Read Online The Emissary by Patricia Cori - Free Book Online Page A

champagne, as if he were drinking a glass of soda, rather than the most expensive champagne in the world. “I mean, I live on this planet, too, and I’ve got grandkids. I want them to be able to swim out in the big, beautiful ocean, and I want their kids, after them, out there too—but they’re going to have to find a way to get there from here. That’s going to take fuel, ma’am. That is our dilemma, right there.”
    Jamie listened attentively—trying to read him on all levels. “There won’t be any ocean worth driving to if the maniacal, unquenchable thirst for oil keeps leeching the life out of the seas and the rest of the Earth. Your industry is pushing the Earth to its limits, do any of you realize that? It’s insane what you’re doing to the planet.”
    “Well, I know that, ma’am. That is why y’all are here. I want to see that another disaster does not happen.”
    “Well then, why don’t you call your boys off and get, as they say, ‘out of the water’?”
    “Now, you know that isn’t gonna happen. I mean, the world runs on oil and we need more and more to keep things going out here and …”
    Jamie interrupted before he could finish. “… And alternative energy, clearly, is not on the table, because there’s not enough money in it for all the fat cats to build more obscene wealth, right?”
    Mat fumbled with his cocktail napkin, folding the edges, nervously. “We’re workin’ on it,” he replied, knowing, as the words came out of his mouth, that Jamie could see right through them.
    “Why am I here?” she asked, abruptly. “There’s no point us talking about the justifications for drilling for oil. You’re an oil man, period. Tell me what it is you think I can do for you.”
    He knew he was clearly losing ground with her and didn’t know how to get the conversation back on track. “Miss Jamie, I have a five-year agreement with the U.S. and Canadian governments, giving me rights to explore out there, before anybody else gets a shot at it. Two are gone—wasted. I’ve got three more years: I get things done the right way, we get our platform set up out there, and nobody else can move in. We have a clean track record—no accidents directly attributed to our corporation. I do not want anything to happen to the environment. No ma’am. But I have to make the brass in New York and the politicians in Washington happy. I have to find the crude. And I need help.”
    “I can’t believe Martin Kaszlow forgot to tell you that I am done with this work, Mat. I am still coming back from being present during a massive whale death in New Zealand, and helping prevent any more of them is where I am putting my energy now.”
    “Well, I can certainly appreciate that,” he said.
    “So, helping you and your boys dig up the ocean floor just doesn’t flow at all—you’re a very big part of the problem. I’m sorry. Within days now I will be filing for my foundation, to help fight for the whales and dolphins, and you will be part of what I’ll be fighting against.”
    “You can’t win against the oil industry, Miss Jamie,” he said, flatly.
    “Watch me.”
    Mat was keen and alert, looking for a way to win her over, and get the momentum back. “Yes, and I appreciate that, I do. It’s a veryhonorable thing to do and it’s a ‘feel good’ thing, I can feel that. Y’all are going to need funding, though, I’m sure—a lot of it too. And, well … we can help you.”
    “Funding from an oil company—to save the oceans? Now that is rich.”
    “Yes, ma’am. An ‘ecologically friendly’ oil company. That’s what has to happen now. USOIL is that company.”
    Jamie sighed.
    “But if you really want to help the whales, Miss Jamie, you are going to need a whole lot more than money. You’re going to need connections upstairs: decision makers; friends in high places. My kind of friends.”
    Jamie studied Mat, watching him shift around, working his angle. There was something hidden,