Free Soon by Jerry B. Jenkins Page A

tomorrow morning sound?”

8
    PAUL HAD ALWAYS BEEN privately amused by the Gulfland NPO bureau chief. Most of the chiefs Paul had met were fairly buttoned-down bureaucratic types. Lester “Tick” Harrelson was about five-foot-six and 140 pounds. He had a shock of dry hair through which he was constantly—and ineffectively—running a hand. His tie was loose, and he had trouble keeping his shirt tucked in. But he was a pro, and his people worshiped him.
    Tick and Donny Johnson, president of Sardis Oil and Tick’s polar opposite, met Paul at the gate at Bush International in Houston. All Tick and Donny had in common were cowboy boots and hats and a commitment to the problem at hand. Johnson was a big man with a long gait, and while it appeared he would be more comfortable in a workingman’s clothes, his suit was clearly custom-made.
    “Good to see you again, Doctor,” Tick said, introducing him to the oil magnate. “Welcome back. Glad you’re back in the saddle. This boy’s a hero, Donny.”
    Donny Johnson looked approvingly at the bruises on Paul’s face. He all but crushed Paul’s hand when they shook. “Sure could use a hero ’bout now.”
    “Well, I—”
    “Used to call that well my Spindletop. Now it’s nothin’ but cash money burnin’ up.”
    Tick interpreted. “Spindletop was the original Texas gusher, the one that put us on the map way back when. Pumped a hundred thousand barrels a day, or so they say.”
    Johnson shook his head. “We do double that now with geomagnetics, but in the old days that was somethin’. Biggest gusher the world ever saw. A miracle, they say—which is what they’re callin’ my well fire now and gettin’ folks all worked up.”
    “Who’s calling it a miracle?”
    “That’s for you to tell us, mister. Not even forty-eight hours and it’s already out over the Internet. And when you find ’em—”he clenched huge fists—“I’m fixin’ to beat their brains out.”
    “Figuratively, of course,” Tick said. “Religious activity alone is punishable by law. Sabotage—”
    “By law?” Johnson said. “We have our own ideas about law in Texas.”
    Tick looked as if he’d heard this before. “Let’s show Paul what’s going on.”
    The three climbed into a stretch limo at the curb. Though it was only March, Paul was sweating in his wool suit, even in the airconditioned car. He took off his jacket. “Loosen your tie,” Tick said, but Paul declined.
    Houston had long been one of the most populated cities in the country and had recently passed Chicago for third place behind Los Angeles and New York. In the distance Paul saw some of the tallest buildings in the world, giving the port city a dramatic skyline. The windows of most of the skyscrapers were reflective, countering the relentless sun, and the glare gave the city an ethereal golden glow.
    The Sardis Oil field was a two-hour drive from the airport. “This is not my area, Mr. Johnson,” Paul said as they left the sub-urban sprawl and headed into open country. “My questions may sound stupid.”
    “Nothin’ sounds stupid out here, mister. I’ve been in oil all my life and I can’t explain this.”
    “Tell me about this well.”
    “This here’s a production well, as opposed to a wildcat well. Wildcats are the ones we sink when we’re looking for oil trapped in reservoirs. Once we find a reservoir, we drill production wells. With geomagnetics, we don’t need a lot of roughnecks on a crew, but by the time a well like this starts pumpin’ oil, we’ve sunk millions into it.”
    “How often do oil wells catch fire?”
    “Happens, but it’s rare. Nowadays, the cause is almost never mechanical. Sometimes lightnin’ will strike a well. Sometimes the fire is set. Like now.”
    “You seem sure.”
    “The Mexicans were behind it.”
    “Let’s say it was a foreign faction,” Paul said. “How would they do it?”
    “Not just foreign—Mexican,” Johnson said. “They work up here, learn our