The Hadrian Memorandum - Allan Folsom [116]
Marten was dumbstruck. So it was oil, an ocean of it.
“That’s why no operatives from the Equatorial Guinean army followed me from Malabo,” he mused out loud. “They were under Mariano’s control and on the same side as SimCo, so they let Conor White do it instead.” Suddenly he pushed back from the computer console and stood up.
His eyes went from Anne to Kovalenko, and then he looked away, trying to put it all together, to shape it into some coherent whole. Finally he stood and crossed the room to stand with his back to them.
“Tiombe controlled everything for years. Took the profits from the pumped crude and built riches for himself and his family while letting the people wallow in poverty. Finally they got angry and started to make demands on the government with Abba as their leader. Tiombe didn’t like it and sent his troops in and the war began. Then Striker, already with leases in the area, had this massive find.” Abruptly he turned to face them.
“Why risk losing it to Tiombe, who might cancel the leases and throw them out of the country while he worked on a better deal with some bigger player?” Deliberately he looked to Kovalenko. “Maybe a country like China instead of a midlevel American oil company. Better to have the CIA in your pocket and help Abba. Send in Conor White and his mercenaries with armaments; become his friend and ally while at the same time secretly setting up Mariano on the other side to brutalize the army’s response, thereby firing up the rebels even more and, who, in turn, bring in hundreds more fighters.”
Marten came back across the room. His voice and manner, cold and cynical. “In two months or three or four, Tiombe is gone and Abba is in place, highly beholden to both SimCo and AG Striker. At White’s suggestion, and Abba’s agreement, the army will be dissolved, replaced by SimCo mercenaries, who will begin to mold Abba’s ragged fighters into a national police force. Another couple of months and the people start to share in the oil wealth so long denied them. A little of it, anyway, but much more than they ever would have had under Tiombe. Clean water starts to flow. New roads, hospitals, decent housing, and schools are announced. A few months later construction begins. Then the big find is revealed, with the geologic details provided for authentication. Once that happens the shock wave will be enormous, politically, economically, and emotionally, as the West, especially, breathes a collective sigh of relief. Right?”
Kovalenko nodded. “And no outsider can touch it—not Shell, not Exxon/Mobil, not Rus sia, not China, not anyone—because Equatorial Guinea is a sovereign nation and because no one can compete with the power that much oil will bring. Overnight, tiny, poverty-stricken Equatorial Guinea will become the paradigm for a modern, peaceful, very successful third world country.
“The catch is that no matter what the public perceives, in essence, the country, its leaders, its army, its grateful population, and its biblical sea of petroleum will be owned not by its inhabitants but by Striker Oil, and will continue to be owned by it for the next hundred or more years.”
Marten looked to Anne. “Is that what your father had in mind for the company’s future? Fiscal growth through slaughter. Expansion by flamethrower.”
Anne’s eyes, her entire being, suddenly turned to fire. “You son-of-a-bitch bastard,” she hissed.
“I simply asked you a question.”
“No,” she snapped. “It’s not what my father had in mind!”
“The world changes,