn't ready, we'll hit someone else, someone we can reach and need to nail Hat. North Korea, Iraq, Iran, whoever. But. Whatever else happens, if there's a hard outcome, it will be used to strengthen our hand. We'll have carte blanche"; He stared at Eric. "The code name for this plan-and I stress, it's a contingency plan, a political spin to put on a disaster-is MARINUS BERLIN."

"Jesus." Eric looked away. "That's disgusting."

"Yes. I know. But what else can we do?"

"Find the bomb."

"Yes!" James's frustration boiled over in Eric's: "If, you've got some kind of magic superpowers that let you stare through concrete walls and pinpoint missing nukes, then I'd like to hear about them, Colonel. Failing that, if you have any better ideas, I'm sure Daddy Warbucks would like to know what else to fricking do if terrorists nuke one of our cities?"

Shit. "I'm sorry. Like I said, we're looking. I'll see if I can scare up some backup when we get back, okay?"

"You'd better. Because falling on our swords is not on the agenda for this administration, son. We're not going to hand the country to the other team just because some assholes from another dimension fuck with us, any more than we did when bin Laden got uppity and bit the feeding hand." James paused. "I shouldn't have blown up then. Forget I said anything, it's not your fault. There's a lot at stake here that you aren't in on: the big picture is really scary. All the oil in fairyland, for starters." "All the what?"

Dr. James looked as if he'd bitten a lemon while expecting an orange. "Oil, son. Makes the world go round. You know what the business with al-Qaeda is about? Oil. We're in Saudi Arabia because of the oil: bin Laden wants ns out of Saudi. We're going to go into Iraq because of the oil. Oil is leverage. Oil lets us put the Chinks and Europeans in their place. And we're running short of it, in case you hadn't noticed, there's this thing called peak oil coming and we've got analysis scratching their heads to ligure out how we're going to field it. We're not going to run out, but demand is going to exceed supply and the price is going to start climbing in a few years. Our planetary preeminence relies on us having cheap oil for our industries, while everyone else pays through the nose for it. But we can't guarantee to keep prices low if we're having to send our boys out to sit in the desert and keep the wells pump-ing. So it was looking bad until six months ago, but now there's a new factor in the equation..."

He took a deep breath. "The Clan. A bunch of medieval jerks, squatting on our territory-or a good cognate of it. What's going down in Texas, Colonel Smith? Their version of Texas, not our Texas: what are they doing there? I'll tell you what they're doing: they're sitting on twice as much oil as Saddam Hussein, and that's what's got Daddy Warbucks's attention. Because, you see, if JAUNT BLUE delivers, eventually all that good black stuff is going to be ours..."

"Are we nearly there yet?"