The Garden of Betrayal

6

Cafe Centro is a big place, with intricately patterned stone floors and multiple dining areas separated by rows of brown leather banquettes and gleaming glass panels. Located right next door to Grand Central Terminal, it’s always busy. I gave the maitre d’ my name, and he led me on a serpentine course toward a table in the far corner. A woman who looked to be in her early thirties was sitting alone, reading the Financial Times. She had on a crisp white blouse, a tight black skirt, and smoke-colored nylons. Her hair was done up in an elaborate French twist-a term I knew only because I’d helped Kate attempt one once-and she had a turquoise leather portfolio leaning against her chair leg. Delicate half-glasses perched on the tip of her nose. The overall effect was of a Latin Audrey Hepburn playing a Wharton business school grad. Every guy in the place was surreptitiously checking her out. She set down her paper as I approached and offered me her hand.

“Theresa Roxas.”

“Mark Wallace,” I answered, feeling slightly dazzled. Up close, she looked even better.

She lifted a small silver pot to fill two cups with steaming coffee as I sat down, and then nudged one toward me.

“Congratulations on the Nord Stream story. Your name’s in all the papers.”

“Thanks.”

She lifted her cup to her lips and blew on it lightly, eyes fixed on my face. I had the sense she was waiting for me to elaborate, and wondered if my first instinct had been correct. Maybe she was a journalist, and everything she’d told me had been a calculated ruse to draw me out.

“I’m sorry to seem brusque,” I said, “but if you’ve been reading about me in the paper, you must realize that I’m unbelievably busy right now. So, if you have information for me, I’d really appreciate getting to it.”

She held my gaze for another long moment, sipping from her cup. Setting the coffee down, she bent and retrieved her portfolio from the floor. One of the side pockets contained a clunky white iPod without headphones. She took it out and put it on the table in front of me.

“There’s no backup copy of this data,” she said. “You need to be careful.”

I lifted the iPod and turned it over, seeing a fun-house version of myself reflected on the silvered back. Flipping it faceup again, I tentatively pressed the central button on the front. I wasn’t even aware you could put data on an iPod-I thought they were only for music.

“You need to connect it to a computer.”

“Right.” I dropped the iPod into my pocket, hoping I wasn’t blushing. “I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Such as?”

I hesitated, unsure where to begin. Everything about our encounter felt wrong. The vast majority of unsolicited tips I’d collected in my career had been from drunk guys bragging about their importance or from disgruntled staff looking to nail their employers. Outside of the movies, beautiful women didn’t disclose confidential information in fancy restaurants.

“I’m still interested in knowing how you and Alex are acquainted.”

“I lived in New York briefly when I first got out of college. I was taking graduate classes at Columbia. Alex and I met at a party and became friends.”

Her tone was cool, but I got the sense she was suggesting they’d been more than just friends. It was possible. Alex had been a very different person ten years ago, and the Buddy Holly look had been surprisingly effective with the ladies. He always seemed to have a good-looking girl hanging around back then.

“Graduate classes in what?”

“Operations research.”

She’d surprised me again. OR was a complex branch of math that dealt with decision making, usually the exclusive purview of the pocket-protector set. Based on her appearance, I would have pegged Theresa as a French lit major.

“Is that your field?”

“No. I took an MS in petroleum engineering from Texas Tech and then went to work for Halliburton. They sent me to Columbia for six months to brush up my analytic skills.”

“Which would make you an expert in reprocessed seismic analysis.”

She shrugged. It was an impressive resume, if it was true. Alex could presumably vouch for her later, but I figured there was no harm in a quick test.

“Maybe you can help me out. I’ve had to skim through a number of seismic studies, and I’ve never been completely clear on the difference between pre-stack time migration and depth migration.”

“Because you’re not an engineer.”

It was my turn to shrug. Not being an engineer didn’t mean I hadn’t picked up a few things.

She shook her head, looking put-upon, and took a sip from her cup.

“It’s a question of the vertical axis and the traveltime approximation. Any assumption of rays within a vertical plane qualifies as time migration. Is that good enough for you, or would you like me to elaborate?”

Any elaboration would be beyond me. Her qualifications didn’t have a direct bearing on the information she’d given me, but I felt my pulse quicken. Every true thing she said made her more credible.

“That’s perfect, thanks.” I topped off both our cups and then tapped the iPod through my jacket pocket. “So, what am I going to find on this?”

“Reprocessed seismic, daily and life-to-date production figures by well, bottom-hole and wellhead pressures from drill date to present, saltwater injection volumes, current and historical produced mixture percentages, well rotation schedules, onsite GOSP capabilities, and some other stuff.”

“For Ghawar?” I asked, stunned.

“For every oil field in Saudi Arabia. I gather you were only playing dumb when you said you didn’t know how to analyze this stuff, right? Because the official Saudi depletion estimates are in there, too, but I wouldn’t want you to start with them. They’re pretty much worthless. It’s better if you do your own work.”

I was speechless. Any single subset of the data she’d mentioned would dramatically enhance understanding of Saudi production capacity. Collectively, it was the intelligence coup of a lifetime, one that would paint a precise picture of the biggest and most secretive oil economy in the world. It was way, way, way too good to be true-and I’d been around long enough to know what that meant.

“And this comes from where?” I demanded.

“An acquaintance. I can’t tell you any more than that. Alex said you knew a lot of people in the industry, though. You should be able to confirm enough bits and pieces to get yourself comfortable. You can ask clever questions, like the difference between time migration and depth migration.”

The sarcasm was justifiable. And she was right-I knew people. But only one who might be able to confirm this kind of information: Rashid.

“Can you at least tell me how your acquaintance got hold of it?”

“He-we’ll say it’s a he-was hired to do a consulting project for Saudi Aramco. The project required some poking around in their databases, and he found a back door into their confidential data. An administrative password on a server that had never been changed from the default.”

The Saudis must have monster information security, but it was the kind of mistake that was just prosaic enough to be plausible. I had to be careful, though, because I wanted to believe so badly.

“Which brings me to my next question,” I said.

“Why you?”

“Why anybody? The Saudis are going to go berserk when this information hits the street, and they can hire the best IT people in the world to help them figure out where it came from. This acquaintance of yours is asking for a world of trouble. Why would he do that?”

“He’s covered his tracks.” She tapped the Financial Times on the table in front of her. “And he reads in the newspaper that you’re a guy who knows how to keep his mouth shut. You do know how to keep your mouth shut, don’t you? Because let me be very clear-I don’t want my name mentioned to any third parties in connection with this information. This is between me and you.”

“And Alex,” I added, wondering if she actually had an acquaintance or if she’d turned up the information herself.

“And Alex. Speaking of which, I prefer not to give you my contact details. If you need to reach me for any reason, you can go through him.”

“So, I gather Theresa Roxas isn’t your real name?” I said, realizing why I’d come up empty on Google.

“Does it matter?”

“No. But you didn’t answer my question. Why would the guy you know take this kind of chance?”

Theresa-or whatever her name was-picked up her portfolio and her newspaper and stood.

“Take a look at the data,” she said. “I think you’ll understand.”