Abyss km-15

by David Hagberg

  No one at the desk recognized him as he entered the hotel, passed through the casino, and then made his way back to the elevators and up to his suite where he took out the contacts that made his eyes look bright green, makeup that aged him by ten years, and padding on his torso and hips that’d put twenty-five pounds on him

  Afterwards, looking out at the deepening gloom over the Gulf, first making sure that none of the telltales on his laptop had been disturbed, DeCamp felt a bit of nostalgia for Martine and his soft life above Nice. And sadness. Listening to the woman scientist speak about her project, watching the expression on her pretty, outdoorsy face, seeing her enthusiasm for what she was doing, and sensing her fears — some of which probably had to do with the presence of the flotilla, but at least some of which had to hinge on the outcome of her experiment — he could imagine someone like him coming to kill Martine. For perhaps the first time in his life he wanted something different, and for just a moment he thought he could put words to what he wanted; it was a notion just outside his immediate grasp, at the back of his head, on the tip of his tongue.

  But then it was gone, and he ordered a bottle of Krug from room service, and when it came he sat down at his computer to make his notes, and download the photographs from his digital camera, sending them to Bindle when he was done.

  * * *

  DeCamp’s cover here was as Peter Bernstein, a businessman from Sydney, who was obviously wealthy, though not filthy rich by American standards, who was quiet and generally kept to himself, although each night he had a different woman up to his suite. He ate and drank well, tipped well, his credit was triple A, and although his losses at the tables — especially blackjack, a game he despised — were modest, they were steady. His initial reservation had been for three days, but he’d extended that indefinitely. “I’m on holiday, in absolutely no hurry,” he’d told the front desk. “Besides, it’s winter in Auz. No reason to go back till spring.”

  After a short nap, he took a shower and changed into a European-cut soft gray suit, open-collar silk shirt, and hand-sewn Brazilian loafers. He’d left the television on a local news channel and as he was putting on his jacket, ready to go down to the casino, something caught his eye and he turned up the sound. It was a Fox News report on Eve Larsen’s oil rig and Schlagel’s God’s Flotilla. Schlagel himself had been asked by the Fox reporter, “What comes next?”

  “Why, to stop this abomination against the righteous hand of God, of course.”

  “How are you going to do it?”

  “Make all Americans aware of the danger Dr. Larsen represents,” Schlagel said, his voice rising, and he started on his diatribe delivered in neatly scripted sound bites.

  As he preached, Fox ran some of the footage of the flotilla taken from the main deck of Vanessa Explorer that morning. Although DeCamp’s attention remained atuned to Schlagel’s arguments — which he actually had to admire because of the man’s sheer brilliance — he suddenly saw the solution to both of the remaining problems, and he smiled, something he hadn’t done for a very long time.

  Simplicity. The concept had been drummed into him from the day he’d come under Colonel Frazer’s roof.

  He went back into the bedroom and used the encrypted Nokia sat phone to call Boris Gurov aboard the rig. “There has been a change of plans. For the better.”

  “I’m listening,” Gurov said. “But something’s come up out here. Two new people have come aboard, and one of them is Kirk McGarvey.”

  “Do you know this name?” DeCamp asked.

  “Yes, and you should, too. A few years ago he served as the director of the bloody CIA. And he’s damned good. The best.”

  “Who’s with him?”

  “Some woman.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes, but McGarvey could be trouble,” Gurov insisted.

  DeCamp thought about it for a moment. “His presence changes nothing. We’ll deal with him the same as the others. But listen, Boris, this is what’s going to happen.”

  When he was finished the line was silent for a long beat, but when Gurov came back he sounded good. “It makes sense. Besides, if they keep up with all the racket, it’ll provide good cover.”

  “What about the primary problem?” DeCamp askled.

  “Nearly all communications to and from the rig go through a pair of satellite dishes on the roof of the control center. Taking them out will be a breeze. Presuming we do this outside cell phone range, it only leaves sat phones. This one, plus one the delivery captain carries in a holster on his belt, maybe one or more the scientists brought with them, and McGarvey might have brought one.”

  “Find them, job one,” DeCamp said. “You have four days.”

  “We’ll see you then,” Gurov said.

  * * *

  Schlagel was still on the television when DeCamp walked back into the living room. The reverend stood on the back of a pickup truck in front of a large crowd, exhorting them to make their voices heard in Washington and everywhere across the country. “We must work together to stop this abomination against God’s will.”

  DeCamp called the second encrypted phone, that he’d given to Joseph Wyner who’d been holed up in New Orleans for the past five days with a four-man team they’d hired in London. All of them were mercs, Julius Helms and Edwin Burt, former British SAS demolitions experts, Paul Mitchell, a former U.S. Delta Force hand-to-hand instructor, and Bob Lehr, a German cop who’d grown up in the east zone, and whose KGB methods were too rough in the west.

  Wyner answered. “You’re early,” he said.

  “There’s a change of plans,” DeCamp said, and he told his team leader the same thing he’d told Gurov.

  “Sounds good. When do you want us to join you?”

  “As soon as possible. I want you to book three rooms at the Beau Rivage, for three nights, starting tomorrow. Absolutely no drinking and especially no gambling.”

  “I don’t know if I can keep them under control for that long.”

  The Fox camera had pulled back to show a large building behind Schlagel. The marquee in front read MISSISSIPPI COAST COLISEUM & CONVENTION CENTER, and a crawl at the bottom of the screen announced that the Reverend Jeremiah Schlagel’s God Project rally and revival meeting would begin at eight in the coliseum.

  “It’ll only be for one night,” DeCamp said.

  “We’ll be there before noon,” Wyner said. “What about a boat?”

  “I’ll leave that to you,” DeCamp said. “A cabin cruiser in the forty-to fifty-foot range. Spare no expense. But use your work name.”

  “I’ll call you with the details.”

  “Do,” DeCamp said.

  * * *

  Five minutes later he reached navy captain Manuel Rodriguez at his home outside of Havana. He’d worked with the Cuban two years ago on an assignment in Miami for the government, for which he made an under-the-table kickback payment of fifty thousand dollars. Rodriguez was in his debt, and when DeCamp had called last month with his proposal and an offer of another fifty thousand, the man had been more than willing.

  “I’ll be needing my boat ride within seven days. Can this be managed?”

  “Of course, señor . Can you supply me with the latitude and longitude at this time?”

  “Only approximately,” DeCamp said, and he gave him the numbers for an area in the Straits of Florida, well west of the Florida Keys. “Will this present a problem?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Good. The payment will be made in the usual manner.”

  “I would expect nothing less,” Rodriguez said.

  DeCamp hit the End button, then went into the bedroom to change back into khaki slacks and a light pullover — more fitting attire than his suit for a religious revival meeting.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Since the news conference this morning McGarvey had become increasingly restless, and by midnight, unable to fall asleep, he’d gotten up and went across to the crew’s mess where he bummed a cigarette from the
cook. He got a cup of coffee and went out on deck, the evening thick, but almost no wind and only a slight sea running.

  Schlagel’s God’s Flotilla was still out there, surrounding the rig, some of the boats still blowing their horns, but it had been going on for so long that the noise had just become an ignorable part of the background.

  They’d gotten underway a couple of hours after the reporters had left aboard the InterOil helicopter, and he could still make out the glow on the bottoms of the clouds on the northern horizon from the taller condos and casino-hotels in Biloxi and Gulfport.

  Their speed was barely two knots, so it would take a week to reach the deeper parts of the Gulf where he figured the attack would come. Time to relax, time to figure things out, time to prepare, and yet McGarvey felt that he was missing something vital. Like he was being outthought

  He’d spent the morning more or less trailing the media group, and after they’d left, Gail had sought him out and they had a cup of coffee together in the mess, seated alone in a far corner. “The Englishman,” she’d told him. “His accent was more or less right, but I got a pretty strong feeling.”

  “I saw the one you’re talking about, but all I have to go on are the images from your surveillance camera at the power plant.”

  “He was in the tour group that walked right past me, and I got a good look at his eyes,” Gail had said. “Different color this time, but they had same expression, or lack of it. Like he was sizing me up, working out how he was going to kill me.”

  “Otto vetted him,” McGarvey said, but he too had the feeling that at least one of the reporters was in actuality their contractor.

  “So did Eric,” Gail said. “But I’ll have them check again. At the very least see if this guy filed a story with his newspaper.”

  They’d spent the rest of the afternoon together, wandering around the rig, which was a gigantic, impossibly complex maze of rooms and corridors, piping and girders, electrical runs, and machinery bolted or welded in what seemed like an endless series of random placements. At least a dozen steep stairways connected all of the levels from the helicopter deck, control rooms, and living spaces down to just above the sea level, where water sloshed over the catwalks. The noise at this level, from the blasting horns and the heavy rumble of the tug’s powerful diesels, rumbled around the struts and hammered off the surface of the water and the underside of the deck above, making it nearly impossible to be heard.

  Work refurbishing the platform had gotten underway again, and at one point they’d run into Defloria who’d warned them they were out on deck at their own risk. “I can’t be responsible for your safety unless you stay inside.”

  “Thanks, but we have a job to do, too,” McGarvey had told him.

  “Just watch yourself.”

  Dead tired, McGarvey had turned in right after dinner, seeing the brief look of disappointment on Gail’s face but ignoring it. She was pumped up from the day and she didn’t want to be alone.

  But he needed to be.

  For all of his career, first in the Air Force, then in the CIA as a black operations field officer, then as an administrator, and finally as a sometimes freelancer, he’d done best working alone. Or at least being alone in the sense that he was not emotionally involved with someone. When his wife had given him the ultimatum — the CIA or her — he’d chosen neither and instead had run to Switzerland, where for a while his life had seemed orderly to him. Until he’d become involved with Marta Fredricks, a Swiss cop assigned to watch him, which ultimately led to her murder. She’d fallen in love with him, and followed him to try to get him back. But she’d stumbled into the middle of an operation and had lost her life.

  Because of him.

  It had happened again in Georgetown where an explosive device meant for him had instead killed Jacqueline Belleau, a French intelligence officer who’d worked with him on an assignment in Moscow, and who’d followed him to the States.

  And again outside Mexico City two years ago when Gloria Ibenez, a Cuban-born CIA field officer, had given her life to save his.

  And still again eighteen months ago when his wife and daughter were killed in another attack meant for him.

  So much carnage, so many lives wasted uselessly. The list wasn’t exactly endless but sometimes it seemed like it was, and over the years he’d been rubbed so raw that he didn’t know if he could care about anyone ever again. At the very least, he’d come to reason, his proximity to someone very often ended up as a death sentence for them.

  “A penny,” a woman said from behind him.

  He turned as Eve Larsen appeared out of the darkness. She was dressed in jeans and a dark windbreaker against the damp, chilly night air, and she looked worn-out, almost haggard, her face even a little gaunt. “It’d take more than a penny,” he said.

  She inclined her head, and came next to him and leaned her elbows on the rail. “Do you think they have the stamina to keep up the racket all the way to Florida?”

  “Probably not.”

  “You’re still expecting an attack.”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “But no one else does.”

  It was more complicated than that, because even the White House thought that an attack on the rig was possible, though not by Schlagel’s group. But there was no proof, not one shred of evidence, not one indication, not one warning, even a distant warning that something like that might happen. Everyone was going on McGarvey’s instincts, while at the same time hedging their bets in case he was wrong. And he’d been in this position before. More than once.

  “No.”

  She fell silent for a time, staring out at the dozens of boat lights — red, green, and white — surrounding them, while straight ahead the tug’s array of lights stacked up in a vertical column indicating she was engaged in a tow presented an almost surreal image against the thick dark of the overcast night sky and no visible horizon. “I haven’t seen you since you came aboard.”

  “I didn’t want to get in your way,” McGarvey said, and in the lights on the rig that lit up the superstructures like a forest of Christmas trees, he saw her expression harden. “Gail and I are here to provide security in case something goes wrong. And believe me, Doc, I sincerely hope this will be a wasted trip.”

  “Eve,” she said. “My name is Eve.” And she sounded very vulnerable.

  “You have your work … Eve.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Someone to put their arms around me, tell me that everything will work out, that there’s really nothing to worry about.”

  “You have Don,” McGarvey said. He wanted to run.

  “No,” she said. “You. Five minutes is all I’m asking.”

  He stared at her with absolutely no idea of what to say or do. She was younger than him, smarter than him, and driven so hard that she was almost shaking. It was in her eyes and on her lips, in their swift movements as if she were ready to argue her point or at the very least spring into some sort of a defensive posture. And he thought that her being here like this was the worst thing that could happen, especially with the sort of memories he’d been dredging up.

  But then he supposed she really did need him, and he reached out for her and she came into his arms, shivering at first until she slowly began to come down, and he could feel her tears on the side of his face.

  “I’m afraid,” she said.

  “This will work out,” McGarvey told her. “You’ll see.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Late the next afternoon Eve and Don went down to the main deck to inspect the work Defloria’s crew had completed on the first of the four massive steel tripods that would support the 150-millimeter titanium and carbon nanofiber cable holding the huge impeller in place. They were well out into the Gulf now, completely out of sight of land, and the weather had turned nasty with a light drizzle from low overhanging clouds that scudded to the east on an increasing wind, but the weather didn’t seem to be slowing down the work
.

  “I’ve been in much worse conditions on the North Sea,” Defloria told them, and he introduced his construction foreman, Herb Stefanato, a short, bulldog tough guy from Queens who’d paid his way through engineering school by working as a roustabout on oil rigs.

  “We’ve engineered a safety factor of five above what you and the other eggheads at GE told us we’d need,” Stefanato said. “No offense, Doc.”

  “None taken, I’ve been called worse,” Eve said. Each tripod, standing nearly the height of a five-story building from base to apex with a spread of forty feet, was a geometric maze of intersecting girders of impressive proportions. The entire rig was bolted through the deck to what Stefanato explained were a series of two-inch-thick stainless-steel backing plates, that were in turn reinforced by a series of girders interlaced like a spiderweb with the platform’s main beams.

  The cable, attached to the impeller’s pivot point located at the center of mass, would be led up and over roller bearings at the top of the pyramid, and back down to a winch powered by a donkey engine reeling out cable from a spool.

  In addition to the structural purpose of the umbilical cord, the cable also contained the data links from the impeller to the measurement and control devices up in the science room. Once the impeller was up and spinning, and its generator switched on, the electrical energy the apparatus produced would be sent ashore via a heavily sheathed power line lying on the ocean floor.

  All four of the impellers would be led from the down-current side of the platform, lowered to a depth of seventy-five feet at the central shaft, which would put the top edge of the blades a little more than sixty feet beneath the surface, plenty deep to avoid even the deepest draft commercial ships.

  She’d thought of everything, they’d thought of everything and except for the accident aboard the Big G, the damned thing worked. The only difference now was the scale, and it worried her. But then Don had reminded her almost on a daily basis since Oslo to slow down, trust the data, trust her science.