The drive from the Paramount lot in Hollywood to the Holmby Hills estate of Owlwood was a journey of less than ten miles.
Duke rolled the window of his Mercedes sedan down just a crack, letting the wind bite against his face, as he pondered what car should he buy, he wanted a more sports car style.
As the heavy iron gates of Owlwood finally appeared in the distance, a sense of relief washed over him.
The gates swung open with a quiet, well-oiled hum.
Owlwood was his very own Fortress of Solitude.
Set on over four acres of prime Los Angeles real estate, the sprawling Italian Renaissance-style mansion was entirely hidden from the street by towering hedges and massive sycamore trees.
It was impossible for the paparazzi to get anywhere near here.
Duke parked the car and killed the engine and sat in the quiet for a moment, he reached down and massaged his right thigh.
As he approached the carved oak front doors, he didn't need his keys. The door opened before his hand even reached the brass handle.
Standing in the grand foyer, was Lynda Carter.
She wore a pair of faded, perfectly worn-in denim bell-bottoms and an oversized white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows.
Just weeks ago, in Hampton, Virginia, she had been named Miss World USA. She was officially the most beautiful woman in America.
"Look at you," Lynda smiled, "The hero returns. I was starting to think you decided to stay in Munich."
Duke smiled as he wrapped his arms around her waist.
Lynda met him, her arms coming up to loop around his neck. She buried her face in the collar of his coat. Duke closed his eyes, resting his chin on the top of her head.
"It's good to be home," Duke murmured against her hair.
"You feel so tense," she noted softly, her thumbs gently massaging the tight muscles on his neck. "I was thinking we could go to the Los Angeles Country Club near here to socialize with your neighbors... wait, are your jewish?"
"No, i'm prebisterian," he admitted, remembering that some Country Clubs at this time didn't accept Jews. "By the way I am sorry I wasn't in Virginia, Lynda. I should have been in that audience."
Lynda waved a hand dismissively, stepping back and taking his hand to lead him toward the living room. "Oh, please. If you had been there, the press would have spent more time taking photos of you. It was better this way."
They moved into the living room, a cavernous space with a limestone fireplace.
The room was decorated with leather sofas, rich Persian rugs, and shelves lined with actual books that had been read.
Duke sank into the corner of the largest sofa, Lynda curled up beside him, resting her head against his shoulder. He naturally wrapped his arm around her, holding her close.
"So," Duke said, looking at her. "Miss World USA. It has a nice ring to it."
Lynda chuckled, and looked down at her hands. "It feels a bit surreal, if I'm being honest. A year ago I was just a girl from Arizona and now i have an itinerary that looks like a presidential campaign."
"You earned it, just... you know don't let it get to your head." Duke said firmly.
Lynda turned her head, resting her chin on his chest so she could look him in the eye.
"Duke, I'm twenty-one years old," she said, her voice grounded in practical reality. "I know exactly what that pageant was. It's an honor, yes. I'm proud to represent the country. But I know what the crown actually is."
"And what is it?" Duke asked.
"It's a key," she said simply. "Before Virginia, if I walked into a casting director's office in Los Angeles, I was just another pretty brunette in a town absolutely overflowing with pretty brunettes. I was at the back of a line stretching out the door. The crown takes me out of that line and puts me in the room. It makes people answer the phone. It basically gives me a platform."
Duke smiled. "So, London is next," Duke said, tracing a slow circle on her shoulder. "November. The international pageant."
"Miss World 1972," she nodded, a hint of excitement finally bleeding into her tone. "Representing the United States. It's going to be massive, Duke. The BBC is broadcasting it. Millions of people. I have fittings, interviews, protocol training. I'm basically going to be a diplomat in a swimsuit for three weeks."
"You'll win," Duke said.
"I don't know about that," she laughed modestly, shaking her head. "The girl from Australia is stunning, and the European delegates have been training for this since they were toddlers."
"Her eyes turned focused. "But my goal is the day after London. The goal is what I do with the momentum. The crown is just the foundation. Even Paramount and you only payed attention to me after I was already Miss Arizona."
Duke looked at her, truly absorbing her words. The contrast between Lynda and the women he interacted with at the studio was staggering.
Earlier that afternoon, he had watched Ali MacGraw glide into his office. Ali was a star, married to one of the most powerful executive in town. Yet, Duke knew her life was a house of cards, built on affairs, insecurity, and the desperate need for external validation.
Lynda was the exact opposite. She was steady, and long term minded.
"You're going to get everything you want, Lynda," Duke said quietly, leaning down, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. "You have the talent."
"I know," she corrected gently, her hand coming up to rest flat against his chest.
They spent the rest of the evening in a state of quiet, domestic quiet happiness
Lynda made a simple dinner of roasted chicken and vegetables, and they ate at the small table in the kitchen, laughing about the absurdities of their respective industries.
___
Hours later, the clock in the hallway chimed at two in the morning.
The sprawling estate of Owlwood was cloaked in absolute silence. Upstairs, in the master suite, Lynda was fast asleep, her breathing deep and even, entirely at peace.
Downstairs, however, Duke was wide awake.
Duke Hauser sat alone in his private study.
It was a room that felt entirely different from the rest of the bright, airy house.
It was paneled in dark, rich mahogany, lined from floor to ceiling with leather-bound books, and smelled faintly of pipe tobacco and ink. The heavy velvet curtains were drawn tight against the large windows.
Duke sat in a high-backed leather chair, a glass of mineral water on a coaster beside him.
Duke reached under the desk, his fingers finding a hidden latch. He pressed it, and a concealed drawer slid open with a soft, metallic click.
From inside, he withdrew a heavy, black-bound ledger. It was entirely unadorned, save for a few simple words on the cover.
Vanguard Petroleum.
Duke picked up a heavy, gold fountain pen and began to review the numbers.
It was late September 1972.
To the rest of the financial world, the United States domestic oil industry was a dying giant. The narrative in the boardroom of Exxon, Texaco, and Gulf Oil was one of terminal decline.
American onshore production had officially peaked two years ago, in 1970.
For the first time in its history, the U.S. had become a net importer of crude oil.
The easy, gushing wells of Texas and Oklahoma were drying up. The cost of extraction was rising, and the margins were shrinking.
Because of this, the "Majors", the massive, vertically integrated oil conglomerates were executing a massive strategic pivot. They were taking their billions in capital and fleeing the American heartland.
They were looking overseas to the massive, cheap concessions in the Middle East. They were pouring money into expensive, high-yield offshore exploration in the North Sea.
In their wake, they were leaving behind thousands of what the industry called "stripper wells."
Duke ran his finger down a column of figures in the ledger.
A stripper well was defined as a marginal, dying well that produced less than ten barrels of oil a day.
To a company like Exxon, a well producing eight barrels a day was a logistical nightmare. The overhead costs, the maintenance, the paperwork, and the labor required to keep the pump jack running far exceeded the value of the oil it produced. It was a nuisance on their balance sheet.
Because they wanted to clean up their books, the majors were currently liquidating these stripper wells across the Permian Basin for pennies on the dollar. They were practically giving them away, valuing the assets based only on the scrap value of the metal pump jacks sitting on the dirt.
Duke looked at the current market price of oil written at the top of the page.
Current Price (September 1972): $3.60 per barrel.
At three dollars and sixty cents a barrel, a stripper well was a terrible investment.
Anyone buying them was considered a fool, catching a falling knife in a dying industry.
But Duke wasn't anyone. He possessed the ultimate competitive advantage, he knew the future.
In his past life, movies werent even his career, it was oil, his father was a heavy oil expert and he was studying to be a petroleum engineer.
Duke leaned back in his chair, tapping the pen against his chin, his eyes staring blankly at the wood of the wall.
Exactly one year from now.
In October 1973, the Yom Kippur War would erupt in the Middle East.
The United States would support Israel.
In retaliation, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) would proclaim an oil embargo against the U.S. and its allies.
The global supply chain would shatter overnight. The era of cheap energy would end in a catastrophic geopolitical moment.
Panic would grip the world. There would be lines at gas stations stretching for miles.
And the price of oil, currently sitting at $3.60, would violently skyrocket toward $11.65 a barrel and beyond.
But that wasn't the play. Predicting a price spike was basic memorization. The true genius of Duke's plan lay in the legislative reaction to the Oil Crissi.
He knew exactly what the Nixon administration would do when the inflation crisis hit. They would panic, and they would pass the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act (EPAA).
Duke began to write in the ledger.
To combat inflation, the government would implement a complex, disastrously managed system of price controls.
They would classify oil from established, flowing wells as "Old Oil," and they would cap the price at an artificially low $5.25 a barrel to keep the economy from completely collapsing.
If Duke bought massive, high-producing wells right now, the government would cap his profits the moment the crisis hit. He would be trapped.
But the government would make one massive, glaring exemption to the price controls.
They would realize that if they capped the price of oil coming from marginal, dying wells, the operators would simply shut them down and abandon them, further restricting the domestic supply.
To prevent the abandonment of America's final drops of domestic oil, Congress would write a specific loophole into the law.
They would exempt 'stripper wells' from the price ceilings.
Any well producing less than ten barrels a day would be legally allowed to sell its crude not at the capped domestic price, but at the astronomical world market price.
Duke looked down at the ledger. He had $10 million in liquid capital. This was the millions he had generated by the success of Paramount.
If he used that $10 million tomorrow, in late 1972, he could sweep across West Texas through a network of shell companies and proxy buyers.
He could buy thousands of these abandoned, unwanted stripper wells from the desperate majors. He could acquire massive, sprawling portfolios of land and mineral rights for the cost of scrap metal.
He wouldn't need to drill a single new hole. He wouldn't need expensive exploration crews.
He just needed to buy the rusty pump jacks that were already in the ground and pay a skeleton crew of roughnecks to keep things flowing.
When the embargo hit and the EPAA loophole activated, Vanguard Petroleum would become a titan of unregulated, uncapped cash. His initial $10 million investment would balloon.
The assets themselves would skyrocket in value as the industry desperately scrambled to buy back the stripper wells they had just sold him.
The cash flow generated from these forgotten Texas wells would be staggering. It would be entirely independent of box office trends, studio politics, or the whims of movie critics.
He closed the heavy black cover of the Vanguard Petroleum ledger. He slipped it back into the hidden drawer and locked it with a definitive click.
He turned off the lamp, plunging the study into darkness again.
___
Is the Oil plan understandable?
buy low, sell high basically
The oil plan is to give way to the plot back in dallas