“And probably will,” DeCamp said.
Gurov laughed. “I say fuck it! I’m in.”
And the others nodded.
FORTY-SIX
They didn’t notice the stiff breeze when the 737 touched down at the Biloxi Airport, because it was right on the nose, but when the big passenger jet left the runway and trundled slowly to the terminal it almost felt as if the airplane would tip over on a wing. Then they came into the lee of the big building and it seemed as if they’d come indoors out of a gale.
“I hope the helicopter pilot knows what he’s doing,” Eve said. “Vanessa is twenty-five miles out in the Gulf, and it’s going to be a lot worse out there.”
“Oil rig ferry pilots have to be good enough to pull guys off the platforms in all kinds of weather,” McGarvey said, trying a little to soothe her.
She’d been preoccupied all the way down from Washington, not about a possible attack but about the two tons of equipment that had been trucked from Princeton. As of eight this morning when she’d talked to Don, who’d come down two days ago, the truck hadn’t shown up yet. Which was just as well. Keeping her focused on the logistics and then the science of her project would make his job all the easier.
“You’re right,” she said. “And I’m acting like an idiot.”
McGarvey laughed. “At least a smart idiot.”
And she laughed, too. “It’s not that I’ll be glad when it’s over, I’ll be glad when it starts at Hutchinson Island. Because that’s really the beginning, to actually see if the damned thing works.”
“Doubts?”
“Yeah, plenty of them,” Eve said. “Don calls it healthy skepticism.”
Most of Eve’s clothing and personal things she would need for the twelve-day trip and afterwards when the experiment began had been packed aboard the truck with the scientific equipment, which was just one more minor irritant she’d been facing. One among a million, she’d confided in him at one point.
“Scientists are absolute nitpickers,” she’d said. “Detail people, patient, persistent, persevering, unremitting, and usually unhurried. But almost always worried that they’re overlooking something, not seeing the forest for the trees, missing the obvious.” She’d smiled. “The best of them have the capability to step back at just the right moment and see the whole picture. Einstein lost in some calculations, suddenly daydreams about a man riding up in a glass elevator that’s accelerating with the same force as earth’s gravity. Someone outside watches the guy in the elevator let go of a tennis ball, and the elevator floor rises up to meet it. But every experiment inside the elevator convinces the guy that the tennis ball fell to the floor because of gravity. And voilà, he saw the big picture and gave us relativity.”
“And he got the Nobel Prize.”
“Yeah, but not for relativity, special or general. He got it for showing how the photoelectric effect works. You know, the device that opens the door for you at the supermarket.”
She was bitter all of a sudden, and in some ways McGarvey understood her Angst. Eve Larsen was a complicated woman, filled with a lot of self-doubts and insecurities that even a Nobel Prize had been unable to unravel. He’d known people like her at the CIA, especially in the Directorate of Intelligence, who were geniuses at what they did, but who needed constant approval, constant pats on the back, constant reinforcement, or else they would fall into depressions sometimes so deep that they would commit suicide.
“You won the Nobel Prize.”
“Not for physics,” she practically shouted, and several people getting off the plane with them gave her an anxious look. “Only two women ever got that prize — Madam Curie and Maria Mayer, and they had to share their prizes with men.”
When they reached the gate area inside the terminal McGarvey took her aside. “You’re betting just about everything on this experiment working, I understand that. But you’ve gotten yourself so wound up that it might just happen that you won’t be able to step back and see the whole picture.”
She was angry. “How can I help it?” she asked, her voice crisp. “You’ve tagged along as my bodyguard, once again, because you think my rig will never make it to Florida.”
“Concentrate on the science, and let me deal with security,” he said just as tightly.
She wanted to argue, but she compressed her lips and nodded, visibly coming down. But it took a few seconds. “My ex never figured out how to do that,” she said. “Get me to take a deep breath.” She touched his arm. “I’ll worry about my part and let you take care of the rest. Deal?”
“Deal,” McGarvey said, figuring that it would take an extraordinary man to be married to her. She was as high-strung as she was brilliant and she was carrying a very large feminist chip on her shoulder, probably something from a long time ago.
They carried just their overnight bags, Eve because her things were being trucked down, and McGarvey because he was planning to stay aboard the platform just long enough to meet the delivery crew and figure out in practical terms what it would take to send the rig to the bottom.
Don Price, dressed in jeans and a Princeton sweatshirt, was waiting downstairs in front of the baggage claim area, and when he spotted McGarvey he scowled and turned away as if he were going to walk off. But then he stopped and turned back.
“Thanks for coming to pick us up,” Eve said pleasantly, trying to ignore his show of displeasure. “How’s everything going on Vanessa?”
“I was hoping that you would change your mind,” Don said, glaring at McGarvey.
“He’s going to provide security for us.”
“With any luck I’ll just be along for the ride,” McGarvey said.
“Stay the fuck out of our way.”
Price was posturing for Eve, and it struck McGarvey as almost funny, even a little pathetic. But there was something else in the man’s manner. Something in his attitude, how he held himself, the words he was saying that wasn’t adding up. It was as if he were hiding something, as if he were afraid of something. Losing her to another man?
McGarvey shrugged. “Sure thing.”
Price held on for a moment or two longer, as if he wanted to push it, but then nodded tightly, took Eve’s arm, and headed out to where he had parked an InterOil van, leaving McGarvey to trail behind.
“The truck got here an hour after you called, and we’ve managed to get most of the stuff out to Vanessa.”
“Good,” Eve said. “Computers?”
“Most of them are up and running, and we’ve already got a good start on stringing the cabling for the monitors to all four pods.”
“How about housekeeping?”
“It’s not the Ritz but we managed to help get the water treatment plant up and running, so we have plenty of hot water for showers. Separate showers at that. And the food isn’t any worse than we get on campus.”
“Problems?” Eve asked.
“The biggest are the deck mounts for the impeller cabling and restraints,” Don said and she protested but he held her off. “Defloria is working the construction crews practically around the clock. But they’re so goddamned stupid and inefficient it’s a miracle that anything gets done. Anyway he promises that the mounts will be in place by the time we get to Florida. Before, if the weather cooperates.”
“What about the wind today?”
“It’s a little hairy on deck, but inside you can’t feel a thing, except it’s damned noisy, drives you nuts sometimes, especially at night.”
They got in the van, McGarvey in the backseat for the short drive over to the InterOil hangar. “Who’s managing the rig for you?” he asked.
Eve turned around. “Justin Defloria. He and the construction crew and delivery people are on loan from the company.”
“I want you to set up a meeting with him and the delivery captain as soon as we touch down. I’d like to make an inspection of the entire rig with them, and share some of my concerns.”
“No problem.”
“Then I’ll want to meet wi
th your scientists and technicians for about ten minutes.”
“Not a chance in hell,” Don said. “You’re staying out of our way.”
McGarvey ignored him. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to talk to your people.”
“We’ll all be up in the control room,” Eve said, and she said something to Don that McGarvey didn’t catch, but whatever it was it seemed to work because Price shut his mouth and concentrated on his driving.
* * *
From five miles out Vanessa Explorer looked impressive, the whitecaps below the helicopter little more than harmless patterns on the water. But as they got nearer it became obvious that no matter how large the oil platform was it couldn’t compare to the Gulf of Mexico. Every fifth wave that slammed into the two windward legs parted and rose monstrously almost to the main deck level more than fifty feet above the water, the spindrift rising even higher.
“Don’t worry, it looks worse than it is!” Don shouted to Eve.
The chopper pilot was good, but the big machine shuddered with each gust, and coming around into the wind he kept well clear of the upper levels of the superstructure, approaching the landing pad slowly, and easing down, dumping the lift five feet above the center mark. Immediately two deck hands scrambled up on to the pad and lashed the helicopter’s landing struts to the deck. As soon as they gave the thumbs-up, the pilot cut the power, and the engines began to spool down.
Most of the tube-framed web seats in the helicopter’s main bay were folded up against the hull, and the space was filled with sturdy cardboard boxes, a few wooden crates, and a large number of aluminum cases, all marked with numbers and other abbreviations.
“This is the bulk of it,” Don said. “Maybe one more load this afternoon.” He slid the hatch open and instantly the helicopter was filled with a howling wind that was cold and damp and smelled of a combination of oil, diesel fumes, presumably from the electrical generators aboard, and the sea.
“I want this unloaded as quickly as possible,” Eve said. “No telling when this weather will deteriorate, and I want everything aboard before dark.”
“I’ll send Tommy and some of the others up,” Don said, and he and Eve jumped down to the pad, without bothering to thank the pilot.
“I need a ride back in a couple of hours,” McGarvey told him. “Can you hold that long?”
“No sweat,” the pilot, a fussy-looking man with thinning black hair and a ruddy complexion, said. His name tag read Dyer. “I’ll probably be in the crew’s mess, give me a ten-minute heads-up if you would.”
“Sure thing,” McGarvey said and he patted the pilot on the shoulder. “Good flying.”
The pilot grinned. “Nobody lost their lunch.”
* * *
Before Eve headed up to the control room she sought out Defloria, who was in the construction foreman’s space two levels up from the main deck where he and another man were busy on a CAD display of the impeller cabling mounts. They looked up. “You might want to take a look at this, Doctor,” Defloria said.
“Don told me that you might be having a few problems,” Eve said, glancing at the display. “But it doesn’t matter as long as the work is done by the time we get to Hutchinson Island and the impellers are barged down to us.”
“It’s the stress loads they’ll put on the deck. We think they’ll be greater than the specs that the GE engineers gave us, so we’re going to reinforce the underlying structure before we begin welding the restraint tripods.”
“The extra weight won’t matter?”
Defloria shook his head. “Negligible,” he said. “We don’t want to have a repeat of what happened to you at Hutchinson Island.”
“No,” Eve said. “Costs?”
“The company’s picking it up.”
“I’ll go along with whatever you recommend,” Eve said. “Would have in any event.”
Defloria and Eve looked up as McGarvey came in. “I’m surprised to see someone like you here.”
“Do you know each other?” Eve asked.
“I doubt Mr. McGarvey knows me, but he was in the news when he was the CIA director. Are you here to sightsee, or here to tell us something?”
“A little of both,” McGarvey said, immediately liking the man’s straightforward nature.
“Justin Defloria,” the OIM said, shaking his hand. And he looked a little wary, as if he knew he was about to hear something he didn’t want to hear, but could find no way out of it.
“I’ll be topsides with my people whenever you’re ready,” Eve told McGarvey. “Anyone can direct you.”
“What can I do for you, Mr. McGarvey?” Defloria asked when Eve was gone.
“Who’s your delivery captain?”
“Al Lapides.”
“Is he aboard?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to talk to the two of you, and just the two of you right now, if it’s possible.”
“Shit,” Defloria said, but he took a walkie-talkie out of his jacket pocket and made a call.
FORTY-SEVEN
They met in Defloria’s personal quarters, a nicely furnished space about the size of a luxury hotel suite with a bedroom, sitting room, and large bathroom, and broad views of the platform, alive at this moment with workmen despite the nearly gale force winds. A framed photograph of a pleasant-looking woman and two teenaged girls sat on a desk strewn with papers and blueprints.
Lapides, in his midfifties, was a short, very slender man with a large nose and ears, salt-and-pepper hair, and the deeply lined outdoors complexion of a man who’d spent a lifetime on the sea.
Defloria made the introductions and they sat on the couch and chairs in front of the desk.
“Assuming you’re not here merely to continue as Dr. Larsen’s bodyguard, what do you want?”
“If I wanted to send this rig to the bottom of the Gulf, with everybody aboard, how would I go about doing it?”
“Good Lord almighty,” Lapides said.
“You think that someone will try to do something like that?” Defloria asked. “Schlagel and his group of fanatics?”
“They might try to pull a Greenpeace against you, try to stop you from reaching Florida, but there’d be no violence.”
“I’ve dealt with that group before,” Lapides said. “In the North Sea. They’re a pain in the ass, but mostly just a danger to themselves.”
“Who then?” Defloria asked. “And why?”
“This is merely speculation to this point,” McGarvey said. “There’ve been no warnings and we have no solid evidence that anything is going to happen. But I’m going to come along for the ride and mostly keep my eyes and ears open.”
Defloria was angry. “I’m not going to place my people in harm’s way,” he said, his voice tight. “If you think we’re facing a problem call the goddamned Coast Guard for an escort.”
“They’ve refused.”
“I’m pulling my people off,” Defloria said. “Al?”
“Whatever the company wants,” Lapides said.
Defloria got a sat phone from his desk and speed-dialed a number as he walked out into the corridor.
“How do we destroy this rig?” McGarvey asked the delivery skipper.
“Not my area of expertise, I’m just a pilot. Maybe if you had a couple of fighter aircraft, drop some bombs, but even something like that might not do much of anything but superficial damage unless the bombs were very big. Of course, if we were pumping oil a stick or two of dynamite would start a fire. Still might not sink the rig. But why would anyone want to do such a thing? Where’s the gain for them?”
“Some people might want to stop Dr. Larsen’s project,” McGarvey said, and he watched the light turn on in Lapides’s eyes.
“You’re talking about oil people,” he said. “Could make some sense if InterOil hadn’t donated this platform, and wasn’t paying for its conversion and delivery. But the company has made a sizeable investment here, and they’re going to want something in return. At least that’s the wa
y I always thought business was supposed to work.”
“It could be nothing.”
Lapides was troubled. “But you wouldn’t have come out here to warn us if you didn’t think so.” He shrugged. “Justin’s right, we’re not going to put our people at risk. It’s not our project. Maybe you should hire private contractors to come aboard if the Coast Guard won’t help. With a few guns on board it would be pretty tough to hijack something this large.”
“I thought about it,” McGarvey said. “But I don’t want to call attention to what might happen. I just want to make sure that the platform ends up offshore from Hutchinson Island and that no one gets hurt. I’m here for your protection.”
“One man?”
“I’ll have some help.”
Defloria came back, looking a little angry and perplexed, and even more troubled than Lapides. He stood for a moment in deep thought, before he pocketed his sat phone and sat down. “The company thinks that it’s a possibility some of Jerry Schlagel’s people might stage a protest, but we’re not in any real danger. At least not of the sort that Mr. McGarvey’s talking about.”
“So we stay,” Lapides said.
“Spencer said the company spoke with people at the DOE, Commerce and the Coast Guard who gave us the green light,” Defloria told him. He turned to McGarvey. “They were frankly surprised that you were here.”
Those instructions had probably come either from Page or from the White House, who were willing to go along with the suggestion that if an attack on the rig were planned by the same contractor who’d hit Hutchinson Island he wouldn’t go ahead in the face of a show of force. Eve’s worst-case scenario that she would have to hire contractors 24/7 to secure her experiment might become fact. But if he was lured into hitting Vanessa while she was en route to Florida, the danger — at least from that source — could be eliminated within the next week to ten days, maybe sooner.
And if that were to happen, Mac figured he would have a real shot at finding out who’d hired the operator and why.
“We’re back to square one,” he said. “How do we destroy this rig?”
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