The Emerald Scepter

CHAPTER SIXTY

The sprawling mansion built on a promontory that jutted defiantly into the dark waters of Narragansett Bay could have been the setting for a Gothic novel. With its octagonal turrets and soaring chimney stalks, the massive pile of granite looked as foreboding as a Norman keep. Surf whipped up by an offshore storm smashed the rocky bulkhead and spray pelted the mansion’s lower level windows, but all was serene in a second floor room that resembled the dark-paneled study of a London gentlemen’s club.

Five people sat in plush dark leather chairs gathered around a massive fireplace framed in mahogany taken from the gun deck of an 18^th century British man-o’-war. Brown-black shellac covered the once blood-soaked timbers that had been carved with scenes romanticizing the ship’s victories at sea.

Charles Fletcher sat at the center of the half-circle, allotting his time precisely to those on his left and his right. Like the others, he swirled a snifter of Louis Royer brandy and smoked a His Majesty’s Reserve cigar infused with Louise XIII cognac and worth about the same as the median weekly wage of the U.S. worker.

His audience of middle-aged men all wore tuxedoes, a dress code Fletcher required of his male dinner guests. Their facial features differed, but they glowed with the powerful good health of the wealthy, and their eyes shared the same avaricious hardness.

Fletcher had been continuing his dinner discussion of naval power and the Big Game, as Kipling called the competition among the Great Powers in the days of tsars and kings.

“The world outside of Europe and American was nothing more than a big garden full of ripe fruit and vegetables. The Great Powers were the gardeners who carved whole countries out of virgin land. Occasionally, they got into border spats, went at each other with pitchforks, and after a sufficient period watering the plants with blood, they joined together to battle the poachers.”

“You have a gift for metaphor,” one of the men said. “I would have loved to have gotten my hand on a pitchfork back in those days.”

“My point is, things really haven’t changed that much,” Fletcher said. “The main difference is the lightning speed at which events move now. We’re in one of those accelerated time warps.” He paused to let his audience chew on his words. “Now, if you gentlemen will all follow me into the media room we will talk about the important matter you came here to discuss.” Ever the thoughtful host, he said, “I’ve sent my cooking staff home. You’ll have to bring your own brandy.”

They entered a small auditorium and took their seats in the banked armchairs that faced a stage. Fletcher sat in the first row and tapped a control console in the arm of his chair. The lights dimmed and the curtains behind the stage parted to reveal a large wall screen that displayed a satellite picture of the earth. At a touch of a button, the image zoomed in on Asia, showing territorial borders in white.

“Here we are above Afghanistan, courtesy of Google earth,” Fletcher said. “This ancient and fabled land is often called the Graveyard of Empires for reasons our own military has discovered. Afghanistan is many things to many people, but I will wager that this is how the people in this room see it.”

Superimposed over the map was the familiar little man with the sly smile and white handle-bar mustache who symbolized the capitalist in the game of Monopoly. He was leaning on a dollar sign almost as tall as he was. The image triggered laughter that ended abruptly when the picture changed. The capitalist was frowning and he was leaning on a red rectangle with five gold stars. The flag of China.

The image brought forth a round of hoarse boos.

Fletcher smiled. “I can see there is unanimity of opinion in this room.”

“Is it that bad, Charles?” said Frank Sturmer, president of a vast minerals cartel and spokesman for the group.

“As I tell my navy students, without understanding the past we can’t change the future. Let’s go back a few years.” The red flag became a hammer and sickle. “The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. With the help of the CIA and U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles, the Mujahideen send the Russians packing. The military invasion was a failure, but the Soviets left their mark in other ways.”

“What ways?” Sturmer asked.

“I’m going to let an expert tell you,” Fletcher said. “Do you hear me, Dr. Davis?”

“Loud and clear,” a voice said over the speakers.

A man’s face appeared on the screen. He had thinning hair and a beard of matching gray. His crevassed features had the deep tan of someone who spent a great deal of time in the sun.

“Would you please introduce yourself to my friends?”

“No problem. My name is Lee Davis. I’m a geologist and I’ve been working for a number of years with the Pentagon.”

“Thank you, Dr. Davis. Can you please pick up where I left off?”

“Sure. As mentioned, Russian troops left Afghanistan in 1989. They had teams of specialists, including mining experts, scattered throughout the country, and many of these teams had to evacuate before they could collect all of their data. Inevitably, much of the mining data was lost, but some of it ended up with the Afghan geological survey library.”

“And what happened to it from there?”

“Three years after our guys drove the Taliban out of Kabul, a group from the U.S. Geological Survey went to Afghanistan to help with reconstruction. In the Afghan survey offices they stumbled on old survey charts and mining data. Stuff that looked important. So in 2006, they outfitted a navy Orion P-3 plane with advanced gravity and magnetic measuring gear and flew over around seventy percent of the country.”

“Did they find anything promising?”

“Enough to bring them back the next year for a deeper look using equipment that produced 3-D pictures of mineral deposits under the surface. They turned the data over to a small group of geologists.”

“And what was the reaction?”

“We were astonished.”

“We?”

“I was part of the group.”

“Go on.”

“The government sat on its hands for two years. No one looked at the findings. The Pentagon had a task force to create business opportunities, but they were focused on Iraq. With things winding down there, they transferred the task force to Afghanistan. They looked at the surveys and measured the potential economic value of the deposits. The Pentagon guys couldn’t believe their eyes, so they brought in American mining experts to take a look on the ground. Next they briefed the Secretary of Defense and the president of Afghanistan.”

“It must have been a pretty big deal,” Fletcher said.

“A very big deal,” Davis said with a grin on his face. “They figured the potential value of the mineral deposits they had found was nearly a trillion dollars.”

“That’s a lot of money,” Fletcher said.

“Hell yes. The country is bursting at the seams with all sorts of goodies. The iron and copper alone could make the country a major world producer. There are big deposits of niobium for use in making superconductor steel, rare earths, and huge gold reserves. Under the dry salt lakes in some areas of the country, there could be as much lithium as in Bolivia, which has the biggest deposits now.”

“Could you put the extent of the lithium deposits in perspective?” Fletcher said.

“Someone at the Pentagon said Afghanistan could one day become the Saudi Arabia of lithium! The Pentagon is helping the Afghans develop a system to put mineral rights out to bid. Unfortunately, not much has happened in that regard yet, especially in the south and east with all the fighting.”

“Suppose we had a magic wand that could end the fighting,” Fletcher said. “Based on your findings, what is the likely scenario for minerals development?”

“The development money would come pouring in. It would dwarf the opium trade. Minerals would become the backbone of their economy. Afghanistan could become a powerhouse.”

“And who might these investors be?”

“U.S. mining companies. Multi-nationals. But mostly developing countries that need important minerals to sustain their growth.”

“What about China?”

“Already a player. They bribed the Afghan minister of mines to let them place the winning bid on a copper operation. He got fired, but the Chinese are in charge of the Aynak copper mine in Logar province. They’re hungry for more and will probably come in using proxies.”

“Very interesting and insightful. Thank you for your time, Dr. Davis.”

“My pleasure.”

The screen went blank. Fletcher turned to Sturmer.

“I think Mr. Davis just answered your question about how bad it is with his comment about the Chinese copper mine. This goes beyond economic interests. Control of minerals is of strategic value. China has used its control of rare earths to push Japan around. The U.S. is heavily dependent on Chinese minerals, which means we could be next in line for blackmail.”

“But our army is in charge of the country now,” Sturmer said. “The only way the Chinese can come in is if they choose to go up against our guys in combat.”

“The Chinese know that and are working with elements of the Pakistani intelligence service to broaden their influence in Afghanistan. This has been made easier by the fact that some Pakistani intel people see China as a counterweight to their arch enemy India. The Chinese are aware of this and are using the Pakistanis to cultivate links with insurgent groups as a strategic hedge so they’ll have influence in Afghanistan once the U.S. leaves Kabul.”

“Looks like the Chinese are making an end run,” Sturmer said.

The satellite picture of Afghanistan reappeared and the camera zoomed in on a body of water shaped like a long figure eight.

“Exactly. They hope to score a goal. Here. The salt flats around this lake cover some of the biggest lithium deposits in the country. This province is a lynchpin. If the Chinese-Pakistani cartel takes control of it, it will become increasingly difficult to stop them from doing the same in other parts of the country where they can negotiate with the locals or corrupt central government officials. Companies like yours and the others here in this room would be nudged out.”

“By God! We’ve shed blood to hold onto this piece of real estate,” Sturmer said. “The men in this room represent some of the biggest minerals extraction companies in the world. We deserve exclusive rights.”

Fletcher raised an eyebrow. He was aware that the only blood Sturmer and his colleagues had ever shed came while they were shaving and that they regarded the U.S. armed forces as an appendage in the service of their corporate interests.

“Calm down, Kurt,” he said. “No one is going to walk into that province with a handful of Renminbi. It’s controlled by a drug warlord named Amir Kahn.”

“Can’t our guys take him out?’

“That would be unwise. He’s connected by family ties to the ruling government and the Haqqani network that has been supporting the insurgents. Elements of the Pakistani intelligence services recently tried to remove Amir. Our intention was to let them do the dirty work for us, then move in. Unfortunately Amir survived the assault.”

“That is unfortunate,” said a guest. “How do we pry this guy out?”

“Simple. With a carpet-bombing campaign and permanent occupation of the border regions that puts up a big No Trespassing sign telling the poachers they will be shot on sight.”

Sturmer laughed. “I like it, Charles. There’s only one problem, the U.S. government wants to get out of Afghanistan and the voters are tired of the whole war. We’re going broke. Bridges, roads and schools have become a priority. People in Afghanistan want us out. Our metaphorical gardener is tired from tending the cabbage patch.”

“What if we made him untired?” Fletcher said. “What if something happened that would marshal public opinion to put aside its misgivings, reorder those priorities and get behind the massive effort I’m talking about?

“Last time that happened was after 9/11.”

“What if something happened that was even more horrendous than 9/11?”

“Is that a possibility?”

“As an intelligence officer, I would say that it is very much a possibility. And we had better be prepared.”

Sturmer made his voice heard above the murmurings.

“What do you need from us?” he asked.

“Your discretion, to begin with. Then the usual things. Money. Influence on Capitol Hill, so that when the time is ripe, you can move in with your heavy equipment at an instant’s notice.”

“I think I can speak for the others when I say that we have implicit trust in you, Charles.”

He went around one-by-one to the others in the room and got their agreement.

“Thank, you gentlemen,” Fletcher said. “I will keep you informed through my old friend Kurt. I’ve arranged for a car to take you back to the airport.”

Fletcher saw his guests to the front door, and watched the stretch limo until its taillights vanished down the long driveway which was still wet from the rain. He went back to his study, poured a couple of fingers of cognac into a snifter and sat in a leather chair in front of the windows.

The rain scratched against the glass and the rumble of thunder had grown louder. The storm was moving fast. His favorite weather. He took a sip of brandy and glanced toward the fireplace at the far end of the study where he saw a purple plume of cigar smoke rising above the back of the chair he’d been sitting in earlier. He realized that he was not alone.