by Julie Cannon
Nicole recited all the mind games her shrink had taught her, but it was several minutes before she started to calm down. She hadn’t had an attack in months. Nighttime was the worst—the instant just before she fell asleep, when her mind started to drift. Even with medication, at times the attacks were so frequent she didn’t sleep for days. She prayed they weren’t starting again. The clock on the wall read two forty a.m.
Nicole walked around her house, concentrating on her breathing and her surroundings. The flashbacks always left her disoriented, and looking at familiar things helped ground her. Her house was new, designed by her and built only a year ago in an intimate enclave of seven homes on oversized home sites, each with a private boat dock. Turning off the alarm she walked through the main living area on the first floor, making a lap through the kitchen, around the large breakfast bar, and past her office. She continued through the great room with warm wood floors, surround sound, and numerous windows for natural light. She opened the French doors and stepped onto a large patio.
The stars were brilliant, and the constant breeze on the Gulf shore at this hour of the morning was quite cool. She drank slowly from the bottle of water she’d grabbed on one of her passes by the refrigerator. Inhaling the salty air several times and listening to the sound of the waves calmed her even more.
Sitting down on one of the Adirondack chairs, Nicole kept a close rein on her thoughts. If she let them wander she might find herself right back where she’d fought so hard to get out of—in that terrifying place between panic and sheer panic.
She thought about the recent financials Buck had shared with her last week. The company was profitable, had a large reserve of cash, and more fires were flaring in the world than McMillan could put out. Nicole didn’t care if her company was the largest or extinguished the most fires. She cared that her father’s legacy continued. McMillan was known in the industry to be fair, quick, and very, very safe.
Which made her think about the gathering yesterday morning. She wanted her legacy to be that McMillan recognized and rewarded safety at all costs. If a job took longer, so be it. If it cost more to extinguish a blowout due to safety procedures being followed, she paid it. If an employee ignored or intentionally bypassed a safety procedure, she fired him. She would never compromise on safety in the name of money.
Nicole reflected on the actions of the five employees who had gathered in the conference room down the hall from her office. The men were stereotypical oil-field workers—a bit rough around the edges, not highly educated, but very smart. Smart from experience and common sense, and innovative out of necessity. If the apocalypse ever came, she wanted to be next to these guys.
Brady, on the other hand, was different, even more so than the few other females in the industry. And even fewer put out fires. Nicole wondered how Brady got into this business. She made a mental note to look at Brady’s personnel file in the morning. It was none of her business, but Brady was one of her employees so she did have the right.
Brady had been more an observer than an active participant today. Nicole watched her take in her surroundings in both the conference room and her office. She spoke when spoken to but rarely initiated a conversation or voiced her opinion. She listened and watched what was going on around her, which is what put her in the position of saving her co-worker’s life. Was she the same way off the job? Was she the life of the party or did she hover just on the fringe?
What was Brady doing right now? What a stupid thought, she said into the dark. It’s the middle of the night. She was probably sleeping, something Nicole needed to do. She had a long day tomorrow but would have difficulty falling back asleep, so she stayed where she was.
Was Brady sleeping alone? Was she from around here? During their conversation she didn’t indicate that she knew anyone. But something like that wouldn’t keep a woman like Brady from getting what she wanted. She was attractive and polite, and had all her teeth. Nicole couldn’t help but smile at that last thought.
She rubbed her left arm above the elbow. The scar tissue had tightened over the past few weeks, and the ache that accompanied it constantly reminded her how her life had changed from being on the front line to being an observer.
The night chilled and her nipples stiffened. She didn’t know how long she’d been outside, but now she was cold. Closing and locking the door behind her, she reset the alarm and went to her office.
Chapter Nine
Nicole sat in a straight-backed chair facing nine senators. They were seated on a raised dais, whereas her table and chair was on floor level. It was a power thing, and she thought it petty. She had been called to Washington to testify in front of the energy committee to give expert testimony on the technology and procedures around fighting oil-well fires. Since the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico several years ago, the committee was on a witch hunt for safety violations. To add to this zoo in front of her, every senator on this committee was up for reelection next year, including Colleen Mason, who just so happened to chair the committee and was sitting directly in front of her.
“Ms. McMillan, thank you for joining us today on such short notice to share your expert testimony with the committee.”
“I wouldn’t consider myself an expert, Madam Chairman. Just someone with a lot of experience. But thank you for inviting me.” She hadn’t gone back to sleep the night of her panic attack and hadn’t slept much last night in the hotel either. She felt sluggish.
“Ms. McMillan, you underestimate yourself,” Senator Mason said, and to Nicole her words sounded like a weak platitude. “Let’s get started, shall we? Please walk us through the anatomy of an oil well and an oilfield fire, if you would.”
Nicole glanced quickly at the other members of the committee. Several appeared to be interested, two looked completely bored, and Colleen Mason couldn’t take her eyes off Nicole.
“Certainly.” Nicole had prepared a few notes, but most of what she would more than likely be asked she would know without them.
“First, the hole is drilled above where they believe the oil is. The hole could be anywhere from a few hundred feet to several thousand deep and fifteen to over thirty inches in diameter. Once they reach the desired depth they place sections of pipe into the hole to prevent it from collapsing on itself. Then the crew lowers the drill string, or the drill pipe that is usually in thirty-foot sections, as a conduit for the oil to flow through up to the surface.
“Then the derrick is set up, which is probably the only part of the rig that most people can identify. It holds the drilling apparatus, including the drill bit, and is tall enough to allow new sections of pipe to be added as the drilling progresses. Once the reservoir is tapped the crew puts on the wellhead and the pumping can begin.”
“Where does the blowout preventer come in?”
“The B-O-P, as it’s known in the industry, was developed in the early 1920s to cope with extreme erratic pressures, also known as a ‘kick,’ and uncontrolled oil flow. When a kick occurs, rig operators monitoring the system or, in newer models, automatic systems close the valve, stopping the flow out of the pipe. Sand, mud, rocks, and other substances may be ejected from the hole in a blowout, in addition to the oil or gas.”
“How does a blowout happen? Aren’t they pretty rare?” the man to the right of Senator Mason asked.
“In comparison to fifty, twenty, even five years ago, yes, they are.”
“If these B-O-Ps, as you call them, are designed to prevent blowouts, as the name aptly describes, how do they still happen?” One of the senators who looked old enough to be classified as a fossil asked the question.
“Blowouts are often ignited by sparks from rocks being ejected from the line or simply from heat generated by friction.”
“Or by negligence,” Senator Mason said quickly.
Again Nicole waited for a question. She didn’t have to wait long.
“So, Ms. McMillan, what makes fighting this type of fire so challenging and so expensi
ve?” a different senator asked.
“What makes it so challenging is the fuel that’s feeding the fire. The oil flowing out of the ground is the fuel source and is coming out at a very high psi. Pounds per square inch,” Nicole added for reference. “What makes it so expensive is that the conventional way to fight the fire doesn’t work.”
“How so?” Senator Mason asked.
“Oil rigs in general are located in remote areas. The availability and ease of getting to the site with water, and lots of it, is the first problem to solve. You need dozers, cranes, front-end loaders, power generation, pumps, and countless other things. The crew needs breathing equipment, water, portable generators, food, and quarters to rest in. All of that needs to be brought in from somewhere, and that somewhere is usually not local, and to add to the complexity, you need it right now.”
“So how do you put it out?”
“Several ways, depending on the situation,” Nicole answered, finally getting into the meat of what she knew. “In most cases the first thing we do is what’s called ‘raising the plume,’ where a metal casing or pipe is put over the damaged wellhead, causing the fire to be above the ground.” The confused look on the committee’s faces told her she needed to be more specific. She reached for the laser pointer lying on the table beside her glass of water.
“I brought this diagram for reference,” she said, pointing to the large poster board on a stand to her left and slightly behind her. Nicole proceeded to point to and call out the parts of the well she had mentioned earlier, using very simplistic, everyday terms. Every time she moved, she could hear the clicking of digital cameras freezing her for eternity on the evening news and the Internet. She was grateful that flash wasn’t allowed in the committee room, or she probably wouldn’t be able to see what she was pointing to.
“And this is the pipe that I referenced earlier when I talked about raising the plume,” she said, pointing to the pipe that was sitting atop the wellhead. “Instead of the oil spewing out of the wellhead here,” she used the red dot and made a circle around the part, “the pipe is brought in by a crane and positioned over the head, redirecting the oil and flame up and away from the head and ground so the work can be done.” This time when she looked at the committee they appeared to understand.
“Liquid nitrogen or even water can be forced down the casing, suffocating the fire and leaving just the oil. On some sites we use dynamite. If you remember from grade-school science, fire needs fuel, heat, and oxygen.” Nicole pointed to three of her fingers for emphasis. “If any one of the three is missing, you won’t have fire. We pour hundreds of thousands of gallons of water on the fire to control the heat. We can’t eliminate it altogether but we can reduce it. Because the wellhead is damaged we can’t stop the fuel, so we cut off the oxygen supply. For just a split second when the fire is deprived of oxygen, the fire is killed and all that’s left is the fuel or, in this case, the oil. Then we install the replacement wellhead and the fuel source is extinguished,” Nicole said, making it sound far simpler than it was.
“Am I safe to assume that an oil-well fire is more dangerous than a regular structural fire?”
“Absolutely. Red Adair once said that extinguishing the fire isn’t the most difficult part of well control. It’s what you do after the fire is out that’s dangerous. As long as the oil is still flowing, the well could flash or reignite, injuring or killing anyone near it.” Which is exactly what had happened to her.
“Ms. McMillan, how many fires did McMillan Suppression extinguish last year?”
“Twelve,” Nicole replied, after a second’s hesitation due to the abrupt change of subject.
“And the year before?”
“Eleven.”
“And the year before that?”
“Nine.”
“So, Ms. McMillan, would you say that you’re seeing a trend of increased oil-well fires?”
Colleen Mason was looking to make a bigger name for herself than she already had. She was going after big oil, and everyone knew it. Nicole would answer her questions honestly but carefully, but she would not feed her ambition.
“No, Madam Chairman, that’s not what I said. You asked me how many fires my company extinguished. Many other companies around the world do what McMillan does, and I can’t speak to their numbers.” Nicole saw a slight narrowing of Mason’s eyes and knew she didn’t like her answer.
“Ms. McMillan, do you think the number of fires is increasing?”
“Again, Madam Chairman, the only facts that I have are those that pertain to my company.”
“Come on, Ms. McMillan, you’re an expert in this area. You would know these things.”
Nicole detected a note of sarcasm in Mason’s statement. “Madam Chairman, I’m an expert at extinguishing oil-well fires.” Nicole felt her temper rise but refused to get pulled into the chairman’s agenda.
“But surely, as a result, you’re an expert in the industry. You know what’s going on out there.”
Nicole didn’t answer. The McMillan attorneys had coached her carefully as to how to answer and to not get caught up in conversation innuendos or political grandstanding. If there wasn’t a question on the table, say nothing. And if there was, only answer the question and nothing else. Don’t answer with an opinion or color. So Nicole waited for a question.
“Ms. McMillan, what was your gross revenue last year?”
“Madam Chairman, McMillan is not a public company, and to disclose that information would put my competitors at an unfair advantage.”
“Surely you made more money last year than you did the year before just by the sheer increase in number of fires you extinguished.”
“The cost and therefore the profit of extinguishing each fire is dependent on many factors. Simply because we killed more fires than the year before does not correlate to increased revenue.”
“All right,” Senator Mason said, clearly not too happy.
The day tediously dragged on with each member of the panel asking the same questions but phrasing them somewhat differently. They were all posturing for their own sound bite to use in their reelection commercials. She answered each one and tried not to show her frustration with the entire proceedings. When Senator Mason banged the gavel signaling the end of her testimony, Nicole was parched and hungry, and had to pee.
She escaped into the ladies’ room at the end of the corridor, and as she was washing her hands, Senator Mason walked in.
Fuck.
“Nicole, I want to thank you again for coming today.” Senator Mason didn’t step any farther into the room but propped herself back against the door like she was settling in for a long conversation and blocking anyone else from entering.
“Anything I can do to help the committee understand the complexities of the industry,” Nicole answered, even though she knew the senator wasn’t here to thank her. Was she going to make a move on her in the ladies’ room of the senate building? That would be the tackiest thing she had ever experienced.
“Speaking of that, are you free for dinner tonight? I’m not sure I understand the kicking of the plume, or whatever you called it.”
Nicole suppressed a shudder as the senator’s eyes raked over her body. Dinner was the last thing on the senator’s mind. After a day of answering the same question at least nine times, Nicole just wanted to order room service, curl up on the couch in her hotel room, and watch the ball game.
“I have a standing reservation at DeRitters.” Senator Mason dropped the name of the finest steak-and-seafood restaurant in the city. “We can decompress over a glass of wine and sink our teeth into something hot and juicy when we’re ready.”
Nicole didn’t have to see the leer on the senator’s face; she heard in her voice that Nicole was on her menu tonight. “I’d love to, Senator, but—”
“Perfect. I’ll meet you there at seven thirty,” Senator Mason said just before she swung open the door to the hall. Nicole didn’t even have a chance to utter her excuse. Instead she let mor
e than a few expletives cross her lips before she followed the brash woman out the door.
Senator Mason was already seated when Nicole arrived. She had removed her suit jacket and scarf, and unpinned her hair. Her arms were bare, her neckline low, and her cocktail more than half gone. The waiter, or more likely the senator, had moved the second place setting from across the small table to the seat on her left. The seating arrangement implied intimacy. Nicole would have to be on full alert. She hid a frown. It was going to be a long evening.
“You look lovely, Nicole. May I call you Nicole?”
Nicole nodded.
“Please call me Colleen. We’re off the clock. Would you like a drink?” She signaled the waiter as she finished her drink.
“No, water is fine.” No way was she going to call her Colleen, and she absolutely wasn’t going to drink.
“Nicole,” Colleen laid her hand on top of hers. It was cold and clammy. “It’s okay to have a cocktail.”
Nicole casually reached for her napkin, effectively removing the intrusive hand without embarrassment. She didn’t need to remind herself to keep her hands in her lap from now on. “I know. I just prefer water.” Actually she wanted a stiff drink, and after the senator’s come-on she wanted several—after a long, hot shower with a lot of strong soap.
“I’ll have another,” she said, not looking at the waiter but pointing to her now-empty glass instead. Nicole casually glanced around the small table, looking for the menu. The senator must have noticed because she said, “I thought we’d talk a bit before we order dinner.”
Nicole had absolutely no appetite, but at least eating would give her something to do.
“It’s good to see you again, Nicole. I enjoy the time we spend together.”
“I’m glad the committee is interested enough to talk to those of us in the field.” She had to keep this from becoming a personal conversation.
“How are you?”
Nicole was not going to acknowledge the personal aspect of why she was here. “Things are going well. McMillan’s safety record continues to be the best in the industry. As a matter of fact, we had our quarterly safety-awards meeting this week.”