INTERLUDE
The chief engineer of Sierra Consultants was a little surprised when the chairman of Rolfe Mining and Minerals was shown into his office. Pearlmutter, RM&M’s company lawyer, had been pure New York; bright, pushy, abrasive without even realizing it, and painfully young. Rolfe himself was…
Also too young, for starters, he thought. Then on a second look: Or perhaps not, in experience if not years.
He was sixty himself, but he remembered the godlike sense of immortality and infallibility he’d had four decades ago, before the Great War. He’d left it behind amid the stink of death in the shattered forests of the Argonne. Rolfe had a very slight limp in the left leg. Probably from a war wound; his eyes had the set of someone who’d seen the elephant, and encountered mortality firsthand. Rumor had it that RM&M had been started by a bunch of veterans clubbing together with their buddies…
Still… is the whole company composed of boys barely old enough to shave?
Rolfe stood about five-ten, lean and athletic, with short-cut bronze-colored hair and level leaf-green eyes, a straight-nosed, fine-boned face with that planes-and-angles look they called “chiseled,” and was probably quite a success with the ladies. No more than thirty at the outside, maybe a bit younger; hard to tell with that weathered outdoorsman’s tan.
Smooth, too.
Very expensive but conservative suit: Saville Row, the sort few Englishmen could afford in these days of shabby austerity in London. It contrasted with the hand that shook his, long pianist’s fingers that were also callused and very strong, with a Virginia Military Institute class ring. Southern accent but not “hush-mah-mouf”; he’d have placed it somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon line but within fifty miles of the Chesapeake. Overall, this John Rolfe VI had a sheen like antique beechwood furniture.
Old money, or at least a family that had had money once. Not at all the type you expected to see at the head of a hungry young firm still clawing its way up the greasy pole in a notoriously rough-and-ready business like mining.
But RM&M was a new outfit, based out of the East Bay, specializing in buying up and refurbishing minerals properties in the Far East wrecked during the war, with sidelines in Persia, Angola and the Belgian Congo. That was risky with the political turmoil in Asia, but they’d been doing extremely well. He’d heard about some substantial purchases of dredging equipment for riverbed mining, some hard-rock gear, and great job lots of the sort of stuff you’d need for operating in the wilder and hairier parts of the world: bulldozers, heavy trucks, riverboat engines, drilling rigs, generators, fuel storage, construction machinery and prefab housing.
They’d been holding their cards extremely close to their chests, too, which was only to be expected; the engineer had started out as a roving mining consultant in some of the odder corners of the Earth, and he knew how the game was played. Apparently they didn’t need to go to market for expansion capital, either, which argued that their returns were quick and rich.
But this…
He tapped the thick folder in front of him. “Mr. Rolfe, this proposal of yours is simply… bizarre.”
Rolfe nodded politely, reaching into his jacket and producing a silver cigarette case. He turned to Susan and raised a brow with old-fashioned good manners… and also revealed that he probably knew that she was his daughter, as well as his confidential secretary. A bit of an eccentric arrangement, but she’d worn him down, and he had to admit she was extremely competent.
Susan nodded frostily. “By all means, Mr. Rolfe,” she said. “Mr. Sorenson smokes. I do not.”
Rolfe gave a charming smile and flicked the case open with an elegant snap of his wrist; not cigarettes, but cigarillos.
“I assure you that our check for your firm’s work will be entirely regular, though, Mr. Sorenson,” he said, offering the case.
The engineer accepted one with a nod of thanks; they were Punch Claritos , about the best there were, and he’d acquired a taste for them a long time ago in Cuba, working on a project in Oriente province. He didn’t let that distract him as he clipped the end, lit, and blew a cloud of fragrant smoke. The young man’s tone had been perfectly polite… but there was an underlying amusement to it, as of a secret joke Rolfe didn’t intend to share.
“Surveying and plans for a reservoir and hydroelectric project in, of all places, the Berkeley hills? Mr. Rolfe, you don’t own that land; most of it is government property and not for sale. Such a project there would make no economic sense whatsoever and would stand no chance of approval by Sacramento… which I’m sure you know. Hell, a lot of that area’s already occupied by the San Pablo and Briones reservoirs!”
“I’m fully aware of it,” Rolfe said cheerfully; his smile didn’t reach the cool green eyes. “Consider it… a trial run for a very similar project in an area not under the jurisdiction of the U.S., or the state of California.”
“That doesn’t make any sense either,” the engineer said, baffled. “You must know that plans like that are extremely site-specific.”
Rolfe’s voice stayed level, but took on an edge of steel. “Then consider it a rich young fool’s whim, sir,” he said. “Consider it anything you wish. The question is, will you do this survey for us, or shall I walk over to one of your competitors?”
He waved a hand toward the window, and the harsh bustle of California Street below. The engineer ground his teeth. On the one hand…
The money was good—even in boom times, a project so close to home would be low-cost. He could get most of the data he needed out of the library, and most of the rest by taking the ferry and driving about; the ground check would be a matter of a couple of afternoons’ hike for his subordinates. The fee, on the other hand, would be nearly as big as something requiring real work—core drillings and seismic soundings, for instance. It was simply too juicy a peach to pass up, even if it did taste a little off.
So there is no “on the other hand.” It’s not illegal to run a survey and estimates for an impossible project, and if Rolfe wants to waste his money, that’s his lookout.
“We’ll take it,” he said aloud.
Rolfe smiled and drew on his Punch Clarito. “I’m sure you won’t regret it,” he said.
CHAPTER THREE
Tom Christiansen finished the series and lifted the bar into the rest, sitting up on the bench and picking up his towel. Bad form to do it without someone spotting for him, but he wasn’t pushing it—only two seventy-five on the weights, well below his maximum. He breathed deeply and easily as he wiped down his face and neck and the parts of his torso exposed by the muscle shirt, considering what he’d do next.
Some laps in the pool, he thought, rolling his neck as he glanced around the mirror-walled expanse of the gym’s weight room. Important to keep the aerobic side up.
He’d always rather despised people who pumped iron just for cosmetic purposes without building endurance and heart health, and he always made time for a balanced program, including keeping his hand in at unarmed combat. He did it all because he liked having a well-conditioned body, because it had become a habit, because it was useful in his work, a lot of which was outdoors, and because he couldn’t spend enough time canoeing and hiking and climbing to keep fit for the times he could get away. If you pushed yourself in the wilderness as hard as he liked to, you could end up dead or very, very miserable if the strength and endurance and flexibility weren’t there to match the experience and skill.