Gator
Tuesday, The Dodoma Rock Hotel, Dodoma Tanzania
Ahbou was laughing, his limbs splayed wide as he flew through the air, then dunked beneath the cool water, throwing up a spray as he hit the surface. Gator reached out a long arm and scooped the sputtering boy out of the pool. Ahbou had never seen a swimming pool before. The water where he lived had hippopotamuses and other man-eaters, so he didn’t know how to swim. But he seemed to take to the water like a duckling in spring. Ahbou scrambled up Gator’s back to stand on his broad shoulders. Gator grasped Ahbou’s ankles, lifted him toward the sky and gave the boy a toss. Ahbou reached his arms out with a shriek of joy and belly flopped onto the surface.
A tug on the boy’s leg, brought him back to safety.
Meg sat under a wide umbrella grinning at the pair. “Ahbou,” she called as Gator lifted him for another toss. “The waiter is bringing your lunch. Come on out of there.”
Gator wrapped his hands around the boy’s narrow waist and propelled him through the water to the side of the pool. “Come on now, kick your feet. That’s right.” He lifted Ahbou up to where Meg was waiting with an open towel.
“You’re a natural around kids, Gator. Do you have children of your own?” Meg asked enfolding Ahbou in a beach towel and pointing at a chair.
“I’m as single as they come right now.” Gator worked to extinguish the strange sensations that fired along his nerves as he said that. Gator waded farther down the pool. “Course that cain’t last but too much longer. My mama’s already getting ansty and pestering me to get on with it. She won’t be happy until she’s got her a passle of grandkids to dote on.”
Gator jumped out of the water and stood drip drying as a young boy came to talk to Ahbou. Meg smiled and nodded. Ahbou skipped over to the other side of the pool where the kid had some toy he was showing off.
Meg reached back to grab a towel and tossed it to Gator, then raised her hand to signal Blaze. “Lunch is here,” she called to him. “I guess we should properly call it tea, since it’s so late in the day,” she said as Gator pulled out a chair.
Blaze leaned down to kiss Meg’s cheek as Gator picked up the newspaper from the table to make room for the plates. He looked down at the front page where she’d drawn devil horns and a goatee on the guy. William Davidson, it said in bold type. It was the name of their mark. Interesting. He studied the picture—despite the pen marks—so he could compare it later to the photo Iniquus would send them for identification.
“‘Asshat’ is strong language for you, Meg.” Gator pointed to where she’d scrawled the word across the man’s nametag in the picture.
She gave him a tight-lipped smile.
Gator held up the picture for Blaze to see as he pulled a chair to join them.
“Must be a good story behind that,” Blaze said. “Thank you for ordering, Meg.”
“You’re more than welcome. As to the good story — no, not really. Not good. Actually, it could be devastating. To Tanzania. To humanity. To the world.”
“So, he’s an apocalyptic asshat,” Gator said, as he scanned through the article in the English translation newspaper. Department of Energy meeting, yup, this was their target. “It says he’s in the country to meet with their energy guy. Energy doesn’t have anything to do with animal migration, does it? How do you know Davidson?”
“I don’t. He may be a perfectly lovely man. But he’s trying to get a deal done here that is controversial. It actually ties to you guys in a way.”
Gator kept his body language casual and relaxed, but his attention was fixed.
“Tanzania was working with Derek Bowen and Hesston Oil on a project. Tanzania needs money to bring its people into the modern world and provide for their basic needs — food and water.” Meg held her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun as she looked at him.
Gator moved to a chair on the other side of the table, so she wasn’t uncomfortable.
“Derek Bowen and his wife Anjie – were the victims of a hostage situation in Djibouti that Randy and Rooster were assigned to negotiate and resolve. And they saved the couple, well you already know that.” Meg’s gaze was fixed with a frown on Ahbou. “Can you imagine that? Derek and Anjie got yanked off their yacht out in the Red Sea. Going about their business. Not hurting anyone. And then their world was turned upside down.” She swiped at her eyes.
Gator thought she was probably equating that scene with what she had just gone through with Randy and Honey. They had been on safari and then all hell broke loose. Her brother had been nearly killed. She and Honey were taken hostage.
Blaze reached over and covered her hand with his. They sat in silence while she took a moment to get hold of herself.
Meg tucked her hair behind her ears, and with a little thank you smile to Blaze, she continued. “Hesston wanted to drill for oil off the shore of Zanzibar. There are environmental risks to the operation, but the Hesston company had pivoted to become a not-for-profit green energy company. They wanted to use the money from off-shore drilling to fund some massive renewable energy projects in East Africa – geothermal, wind, and solar. Now, I’m not sure where those negotiations stand.” She reached over and tapped the photo. “I think, reading between the lines, that William Davidson sees an opportunity with the Bowens out of the picture while recovering from their ordeal. Davidson’s trying to snake his way into the negotiations.”
“William Davidson is an oilman?”
“He’s an ‘anything to line his pockets’ man, from his reputation. Energy; some attachment to military weaponry; and you probably know he was on the board at Omega.”
Omega was Iniquus’s rival of sorts. They’d had a major upset in the States and now mostly worked overseas ops. Where Iniquus was willing to push the gray envelope on legality to get a job done and keep America safe, Omega was willing to do the truly black stuff. They were the group who showed up on the news with their naked dance parties around their camp fires in the Middle East and balls-out swaggering that gave contractors a bad reputation—a reputation that put other teams, like Iniquus’s, at risk of targeting and reprisal by the locals. Gator couldn’t very well hold that against the locals. Omegas acted like psychopathic animals in the field. And one of their teams had come at Lynx full throttle, risking her life, and shooting a bullet into Blaze. Gator swiped his tongue over his teeth. Davidson had ties to Omega. Interesting.
“I think he’s also into luxury hotels and apartments,” Meg was saying. “I don’t know the extent of his enterprises. Right now, I think he’s negotiating drilling rights for oil off Zanzibar. Their techniques aren’t nearly as environmentally protective as Hesston’s would be. But what has me scared is the helium.”
Helium?
“Is there a specific reason why you’re following Davidson’s reputation? You’re an animal migration specialist, what’s that got to do with Zanzibar?” Blaze snagged a grape and popped it in his mouth. Then reached for the paper Gator held out to him.
“The scientists on the Key Initiative have been worried about Davidson’s dealings in this part of the world. As far as my interests go, it’s about the Rift Valley, which extends through Tanzania and includes the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti where the animals I’m trying to protect migrate.”
“This is about helium you said?” Gator asked.
“Yeah, do you guys know about the global helium issues?”
“My contact with helium is restricted to birthday parties, and sucking up a lungful to sing in a Minnie Mouse voice for my nieces and nephews,” Gator grinned. “Sorry. Do we have global helium issues?”
“More so this month than we did last.” She handed Gator a napkin and a plate that held a couple of sub sandwiches. “Let me explain.”
“Thank you,” he said, accepting the plate and digging in with gusto.
“Helium is a big deal. It’s one of the most abundant elements in the universe, but it’s not all that abundant here on Earth. We don’t just use helium to fill up balloons at a kid’s birthday party, it’s of vital importance to a bunch of industries right now like making MRIs, fiber optics and semi-conductors, and if I’m not mistaken, something to do with nuclear energy, too. Lots of high-tech is helium reliant. Governments are also funding research for engines that would use helium gas for fuel cells and transportation technologies. There are major geological surveys being done to see if there is enough supply waiting to be tapped to power human energy needs. One of the benefits of using helium over petroleum is that unlike fossil fuels that take millenniums to create, helium is in constant production.”
“That sounds like a win,” Blaze said.
“Maybe,” Meg’s voice was glossed with skepticism. “On Earth, there are only a few key locations where the helium deposits are concentrated enough to harvest them. Most of the helium comes from the United States. If the power source moved from petroleum-based to helium-based, our country would stand to make a lot of money.”
“The US?” Blaze leaned back in his chair. “Really? Where is this found?”
“It’s mixed in with the natural gas the US produces. When they pull the gas out of the ground, they put it through a process to separate the component gases. A little over seventy-five percent of helium comes from the US. It’s like a five-billion-dollar a year industry.” Meg said, taking her own bite of food. “Big money,” she said with her hand over her mouth. “Hence, Davidson’s involvement.”
Gator let out a low whistle. “B – billion?”
Meg swallowed and grabbed her glass. “B – billion.” Meg tilted back some lemonade. “The second biggest supplier is Qatar. Some comes from Russia, I think. And, as it turns out, Tanzania has an enormous supply of helium. The geologists found large pockets near the volcanoes along the East African Rift Valley. Not only are there deposits of the gas, but there’s also a high on-going production of the gas. The heat from Rift Valley volcanoes apparently releases helium deposits from where it’s naturally stored inside of the rocks.”
“Like fracking?” Gator asked.
“Yes, a little.” Meg took another bite, chewed, and swallowed. “But instead of drilling and forcing fluids between the rocks, this is naturally released by the heat.”
“And this is bad?” Blaze adjusted his seat farther under the shade of the umbrella out of the sun’s glare.
“That depends on your perspective.” Meg put her sandwich down, wiped her mouth with her napkin, and tucked it back on her lap. “A lot of people were very excited about the possibilities if the helium that was discovered here in Tanzania went into extraction. Think about the jobs for scientists and mining experts. As they got paid, they’d buy things – housing, clothing, restaurant food. They’d hire maids and mechanics and—gosh, I don’t know—teachers for their children. If it was done right, it could be a boon. But there are huge risks. Mining the lands and building the necessary infrastructure interrupts the lifestyles of the indigenous people who live in the areas. It infringes on their ancestral lands. The tensions here are already high.” She stopped talking and pursed her lips as if holding back an expletive. “Mining the gas might interrupt some of the businesses that Tanzania has worked to build over the last generations,” she continued. “Agribusiness. Tourism. And, of course, there’s the safety and well-being of the wild life. These lands have some of the most diverse and amazing wildlife – remember we’re talking about the land around the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti where elephants, lions and wildebeests live...The eco-system here is fragile and already straining to adapt to the climate changes. Everything could be wiped out. I really, really hope the government says ‘thanks but no thanks’ to extracting the helium. And tells Davidson no on anything he’s proposing. Talk about speeding us into the apocalypse...The helium that is ‘off gassed’—not the right word, but you can guess what I mean—from the heat is located very near the volcanoes. And the helium in those areas is heavily mixed with other gases especially carbon dioxide.”
“And releasing carbon dioxide into our atmosphere increases the rate of climate change,” Gator said.
“Exactly. Up until this point, the Tanzanian government has been working to protect nature and the animals. But if Hesston Oil contracts are off the table because their executive was kidnapped, and his company now deems the area to be too much of a hot spot to do business, the government needs to get money from somewhere. This is already a big fat political fight. And to make matters worse, right now, there’s a distribution problem for helium. Last time there was a hiccough in distribution, the prices doubled. If the prices were to rise with continued distribution issues? It’s a no-brainer for signing extraction contracts – that is, if your brain only values power and wealth.” She rubbed her hands up and down her thighs in her agitation.
Gator fought to stay connected with their conversation. His sixth sense pulled and tugged, struggling to grab his focus. He was a horse at the derby held back behind the gate, rearing and snorting, ready to race forward. Whatever was suddenly lighting him up, Gator didn’t like it none.
He wished he could condense this into a coherent thought to share with Lynx. Even thinking about the sixth sense felt like using a foreign language. He had to use what was available to him in terms of phrases and words to try to get his meaning across, even to himself. Lynx was right, thinking and talking about stuff from the ether was hard to do because what she called “mundane vocabulary” didn’t quite cover the experience.
But mundane was what he needed to be, this sense of urgency to get off the X and back into the fight, the feeling that his team needed him. He knew that just wasn’t true. Strike Force was at the airport, boarding their plane to head home to their loved ones. Gator’s mission wasn’t spooling up until later that evening when he and Blaze flew to Dar es Salaam. Rational-him knew that. But his whole system was lit up in go-mode, pissed as hell that he was penned up. Yet, here he sat poolside under an umbrella listening to Meg talk geo-politics.
He looked up at the cloudless blues sky and thought, Yup, sure looks like a shitstorm a-brewing.