The Black

by Paul E. Cooley

  “Damned right you did. When Calhoun gets here, we’re going to have a little talk about the slip-shod bullshit you guys have been pulling.”

  “Yes, sir,” JP said with a salute. Vraebel’s cheeks turned crimson. The man nodded in JP’s direction and clomped back up the steps.

  JP shook his head as he watched the rig chief head up to the main deck. Vraebel was an asshole. Complete and total asshole. JP stared down at the Zodiac. But Vraebel was right—they should have filed a dive plan. JP sighed again and wrapped up the tow ropes in neat coils. Next, he grabbed two of the SCUBA tanks and placed them in the boat’s holders. He unzipped his green, water-proofed sea bag and pulled out the two spear guns.

  He placed them inside the boat’s lock box along with four spears. Cork covered their razor sharp tips. JP always made sure they were ready for action. You never knew when you’d have a chance to spear something “special.”

  JP went over his mental check list. Masks were in and he’d rubbed them with an anti-fogger. Next? Tanks full? Check. Strapping and webbing for two? Check. Tow ropes? Check. He opened the small lockbox fastened to the boat and peered in. A small radio and two signal lights lay at the bottom. He smiled. That was it, all the gear they needed. Provided Catfish ever got dressed.

  The two of them had been on the rig for more than a week. Running Catfish’s robots through their paces had been stressful. Especially with the bitch acting up. Since ROVs were attached via cables, they weren’t nearly as much of a problem. The AUVs? They went wherever they were told to go. Provided Catfish’s code was resilient enough to compensate for any obstacles, they should be fine. But that didn’t mean there hadn’t been problems.

  For one thing, the propellers on all five had become fouled when the AUVs stumbled into a kelp bed on the ocean floor. Cursing and damned near throwing a tantrum, Catfish had waited for them to surface. All five had, but JP had to make three trips to bring them in. It made for a long day.

  In addition to his dive duties, part of JP’s job was to help Catfish maintain his equipment. That included the robots. Repairing the screws on the AUVs had required a damned long night. But all five had been back in the water the next afternoon. Catfish had stayed up all night writing new routines to keep them from hitting the kelp bed again. Eyes red-rimmed, voice a gravel growl, the tech had put in a thirty hour shift getting everything repaired and back to work.

  He only slept after the AUVs were back in the ocean and diving back down to the sea-floor. Diving 30,000 feet took hours unless the machines were red-lined. JP had promised to sit by the console and monitor the robots, but Catfish had refused. In typical Catfish manner, he’d sucked on his E-Cig until it ran out of fluid and fell asleep in his chair at the monitoring station.

  It wasn’t the first time that had happened. The man was very serious about his creations and took it as a personal affront if one of them failed. JP understood Catfish’s penchant for responsibility all too well. But every once in a while, the guy needed to chill the fuck out. JP hoped a little dip would make that happen. If not, then Calhoun was going to have to deal with one stressed out tech.

  “We ready?”

  JP turned back to the stairs. Catfish walked down the steps. His long hair was braided into a tail that danced behind his head with each step.

  JP grinned. “Nice dress. You need me to zip it for you?”

  Catfish flipped him off. His black wetsuit matched JPs, but the front was open at the waist. The extra material flopped as he moved. When Craig reached the bottom of the stairs, he made his way to the boat.

  “You see Vraebel?” JP asked.

  Catfish rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I saw him. He was pissed as usual. I filed a goddamned dive plan and let the divers know.”

  “Good,” JP said. “We have to get better about that. Calhoun would have our balls if we did that to him.”

  “Whatever,” Catfish said. He pulled up his wetsuit top and zipped it. “Got all the gear stowed?”

  “We’re ready,” JP said.

  Catfish smiled and stepped into the boat. The Zodiac hardly moved as he shifted his weight into the middle. “Let’s do this.”

  “Do you know where the bitch is?”

  “Of course,” Catfish said and pulled a bright yellow rectangle from his belt. He clicked it and it began to ping. “350 yards away. South, southeast,” he read from the display. He looked at JP and smiled. “That far enough away to get a little fishing done?”

  “Hell yes,” JP said. He started the engine and they left the dive deck.

  #

  The bridge was spotless. Vraebel sipped from an aluminum mug of black coffee. PPE’s logo was branded on its side. He sighed with pleasure as the strong coffee slid down his throat. Through the clean windows, he watched the Zodiac head out into the ocean. JP Harvey was gunning the engine too fast and Standlee was standing on the bow like he was in some damned action movie.

  Maybe the tech would fall out of the boat. Would certainly serve the smug son of a bitch right. God, but Vraebel hated those two. A little over a week and they’d managed to turn his crew’s routines into a mess. Unannounced trips into the ocean. No dive plans, no warning they were going to drop those damned fish into the ocean.

  Hell, the only warning Vraebel got was when they absolutely needed something from his crew. His crew. Not Calhoun’s. Not PPE’s. Vraebel’s crew. Every worker on the rig had been hand-picked by him. Except, of course, for Calhoun’s rejects.

  VP Simpson had told Vraebel he was to do everything to help Calhoun’s team. Without them, the rig might as well be hunting for oil in a desert. Or so the VP thought. Vraebel knew that was bullshit. He may not be a geologist, but he’d been working the oil fields and oceans for more than twenty years. He’d put his crew up against any other rig any day of the year.

  But Calhoun had the toys. The new drill bit tech. Standlee’s new robots. And that Sigler geologist was supposed to be a whiz kid. Didn’t matter. They were all a bunch of undisciplined, entitled assholes. As far as he was concerned, Calhoun’s team could go fuck themselves.

  He’d sent several private emails to Simpson, begging for the right to throw Standlee and Harvey off the rig. Simpson had responded with a tersely worded email that tried to put Vraebel in his place. Fucking suit. When the executives of a major oil exploration consortium had no experience with life on a rig, the goddamned world was doomed.

  So he’d have to make Calhoun happy. Or at least stay out of the man’s way. So long, of course, as the old engineer stayed out of his. Vraebel didn’t care if Calhoun was going to make everyone rich or not; this was Vraebel’s rig and he took orders from no one.

  He’d personally overseen the rig’s construction. Spent every day with the crew putting the monster together piece by piece. Tons and tons of steel. Pressure vessels. Miles of pipe, generators, cabling, and hydraulics. He’d gone over every detail, knew every nook and cranny of the huge machine.

  He took another sip of the coffee. He hated exploration rigs. They were built out in the middle of nowhere with no guarantee of production yield. On top of that, the rigs were usually untested and the engineers were always tweaking the design. In other words—it was a guaranteed clusterfuck.

  But Leaguer was his rig. And it would work. Steve Gomez, the tool pusher, and his team would do their jobs. Provided there was some goddamned black gold beneath the soil, and provided Calhoun’s team found the sweet spot to drill, it would all work.

  The Zodiac had become a black dot on the horizon. If he hadn’t been looking for it, he wouldn’t have noticed it. Standlee and Harvey were no doubt swimming with the fish instead of doing their jobs. Typical. When Calhoun arrived, Vraebel was going to have a long talk with the man.

  The rest of the crew hated Harvey and Standlee. They knew the two men were getting paid a tremendous amount of money and so far all they’d done was fuck off. They hadn’t been in the crew assignments for maintenance, waste disposal, or cleaning. In other words—they only did what they want
ed to. And the rest of the crew had taken notice.

  Vraebel smiled to himself. Of course he’d made sure the rest of the crew knew all of that. There wouldn’t be any poker games including those guys. If Vraebel had his way, their lives on Leaguer would be as miserable as he could make them. Unless they struck gold. In that case, those assholes would be heroes…at least to PPE.

  Didn’t matter. Leaguer was an exploration rig, not a production rig. Employees of PPE didn’t get a cut of the profits, other than their 401(k)’s, stock options, and bonuses. With the exception of the bonuses and enhancing their reps, the crew couldn’t care less about striking it rich. And that’s why they’d work hard for Vraebel. The workers that impressed him could get jobs anywhere in the industry. Fuck up? He’d make sure you had difficulty finding a job cleaning a latrine.

  But PPE was providing Vraebel one hell of a bonus if the rig did its job and found the black. So he’d play nice. To a point. Calhoun and his boys would get what they needed.

  He stared out at the cloud covered sky. White puffs of cotton obscured the sun. There was no rain in the forecast, but the storm from the mainland was heading their way. It might take a couple of days, but the system could sneak up on top of them. Vraebel made a mental note to keep an eye on the radar. PPE’s meteorologists would let them know if the nasty was approaching, but that didn’t guarantee the landlubbers would spot it before it was on top of them.

  Footsteps on the stairs. Someone was headed up to the bridge. Vraebel took a long draught from his coffee and closed his eyes. The steps were timid. He smiled to himself. The sounds reached the top of the stairs and the bridge hatch opened.

  “Hello, Steve,” Vraebel said without turning around.

  “Martin,” Steve Gomez said. “Got a minute?”

  Vraebel turned in his chair and took another sip of coffee. The tool pusher stood in the doorway, his filthy black ball cap in his hands. The man’s heavy denim coveralls were covered in dark stains. Steve ran a hand through his thick black hair and waited patiently. “What’s up?” Martin asked.

  “We went ahead and prepped the drill string,” Steve said. “And according to Standlee, the ROVs are ready to drop the sinks.” Gomez cleared his throat. “I think we’re pretty much ready once Calhoun gets here.”

  Vraebel nodded. “Good job, Steve. Is there anything left outstanding?”

  “Nope. I think we got it all.”

  “Okay,” Martin said and placed his empty mug on the console. “Tell your people they’re on an extended break. We’ve got nothing to do until the supply ship gets here.”

  Steve smiled. “They’ll like that.”

  “I’m sure you will too,” Martin chuckled. “So either take a nap, or get out your lines and catch us some dinner.”

  Gomez bowed. “We can definitely catch some fish.” He turned and walked back down the stairs.

  Martin’s mouth watered. Gomez and the other Mexicans were damned good at fishing. They’d stand on the lower platforms and dangle lines down in the water near the pilings. Fish treated the substructure like a reef. Once or twice, Gomez had even snagged himself a shark.

  He looked at the black diving watch on his wrist. The supply ship was due in four hours. If the storm hadn’t knocked them off schedule, they’d arrive before dinner. He hoped his people had a chance to eat before the load out. It was going to be a long night.

  #

  The Zodiac’s engine died. Catfish turned around and glanced at JP. The diver was smiling. The pontoon boat slowed and then bumped gently in the waves. The clouds were thick, but there was still no sign of rain in them.

  Catfish unclipped the yellow radio from his belt and stared at its display. “Dammit.”

  “What’s the problem?” JP called from the back.

  “It should be right here. We’re on top of it,” Catfish said.

  JP leaned over the side and stared into the water. “Uh, I don’t see it. You sure it surfaced?”

  “Yeah,” Catfish said. He walked forward to the bow and leaned over. The light made it tricky to see further than a few feet down. He held a hand above his eyes and let them relax. Finding a bright yellow torpedo in the water shouldn’t be this difficult. The sensor box was getting a signal from the bitch. “We have to be sitting on top of it.”

  JP shook his head. “Bullshit. It’s longer than the damned boat. We’d be able to see it fore or aft.”

  The box in Standlee’s hand pinged. He stared at it and groaned. “Okay. It’s here and we are on top of it.”

  “Well where the hell is it?”

  He turned to JP and growled. “Fifteen meters below us. Something’s wrong with the ballast.”

  JP rolled his eyes. “Guess I know what I’m doing.” He uncoiled one of the tow cables and threw it into the water. The heavy cable dropped out of sight immediately. Catfish sighed, grabbed a SCUBA tank, and began putting it on JP.

  “I love it when a man dresses me,” JP said in an effeminate voice.

  “I’ll be sure and tell someone that gives a shit,” Catfish said. He tightened the straps and clapped JP on the shoulder. “You want me down with you?”

  JP shook his head. “Nope. You stay with the boat. I may need the other tow rope. Besides, one diver down at a time right?”

  Catfish grinned. “Unless we’re fishing?” He grabbed the orange buoy and threw it over the side. There were no other boats for miles and the support ship was still hours away, but putting the diver buoy in the water was habit.

  “Unless we’re fishing,” JP said. He put on his mask and attached the fins to his dive boots. Once they were connected, he gave Catfish a thumbs up and dropped backwards into the ocean.

  #

  The moment he entered the water, he felt at home. SEAL training aside, he’d always loved the ocean. It didn’t matter if he was swimming a few miles to a beachhead, placing mines beneath a ship, inspecting a rig’s substructure, or spear-fishing; the water was where he belonged.

  Growing up in the Keys meant there wasn’t much to do that didn’t involve the ocean. Reef diving, spiny-tailed lobster hunting, and spear-fishing were the distractions he loved as a kid. When he joined the Navy at eighteen, he was lean and slight, but in great shape. By the time he was twenty, he was well-muscled and a natural for the SEALs.

  He floated beneath the Zodiac. The water was clear, but without steady light from the sun, the depths rapidly became dark as pitch. JP looked down and saw the tell-tale yellow of the bitch.

  JP stopped and reached for the tow rope. The bright orange cable was easy to see in the water. He grabbed it with his gloved hand, pulled it through the loop on his webbing, and flipped over. He kicked hard and easily made it down to the torpedo shaped AUV.

  He unhooked the cable from his belt and slid it through the steel grommets on the AUV’s nose. When Catfish had designed the new gear, he’d made sure they could be towed relatively easily.

  JP slid beneath the torpedo-shaped robot and felt for the bottom clasp. He found it and turned it clockwise. Green LEDs created wan light around him. He stared at the controls. A red light blinked in the corner. JP frowned around his rebreather. Catfish had been right; the ballast control was stuck.

  He pushed back until he was an arm’s length away from the AUV and touched the control panel’s red light. Bubbles shot up as the robot emptied the rest of the water that kept it below the surface.

  The AUV quickly rose next to the Zodiac. Something bumped against JP’s leg and he turned quickly. A small hammer-head shark swam past him. He looked down.

  A school of redfish was high-tailing it through the water. Two more sharks were chasing the group of fish. These were larger than the small hammer-head. Once the blood started flowing from one of those fish, more sharks would show up. Shaking his head, he kicked for topside. Within a few seconds, his head popped up on the other side of the Zodiac.

  Catfish was already tightening up the cable that held the AUV. JP scrambled up the rope ladder and into the boat. He pulled o
ff his mask and killed the oxygen supply on the tank.

  The tech turned toward him, a grim smile on his face. “Ballast?”

  JP nodded as he stripped out of the SCUBA gear. “Had to hit the control panel. Guessing you should close that.”

  Catfish growled and punched a button on the control box. It lit up green. “How come you’re taking off the tank? Aren’t we spear-fishing?”

  The former SEAL shook his head. “No fishing today. Not down there, anyway. We got sharks. And more coming.”

  “Dammit,” Catfish said. He tied the cable through the cleats and used a traction tool to tighten everything. Once the AUV was only a few feet behind the boat, he sat on the side of the pontoon and stared down into the water. “So much for time off.”

  JP shrugged. “Well, maybe we can figure out what’s wrong with the bitch.”

  “Maybe,” Catfish said. “Let’s get back to the rig. Maybe we’ll have better luck later.”

  #

  After parking the Zodiac in the bay, JP hooked up the lift cables and hoisted the AUV out of the water. The mechanized lift made short work of raising the 1400 lbs. of steel and instrumentation.

  Before JP finished putting the AUV up for maintenance, Catfish was running up the stairs to the stateroom to get his laptop and cords. The AUVs all had wireless interface points so he could communicate with them without hooking up directly, but he didn’t want to chance it with Number 5.

  After shrugging his way through the narrow halls and running back down the steps, he was tired and out of breath. JP just grinned at him.

  “What?” Catfish asked as he hooked up the cords from the laptop to the control panel.

  “If you stopped smoking,” JP said, “maybe you wouldn’t be out of breath after a little jog.”

  Catfish flipped him off, put the laptop on the deck’s mechanical control box, and opened the lid. The display lit up with green text on a black background. He typed in the commands to open a connection to the AUVs on-board computer.

  JP moved behind him and stared over his shoulder as Catfish ran diagnostics. “Any ideas?” he asked.