Tom removed his helmet and examined the missing section of Sam’s exoskeleton dive tank. “I told you you’re a lousy driver. I had to use all my strength to avoid being thrown into the edge of the opening, and opened like a can of sardines myself.”
Sam smiled. “Hey, if you hadn’t carelessly wrecked your own scooter, I wouldn’t have had to save your ass. But I’m glad you’re alive.”
Tom looked at the smoldering wreckage of the Mississippi. “There’s more smoke than I remember, but I don’t see as many flames. Do you think it worked?”
“I know it did. The foam was flying everywhere through the opening in the deck. I think we just pulled off a miracle for the local environment.” Sam ran his hands along a bulge in his BCD. He recalled the science beaker that Veyron had given him. “One problem though. I couldn’t find any of that green phosphorescent plankton that Veyron wanted me to get. Which means, we’re no closer to working out what’s causing this.”
Tom grinned at him. Pulled something out of his BCD pocked and said, “You mean, some of this?”
Chapter Sixty Six
It was dawn by the time the last of the fires went out on board the Mississippi. The oil solidifiers did their job by stopping the release of any more oil, which meant that what was left could only burn for so long. On the deck the fixed foam spray system choked the life out of the last of the flames.
All in all, it was probably the best response to a near disaster involving an oil supertanker in the last century. It was also the luckiest. Veyron and Tom had gone across earlier in the Sea King to rig a 16-inch hawser rope through the Mississippi’s cat hole. The thick rope, used for towing and mooring, appeared tiny compared to the massive supertanker. They had coordinated with Matthew and remained there while the Maria Helena got underway.
Sam had spoken to the owners of the oil company, who arranged for a shipping yard in Florida to take the Mississippi out of the water. They had also arranged for a dry tanker to meet the Maria Helena off shore in order to decant the remaining oil before the Mississippi was brought out of the water for repairs.
Sam remained on the Maria Helena to manage the logistics of the lost oil cleanup. The damage had been negligible considering the potentially catastrophic amount of oil on board. The owners of the company commenced their risk management plans.
It was nearly ten a.m. and he still hadn’t slept. The Mississippi would be under tow for at least another twenty-four hours. Sam smiled to himself. He could finally get some sleep. He showered and was about to get into his bed when the cell phone rang again.
“Am I speaking with Mr. Sam Reilly?” It was a woman’s voice. Warm and confident. And somehow familiar to him. Although he couldn’t be sure where to place it in particular.
“Yes, who is this?” Sam replied.
“My name is Vanessa Croft.”
“I know who you are. You’ve just been given the democratic nominee for President.”
“I don’t know about given. It was quite a fight, but yes, I’m running for President.”
Sam grinned. “You must be a busy woman Senator. How may I be of service?” Sam was curt, but not unkind.
“I’ve heard about what you did with the Mississippi oil tanker. You saved a lot of lives. Both on the ship and in the surrounding areas. From what I’m told the entire region could have very easily been destroyed if you hadn’t arrived when you did.”
“You’re welcome. But don’t give me too much credit. I scored a large percentage of the remainder of nearly two million barrels of crude oil. They’ve agreed to Lloyds Open Form – don’t worry, I will be well compensated for my efforts.”
“Don’t be ridiculous young man. I know who you are. That sort of money means little to you. You did that because you wanted to save the environment from the catastrophic possibilities of losing all two million barrels into the ocean.”
Of course a politician can tell when someone is lying. She must have told enough of her own to know one. “What can I do for you Ma’am?” he persisted.
“I’m coming out to personally thank you for your assistance. And then I’ll tell you exactly what you can do for me, and for your country.”
Chapter Sixty Seven
Senator Vanessa Croft looked at the damaged supertanker below. The military helicopter gave her an eagle eye view of the averted disaster by making a circuit from above. She’d insisted on getting the information first hand. Her dark brown eyes, wide with excitement, studied the wreckage now under tow.
The hull itself had a number of slight ripples starting from the bow and moving about two thirds of the way along the hull. At first she wondered if they were part of the Mississippi’s naval engineering to increase strength. Then it hit her. The hull had been struck with such monumental force that the entire hull had begun to bend and concertina in on itself. There were several small cracks where the hull could no longer withstand the force of the bend. The deck was black. Burn marks reached the full length of the ship and about half way up the raised bridge towards its stern.
At least twenty engineers had been flown onto the vessel and were currently working below to ensure that it remained afloat long enough to have its oil decanted. She watched as they moved chaotically around the deck.
She felt her heart quicken as she considered her first press statement. Heroes were still working furiously to save the ocean. The gods of elections had smiled kindly and delivered her with a story to take her to the Presidency. She could never have afforded that kind of publicity on her own budget.
Vanessa knew that a good candidate was voted in by the love of the nation, but a candidate is more likely to be voted in on the hate of a nation. Channel that hatred and the mobs will carry you straight to the top. The only difference in her circumstance in contrast to many dictators, was that in this case, the mobs had a right to be angry – and she was the good guy who was going to make it right again.
The helicopter approached the ship that towed the Mississippi. It looked larger than a tugboat. More like an icebreaker, retrofitted for another purpose – although what, no one could guess simply by looking at her. The vessel was sky blue with a grey deck. On the side of its hull were the words, Maria Helena. And below them were the words, Deep Sea Projects. It had a large, raised bridge located towards mid ship, and an entirely flat stern. A single helicopter stood proudly strapped into the helipad. She had no idea what type of helicopter and nor did she care. Behind it, a marking with the letter H showed that it was capable of supporting two helicopters.
All in all, she summed up that the vessel was too proud to be an oversized tugboat and too modest to be a billionaire’s plaything. Of course, she already knew who owned the vessel. Its purpose had been quite intentionally left undisclosed by the Secretary of Defense herself. Whatever projects Sam Reilly was involved in, as well as the crew he employed, was wrapped in a dark shroud of secrecy, and a sort of unspoken immunity from government observation. She could have guessed that beneath its tugboat appearance, the Maria Helena boasted some of the most state of the art underwater equipment in the world.
The helicopter came into land. As its rotor blades came to settle and she noticed a young man waiting at the entrance to the main bridge. He wore a white V-neck shirt, cargo pants and no shoes. One glance told her that this man was athletic and had spent his life outdoors. He wore a happy-go-lucky grin that she recognized instantly.
He was the hero who was going to give her the Presidency.
Chapter Sixty Eight
Sam watched her step out of the helicopter. She was tall, but not overtly so. Maybe five-ten or six foot. Slim without being underweight. She wore a plain blue polo shirt and denim jeans over leather boots. A small button of the American flag over her right breast. It gave her the down to earth appearance of someone out to get a job done, rather than competing for the position of Presidency.
She approached him directly. There was a confidence in her stride. Her posture upright and energetic. Sam figured she could have been
in the military or at least spent time performing some outside tasks which required her to maintain her physique. Definitely not a bureaucrat or a pen pusher, he decided. Sam couldn’t remember much about her background. He’d intentionally ignored much of the news and hype regarding the primaries. As far as he was concerned, until the parties had picked their nominees, the candidates were wasting his and their time, when everyone had their own jobs to do.
“Mr. Reilly?” she asked, offering her hand. “I’m Senator Vanessa Croft.”
He took it. She had a firm handshake, but not aggressively strong. “Yes, Ma’am. Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you. I’m pleased to meet you. I believe I, along with the American people, owe you a great debt of gratitude. You risked your life for the environment. Is there anything I can offer you in return?”
Sam smiled. “You’re welcome, but there’s nothing you can offer me that I don’t already have. I’m just thankful we got lucky and that we didn’t have another terrible oil disaster that wrecked our coastline.”
“You should be recognized and rewarded for your efforts.”
“Forget it. The owners accepted Lloyds Open Form, which means that I’m entitled to a percentage of the value of the vessel and all that she was carrying. It just so happens she was carrying nearly two million barrels of crude oil. Given she was on fire, and about to lose her entire hold, I’ll be applying for at least 50% of her value. I’ll be well compensated.”
“I know who you are Sam Reilly, that sort of money means nothing to you. You did it because you wanted to save the environment and I’m here to commend you for that.”
Sam smiled again. So she’s met my father. He probably paid into her campaign coffers. “Come with me to the Mission Room and I’ll brief you on these rogue waves. I’m sure that’s a lot more important to you than making a show about a hero.”
In the Mission Room, Sam pulled a chair out for her, but she refused it. Instead she chose to stand while she examined a photo of a racing yacht under sail. The yacht was heeled hard to one side and on the other were several men and two young boys.
“This must have been your father. He looks to have been a similar age to you now. You and he look very much alike at a similar age. And that means one of these boys is a young Sam Reilly. The other must be your brother.” She stopped talking as she watched his face. “I’m so sorry. I forgot your family tragedy.”
Sam’s brother, Danny, had lost his life trying to protect him during a Sydney to Hobart race when they were still boys. Sam had spent a long time trying to run away from the ocean, and when he finally worked out that it was impossible, he spent the next years trying to recreate the events of that night – somehow in search of an answer, why Danny had lost his life and he didn’t.
“It’s all right. It was an accident. We were both young, and overconfident. My brother died trying to keep me safe. He was a better man than I ever was, and I’ve spent every day since then trying to live up to the man he should have had the opportunity to grow into.”
“I think he would be proud of who you are.” She stopped smiling for the first time since she’d arrived. She looked at the next photo, her expression pensive. “I’ve lost someone close to me. My child. It changes a person. Gives them the opportunity to be better than they ever could have, had they been given the life they wanted. Had they been normal. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I do, Ma’am.” And Sam did. He had taken risks to achieve things that he never would have if his brother was still alive. Danny’s death had changed him in ways that couldn’t be measured. He saw himself as having a higher purpose than his own immediate gratification.
She turned to face him. “Now, this is the fifth rogue wave we’ve had in the past five weeks. I believe you were about to tell me why this supposedly exceedingly rare event keeps on sinking our ships.”
Chapter Sixty Nine
In the mission room of the Maria Helena, Sam went through the tedious process of explaining all the events leading up to his current assessment of the suddenly frequent rogue waves. Starting from his father’s complaint that he’d lost three cargo ships in a month, to the loss of his old high school friend, Luke Eldridge. He told her about the Antiqui Nautae and the evidence that they once used the Bimini Road to create large and unnatural waves which they then used to target western vessels during the seventeenth century.
She paused for a few seconds. Maybe ten. She had worked in politics for the past eight years, but before that she was a scientist. Vanessa knew how to take in complex information and separate the relevant parts from the meaningless. Then she looked up. “You think the phosphorescent plankton has been genetically modified to create moving water, which then strikes the Bimini Road causing it to increase in height and form a perfectly vertical rogue wave?”
“No.” Sam’s response was immediate. “Plankton are drifters by definition, meaning they require the movement of seawater to bring nutrients to them or them to nutrients. But I am certain they are involved in the process. Maybe they attract larger creatures that then travel across the Bimini Road creating the movement required to create the wave, under already chaotic swells.”
“That’s seems pretty farfetched to me.”
Sam tapped on the desk. “Me too. Like I said, all I know, is that the story of an amazingly bright phosphorescence prior and during the rogue wave has been described by the captain of each vessel struck by a rogue wave in the past six weeks.”
“Bioluminescent plankton don’t always glow. It takes energy to make the chemicals that allow them to glow. It would be a waste of that energy to glow during the daytime, just like you would be wasting batteries if you used a flashlight on a sunny day. It’s normally used as a response to a predator. In theory, the light goes on, illuminating the larger predator, which then become the prey.”
“So, the question is. If the bioluminescent plankton is frightened – where is its predator?”
“Exactly.” She smiled, her most conceited politician’s smile. “Of course, I don’t even care who its predator was. What I want is stop these rogue waves, and from what you’re telling me, it seems pretty simple – we just destroy the Bimini Road.”
Sam grinned. He liked action instead of rhetoric and was surprised to find it from a politician. “Yes.”
“Some will see it as a terrible loss to the history of the region, but I’m far more concerned about the living right now.”
“I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I arranged for a barge to leave Florida yesterday. On it were three massive concrete blocks. Large enough to act as a break wall at the point of the Bimini Road. It will never produce a rogue wave again.”
She smiled politely at him. “Well Mr. Reilly, I can see that you’ve got this situation under control. I’ll leave you to it. I’m going off to make a press statement and get the most out of this story for my campaign, while you go and save the day in secret.”
“Thank you Ma’am.” Sam was glad to get rid of her. There were some things he had to do to solve this current problem that would require delicate handling or years’ worth of red tape. And they didn’t have years. The destruction of Bimini Road wasn’t technically his to approve. It was inside the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas government. And that would take years to get approved. He knew the less his own government was aware, the better. The best type of plausible deniability, is the kind that governments really don’t know about.
She turned, about to leave.
Sam stood up to see her out. “By the way, you got here very fast.” It was almost an accusation.
She smiled. Like all politicians, she had the answer prepared before anyone had developed the question. “Yes, I was on my way to speak in Miami – ironically, I was supposed to be giving a speech about problems with the oil industry.”
“I guess you’ll be making that same speech, now with the backdrop of some dead marine animals, smothered by leaked oil.”
“Is it wrong to use the vivid image
ry of a near disaster to highlight a message to the American people?”
“It depends. What’s the message?”
“That we need to invest in future technologies and energy sources if we’re to survive on this planet.”
“Is that what the American government’s doing?” It was the second time he’d confronted her position in a matter of minutes.
She smiled. Aware of his complaints about the government’s stance on global warming, and alternative energy sources. “It is if I become the next President of the United States of America.”
Sam was about to give his opinion, which he rarely did on politics.
Instead, Elise walked into the Mission Room. “Sam, Veyron just put the sample of the glowing seawater under a microscope. You’re both going to need to see this.”
Chapter Seventy
Sam followed Elise down three flights of stairs into the aft hold of the Maria Helena, where their science lab was positioned. Neither he nor Senator Croft spoke. They both simply followed. The room was large. Approximately twenty feet wide by thirty long. At the center stood a series of rectangular tables at a height comfortable for work while standing. There were no chairs in the room. On the tables were seven microscopes with a number of slides lined up and three Petri dishes. One laptop was opened and in the process of calculating something – the timer showed another eleven minutes remaining. Sam recognized it as Elise’s laptop.
Veyron ignored them as they approached. His right eye firmly fixed to the end of a microscope. His left hand tapping at the table. The rest of him rigid as though paralyzed. Sam knew that look. He’d seen it only once before – when he’d agreed to sacrifice his most prized submarine to save the lives of over a thousand Mexican workers.
The Sam Reilly Collection Volume 2 Page 17