An elevator took the party down to level 3B, where the doors opened onto a sterile lobby. Sloan noticed that the lights were unusually bright, and everything was made of concrete. That included a bench, the walls, and the highly polished floor. The air was so chilly that Sloan chose to keep his overcoat on.
“We’re standing in the core,” Gladfelter explained. “The facility has three levels, each of which is ringed by twenty-four cells, for a total of seventy-two. Each floor has two interview rooms—and one of them is set up for you. Once you’re ready, I’ll send for the prisoner. Would you like coffee or tea?”
“No, thanks,” Sloan replied. “Go ahead and send for him. We’ll settle in.”
After showing Sloan and Tyler into a small, sparsely furnished room, Gladfelter disappeared. “Check this out,” Tyler said as he sat down. “My chair is bolted to the floor.”
“The ceiling feels low,” Sloan observed. “And there aren’t any windows. Plus, based on what I’ve heard, the food sucks. I feel sorry for Sanders. But not sorry enough to send him home.”
Confederate Secretary of Energy Oliver Sanders had been captured during a daring raid deep into the heart of Texas and subsequently brought north. He’d been “ripening” in the supermax ever since. The prisoner had been less than cooperative during the days immediately following his capture. Had his attitude changed? Sloan and Tyler were going to find out.
Secretary of Energy Sanders was shown into the room the way any prisoner would be. He was dressed in a baggy prison uniform, had cuffs on his wrists, and wore shackles on his ankles. They rattled as he walked.
Sanders was well under six feet tall, had a medium build and a sallow face. It registered surprise as a guard ordered him to sit down. “President Sloan? I guess I’m more important than I thought I was. Are you going to trade me for a Union prisoner?”
“Nope,” Sloan replied. “What I am going to do is give you a chance to do the right thing. And that could be helpful when you go on trial after the war.”
Sanders made a face. “Fuck you.”
“My, my,” Sloan responded, as he withdrew a packet of photographs from an inside pocket. “Such a potty mouth. I brought you a present. Here, have a look.” Sloan pushed the photos across the table that separated them.
Sanders looked down at them, up at Sloan, and down again. He didn’t touch them. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Sloan assured him. “They’re pictures of your wife and children. They were taken two weeks ago.”
That brought Sanders’s head up. Sloan could see the wheels turning. The implications were clear. A Union spy knew where the Sanders family lived! And, if the agent could take pictures of them, he or she could do other things as well. Like shoot them. Would Sloan order such a thing? No, of course not. But Sanders didn’t know that. He’d been part of a government that did use such tactics.
Gingerly, as if handling something very fragile, Sanders examined each photo with care. Then he put them down. A look of resignation appeared on his face. “If we win, I will request permission to shoot you in the face.”
“And, if you win, flying pigs will fill the sky,” Sloan replied. “Now, let’s get down to business. The gentleman to my right is Secretary of the Treasury Tyler. We’re going to ask you some questions about the Strategic Petroleum Reserves that you and your henchmen stole from the United States government. Specifically, we want detailed information regarding how much oil has been sold to other countries, who represented them, and how much money changed hands.
“And, before we begin, please make a note. Both Secretary Tyler and I have an intimate knowledge of this subject. And we have the means to verify most, if not all, of what you tell us. So don’t waste our time with lies. You’ll regret it if you do. However, if you cooperate, that will factor into the way you’re treated after the war.”
Sanders nodded. “Understood.” And while Sanders didn’t volunteer any information, his answers were consistent with what the two men knew or believed that they knew.
Finally, as the interview came to a close, Sloan shuffled the photos like a deck of cards. Then he pushed them across the table. “You can keep them.”
A look of gratitude appeared on Sanders’s face. “You won’t hurt my family?”
Sloan wanted to say, “No, of course not.” But that would be stupid. So Sloan was careful to hedge. “That depends, Oliver… It depends on you.”
Sloan turned to the guard standing next to the door. “We’re done. Take Mr. Sanders back to his cell.”
“So,” Tyler said once Sanders was gone. “What do you think?”
“It’s pretty obvious that Lemaire and his friends are using the oil reserves to pay for the war, and they’re skimming money off the top as well. But that isn’t the worst of it. We will need that oil to rebuild the country.”
“What are you going to do?” Tyler inquired.
“I’m going to take the oil reserves back,” Sloan replied. “And recover as much of the money as I can. Come on, let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
The Bayou Choctaw Strategic Petroleum Reserve wasn’t much to look at. Not from twenty-two miles above the surface of the planet. But seventy-two million barrels of crude oil were stored in the former salt mine, and that was a big deal.
Such were Mac’s thoughts as she eyed the satellite photo from the back of a crowded meeting room at the Holiday Inn hotel. What she saw was a large section of light-colored soil surround by lush greenery. The site included two storage tanks, some widely separated sheds, and a maze of pipes. None of it meant anything to her. But that’s why Captain Hines had been brought in. It was his job to brief Marine Colonel Natasha Walters and her officers on the reserve. Hines was a tall man with reddish hair, a ruddy complexion, and a tendency to wave his laser pointer like a wand. He’d been teaching geology before the government called him back to active duty.
“The Bayou Choctaw site contains about seventy-two million barrels of crude oil,” the engineer said for the second time. “And it’s connected to the St. James Terminal on the Mississippi River by a thirty-seven-mile-long, thirty-six-inch pipeline.” Mac watched the red dot trace a path from the reserve, through some green fields, and over to a tank farm that was located adjacent to the river.
“That’s how the reserve looked before the war,” Hines continued. “This is the way it looks now.” A new photo appeared. It was similar to the first one except that new features had been added. A defensive berm surrounded the site now, watchtowers had been added at each corner of the complex, and all sorts of defensive weaponry were visible.
But, being a cavalry officer, what grabbed Mac’s attention were the Strykers parked in separate revetments. The presence of such vehicles suggested that the rebs weren’t going to be shy. They planned to go out and do battle with Union forces when the time came. “So,” Hines concluded. “The site is very well defended. And before you attack it, you’ll have to fight your way through ninety miles of Confederate-held territory. We will try to provide air cover, but aircraft are in short supply, and there are likely to be times when you’ll be vulnerable. Do you have any questions?”
“Yes,” a Marine captain said from the first row. “Is it too late to join the Coast Guard?”
That produced some laughs, and Colonel Walters had a smile on her face as she replaced Hines at the podium. “Request denied, Captain… The Coasties will have to get along without your services. How about it? Are there more questions?”