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  Secretary of State Roselee Rainer jumped in. “Lots of people like that idea—I do too! I’ll give you an example. Some of the largest gas reserves in the world are in Peru and Bolivia. In my book, it’s a lot better to buy energy from democratic, Western-leaning Peru than from an autocratic desert dictator, right?”

  Bob Mieirs was moving quickly to answer the question.

  “The answer is an unqualified yes! However, as you would expect, there is a ‘but.’ Once you get the LNG on big tankers, they need to go to an off-loading facility at a port. But, until recently, our country hasn’t wanted to build new facilities—they’re big, ugly, and environmentally controversial. For years the United States has been dependent on the few—four, to be exact—old receiving locations currently in operation. The main one is in Louisiana, a second is in Boston, but it’s used exclusively in winter, as that’s when New England’s natural gas market spikes with heating needs. And last, the revamped and recently reopened facilities in Cove Point, Maryland, and in Savannah, Georgia.”

  “So, even if you wanted to import a lot more natural gas, you couldn’t. There aren’t enough places to bring it in,” concluded Mieirs.

  “Wait a moment, Bob,” interrupted Attorney General Mort Levinson. “We’ve got environmental laws in this country. You may not like them, but a lot of people think that protecting our environment is a smart investment. I’m one of them. You’re not going to lay the blame for the lack of facilities at the feet of those of us concerned about the environment. That’s just not right. There are some damned good reasons for not building those plants. And it’s our job as citizens and leaders of this country to be well aware of the environmentally hazardous nature of huge off-loading platforms for natural gas.”

  Bob Mieirs was about to answer but the attorney general wasn’t finished.

  “And furthermore, those plants are a magnet for terrorists. We can’t just build new potentially exploding bomb sites without really thinking through the security that each of these new terminals requires. Remember that this administration was elected—first and foremost—to protect the citizens of the United States.”

  Mieirs sighed. He had heard all this before.

  “I get the security issue. But, you see, natural gas doesn’t burn like petrol. If bombed, the off-loading sites will burn fiercely, but they won’t explode. People often think of house explosions and think that a huge tank of LNG would be a hundred times worse, but in reality, it’s different. For example, think of a gasoline vehicle versus a diesel vehicle…the gasoline will explode and combust, the diesel will burn but not explode. This makes LNG much safer than oil—both for shipping and storage. And if there is an accident with an LNG tanker that spills, surface areas may initially suffer from the extreme temperature of the very cold material, but unlike oil, there will be no sludge left for cleanup because the gas dissipates into the air.

  “Look, I understand our reluctance to build off-loading facilities around our coastlines, but we’ve got choices to make. We’re going to have to build some new facilities. People will have to hold their collective noses. But we can also take a lesson from the private sector’s playbook. In this globalized world, we can off-shore some of the environmental and security risks by outsourcing natural gas facilities to Mexico. Specifically, to Baja, California. There are already a number of new facilities under construction on the peninsula. And Baja is closer to California than Louisiana.”

  Just as Mieirs finished his explanation, Martha Rawlings Packard raised her pencil in the air. True to her military background, the director of central intelligence sat ramrod straight in her chair.

  “Martha, does the CIA agree?”

  General Packard’s career at the Defense Intelligence Agency had been legendary. As the DIA’s youngest and first female commander, General Packard had impressed and alienated half the brass at the Pentagon with her incisive analyses and tart recommendations. You did not want to tangle with General Packard.

  She was a supremely attractive woman; jet black hair curled backward in a bun behind perfectly chiseled feminine features. And she knew it.

  It had been hard for most of her male military colleagues to ignore her looks. General Packard’s uniforms always somehow seemed more tightly fitted and contoured. More like Donna Karan than Fort Dix. She seemed to thrive in the wake of the water-cooler gossip that frothed around her. But nobody—not one person—ever disputed her brains. She was the smartest DIA commander in history. And that was why Gene Laurence had appointed her director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  “I don’t disagree, sir. But it may not be enough.”

  “Let’s have it, General,” said the president.

  “First I want to say that, as we are seeing in California, assuring our country’s supply of natural gas is one of our foremost security concerns for the next fifty years. You are right, sir, to want to face the problem. The fact that thirty-five years after the Arab oil boycott, the United States still depends on Middle Eastern oil will be described by history books as the single greatest act of political folly in our history. We have come to depend on a region that is fundamentally anti-Western and deeply anti-American.

  “And with one-hundred-plus dollars a barrel, our oil dependency is locking in dictatorship, violence, and extremism. There is no reason for the petroauthoritarians in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Venezuela to moderate their voices or their hatred. We will continue to pay them—and they will continue to buy off their populations with undeserved billions—because we don’t have choices.”

  She looked around. She had everybody’s attention. As usual.

  “Well, natural gas gives us a choice. Gas balances the equation. As the secretary of energy just told you, there are lots of views about the way to assure the long-term supply of gas for the United States. I want to give you another one. It involves Russia.

  “Now, when I finish, my colleagues will think I’m crazy. I’m used to it. But what is happening in California is proof that we need to think differently. Strategically.

  “These are the basics: Russia is the world’s largest gas producer. It produces hundreds of times more gas than everybody else. Most of its gas is in Siberia. Today it goes to Europe through a series of expensive pipelines that took a lot of foresight and risk to build.

  “Now guess what is closer to the Kamchatka gas fields in Siberia than London or Paris,” continued Martha Packard, her voice a controlled didaction. “Still thinking? I’ll tell you. Alaska. In my native Alaska we’ve been talking about a transcontinental Eurasia-American transport link via the Bering Strait for years. Now the idea is gathering steam. Have you ever heard the governor of Alaska speak on the subject? I recommend you talk to him, Mr. President. He’s pretty eloquent.”

  She looked at her incredulous audience, unperturbed.

  “Think out of the box,” Packard ordered. “The French and the British built the Chunnel to connect continental Europe to the British Isles. The project was unthinkable just fifty years ago. Why can’t we build a link across the sea from Russia to our continent? It’s a huge project, but not impossible. It will solve our gas problems for the next fifty generations. It will build a rapport—which we sorely need—with the Russian government. And, needless to say, sir, it will give you an unprecedented political legacy.”

  Tony Ruiz knew he shouldn’t speak, but he couldn’t hold back.

  “Sorry, I don’t get it. You just told us that we’re in debt to a bunch of bad people because the guys who were in this room before us never dealt with the problem. Everything I read about the Russians isn’t much better. Why would we jump under the sheets with them?”

  The room froze. Presidential assistants—especially young ones—did not usually talk in high-level meetings. And they certainly didn’t challenge a senior official.

  For a moment, General Martha Rawlings Packard was about to ignore Tony’s question. Her nose rose slightly in disapproval. Until Isaiah J. Tolberg spoke up.

  “
That is exactly what was going through my mind. As usual, Tony’s questions are straight to the point. The last I heard, Russia was holding up gas deliveries to Ukraine. Bullying the Georgians. Shutting down newspapers. Threatening the Europeans. As Mr. Ruiz asks, why would we get into bed with them?”

  General Packard’s look of displeasure relaxed.

  “Tony, the key rule of international relations is that one—to use your phrase—jumps under the sheets with people you need, not with people you like. It’s different from, you know, us,” said the general with a sly smile. “Russia is determined to again become an international power, and with their natural resources, there isn’t much anybody can do to stop them.

  “So the choice is ours. The Russians can be our feared opponents and antagonists. Or we can entice them with the allure of something so big that they won’t be able to resist it. Then they become our ally.”

  The director of central intelligence paused for a moment.

  “And we get our gas,” she said, her voice a controlled whisper.

  RUSSIA

  KURSK OBLAST

  EIGHTEEN MONTHS EARLIER, 10:20 A.M.

  DANIEL UGGIN’S HOME

  A year and a half before anybody could have imagined the unprecedented meltdown in California, a man named Daniel Vladimirovich Uggin awoke in his native Kursk with a hangover. A bad one.

  Orthodox Christmas—commemorated on January 6 by the Russian faithful—was still ten days away, yet the town’s end-of-year parties had already shifted into high gear. The bash at his equestrian hunting club the previous night had gone on until four in the morning.

  The party had started at a normal enough time. The twenty or so fellow hunters rode together often; they had done this for years. Kursk was a town of noble military tradition, producing generals and admirals who were hallowed names in the czar’s armed forces and later the Soviet Red Army. Daniel’s grandfather, Brigadier General Anatoli Uggin, founded the hunting club just before dying for his country in the First World War. To be a member, the male head of every household had to attend a day-long shooting party at least twice per year. A century later, no member had ever violated this rule.

  Mere association with the Kursk Equestrian Hunt Club, however, did not necessarily mean that its members were good shots. In fact, Daniel Vladimirovich Uggin and his comrades usually returned to the stables with little other than big smiles at the end of a Sunday spent in the State Central-Chernozem national park, a beautiful huge forest-steppe chunk of land perfect for riding, hiking, and camping. Occasionally, one of the riders had an otter or a badger slung over his horse, and the exceptional catch was always cause for celebratory rounds of vodka.

  At thirty-four years of age, Daniel had made an extra effort to go easy on the previous evening’s vodka. He had joined in all the toasts and had even offered a few poetic odes of his own to friendship and family. Unfortunately, the multicourse country dinner of pork dumplings, roasted venison stuffed with sweet and sour red cabbage, and braised boar with sweet onions had been accompanied by delicious red wines from Georgia.

  Like most Russians, Daniel Vladimirovich did not really believe that wine counted as alcohol.

  At the stroke of twelve, Piotr Rudzhin—Daniel’s best friend since the seventh grade, when Piotr had forced Daniel on a grade school suicide mission to ignite stink bombs in the trash bin of their despised mathematics teacher—suggested a horse race to State Central-Chernozem park’s entrance gate. Piotr, a mammoth, handsome blond statue of Russian manliness, had always been able to command attention. His talent for convincing and cajoling was legendary, no matter the consequences.

  Daniel had been only the first of many to fall for the wiles of Piotr Rudzhin’s charms; few could resist the smile, the bearlike embrace, and the piercing eyes. Piotr had catapulted this charisma into a burgeoning political career. First as a young two-term elected representative to the Kursk Oblast’s Duma—or parliament—where his oratory and leadership were quickly noticed by the authorities in Moscow. Then, eight years ago, he had resigned from the local duma, packed his bags, and boarded a plane to Moscow. Piotr was now the deputy minister for internal affairs for the Russian state.

  But, somehow, notwithstanding the long hours and late nights of Moscow’s fast lane, Piotr Rudzhin never seemed to forget where he came from. There he was last night. Hugging, kissing, shouting, drinking. And, as usual, coming up with ideas that could only lead to trouble. The notion of a midnight horse race sounded scarcely better than the seventh grade sulfur-bomb plot. But within minutes of beginning a fiery discourse on friendship, Piotr Rudzhin had them running off to saddle the horses. Daniel had no choice but to go along.

  It had been a terrifying ride. The night had been cold and black; the yells of the riders had amplified and ricocheted through the trees and woods. The horses had strained and whined in the emptiness. Though the riders had started together, within seconds each one of them had found himself utterly alone. The twenty-minute trail to the park—well known to each one in the daytime—had seemed to disappear into the forest’s black ferns.

  As the horses accelerated, the reverberation of the galloping hooves had taken over the night. The men, seeing only the vapors of their breath billowing into the black darkness, had swerved and reined relentlessly to the right and left to avoid trees that had seemed to suddenly jump out from the dark. The crashing volume of the horses’ weight trampling the frozen ground had been pierced by the occasional scream of a rider slapping into the low-hanging branches of swinging brush.

  Lola, Uggin’s eleven-year-old chestnut mare, had finally made it to the State Central-Chernozem park’s closed gates in a careening gallop. Reining her to a halt, Daniel had struggled to slow his accelerated pulse and had squinted into the black to see who else had made it. Three others had already arrived; Daniel had come in fourth. Sixteen other riders in transfigured states of asphyxiating shock had poured in over the next fifteen minutes. Faces were scratched by the sharp ends of pine twigs, clothes were torn; but miraculously, nobody was seriously hurt. Needless to say, Piotr had arrived before anyone else, his loud laugh booming through the empty state park.

  Daniel Vladimirovich now sat up in bed as the morning light poured through the window. He rubbed his temples and wondered if the horses were feeling half as bad as he did.

  He looked at the clock and registered the late hour. Moaning softly, he realized that he was already an hour late to work. The trespass was serious, but not grave. On these festive holiday mornings, few colleagues showed up on time. Daniel Vladimirovich Uggin was the manager of Volga Gaz’s westernmost national operation. Usually, he liked to set an example of punctuality and orderliness at the office, but the days leading up to New Year’s and Christmas were slow.

  Daniel Vladimirovich Uggin had just wiped away the sleep from his eyes when he saw his wife’s face peek into the bedroom.

  “Daniel Vladimirovich, it’s ten twenty A.M.” Uggin grimaced at the sound of his wife’s reproaches. He knew it was not over. “I would have awakened you earlier, but you got in at five in the morning. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

  Daniel Uggin had shaken his head from left to right in silent acceptance. He was gesturing to himself. “Of course you noticed,” he muttered under his breath.

  “You’ve had two calls from Moscow already and I lied both times,” Anne-Sophie said in her lilting German-accented Russian as she walked into the bedroom. “I told them that someone had called about some possible leaks in the pipeline and that you were out looking at the situation. I told them not to bother to try your mobile phone because there was no service beyond a certain point outside town.”

  Daniel Vladimirovich Uggin smiled at Anne-Sophie. He stood up and walked over to give her a thankful kiss.

  “You are marvelous!” Uggin mouthed the words slowly, for more effect. “You tolerate the silliness of my hunting club. You don’t get angry at me for coming home at dawn. And then you even lie for me!”

  He had pa
used in mock thought for a moment and concluded, “That is what I want written on my tombstone: ‘This man had the world’s best wife.’”

  Anne-Sophie smiled back. Ten years of marriage and two kids—Katarina and Giorgi—hadn’t shaken the sense of humor that united them.

  “Who was it who called?” asked Uggin, slowly forcing himself into professional mode.

  “She said she was Viktor Zhironovsky’s secretary.”

  The name was like an electrical jolt. He had met the president and chairman of the board of Volga Gaz a few times at company meetings. But this was the first time Viktor Zhironovsky had ever called.

  And Daniel Vladimirovich Uggin had slept through it. Twice.

  Uggin sat up straight and looked at his wife. A moment of anger clouded his mind as he thought that she should have woken him up. But the irritation quickly dissipated. She was right to have let him sleep. It would have been more embarrassing to speak with the president of Volga Gaz with a sleepy voice. She had weighed the choices and made a decision. He respected that.

  “You did the right thing, darling. But now I’ve got to move,” said Daniel, heading to the shower.

  Daniel Uggin took a moment in the hot water to mull over his unusual household. These days, sophisticated Russian cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg were magnets for foreigners—tourists, businessmen, cultural exchange students, and, increasingly, foreign spouses were a common sight. But tolerance of outsiders in Russia was a recent phenomenon. During the seventy years of Soviet rule, foreigners had been shunned, monitored, followed, and suspected. Daniel Uggin had been one of the first—and certainly in Kursk, he was the first—to marry a non-Russian in the aftermath of the Communist Party’s collapse.