Read Online The Emissary by Patricia Cori - Free Book Online

Mat?”
    “Hell’s bells, lady … finding three wells out there in the desert—that makes you an extremely valuable commodity. Extremely valuable. I can’t understand at all how you did it, and I can’t even understand how you managed to walk away from it!” Mat raised his glass. “Here’s to you, Jamie Hastings! You have got to be some kind of remarkable.”
    Jamie raised a glass back. “Cheers to you, my curious and generous host.” Inside, she was thinking, “Good god. Oil, oil, oil. Where will it all end?”
    “You just have the most remarkable track record—it’s some story to a guy like me,” he said. “Why, you have actually made me a believer, and that is no easy feat, let me tell you.”
    Guarded, Jamie simply said, “Thank you.” Listening to Mat and watching his body language, she couldn’t help comparing him to the bumbling George Bush Jr., reminding herself that under the clownish veneer that he presented to the world, Bush was a ruthless oil man himself—all of them members of the same “club elite.” Maybe some giant machine just cut and pasted them all out of the same mold.
    “But wow … three wells out there in Pakistan. That is just this side of unbelievable! How in the hell did you manage to get out of there, once you struck gold for those greedy bastards?”
    Jamie was becoming annoyed with Mat’s probing and the emerging racist edge to his talk. “After locating that first site, I was asked to stay and, to my client’s utter amazement, I found another two.”
    “Just like that?”
    “Just like that.”
    “And they just let you go?”
    “What a strange question—of course they ‘let’ me go. I finished what I had gone to do and left. Why would that surprise you?”
    Mat realized he was pushing, and that she already had her back up. “Sorry—I do have experience with my colleagues over there. I just find it surprising that they let you slip out of their hands like that.”
    She felt uncomfortable at the idea that he would even think she could be held against her will. “Well, for starters, the psychic faculty can’t be forced. They knew that I was tapped out, after finding those sites, and I can tell you that they were more than satisfied with what they got.”
    “Well, they sure as hell should have been, with three brand-new wells to pump—man oh man! That is utterly out of this world.”
    The waiter appeared, just to refill their glasses, and then disappeared immediately. It wasn’t the first time he had served Mat Anderson in the private dining room. The staff knew that the CEO of USOIL didn’t want anyone around until he wanted someone around, and whoever waited on him had to know how to dance to that rhythm.
    “And now, you have brought me all the way here because you want me to go out and find you some oil, is that right?”
    Mat felt Jamie tightening up and a “no, thank you” forthcoming.
    “Well, yes, I guess I’m pretty obvious about what I’m looking for, here. We’re out searching for oil in the Pacific, up there in the north—well, actually, we’ve been moving north after two years off the California coast.”
    “Brilliant,” she said sarcastically, interrupting. “You’re in one of the richest ocean ecosystems of the planet. Rumor has it, for us mere mortals, that this ocean region is protected against drilling. Are you telling me that is not the case, and that we’ve been duped, yet again?”
    “Well, yes, Miss Jamie,” he replied, ignoring her comment, “and I’d like you to listen up, because I am very aware of the ecological danger that poses. You see, I am in no mood for another big oil disaster out there, especially one with our name on it. That would finish us off, proper.”
    “Not to mention what it would mean for the ocean, of course,” she retorted.
    “Well, of course … that goes without sayin’.”
    “I’d like to think so.…”
    He tossed some almonds into his mouth and washed them down with a big gulp of