by John Hunt
Victims of most of the disasters saw them as accidents. They thought some were intentional acts of destruction by various terrorist organizations. Azid reflected on his list of accomplishments: Three missiles fired from a rusty Norwegian fishing vessel destroyed the British Petroleum–owned North Sea–oil platform. Azid had ensured that the victims credited corporate incompetence and disregard for safety regulations. Then, outside of Novosibirsk, a massive oil-production field had caught fire, which the victims thought Kazakhstan rebels had ignited. That field was still burning now, six months later. Then the torpedoed wellhead deep underwater in the Gulf of Mexico had caused enough environmental concern that the US government panicked as usual and, predictably, shut down oil drilling offshore. If the damn Chinese hadn’t started drilling off the American coast, filling in where the Americans failed, he would have had the whole American sub-oceanic oil resources turned off for years.
His pièce de résistance, perhaps, had been the least destructive of them all. The earthquake in Japan, which threatened Japan’s nuclear plants and made headlines around the globe, planted the seeds of fear of nuclear dangers. Within three weeks of that natural disaster, a truck carrying waste from a nuclear power plant to a nuclear waste disposal site outside Madison, Wisconsin, jack-knifed on a highway in the middle of a residential suburb, spilling its contents all over the road. No one was killed, and no radiation leaked. But the effect was immeasurably powerful, as the news media fed the Americans’ growing irrational fears of nuclear danger. The intellectual elite rallied the weak-minded to vote away nuclear energy for good. A snowball turned into an avalanche. It was perfectly planned and the Americans were perfectly predictable. A simple loosening of a clamp on a brake line was all that had been needed.
The Iraqi smiled as he remembered looking in his rearview mirror as he slammed on the brakes in his rented Ford Taurus only two cars ahead of the truck. The police car behind likewise screeched to nearly a halt, and the truck behind tried also, but failed. The Ford Taurus then accelerated down the highway while the policeman extracted himself from the twisted wreckage of car and truck. It was a happy memory, one that would accompany Azid to his grave.
Azid pulled himself out of his reveries with great effort. The sound of the waves washing on the beach was hypnotic, he recognized. Few things could break his concentration, but this beach had made him daydream. He would need to be cautious of this in the future.
Looking around, he saw that nobody was paying attention to him and that he needn’t worry. He had been a guest at the Paradise Island resort now for two days, and no one had any reason to mistrust him. This was an international resort, where the guests arrived from multitudinous countries, as did the employees. Azid and Khamil were not at all conspicuous.
He had rented a small boat from the resort complex, and it would be waiting for them at the pier at 1500. It was just a few minutes to Paradise 3. They would wait there when the OTEC arrived. They would soon send another of the metallic beasts to a cold and dark grave.
“TACCO, Sensor 1, I’ve got a 50-hertz line, but I believe it’s surface.” Grover heard the ICS chatter come from the small earpiece molded to fit snugly into his left ear. A moment later this was followed by “Hey, Flight, Sensor 1, do you see any surface traffic bearing 235 from buoy 16?”
Commander Grover spoke into his mike. “Negative, Sensor 3. Flight, you got anything on the radar?”
It was just another nothing. There weren’t even many of these nothings way out here off the shipping lanes, and indeed the ICS had been unusually quiet for a patrol, as the lack of contacts meant there was little cause for electronic chatter between the cockpit officers and the enlisted men in the back.
The P-3 Orion finished sweeping another fifteen-nautical-mile radius around the OTEC, again with no remotely suspicious contacts. Commander Grover was beginning to think that this was just one more training exercise. To the others in the cockpit, he said, “Looks like we have a bit of cloud cover working its way in.”
Lieutenant Epps turned his head to the north. He nodded and looked pensive as he protruded his lower lip. “It was what the weather guessers forecast for us.”
Chief Austin ventured, “It’s going to be a very dark night to park that big shining phallic thing off the islands.”
“That’s for certain,” Grover replied. “Looks like our job is going to be done before the bad weather comes, anyway. Good thing, since our fuel-on-top requirement means we’ll have to leave early in case we have to divert due to the weather.” He could instinctively calculate how much fuel they would require when operating out of remote islands such as this or Diego Garcia, and the only alternative to a fouled runway is a thousand or more nautical miles to a suitable alternate.
“You think, sir? They have no defenses here. Perhaps they want us to stay around and guard the thing for the next few years!” An old salty chief, the flight engineer had liked his brief glimpse of Paradise Island, and knew the crew’s stop there earlier that day had excited them all. Liberty could be good on that island.
Grover considered for a moment. “Who knows? Maybe this whole operation was just staged as a more realistic exercise for us.” Over his ICS he said, “Hey, TACCO, any chance this whole operation is just a drill?”
“It’s anyone’s guess,” his long-time friend replied, “but the mission briefers certainly treated it like the real thing. How about you, Eppers?”
Lieutenant Epps shrugged, but no one saw the movement. “Do you think they would really send two P-3s and twenty-two guys eleven hundred nautical miles off course to set down on an island in the middle of nowhere for a drill? Hell, we didn’t even know for sure that they would have any JP-5 for us to make it home with!” He referred to the standard Navy kerosene fuel that powered the four turbine engines, which provided the rotation for the quad propellers.
Grover replied, “God knows we need something more realistic. Hell, I think it was a great idea. Sure, it was a long trip, but we’ve been taking this thing real serious. Have you seen the way the men are extra sharp today?”
“Yeah. Sinking an enemy sub would buy us beer in any club for life. It’s going to be a letdown for them to hear it was a drill. They’ll be pissed. I don’t care if the liberty on Paradise is as good as rumored; no liberty is that good.”
“It isn’t a drill… yet. Not as far as we know. We may still get lucky.” He checked his fuel gauges, turned to the west, and said, “TC, are you ready to check out the far side of Paradise 3 more carefully? That’s where they plan on bringing that machine. It’s deep water over there too — maybe better acoustics.”
“Yeah, it’s time we moved on. I’m reviewing the briefing data, and you’d think someone would have had a better idea what our target is. Seems likely we’re looking for a diesel, so, better acoustics may not help. Those boats are wicked quiet underwater.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Cuz how in the hell could they get their hands on a nuke? Wouldn’t we know if one were missing? Regardless, they told us to sink it, but a nuke? Can you imagine if we toasted a nuke sub?” Grover did not even want to think about the outcome of that.
“Well, if it is, then they’re the ones who sank the first OTEC. This is the second one of these machines.”
“This is some serious shit, then.”
“Yep. I really doubt this is a drill.”
The night and day passed without incident. The Elijah Lewis was now only an hour from its intended destination — the western coast of Paradise 3. A cloudbank moved overhead from the north, but the western horizon was crystal clear, allowing a wondrous view of the sun — which was just beginning to set. They came full circle around the island and now moved southeasterly over the very deep water in which they were to secure the OTEC.
More than thirty boats of various sizes gathered to welcome the long-expected symbol of the Island Project. Horns blasted, champagne poured, and music blared in celebration of the arrival of the OTEC. An hour earlier, a boat had pulled al
ongside the tug to offload eight engineers, whose job was to prepare the OTEC for anchoring. Also, Tim Bellamy, the harbor pilot, had hopped nimbly aboard.
Captain Stouffer signaled to the engine room, “All Stop.” Petur, standing on the port bridge wing looking astern, watched the thick hawsers slacken as the OTEC continued toward the slowing tug. The repetitive clank, clank, clank of the powerful winches was loud enough to make his teeth vibrate. The winches rapidly took in the cable, the unused portions of which were channeled via massive chocks to a hidden storage area below the deck. The aft deck was soaked with water pouring from the hawsers as they were hauled from the ocean. Much of the water went down below decks to the cable storage area, where electric pumps attempted to keep up with the flood.
After several minutes, the hawsers started to get taut again, and Captain Stouffer ordered the engines, “Slow Astern.” The winches were then able to bring aboard much of the residual cable as the Elijah Lewis closed the distance to her charge. Soon, the OTEC stood tall above the large tugboat and cast its long shadow over her.
“Mr. Bellamy, she’s all yours,” said Stouffer, transferring the next phase of the positioning to the local harbor pilot — the man who had the most knowledge of these waters.
“Thank you, Captain.” Bellamy, a quick-minded young man, loved his work. His shoulder-length blonde hair made him appear somewhat Amish — or perhaps more like a surfer. In fact, his passions were neither God nor hanging ten, but rather ships and computers. Petur had learned from the many ship captains who had come into Paradise’s difficult harbor that Tim Bellamy was a polite and expert ship-handler. He had great confidence in him.
Bellamy glanced at the GPS display and the depth sounder. He examined a small hand-drawn chart that he had removed from his pocket and unfolded. “All Ahead Slow. Left Full Rudder,” he stated calmly into the microphone that connected him directly to the engine room. As the tug slowly pulled away from the OTEC, the hawsers tightened until they rose fully out of the water. Then both vessels made a gradual turn to the left.
“Rudder Amidships,” he said after the tug had turned fifty degrees. Within ten minutes, they settled in exactly where Heinrich Poll, Paradise Islands’ chief engineer, had told Tim he wanted to be.
“I would anchor your vessel for you, Captain,” the pilot told Stouffer, “but we are in almost two thousand meters of water.”
“Well then, I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t attempt it,” joked Stouffer. “We’ll be able to keep her on station in these calm seas without too much difficulty, as long as the OTEC behaves. The engineers will have to take over the OTEC anchoring soon though.”
The end of the day was upon them. The last rays of the descending sun seemed to bend around the shining cylinder of the monumental power station, creating an eerie glow that enveloped the men on the darkened tug. The waves reflected the sun’s dying light in a dance of fleeting red flashes that cast a surrealistic pall on the surrounding sea.
Bellamy signaled “All Stop,” and soon the two floating vessels — the tug and the OTEC — sat still in the water, almost touching. Captain Stouffer then joined Petur on the wing and looked high up at the OTEC. It now seemed afire in red light. Then, as the last crescent of sun dipped below the horizon, the red dancers suddenly disappeared. All the men on the ship knew what would happen next.
The rapidly darkening sky, the ocean, the Elijah Lewis, and the OTEC abruptly were all immersed in a dazzling green radiance. Had a man blinked, he would have missed it, for the green flash disappeared as rapidly as it had begun. Then the sky darkened completely. The first mate flipped a few switches on the bridge to turn on the deck lights and the bright spotlights on the tug’s aft deck, thereby lighting the OTEC up like a candle.
Petur turned toward Stouffer. “Each sunset here is memorable.”
“It surely is.” Stouffer then asked, “What’s the next step now? I think I’m almost done with my part.”
“Yes. And you’ve done a great job. Thank you. We need you only for tonight, the engineers tell me, to help keep the OTEC on station. Then, tomorrow morning, you can bring your ship to Paradise 1, and you and your crew can enjoy our island hospitality.”
“Are you sure you want my crew running around your island?” The captain was rather concerned for the reputation of his ship and his crew. Or perhaps he was aware of their reputation. In either event, he was worried.
“We are the only R&R spot within a thousand kilometers. Your men will be treated like heroes there tomorrow. They’ll have fun. And we need a little raucous activity now and again to break up the monotony. ” Petur paused . “On second thought, do ask them not to cause too much damage. It can be hard enough to get replacement parts here, to say nothing of trying to replace a young woman’s virtue.”
Tom Stouffer laughed. “I can make no promises, but I’ll do what I can to put them on their best behavior.”
“Good enough. And now, let’s see what those engineers are up to.”
Petur and Stouffer walked down the ladder from the bridge wing and aft to the winch deck. Three of the engineers loaded equipment aboard a heavy duty Zodiac with an orange deep-vee aluminum hull. The boat, with its inflatable pontoons, hung, bow and stern, from two small derricks. It was level with the winch deck of the tug to allow easy loading. Petur walked up to the man in charge.
“Heinrich, my good man. How does it look to you?”
The German project head shook his hand. “It’s going to be a piece of cake, as the Americans say. We were ready four months ago, and we are no less ready now.”
“What exactly are you going to get done tonight?”
“Tonight we anchor her and lower her deep water inlet piping. That will be more than enough for this evening. Tomorrow, we get the rest of the equipment inspected and greased up, you might say. And tomorrow night, Mr. Bjarnasson, you can press the button to turn it on. God knows we all hope it works!”
“Damn well better. We’ve no reason to think it won’t.” He leaned over the edge of the winch deck and looked into the inflatable. “Hey, do you have room in there for me to go too? I would love to get aboard her tonight.”
“No problem at all. It’ll be a bit dark over there until we can get the gas generator running. Then we’ll get some emergency lights on. But initially you’ll have to watch your step, and take a flashlight of course. It is going to be pitch black in that rig.”
“Great. Thanks. When are you heading over?”
Heinrich looked about. “Looks like we’ll be ready in about five minutes.”
“I’ll be right back, then. Don’t go without me!”
Heinrich Poll nodded and Petur walked off toward the bow of the vessel where he knocked on the door of Jeff’s small cabin.
“Enter,” called Jeff, from inside the room.
Inside was a bed and a desk, with perhaps a half-meter space in between — not the lap of luxury.
“Hey, I’m heading over to the OTEC. Want to go?”
Jeff was sitting on the bunk, in shorts but no shirt. He nodded, and then reached under his bunk, removing a handgun and a cigar box. Petur could not see what he pulled out of the cigar box, but he seemed to be loading his pockets. The pistol he tucked in his waistband, then pulled a loose shirt over his head, covering his weapon.
“What have you got there, Jeff?”
“Nothing I hope to need, Petur.” Bjarnasson knew that this was not an answer, but he also recognized that he should not have asked the question in the first place.
Khamil was at the wheel of the twenty-four-foot center-console open boat. It was well equipped for big-game fishing, a sport for which the Paradise Islands had recently been gaining a reputation. This evening the fiberglass craft was on its way to hunt even bigger game.
The water was calm but for the steady gentle swells, which always rolled in, driven from far away by the distant northwesterly prevailing winds. On the way to Paradise 3, the boat, broadside to these swells, rose and rolled over the hills on the oc
ean. No local wind blew to raise any smaller waves. A well-delineated front of clouds just to the north moved toward them through the rapidly approaching sunset.
Azid was in the bow, looking ahead toward the island. He watched as the OTEC, trailing behind the ocean-going tug, slowly came to a stop in the water. As they neared, he was awed by the size of the thing. He had not seen the first one from so near a distance, and then only through a periscope. The ocean swells affected it little, for its inertia was so great. It was stately, tall, and unperturbed.
Khamil slowed the boat and they slid in quietly, far to the rear of a group of boats that came out to greet the Elijah Lewis and its tow. The OTEC lay close astern of the tug now. Azid assumed they would soon send people over to get her ready for anchoring. They had little time.
The cloud line moved in overhead and seemed to pick the small island chain to shroud in gray. The sun set spectacularly in the cloudless west, and the sky’s transition from light to dark was almost immediate — a feature of the tropics that Azid would use to his advantage. Soon the only illumination came from the dim running lights of the small boats and the tug’s spotlights, which shined on the nearer half of the OTEC. The backside of the machine was completely shrouded in darkness.
Loud music blasted across the water — a constant and irritating beat from speakers aboard several of the pleasure boats. The cacophony drowned out any noises that Azid and Khamil might make.