Black Rain

“What kind of information?”

“The type that can’t be given to the police until it’s properly sifted and filtered.”

Gibbs stared.

“It’s extremely time sensitive,” the man said, “so if you don’t want to listen I’ll have to deliver it to the good senator instead.”

Gibbs stared at the man in the car. He looked familiar, but whether Gibbs had seen him earlier at the funeral or knew him from somewhere else, he couldn’t be sure. “Who are you?”

The door opened, and the man in the gray suit slid to the other side. “My name is Kaufman,” he said. “My company is one of your charter members.”

Of course. Kaufman was the head of Futrex, one of the NRI’s charter affiliates. And one of the companies Blundin had been investigating.

Without a word Gibbs climbed into the car. It began to move and the tinted rear window rose smoothly back into place.

He looked around. Aside from Kaufman there was only a driver.

“Quite a shame about a man like that,” Kaufman said.

“Blundin was one of my best people,” Gibbs explained. “And a good friend as well. But he had his own issues. I guess they caught up with him.”

Kaufman nodded somberly. “They always seem to.”

The tone in Kaufman’s voice bothered Gibbs; it seemed smug and condescending. “It would be of great satisfaction to me if we could catch the person who did this. Even if it’s just some punk off the street.”

“Not likely to be some punk off the street,” Kaufman replied. “Not when the man was killed because of your Brazil project.”

Gibbs froze. Even Senator Metzger didn’t know about the Brazil project. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

“You have a group of operatives working in the Amazon at this very moment. They’re down there—somewhere—without the knowledge or consent of the American Consulate or the Brazilian government. Care to tell me why?”

“We have people in fifty countries,” Gibbs replied, fighting to maintain his composure. “I don’t keep track of them all. As far as the consulate and the Brazilian government are concerned, I’m sure you’re mistaken. But more importantly, what does this have to do with Matt’s death?”

“It’s simple,” the man replied. “He was killed because of what he knew. He was investigating your data loss, making certain people nervous. But then, you know that, don’t you?”

Gibbs glared at the man beside him, his sense of restraint failing. The man was vile. “Whatever the hell you’re getting at, say it.”

Kaufman exhaled. “Let’s start with the project,” he said. “Your people are down there looking for the ruins of an ancient Mayan city. A city that may be the source of some very special items. Items that create power, all but unlimited power.”

The man stared into Gibbs’ eyes and then continued. “Eight weeks ago, you lost another party attempting the very same thing. In fact, you’re still wondering what happened to them at this point. Another answer I can give you, if you care to listen.”

“You’re the son of a bitch who hacked us,” Gibbs said.

“We ran a program with your Research Division’s permission,” Kaufman said, proudly. “Something to do with weather simulation, I think. Seems to have caused a little storm on your end, though.”

Gibbs glared at the man. Just as Blundin had predicted, the chink in the armor of Research Division had cost them. “It makes sense,” he said angrily. “A big tech company like yours would have the expertise. My question is, why? Do you have any idea what kind of hell you’re about to bring on yourself?”

Kaufman leaned back, showing little concern at Gibbs’ aggressiveness. “Under different circumstances,” Kaufman said, “you might be right. But not here. Not now. I’m offering you a way out. The best—and last—chance you’ll ever get to put this thing behind you.”

“The NRI doesn’t need your help.”

“Not the Institute, my friend, you. It’s my intention to help you.”

“Help me do what?”

“To survive, for one thing,” Kaufman said. “It took me a while to figure it out. But it’s become apparent to me that you’ve run this thing privately. You’ve used NRI assets and proxies, but it’s your operation.”

Only at this moment did Gibbs feel the true weight of his actions. They hammered him in rapid succession; decisions made, steps taken to hide his tracks, lines crossed from which there was no going back.

Kaufman appeared impressed. “I have to admit—that’s a bold play. But it puts you in a bad position now that you’ve run into problems. The simple recovery you pla

Gibbs’ jaw was clenched. He tried to relax.

“Maybe you’ll get lucky,” Kaufman said, offering him a line. “Maybe you’ll find what you’re after and disappear with it before the walls come crashing down. But then what? You can’t take it back to the NRI—or any other American organization, for that matter. Not only will they wonder where it came from but they’ll want to know what the hell you’re doing with it in the first place.

“Develop it yourself, then? With what? You can’t possibly have the resources to make a play like that or you wouldn’t have tapped the NRI accounts to begin with. So you have to sell it. The only question is: to whom?”

Gibbs remained silent, his proverbial right.

“National governments are your best bet, but which ones?” Kaufman said. “You can’t turn it over to your own; we’ve already established that. So where do you go? The Japanese? Sure. Why not? They import virtually all of their energy, they’re technologically advanced and they spend millions on this kind of research every year. But in your world they’re your chief rival, the economic equivalent of the Russians in the Cold War, and while you may be a thief, you’re not a traitor. So the EU, the Russians and the Chinese are probably out as well, at least until you’ve exhausted all the other options. And that leaves mostly the destroyers.”

“The destroyers?”

Kaufman elaborated. “Those who stand to profit most, if this revolution never comes to pass: the nuclear industry, big oil, the OPEC countries.”

Kaufman’s tone became pragmatic. “If I were you, the nuclear industry would be my first choice, although they’re not exactly a monolithic group. They might even use it one day, when their trillion dollars of capital investments run out of useful life. But more than likely they’d prefer to keep building big, expensive, dirty power plants, instead of small, cheap, clean ones—there’s more responsibility to it, more prestige and of course, more money. They’d pay you handsomely for it, though. So would big oil, OPEC and the Seven Sisters, or what’s left of them. They’d bury you in petrodollars to keep this thing on the shelf, or they might bury you for real—maybe both. At the very least it’s something you’d have to worry about for the rest of your life, because as long as you live, they have exposure.” He paused, looking Gibbs in the eye. “A terrible thing,” he said, “to live with exposure.”

Gibbs listened to Kaufman’s line of reasoning with a strange sense of déjà vu. He’d run through the same process a hundred times in his own mind. He had a plan, and it involved his disappearance, something his CIA background would assist him in, but there would always be danger. He counted on being able to handle it. “Why tell me all this?” he asked, bitterly. “In other words—what the hell is your point?”

Kaufman obliged him at last. “Because what you hoped to find out there—what we both hope to find out there—is the begi

“The industrial revolution improved the lives of twenty percent of the world’s population, mostly those in Europe and North America. In other areas, it condemned vast swaths of previously happy people to lives of abject misery. Virtual slaves who toil in the ground for natural resources while their own lands are left polluted and spoiled.