A wave of heat drenched Ethan in sweat as he stepped from the air — conditioned interior of the terminal. He squinted up into the hard and unforgiving blue sky as he stepped onto the flawless asphalt outside the main terminal. Few cars were visible, just a couple of dusty tan — colored sedans parked across the street.
A sleek, white sedan pulled up alongside them and a tinted window lowered to reveal a smartly dressed chauffeur who held up a placard with the name Warner upon it. Behind the sedan an equally immaculate white SUV slid in alongside the sidewalk and a man climbed out, his eyes concealed behind sunglasses, a microphone earpiece in place and a muscular torso bulging against his thin cotton shirt.
‘Ethan Warner?’ he asked in heavily accented English. ‘Assim Khan. We will be your escort for the duration of your stay in the Kingdom.’
Ethan peered into the 4x4’s interior as he shook Khan’s hand, and saw there three other guards, all of them carrying weapons in discreet shoulder holsters.
‘Who sent you?’ Ethan asked.
‘Courtesy of Huck Seavers,’ Assim announced. ‘He understands that you wish to meet with him here in the Kingdom.’
Ethan blinked. Somehow, for some reason, the receptionist way back in Kentucky must have gotten word to Seavers about their visit. He couldn’t be sure, and perhaps Seaver’s sudden interest in them was due to the legal battle for Clearwater’s mining rights rather than any wrongdoing on the CEO’s part, but he felt that they must be on the right lines of enquiry for Seavers to have followed their travels and been ready to assist them upon their arrival. Either he had something to hide, or he didn’t.
‘I didn’t realize we needed an escort,’ Lopez said to Assim.
‘Then you have never travelled to Saudi Arabia before, ma’am,’ Assim replied with an oily smile. ‘You will need to wear these, due to the laws here.’
Khan handed both Lopez and Amber an abaya, a long and quite elegant dress that covered their bodies and arms. Although the Kingdom did not require women to wear the hijab demanded of more hard — line Muslim countries, it did enforce abaya’s on both residents and visitors alike. Lopez and Amber both donned the dresses as Assim Khan spoke.
‘Riyadh is less relaxed than Jeddah, which allows women to wear the abaya open rather than closed, but it is best not to draw attention to yourselves. Just being an American in this country is enough to make you a target.’
Ethan placed their luggage into the trunk of the sedan and then they climbed together into the rear seats and the chauffeur pulled away and increased the air conditioning inside the vehicle to cater for the new occupants. Behind, Ethan observed the 4x4 with Assim and his guards pull into escort position a few car lengths behind them.
‘You said that your father intended to give away the device free,’ Lopez said to Amber as the vehicle left the airport and joined the highway heading towards the distant city. ‘Why would he come here to the one place where the ruling family would like to see such a device destroyed?’
‘Who says that they would?’ Ethan challenged. ‘There are powerful people such as Majestic Twelve who do not want to see Stanley’s device be commercialized, not to mention the US government itself. America is trying to get itself off and away from fossil fuels, which if they should achieve such a noble aim will leave the Saudi royal family in the lurch out here. Maybe Stanley is looking for new allies, people with a vested interest in what happens to the future of oil consumption around the world.’
‘And what’s he going to say to them?’ Amber asked. ‘Hello, here’s a device that will render you destitute by the end of the year. Fancy getting involved?’
‘He’s clearly not intending to sell out,’ Lopez admitted. ‘But then it makes no sense why he would come here to Saudi Arabia. Even if the House of Saud believed that he could develop such a device, what could they offer him in return if he doesn’t want money?’
‘I don’t think he’s in it for money,’ Ethan said. ‘The only logical reason for him fleeing to Saudi Arabia is to blackmail the House of Saud.’
Amber looked to Ethan as though he had gone mad. ‘You’re kidding? He wouldn’t do that. Even my father knows that the laws out here aren’t like they are in America. I don’t doubt that the Saudis would imprison him on a whim never to see the light of day again if they even thought he was capable of blackmailing them.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ Ethan said as he opened a file that he’d been given by Jarvis before they had departed Los Angeles. ‘Saudi Arabia may be the oil capital of the world, but they know as well as anybody else that the writing is on the wall for fossil fuels and for their own future exports.’
‘Already?’ Lopez asked. ‘I thought they’d have waited until every last drop was out of the ground?’
‘Not according to this,’ Ethan replied. ‘The Saudis are getting in on the solar power game before the oil dries up. Due to the decreasing costs of utility — scale solar installations, solar power in Saudi Arabia has achieved grid parity and can produce electricity at costs comparable to conventional sources. In 2011, over fifty per cent of electricity was produced by burning oil. The Saudi agency in charge of developing the nation’s renewable energy sector, Ka — care, announced in 2012 that the nation would install forty one gigawatts of solar capacity by 2032. It is projected to be composed of twenty five gigawatts of solar thermal and sixteen gigawatts of photovoltaics. A total of fifty four gigawatts of energy will be delivered by renewable means here by 2032.’
‘So even the Saudis are preparing to get out of the oil game, and simply export their supplies to other countries?’ Amber said.
‘It would appear so, and that assertion is bolstered by the fact that as oil prices fell as demand reduced at the end of the first decade of the twenty first century, for the first time Saudi Arabia did not raise the price of oil to compensate. They knew that by doing so they could push other oil producing countries into debt by maintaining the low price, whereas Saudi Arabia could carry the losses for years, even decades, due to its reserves of both the oil itself and state — held capital.’ Ethan glanced thoughtfully out of the window of the vehicle. ‘They’ve got the whole world over a barrel, pardon the pun, and they’re using it to bolster their own position as an energy supplier of oil or of future clean energy.’
‘So what about my dad’s device?’ Amber asked. ‘If the Kingdom has the market sewn up in their favour?’
‘Why build solar plants that cost millions when you can have a cold fusion device churning away for little cost in every home?’ Ethan surmised. ‘The Saudi Royal family rules this Kingdom simply because they control the oil. Once that oil is gone, they’d be up and out of this country with their fortune overnight because the country has nothing else to export, not even any real tourism industry. This would become a desert as soon as the oil money dried up.’
Lopez shook her head. ‘The Saudis won’t stay here on the basis of national pride just because Stanley Meyer has given them a way out. The people will rise up against them quickly enough just like in the Arab Spring if they tried to … ’
Lopez broke off and Ethan grinned.
‘The people are what counts,’ he said. ‘The greatest fear of any government is being overthrown by their own people. The more the people are forced to rely upon their government, the less chance there is of that occurring. The Saudi people hate America because our government props — up a Royal Family who hoard the vast majority of revenue from the oil in their country and live in spectacular wealth while many of their people live in abject poverty. But if the people are suddenly presented with a means of shaking off their royal leaders and denying them their fortune, what do you think they’ll do with it?’