Free Allegiance: A Jackson Quick Adventure by Tom Abrahams

companies backed mountaintop removal coal projects in Appalachia, and tar sands exploration in South Texas and in Western Canada, both really nasty ways to get energy out of the earth. Environmentalists hated him. They protested him and his shell companies. He made a lot of money.”
    “And?”
    “And he suddenly pulls out of everything. Almost overnight he gets out of the earth-raping business and becomes eco-friendly.”
    “Why?” I knew he’d switched sides, so to speak, but never heard a rational reason why.
    “The conventional wisdom is that he set his sights on public office. Since the days of ‘Drill Baby Drill’ ended with the 2010 BP Macondo spill in the Gulf, Buell knew he needed to be a kinder, gentler energy magnate.”
    “What’s the unconventional wisdom?” I sniffle again. My throat is starting to feel scratchy. Damn smoke.
    “He figured out he could get richer by conserving energy as opposed to harvesting it.” “What do you mean?” We’re driving next to a light rail train and heading north toward the edge of downtown. I duck as the train moves alongside us. Townsend probably notices my nervousness but doesn’t comment.
    “I’ve been working on stories about Buell for a long time now,” he continues. “About two years ago he moved the vast majority of his holdings into a small Texas company called Nanergetix,” Townsend slows the SUV and parallel parks in front of a large white building, a restaurant called Spaghetti Warehouse. “Nanergetix is heavily involved in vanguard, energy-related nanotechnology. Some people think they’ve discovered an additive that triples the efficiency of fossil fuels. I’ve been working on this stuff for months, but I can’t get any of it nailed down.”
    “If that were true then it would piss off the oil companies and make the price of gasoline, oil, natural gas, and coal drop like a rock, right?”
    “Exactly.” Townsend puts the SUV in park and pulls the keys from the ignition. “And it would make Buell very, very wealthy.”
    “He’s already rich.”
    “You shouldn’t be that naïve, Jackson.” He looks at me as though I am an idiot. “People like Buell can’t ever have enough money. They can’t ever have enough power.”
    “I still don’t get what that has to do with me or Ripley or Ripley’s son.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn in my seat to face the suddenly condescending reporter. He must be a liberal. Most reporters are and don’t even know they’re liberals. They think of themselves as open-minded and fair.
    “Well, I am not sure there is a connec—” he stops mid-sentence. His eyes widen and he smiles broadly. His teeth are perfectly straight and too white for a smoker. He’s liberal, condescending and vain. Perfect for television news. Just when I think it was a bad idea to connect with George Townsend, he changes my mind.
    “I get it,” he says. “Nanotechnology.”
    I don’t get it. “Nanotechnology?”
    “Ripley’s son works at Rice University in the nano lab…the lab where they conduct more nanotechnology research than anywhere else in the world.”
     
    ***
     
    The restaurant is empty except for Townsend and me. We’re sitting at a small corner table with two glasses of water and a basket of bread between us. I have my back to the wall so I can see everybody who comes and goes.
    “We’re going to Rice to talk to Ripley’s son?” I ask. My hands are clasped in front of me on the table. I’m leaning on my elbows.
    Townsend takes a piece of bread from the basket and stuffs half of it into his mouth. T.V. people eat too fast. It comes from downing lunch in a live truck between interviews or at a desk between phone calls.
    “Yes,” he says, “as soon as you tell me why you think you’re caught up in the middle of whatever this is.” He chased the mouthful of bread with a swig of water.
    “Okay,” I relent. It’s time for me to share what I think I know. “It’s because of the iPods.”
    Townsend,