A Death in Geneva

by A. Denis Clift

  “Mind you, Sweetman, no rig’s invulnerable. The semis have their perils, too. But the jack-up, she’s in a delicate stage on the up and on the down. The companies have their experts, the marine geogra—no, geology blokes, the engineers paid so handsomely for their calculations. Down the hatch, Sweetman . . . calculations to keep the rigs drilling with great profit, as advertised to the investor.

  “Well, Sweetman, they covered it up; the late Mrs. TOPIC and her lieutenants. A bit here, a bit there. The Topic Universe was cutting corners, shaving the safety edges to keep the front office happy, hap-py—two syllables, Sweetman, four letters, C-A-S-H.

  “The Universe was thirty-eight miles out, being jacked . . . down, at the end of a job when one of the legs held, wouldn’t budge. Then came the next mistake. The crew was ordered to place too great a strain. A storm was coming now, you see—too great a strain, and the leg began to bend. So they stopped, and there she sat.

  “It was as if you were taking your leave of a lady, Sweetman, and were obliged to stand motionless in the bedroom with your pants half up and half down . . .”

  “What direction was the jacking, Harry?”

  “The jacking, aye!” Jones roared his laughter, “Half up and half down, with the husband’s keys jangling in the door; the wrong position to be in. Do you know of our storms, Sweetman?”

  “The worst in the world, howling winds, shallow seas, tall waves, long fetch—”

  “That’s it; and that’s what was closing on the Universe, There was a great deal of consulting going on between the rig and London. The chief, you see, was reporting the storm and the recommendations of the crew that the Universe be cleared, men off, until the blow passed. But, the chief was a lizard, trying to play both sides and come out smelling of roses. He was agreeing, you see, with the late Mrs. Burdette when she took the phone at the other end and gave the order to stay with the rig.

  “Now, the biggest concern about Universe, save being blown flat over, was the swirling currents churning in the storm. The concern was they would scour away the seafloor from around the sick leg, the one with the bend. This meant divers, and the chief diver, chap named Renfro, God rest his soul . . .” Harry Jones gave a moment of silence, his watery eyes blinking past Sweetman, one paw nudging the mug handle back and forth on the pub table. “Retired Navy diver, the best in TOPIC’s employ, prepared to go down.”

  “He was the chief diver, you see. He knew it was too dangerous, but he knew his duty, absent orders to the contrary. . . . But . . . he ordered the rest of his crew to remain topside. He’d do it alone, you see. Down he went, one frail soul, into that bloody, roiling murk of a sea to pack—picture it, Sweetman, to pack great sacks of aggregate around the footing of the bent leg, to save it from the sea.”

  “Long odds, Harry.”

  “No odds at all. They sent him to the diver’s grave. They had him rigged like one of them Punch and Judy mari, mari—bloody puppets, with one safety line running to the surface and another to be clipped to the cage delivering the aggregate. In twenty minutes, the winds were tearing. The support ship standing off the rig was reading thirty-five, forty, forty-five, fifty-foot waves, and rising . . . some would say seventy before it was over. Then the Universe buckled, not enough to collapse, but a sickening lurch which sent the rig crew off in their rescue gondolas. Not the diver’s mates, mind you, but the rest of the crew. They bobbed around like so many apples until the support ship could maneuver to retrieve them.

  “And, Renfro. That lurch tipped the loaded cage, binding the poor bloke in his own lines, and there he dangled, Sweetman, absolutely cut in half, held together only by the rubber suit he wore. And, that’s how his mates would find him! We’ll have another.”

  They drank. Sweetman allowed the old man to catch his breath, then moved him on again. “The rig went down, didn’t she, Harry?”

  “She did, turned turtle, capsized two days later. Cocked over as she was, the strain had been too much for her. The loss of the Universe was a scandal! Renfro’s loss was a crime! But”—he worked the mug to his lips again—“there were to be no formal charges. The inquiry, orchestrated by the late Mrs. Burdette, was unable despite its deepest searching of the evidence to find fault. Force majeure, Sweetman, that’s what they found.”

  “On the words flowed from their mouths, through their typewriters, into the presses, and onto the tele. And, a deep and lasting bitterness settled on Yarmouth.” His eyes narrowed into a challenging squint. “You don’t have to take my word for it, you know. The man you’d want to be talking to would be old Collie, Colonel Colin Tully, Royal Marines, knows more about the sordid mess by far, worked with the Navy, in charge of off-shore security.” A paw waved in the direction of the North Sea. “Old Collie, back in Scotland now with the Forty-fifth Commando, a friend of Renfro’s, mourned his passing.”

  “Harry, let’s have another. You’re looking half dry.” They drank, and Harry Jones recounted the turmoil that followed Renfro’s death. “Tell me about the rig chief, Harry.”

  “The rig chief? A short tale—mashed by a car one black and icy night; hit and run you’d call it . . . perhaps an accident, perhaps no. Few mourners; no witnesses came forward. But, by God, that was not the last of the dying. The diver’s lovely wife, Mary Renfro, was destroyed by her loss. She gassed herself the morning after the inquiry findings were published, and, Sweetman, their child . . . a pretty girl, simply disappeared!”

  While Harry Jones and Sweetman were shutting down the Lord Nelson, the Towerpoint Octagon was slowing to ten knots, coasting along toward her Virginia landfall. Only the twin wakes of the big ship’s hulls indicated motion on the flat, glassy sea.

  Leslie Renfro, Head, and Tonasi were sprawled on the starboard foredeck, taking a short break from the heavy, self-imposed trans-Atlantic training schedule, absorbing the glib gab of the ship’s bosun. His hands were working line and marlinspike. He gave an occasional turn to the glossy wood handle of the ship’s boat hook he was dressing with coach whipping, a braid of flat sennit, to be finished at either end with Turk’s head ropework. Oats Tooms appeared at the owner’s deck railing with Tina and her coach, growled down an oblique greeting to his Maltese colleagues. “Better put that shutterbox to use, Tina, document the blood, sweat, and tears the team is putting into Chesapeake Divequest International: Filippo, research; Head, knowledge; and Princess Leslie, productivity, pardon the expression . . . three lizards baking in the sun.”

  Tina trained her camera along the foredeck, bringing the viewfinder to rest on Tonasi. A turn of the telephoto lens brought up the rugged young face sharply. The brown eyes opened, as close to her as in the stateroom. The shutter clicked, clicked again. The eyes closed . . .

  “Oh, ho! Over here, Tina, better camerabait still.” Tooms was pointing to the north, his arm following a speck paralleling the ship, level with the horizon. “Got ’im; good lady. That’s going to look just fine when Tommie throws it up on the screen. That bird, here, he’s circling back—take a few more—that’s the greater shearwater, one of the true oceangoing birds, distinguished by his black burglar’s mask. See it? They breed on Tristan de Cunha, eight thousand miles south of here, circle the North Atlantic for the better part of a year, then fly south to breed again. He’s a rare sight this time of year, usually further north by now—and a fine specimen.”

  “It must be terribly boring. He just looks lost zooming around out there.”

  “Joanie, I don’t think you’d be too good at it, not even with feathers.” He hugged her ample waist. “That shearwater has more navigation systems than this entire ship. Celestial—the sun, the moon, the stars—and we’re only beginning to understand.”

  “Does he have a glove compartment for his little charts?”

  “Used to, Joanie, but that’s been overtaken. He carries all he needs in that onboard computer just aft of the beak. Now! See yon speck, off to the east, beyond the bows? Yon speck approaching is the Honorable Thomas Madison Starring, roll of drums.”<
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  The helicopter settled on the flight deck. Starring and Darcy Parsons emerged, their heads low beneath the cut and wash of the blades. Two steps behind them, immigration and customs officers jumped to the deck; the Towerpoint front office had done its job well. The formalities of port entry would be met without the rigors of formal inspection.

  The helicopter refueled and departed. The Chesapeake Light Tower was abeam. The black hull of the pilot’s boat rolled along in the bow wave of the starboard hull; the pilot transferred to the catamaran.

  In an hour, a helicopter returned, bigger than the Octagon’s own, carrying TV remote crews—two reporters, two cameramen, two sound technicians—the twins of the electronic media with their Towerpoint escort. They set up quickly, the reporters—one man, one woman—selecting the angles for their crews.

  A Reliance-Class Coast Guard cutter led the welcoming flotilla, a Newport News fireboat, chartered press boat, and a growing gaggle of power and sail spectator boats. One of the launches came alongside; more staff and guests transferred to the flagship. Amid the growing chatter, watches were checked. The press conference was scheduled for 4:00 P.M.; the remote crews and their videofilm would be ashore again in time for the evening network news. The senior member of the Towerpoint media team cupped his hands to his mouth, set the ground rules and identified the participants for the “on the record” press conference. Starring, Senator Parsons, Tooms, the members of the expedition, and the directors of the participating Chesapeake Bay marine research institutes were announced. The TV remotes were told to be back on the helicopter deck immediately after the conference ended. All others were invited to the owner’s deck for a buffet and cocktails.

  The press was led down a ladder, forward. Klieg lights were playing on the port side of the ship, and on the yellow, cylindrical habitat and its glow-white-and-orange supporting legs, suspended from the bridge crane and lowered in the center well to a point of maximum display, with its top even with the main deck.

  Across the center well, on the port side of the ship, Starring and his supporting cast, each in an expedition windbreaker, were arranged in a semicircle at the center well railing. One of the two midnight-blue-and-gold work chariots gleamed in its cradle behind them. The Towerpoint Octagon was lying still in the water, the captain keeping her on a northerly heading with an occasional touch of the main screws and bow thrusters to hold the afternoon light at the back of the cameras.

  “Ladies and gentlemen . . . I trust we have the acoustics right”—Starring was at the microphone, one hand on the shoulder of Senator Parsons—“we are delighted you have found time to join Senator Darcy Parsons and Towerpoint International this afternoon as we prepare to embark on one of the most exciting scientific expeditions ever launched in the bay region, or indeed, on this side of the Atlantic.”

  “The findings from this research will translate directly into benefits for the people of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware—and the entire Chesapeake system and the headwaters of the great rivers which feed that system”—he followed the pencils scratching across the notepads—“the Rappahanock, York, James, Potomac and Susquehanna.” Starring broke his introduction to point to a class of forty-foot racing sloops, hulls well over in the freshening breeze, good background footage for the cameras.

  “You have press kits, I believe.” Starring turned to Tooms who nodded, used to fielding his boss’s questions whether he was certain of the answer or not. “Tomorrow, this ship will be at the dive site, which we have already surveyed. The habitat before you will be lowered into place, and the first team—I should emphasize, international team of marine scientists and technicians—will be in the water aboard their work chariots. This first phase of research, most fittingly, will be launched on Independence Day.”

  Starring’s smile broadened as he looked across the center well to the media corps. “It is now my pleasure to introduce those with me. I look forward to showing the members of the press around the ship following some important remarks by Senator Parsons and Dr. Tooms and, of course, following your questions.”

  Parsons and Tooms were brief; the questioning began.

  “Mr. Starring, Jerry Harrison, Evening Herald.”

  “Yes Jerry?”

  “This Sunday, July third, the LNG tanker Towerpoint Partner is scheduled to depart Baltimore—”

  “Yes.”

  “It has been suggested, that Sunday, given the triple-wage scale and”—Starring winked at Senator Parsons, ran his hand along the microphone shaft—“given the fact that it’s a holiday, make it an unusual time for sailing. My questions are: First, are you attempting to avoid more public protest by sneaking out over the weekend? Second, isn’t this diving expedition—laudable as the goals described by Dr. Tooms may be—really a cover for the ecological damage to the bay caused by your new ships and shore facility?”

  “Very fine, my friend.” Starring paused; he had their attention. “On the timing of the Towerpoint Partner’s departure, that has been set to mesh with the launching of the Chesapeake Divequest International expedition. The Partner’s pioneering run, her delivery to our new bay LNG facility, and the arrival of the ship you are now aboard, the Towerpoint Octagon with her embarked expedition, mark two significant new pages in this nation’s seafaring history. These ships will salute each other in the best maritime tradition as the Partner stands down the bay and the Octagon delivers her scientific team to the bay floor over the Fourth of July holiday. The timing, Jerry, my friends, marks a page in history.”

  “Now, tuning to the goals of the expedition: As my colleagues from the leading research institutes on the bay will confirm, we have consulted closely. One cannot invest too much in the marine research that gives us the data, the baselines, the knowledge we require if we are to understand the marine environment from the creek marshes and coastal wetlands to the deepest ocean toughs . . . if we and future generations are to enjoy this bay’s bounty”—his hand chopped the air—“and to take fullest advantage of all that our splendid natural resources hold out to us . . .”

  Another voice from across the well: “Mr. Starring, you haven’t answered the question. What about the damage your ships . . .?”

  “In just a few minutes, you will all be enjoying the most succulent seafood in the word, freshly steamed, chilled blue crab claws from this bay. Towerpoint has followed the development of the bay over many years, studied each new commercial enterprise, fed it into the Towerpoint data base to understand its impact on the bay—nuclear power, the first LNG projects, the challenging, inspiring march out of decay that we have witnessed with the redevelopment of Craney Island, Portsmouth, Hampton Roads, the Patapsco River, and Baltimore. We have analyzed the associated dredging and improvements to aids to navigation required to bring new ships to those ports.

  “The Towerpoint ships bringing the sorely needed, clean, natural gas energy from the Yucatan to the mid-Atlantic United States are the best engineered, the finest, pollution-free ships in the world! Towerpoint would not be here, Mr. Harrison, ladies and gentlemen, if it meant damage to the region!”

  “Didn’t lay a glove on you, Tommie; masterful!”

  “Oats, too many people are afraid of their own shadows. We ought to do more of these. People like someone who will take an honest question and give an honest answer.” Starring and his chief scientist emerged from the owner’s suite and proceeded to the reception.

  In Yarmouth, it was 3:00 A.M. the following morning. The night desk clerk had had to ring Sweetman’s room six times before the bedside telephone had cut through the deep blanket of Lord Nelson lager.

  “Telephone call for you, from the States, a Mr. Fisker; shall I put him through?”

  “Good, yeah, Fisker?” He waited, clicks on the line, sounded as if the connection was falling through. Lancaster wanted him back in Washington, no time to make the trip to Arbroath, Scotland. He had called Fisker on the open trans-Atlantic commercial line as soon as he and Harry Jones had parted company, told him that b
usiness was good, new orders coming in for Trade, prospect for more in Scotland. The Trade Washington office should put a call through to jarhead Tully, should find his address in the forty-fifth group of the customer printout, tell him Trade wished to be of service. “Fisker? Yeah, what have you got?”

  “Mr. Tully is delighted to learn of your interest, sir, and is looking forward to hearing from you. He wanted you to know that their new address is double two, not thirty-seven, that he would be pleased to receive you any time after eight-thirty-five, but that he will be catching a flight at four-eighteen. Otherwise, give him a ring again in two days; he’ll be in from nine-fifteen to five-twenty.”

  “Thanks, Fisker; stay sober.” Sweetman hung up, copied the chain of numbers down a second time, this time more neatly, and extracted the telephone number Fisker had neatly laced in them. Sweetman checked out at dawn and had the green Jaguar coupe halfway back to London before he pulled off the road and searched out a pay phone.

  Fisker had done his advance work well. The Royal Marine colonel knew who was calling and why. His account of the TOPIC rig disaster meshed with all the other pieces Sweetman had assembled—a different slant, more authoritative and less sudsy than that of Harry Jones, and as Harry had predicted, there was more to be learned about the tragedy of the diver’s family.

  “I was told last night, out in Yarmouth, that Mrs. Renfro killed herself?”

  “That is correct, unfortunately.”

  “And, I was told that there was only one kid, a girl, and that she’s disappeared?”

  “No, I think I can help you there. Again, unfortunately, your information is not quite right. There was one surviving member of the family, Leslie. But, she is not a girl, very much a grown woman. I am not so sure that she has disappeared, but, given my affection for John and his wife, it does trouble me to think what may have become of her.”