Read Online Joe Rush 02: Protocol Zero by James Abel - Free Book Online

here!
Thousands
of acres.”
    “Fascinating man,” I said.
    “Mikael said his family would have still
owned
part of the North Slope if Russia hadn’t sold Alaska to the U.S. That’s so weird, isn’t it? That this town, this place, would be part of Russia? During the Cold War? Russia!”
    I asked, more interested, “So the weasel’s family lost their fortune when the communists took over?”
    “Don’t call him a weasel. One minute they owned farms, and serfs, and even a small palace in St. Petersburg. The next minute, they’re on the run, barely got out. They moved to Shanghai, and then fled to San Francisco when Mao took over. Mikael goes to Harvard. He doesn’t brag, but he was nominated for an Oscar for his dolphin-killing film.”
    If he doesn’t brag, how do you know?
I thought.
    We both heard the knocking at the door. It was now dark outside.
    “Does Mikael still have family in Russia?” I felt her stiffen beside me, rise on one elbow and stare.
    “Joe, that was a century ago, okay?” she said, getting up, beautiful, pulling on lace underwear—she wore it even in the Arctic—and black cords, pulling a white turtleneck over her hair.
    The knocking came again. She said, “The
New York Times
called Mikael a ‘visual poet.’”
    “
He touches you and he’ll be a visual dead guy.”
    She giggled. “Short of that, Colonel, play nice. Now let’s see who’s here.”
    •   •   •
    IT WASN’T MIKAEL BUT OTHER NEIGHBORS, SUMMER FRIENDS. WHAT HAD been planned as a romantic evening turned into a wake, as people drifted in to talk, to remember, to grieve.
    Still, I could not help but wonder, thinking of Clay Qaqulik as more than just cook and mechanic:
Is someone here not who they seem?
    “OhmyGawd! We heard about it in the post office!”
    First to arrive were the brother-and-sister team—Dave and Deborah Lillienthal—employed by Longhorn North Oil Company, of Houston, which was expected to bid on undersea leases, up for auction soon by the U.S. Interior Department. Oil companies believed that a mini–Saudi Arabia existed fifty to a hundred miles away from Barrow, and it was expected that Shell, Longhorn, and Conoco would go head-to-head in bidding, trying to obtain rights.
    In the interim, each company was conducting last-minute seismic surveys offshore to pinpoint areas in which they had particular interest, and to help them plan how much money to bid—billions would be offered for undersea land.
    “The Harmons had such terrible luck all summer,” Deborah said. “First their truck busted up, then their computers went down. Then they had that records snafu, remember, Dave?”
    “Right, the closet that caught fire.”
    Dave and Deborah ran Longhorn’s exploratory efforts: seismic ships, engineers, and archaeologists employed to select inland pipeline routes, bypassing Eskimo historic sites protected by federal law; water experts to avoid locations where groundwater might be polluted by construction.
    In person, they were usually jovial corporate ambassadors; their hut, number six, was the party hut stocked with liquor and tonight they deposited two liter-sized bottles of Tito vodka on the table, along with tomato juice, a semi-fresh lemon, quinine water, and orange juice. Alcohol could not be sold in stores or restaurants in Barrow. It could, however, be flown in, if buyers paid for a liquor tax and air shipment, and bought a city license to drink. They could then pick up bottles at a hut by the airport.
    As a result, a can of Bud might cost twenty dollars in Barrow. A bottle of vodka was worth hundreds. The Lillienthals carried a thousand dollars of alcohol in their arms.
    “Figured we’d all need this,” said Dave, pulling out logo mugs from above our sink; Sandia labs, Woods Hole cup, National Science Foundation glass, leavings of former visitors. No mug said,
SPY.
    He was a big, round ex-fraternity president at Texas A&M, two years older than his sister, and he was a ferocious