ACV's 1 Operation Black Gold (6 page)

‘So that’s how you did it.’  He nodded as if mesmerized.

‘Yup.’

Buff was still grumbling in the background. 

‘Oh shut up, ye should ken better than annoy me before I’ve had a coffee in the morning.’  I growled back.

The young officer was taking note of the carnage caused by the previous evening’s battle.  Deep scores ran across the once highly polished floor, congealed blood and scuffmarks finished the job.  ‘This place is a bit of a mess.’

‘Your problem,’ I told him.

He winced.  ‘You don’t seem very happy to be here?’

‘Is there some reason I should be?’

‘I don’t understand, why can’t you be like everyone else, it is only for a few weeks, relax, treat it like a holiday, enjoy yourself.’

My laugh was somewhat bitter.  ‘Because I don’t think like everyone else, that’s why.  Tell me how long is it until the big parades, 6-7 week?’

‘Yes, I think so; then you can all go home.’

I approached, ‘you don’t see anything strange or coincidental about that?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. 

‘OK fine, let’s leave it then.’  I grabbed my cigarettes off the bed and lit up, but I wasn’t going to get away with it.

It was Ali that stepped forward, ‘Jim thinks there’s going to be a war.’

‘Thank you Ali, but that’s not exactly what I was saying.’

‘Aye it is.’

‘No, I said it is a possibility we canna discount.’

‘Same thing to you.’

‘No, its no.’

He decided to push it, ‘is to you, we ken you, ye bastard, you wouldn’t even mention it, if ye didn’t think it was going to happen.’

I clicked onto what Ali was up to.  He was going to take advantage of the fact that there was a professional soldier at hand, and an officer to boot, someone who was in a damn site better position than me to speculate.

The young Mr. D’Ord butted in.  ‘Excuse me, but may I ask why you think there is going to be a war?’

‘I never said that,’ I snapped.  I’ve always talked with my hands and they were beginning to get restless with my agitation.

‘I’m sorry let me rephrase that, why don’t you think it is something we should discount.’  He pulled himself up onto the table and crossed his arms.  I look round at the faces of my friends; they were set.  Now they were ready to listen.  I was trapped.

‘OK if that’s what you want, trouble is where to start.’

‘Why don’t you start with strange coincidences,’ he offered.

‘All right how many men were called up yesterday?’

He thought it over for a moment, ‘I’m not sure, maybe fifty to a hundred thousand.’

‘That’s a lot of men to put up a few marquees.’

‘Yes but there is a lot more to it than that,’ He launched into a detailed explanation.

I soon got bored with it and stopped him.  ‘Wait, the men who have important jobs have already gone, I watched a man report in yesterday.  He worked in a power plant, his book was stamped, taken off him and he was sent home immediately.  These important people as you put it have already gone.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.  Let me ask you another question what was the average age of the common British soldier during the Second World War.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Between twenty five and thirty five.’  Davie supplied.

I nodded my attention still on Davie now, ‘how long did it take to train those men?’

‘Six weeks.’

I returned my attention back to the young manny, ‘thanks Davie, now there’s a wee parallel for ye to start with.’

That seemed to take him by surprise, ‘a coincidence, but who are we supposed to be fighting?’

‘The Americans.’  I supplied.

‘That’s bloody ridiculous!’  He spluttered.

‘Is it?’

‘Yes damn it.’

‘Why don’t you just hear him out,’ Gigs interrupted.

‘Why, why should I listen to this drivel?’

Gigs shrugged.  ‘You’re here aren’t you and we’re going to listen.’

He seemed upset, ‘you are honestly going to listen to this, why man?’

‘Why, because we trust him, and as much as we hate him for it at times, he’s normally right.’

‘Normally!’

‘Well, sometimes he looks too deeply into some things, gets the political agendas a bit mixed up from time to time, but he’s normally right about the outcome.  So why don’t you sit back down and listen.  You might even learn something.

He looked them over and settled down a little.  ‘OK, I’ll listen.’

I started on the small things, drawing parallels with the propaganda campaign that was beginning to gather momentum against us, with others in the near and distant past.  He shifted uncomfortably as shots hit home.

I went on to explain the plight the American oil companies found themselves in.

‘Where do you get all your information from?’  He fired a question at me.

‘It’s common knowledge.  I subscribe to a number of science magazines; they’ve been following the downfall of the American oil industry for years now.’

‘So it’s been caused by this CC3.’

‘Aye that’s right.  When America sold back the oil concessions to us when they thought they were useless.  They had concessions in Southern America that would have lasted a few hundred years.  Hasn’t happened.  A number of countries have, as you know changed hands countless times.  Most have nullified the treaties with the oil companies, preferring to extract it themselves.  They have only 5% of those reserves now.’

Nommy broke into the debate, ‘so why not bump them off instead, they’re a damn site closer to hame.’

‘Canna Nommy, you’ve done your stint in the jungle.  Can ye imagine trying to defend thousands of miles of pipelines through that lot?  An remember if they took out one Latin American country, how long d’ye think it would take the rest to conclude they were next on the list and take action.  You’ve also got to remember the jungles themselves no longer belong to the Latin American Countries they’re held in trust for the whole World.’

He realized the truth in what I was saying, ‘aye your right they would have everybody on their backs.  I suppose we get the blame for that one to.’

‘Aye, well we set up the fund and helped stabilise the existing governments by introducing modern agricultural techniques, making them self-sufficient for the first time.  We certainly didna win any brownie points for it.  The other big blow was the massive oil fields they bought in Asia.  The whole lot is contaminated by this CC3.’

Our young officer decided to re-join the debate, ‘I’ve heard of that, they can extract it.’

‘Yes they can,’ I agreed with him.’  ‘Unfortunately the product they’re left with is totally useless and the CC3 they’ve extracted is about the most poisonous substance known to man.  They can’t burn it or bury it.  They daren’t dump it in the sea and the containers it’s kept in have to be replaced every six month because of its corrosive nature.  Then those containers have to be contained, and then re-contained etc., etc.

They restarted the project from start this year.  It should take them another ten years to sort it all out.  In the meantime their existing stock should last about another three years.’

‘Three years.’  The young man mused.  ‘Three years to find more oil or convert.  They could convert, couldn’t they?’

‘I would presume so, and if they did, they could or would become world leaders in a new era.’

‘So why haven’t we become world leaders?’  He asked.

‘For fuck sake,’ I sighed.

‘The patenting Laws,’ supplied Fritz.

His eyes flew wide, ‘oh right.’

‘I never did understand that,’ stated Abie.

‘Jim?’  Fritz offered.

‘Nah Fritz, you’re more familiar wee these things than I am.’

He shrugged, ‘OK it’s fairly simple.  When Scotland went independent, we basically had nothing.  Our first real job was to find cheap sources of power to keep the country working and our export market viable.’

‘Aye, aye, I ken a’ that, cut the bullshit and get to the point eh!’  Abie interrupted.

‘The point is, our government threw out the old patenting laws and invited anyone who thought they’d had a rough deal to re-patent their inventions here in Scotland.  In return we would protect their patents by law.’

‘Aye but why was that necessary?’  Abie was getting pissed off.

‘Well for over a hundred years people were registering their patents in their own countries.  Any kind of device, like the perpetual motion machines that every household now has was snapped up by interested companies then buried.’  Fritz supplied.

‘Why?’  Abie had his arms crossed now.

‘Profit.’

Abie’s blank look said it all.

Fritz tried again.  ‘Our government owns and supplies all our electricity, right.’

‘Right.’

‘Now with the population boom they needed more electricity, right.’

‘Right.’

‘Well at the time most of the nuclear power plants were being decommissioned.  Oil and coal were in short supply.  Hydropower was impractical and takes too long to get up and running.  So when people started registering their patents, the government looked there.  There was literally hundreds of different power saving devices to be had.  They choose on one that had first been patented in America almost sixty years ago.  The perpetual motion machine.  They bought it under the new laws and mass-produced it fitting one in every home.  Fifty percent of the electricity it produces goes straight into the home; the other fifty is fed back into the power grid.  Within about six months they had created the equivalent of five new power stations.’

Abie shrugged, ‘aye, so it was a great idea, so why bury it in the first place?’

‘Profit Abie, I’ll make it simple.  Everywhere else in the world, well almost everywhere else, the power market, gas, oil, coal, electricity is all owned by the same people and sold for profit.  If your ordinary Joe could buy one of these machines and plug it in and produce his own electricity, then the big companies loose out.  Less money equals less power equals less say so equals less power.’

Abie got it, ‘why didn’t ye say so in the first place then, bit how does that affect the oil?’

‘Same thing again, old patents new power supply new plastics the lot.  Everybody used to depend on them, well most still do, supply and demand.’

Abie thought it over, ‘aye right they supply and then demand what they like for it.  Money, say so, power.’

Fritz nodded, ‘that’s it, and our kind of environment would make them depend on their supply from others.’

‘Like Nommy.’  Abie pointed out.

‘Aye, that’s how I’ve made my money Abie, supplying the energy market.  Fair enough we haven’t got the say so we would have on a free market but we do well enough.’  Nommy supplied.

Now Abie was nodding his head vigorously, ‘so if this was America then you would have more say so.  Less for them, more profit, less for them, more power less for them.’

Fritz grinned, ‘you got it.’

Abie smiled smugly, ‘so if they convert, the next President of the United States could be a farmer?’ he asked me.

I shrugged, ‘well that’s one way of looking at it.’

He eyed Nommy sceptically.  ‘Like Nommy?’  That brought forth a guff of laughter.  ‘Fuck that he’d have us raising coos in Pittodrie.’  He ducked as Nommy took a playful swing.

‘I’m beginning to lose the plot here, fits it a’ got to d’wí the yanks bumping us off?’  Ali asked me.

‘I suppose you could put it a down to justifiability.’

‘Is that a real word?’  Abie gasped.

‘I don’t know Abie, if it wasn't- it is now.’

‘I see where you’re coming from,’ the young officer butted in. ‘Most of our technology comes from these patents which were originally bought by these big power companies.’

‘Allegedly aye, the patents were bought for a small down payment and promises of shares in most parts.  Then the companies that bought them just disappeared.  Right up until we started using them.  The next thing you know they’re back screaming their heads off in congress, hitting us with trade bans, the lot.’

‘Nae brownie points again then.’  Abie muttered thoughtfully.