by Rick Chesler
“Fishing boat, we acknowledge your transmission but we have divers in the water and cannot leave the area now, over.”
Shah gripped the transmitter and spoke into it. “Please, I am begging you. I am taking on water with no battery power to run my pump. If I just had a jump start I could help myself.”
About thirty seconds went by and Shah was beginning to think that they were ignoring him. But then the reply came.
“Fishing boat: all right. We can send a man over in our tender vessel to see if he can give you an assisted start. Stand by.”
Shah thanked them and dropped the transmitter. He heard the buzzing of a low horsepower motor start up, and then he saw a small boat speeding in his direction from Hofstad’s larger vessel.
THIRTY-ONE
Netherlands, The North Sea
Dante hauled himself over the top of the ladder onto the oil platform’s lowest level. He shed his gear and then reached out to pull Jasmijn up. They crouched next to a large spool of electrical cable on a concrete deck and surveyed their new surroundings: a maze of pipes and catwalks. They could neither see nor hear any signs of people. The place looked deserted. Dante heard the sound of water dripping and located the source: Jasmijn’s mesh dive bag containing the sea anemones.
“I thought you said you needed those to be alive, in water, in order to be useful for the antidote?”
She frowned at the bag of invertebrates. “Ideally, yes, but to be honest I’ve tried it with them before, delivered live, and it didn’t work.”
“So you lied to them?”
“Well, I guess so. But I don’t know what else to try. I know these anemones are the key, somehow…”
“Good job. You got us out of the lab and at least now we have a chance. Maybe you should just ditch the bag now since they’re going to die, lighten your load?”
She eyed the bag again. “I think I should hold onto them. For one thing, if Hofstad does recapture us, they might still be alive and I’ll tell them they’re still good. For another, maybe they’ll work anyway, who knows. We went through a lot of trouble to collect them, after all. Not to mention I don’t want to take their lives for nothing.”
“Okay, then let’s move.” Dante motioned along the edge of the structure, below which the waves slapped against the support pilings, echoing throughout the rig.
“What are we looking for?”
“Let’s see if we can find a radio or a satellite phone in here somewhere.”
Jasmijn agreed. “We can work our way up, most of the rooms are on the upper level.”
They walked across the first level, which was mostly outdoors, with the second, more substantial level blocking most of the sunlight. Dante knew that they had only a few minutes before Hofstad discovered something was up. SCUBA air tanks lasted for somewhere between forty minutes to an hour, depending on depth, and, although he had no watch, he knew it had to be coming up on that now.
Dante pointed out some metal bolts laid out on the floor in front of them. “Step over them. We don’t want to make any loud noises they can hear from the boat.” Jasmijn avoided the obstacles and they continued around the edge of the rig, which was roughly square shaped. They reached the end of the first side and laid out flat in what Dante thought of as a prone sniper position in order to get a look at the Hofstad boat below.
It was still floating there, the four men and Naomi visible as indistinct forms from this distance. Dante could see no signs that they were frantically searching for them yet. But then he saw something that gave him an adrenaline surge.
Another boat.
Smaller, a little further away than Hofstad’s vessel.
Shah?
He’d been there at the dock. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to figure out where they were going, but Nay had gotten off the comment as a clue.
Even if it wasn’t Shah, as long as it was someone besides Hofstad, it was great news.
“Who do you think is in the other boat?” Jasmijn asked.
“I think it’s my OUTCAST colleague who followed us from the docks. I saw him there.”
“No way we can swim to him or Hofstad will see.”
“Right. We have to communicate with him somehow. A radio would be best, even though Hofstad might hear that. Or we could try to visually signal him somehow, like with a mirror or a flare if we can find one.”
But as soon as he said it, they heard the sound of a smaller outboard motor start up. They turned and saw an inflatable Zodiac boat making a fast beeline from the Hofstad boat to the newcomer’s vessel. It would be there in a couple of minutes.
“Should we watch what happens here?” Jasmijn queried. Dante got to his feet and started moving toward the rig’s main enclosed structure.
“We should see if we can get to a radio while they’re a little distracted.”
THIRTY-TWO
Netherlands, The North Sea
Shah stood by his boat’s motor as he watched the Hofstad Zodiac idle up to his craft.
“Speak English?” he tested.
“Need help with your engine?” one of them, the one not driving the boat, called out in the requested language. His tone was not friendly.
“Yes, please! Thank you for coming to help. It was working fine this morning.” Shah pointed to the motor with a gesture of irritation.
“Perhaps mechanic is not your calling,” the other man said. He killed the Zodiac’s engine and tossed Shah a line. Shah tied it to a cleat on his boat, tethering the two vessels together. He was hoping that one of the men might remain in the Zodiac but both of them boarded the larger boat. The three of them huddled around the engine, its cover off.
“Let’s have a look. Go ahead and start it,” the taller of the two men said. Both of them wore jeans and long sleeved shirts. One appeared to be of North African descent while the taller of the two was European.
Shah walked back to the console and turned the key while looking backwards, ostensibly to watch the motor, but really two keep an eye on the two terrorists.
“It’s not turning over at all,” the shorter man observed.
“Like I said, I think my battery is dead,” Shah said. He worried that they were about to poke around in the engine and discover the pulled spark plug — that would be highly unusual since he’d managed to get out here — but then one of them leapt back onto the Zodiac.
“We’ll try to jump it,” the one still on Shah’s boat said, adding, “You should be more prepared before coming out here. You are a fisherman?” He cast his eyes about the deck, examining the piles of netting, buoys and traps.
Shah nodded. “I know it.”
The operator in the Zodiac tossed one end of a pair of jumper cables to his associate in Shah’s boat. He clipped them to the battery.
“Try it now.”
Shah tensed. This was it. He knew the motor wouldn’t start with the missing spark plug in his pocket. When it didn’t, they would double-check the connections, and then once they saw they were good or noticed the missing plug, they would become suspicious.
“Okay, turning the key now.” He looked back at the motor, both of the Hofstad men also staring at it.
Shah turned the key.
“Did you try it?” the one in his boat asked, looking at him.
“Yes. Let me try again.” Shah turned it again, shaking his head when nothing happened as though he couldn’t believe it.
“Check the cables on your end,” the man in Shah’s boat called to his colleague in the Zodiac, who had connected the cable to his outboard motor. That man bent to the task while the one a few feet away from Shah did the same on Shah’s battery.
Shah didn’t hesitate. He snatched his Browning Hi Power 9mm pistol from his waistband and took aim at the man in his boat, who was on his knees, peering into the battery compartment. Shah took aim at the back of his neck.
He pulled the trigger, wishing it was sound suppressed but ready to act out a chain of events he’d already gone over in his mind. His target was
lifeless before the sound of the report reached Hofstad’s boat. The terror-fighter on the Zodiac recoiled sharply at the sound of the shot, arm reaching beneath his sweatshirt.
Shah aimed for his chest but a wave caused the boat to move at the instant he fired and the round hit the man in the shoulder. He was pitched backward by the impact of the slug until he tripped over a coil of rope and fell hard onto the deck. Shah saw the man’s firearm fly from his hand and splash into the water. He might have a back-up weapon, though. Shah wasn’t going to give him the chance to get at it if he did have one. He jumped across to the other boat, landing crazily on the man. He slammed his head once into the deck, hard, to stun him into submission, then pulled his arms behind his back.
Picking up the rope the man had tripped over, Shah used it to bound the terrorist’s arms tightly behind his back. He patted him down but found no additional weapons. He did find a wallet, though, with an ID — a Dutch driver license. He took the license without letting the Hofstad man see he that took it and then returned the wallet to his pocket.
He considered whether to take the Zodiac but then looked at the little fuel can and wasn’t sure it would be able to make it all the way back to shore. So he dragged the bound man back into his boat and set him down on the deck next to the steering console where he’d be able to keep an eye on him.
“Just lay there and don’t cause any trouble, and I won’t have to kill you.” Shah pulled the spark plug from his pocket and showed it to his captor, who scowled upon seeing it.
“Maybe mechanic isn’t your calling,” Shah taunted, and then moved back to the motor and popped the plug back in. He didn’t bother putting the motor cover back on, just left it open and jumped back to the console.
He started the motor and picked up the radio.
THIRTY-THREE
Netherlands, The North Sea
Dante Alvarez topped over the metal ladder onto the oil rig’s upper deck. He examined the superstructure before him while he waited for Jasmijn to clamor over. Already two stories above the first level, this edifice rose two more. He moved to a steel door set into the bottom of the structure in front of them. Tried the knob.
Locked.
He felt in his pants pocket and removed a lock pick tool that had not been uncovered in the frisking Hofstad had given him. He applied it to the lock, which was of higher quality than most. Still, he heard it click into place after about a minute. He opened the door.
Inside, it was shadowy, lights off. He felt along the wall for a switch and found it, thinking they had probably left the power off and it wouldn’t work, but a bank of overhead fluorescents flickered on. A battered metal desk occupied one wall, a corkboard above that covered in occupational safety warnings and tattered shift schedules. A computer occupied the desk but its screen was dark, no LEDs on anywhere. Dante tried turning it on but nothing happened. There was no phone that he could see. Jasmijn rifled through drawers and filing cabinets, finding nothing useful.
There was another door at the rear of the office and they took it into a narrow hallway lit by a single caged bulb into a larger work area. This space was enclosed but filled with machinery of some kind — pipework, metal ducts, various gauges and dials. A workbench occupied the left wall of the roughly rectangular room, backed by a pegboard containing a full assortment of tools. Dante grabbed a small hammer off its peg and handed it to Jasmijn along with a screwdriver.
“Here, carry one, put the other in your pocket.”
She cast a doubtful stare at the implements. “I don’t know if I…”
“Just do it. If nothing else I might be able to use them. I’ll be carrying these.” He hefted a pipe wrench from the wall and slapped it into a palm. Then he selected a Phillips head screwdriver as a serviceable shank and put that in his back pocket. He scanned around the rest of the area but saw no communications equipment.
“Let’s keep going. There’s got to be an electronics room somewhere.”
They moved on through the work room until they reached a door on its far end. It opened into a stairwell leading up only. They took it up two flights, traversing back and forth in a tight space to make the short vertical distance. At the top of the stairs they emerged on an open-air metal landing platform.
Dante pointed skyward. “Look at all those antennas. There’s got to be a radio room somewhere.”
Jasmijn walked across the landing and looked down. “Ladder goes down here.”
“Let’s go.” Dante looked out over the water while he waited for Jasmijn to start climbing down. The Hofstad boat was still there, as was the boat Shah was in, although now a Zodiac was pulled up next to it.
When Jasmijn was down a few rungs, Dante followed down the ladder. It ended in a metal enclosure with a five-foot drop to a metal deck. Jasmijn hung from the bottom of the ladder until she could step off. Dante let himself drop from a few feet.
They were situated on a square metal balcony of sorts with no other ladders leading down, and only one door set into the wall. He tried the door handle. To his surprise, it opened into a small, dimly lit room. There was no one inside. Racks of radio equipment lined workbenches on either side of the room. Much of the equipment was unfamiliar to Dante, although some he recognized as HAM radio gear — shortwave radio sets capable of transmitting over long distances. But right now they just needed to talk to the boat. His eyes scanned the shelves with the aid of his dive light until he found what he was looking for: a VHF marine radio.
He walked up to the unit and turned it on, breathing a sigh of relief when its backlit display lit up orange.
“Whatcha got?” Jasmijn watched Dante start to press buttons and turn knobs.
“Should be able to monitor the boat communications with this. See if we can reach Stephen…”
A burst of static emanated from the speaker and he adjusted the squelch. Still nothing intelligible. He wasn’t sure which one was designated as the emergency channel in this part of the world, so he set the radio to auto-scan through the stations until a strong signal came though. After a few seconds, he was rewarded with a clear voice on one of the channels.
It belonged to Stephen Shah, with a background of engine noise. And one who didn’t know him well wouldn’t be able to tell, but Dante could detect the stress in his words.
“…could make an exchange. Our woman for your man. Then we go our separate ways.”
Dante held up a hand, knowing Jasmijn had questions, but he needed to hear what came next. He could already tell that a serious situation had developed. Our woman must be Naomi, and your man must mean that Shah had somehow taken one of the Hofstad men hostage.
A Dutch-accented voice, different background sounds. “We sent two men to help you, not one.”
There was a pause before Shah’s voice came back. “One has been eliminated. The other will be, too, if anything happens to the woman. But we can end the killing here. Your man for our woman. It’s up to you.”
“What about your other two people — the two scuba divers — you don’t want them?”
Dante and Jasmijn exchanged a glance.
“Where are they?”
Dante eyed the radio transmitter. Should he break in on the channel to let Shah know they were on the oil rig? But that would be letting Hofstad know, too.
“I don’t know where they are. They were with you, what happened?”
“Forget it. Let us do this exchange.”
Shah’s voice barked over the radio channel. “I’m on my way to your boat.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Netherlands, The North Sea
Dante thought fast. He needed to communicate to Shah that they were on the oil rig, but if he announced it over the open channel, Hofstad would hear, too. He thought back to one of their OUTCAST strategizing sessions on communication, where Tanner had asked who knew Morse code. There had been a couple of snickers and words like “dated” and “primitive” thrown around, but in the end Tanner had insisted that all of them maintain proficiency at it.
And right now, as Dante clutched the radio transmitter, he was glad he did.
He keyed the transmitter several times in a row without saying anything, alternating the time he depressed the button. Short-long-short, short-short, long-long-short, repeatedly for about ten seconds:
R…I…G…
He figured Shah would be monitoring the channel and that the duration would be long enough for him to interpret it to mean that he and Jasmijn were on the oil rig. Hopefully Hofstad would just think it was interference of some kind, or not be able to decode it if they did suspect a message.
The Hofstad man’s voice punched through the channel. “What is that noise? What are you doing?”
“I don’t know, but I’m on my way to you. Probably just engine interference, over.”
Shah got it! Why else would he pass it off as interference rather than simply saying, I didn’t hear anything?
But for Shah to go to Hofstad’s boat alone was nearly suicidal. Even armed with his own weapon and those of the two men he’d taken down, he would still be facing four heavily armed terrorists. Hopefully he stopped by the rig before he visited Hofstad’s boat. Dante turned to Jasmijn.
“Step outside and tell me if you can see where Stephen is heading in his boat. I need to monitor the radio, but if he passes near the rig maybe we can catch his attention without the guys on the other boat knowing.”
She nodded, dropped her wet bag of sea anemones and stepped outside onto the square, metal landing area while Dante listened in on the marine channel. He heard no further conversation and so assumed that Shah was en route to the other boat.
“The Zodiac is coming toward the rig,” Jasmijn called. A couple of seconds went by and then she added, “Around back — he’ll pass behind us.”
Dante listened to radio silence for a minute longer and then decided it was time to act. He left the radio on and joined Jasmijn on the landing platform outside. Suspended below the tower of infrastructure, it offered a 360 degree view of the sea around them, but one that was obstructed in places by various pipes and pieces of equipment. He followed Jasmijn’s pointing finger to see the tiny Zodiac skirting around the rig, leaving a small wake as it traveled near the limit of its speed capabilities, about to make the turn around to the side they were on.