Prosser winced.

Martin began to relax.

Carroll decided that she’d redo her nails in bloodred.

“The attack on St. Kilda,” Steele said, “most likely comes from one of France’s largest energy companies. The company is seeking oil concessions all over Africa. In the past, the company has paid for such concessions with guns, bullets, aircraft, even machetes like the one that was used so many years ago to chop off John Neto’s hand.”

“Wait a minute,” Brent Thomas broke in. “You’re saying that some French oil company is pulling strings behind the scenes, trading guns for oil with one hand and planting rumors with respected and influential journalists with the other?”

“Yes.”

“That’s either crazy or the best damned news story I ever heard.”

“It’s both,” Steele said.

Carson leaned forward. “All I care about is Andre Bertone. He’s the man we’re putting in the UBS spotlight. He’s the one who’ll sue our balls off if he doesn’t like what we say.”

“Bertone is the cutout for the oil company,” Steele said. “If you’re a multibillion-dollar multinational corporation with direct political connections, you don’t openly buy planeloads of guns and then hand them over to rebels who in return will give you multiyear oil concessions when they come to power.”

Carson started taking notes.

“Andre Bertone is brokering the deal for the oil company,” Steele continued. “He used to be an ordinary middleman. Rebel groups would siphon barge loads of oil out of transnational pipelines and trade them to Bertone for cases of assault rifles. From there he bought planes and pilots. Now he’s an international energy broker who, if Neto is overthrown, will control millions of barrels of potential Camgerian production, which he’ll sell to the French for a long-term profit of a billion dollars.”