Trusting Viktor (A Cleo Cooper Mystery)

by Mims, Lee

  Had he started looking for me that night, as I had been looking for him, only to find I was about to be raped by an ape man and come to my aid? Had he attacked my attacker in a rage, getting a hole ripped in his shirt in the process? If that was what had happened, wouldn’t he have destroyed the evidence? Was that why I couldn’t find the orange shirt?

  Later that Monday afternoon, I felt Tulip stir at my feet. I’d been in the upstairs office for an hour. Vivid rays of afternoon sun poured through the plantation shutters, decorating the sisal rug with slashes of light. I’d just finished paying current bills and making up my schedule for the coming weeks, keeping in mind the warning I’d received about leaving town, when my iPhone rang. Absentmindedly, I said, “Hey,” without checking the caller.

  “Uh, hey. Ms. Cooper?”

  Time to note the ID: Global.

  “Yes?”

  “Hi. This is Phil Gregson at Global.”

  “Yes, Phil. How are you?”

  “Well enough, thank you. But I’ll be better if you say you can work in a trip out to the Magellan.” When I made no response, he continued. “With so much riding on this wildcat, I would be more comfortable if you could go out there.”

  “Is there a problem with Elton?”

  “Well, let’s just say there are some ambiguities in the interpretation of some of the samples. They’re trying to mark the top of one of the formations. Mudloggers are saying one thing, I’m thinking another.”

  “What’s Elton saying?”

  “He seems to be in agreement with the mudloggers, but it’s hard to tell. He’s even more nervous than before, if that’s possible. Keeps obsessing about personnel descent lines and safety stations …”

  My chest tightened at the thought of being back on the Magellan. Then there was the helicopter ride out … oh joy. Plus, I no longer had the fuel of revenge lighting a fire under me. It had been replaced by the creeping fog of the unknown—that missing time from when I fainted on the ROV platform until I woke up in my bunk on the Magellan—had been pushing hard at the back of my consciousness. Finding the orange scrap of fabric that might or might not be from Bud’s lucky shirt had only increased my desire to fill in the blanks.

  If returning to the Magellan would help dispel the fog and reveal what I needed to know—good or bad—then that was what I should do. Surely Detective Pierce would have no objection to me being a few miles offshore of Morehead City. Well, 136 miles, but who’s counting?

  “When would you like me to go?”

  “Just as soon as you can work it in. All you need to do is check with our operations shorebase and they’ll arrange transportation. Helicopter or boat, whichever you prefer. The office manager’s name is Wanda. Call me if you have any problems.”

  “All right,” I said, hearing the beep that indicated another call. “I’ll make arrangements right now.” I clicked over. “Yes?”

  “Sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” Bud said.

  “I thought we’d agreed to talk Wednesday when you get home, so you’re early. Maybe it’s good you called now, though,” I said, thinking aloud, “because I might not be here Wednesday—not in town, anyway, if you were thinking of dropping by before going to Seahaven.”

  “Actually I was. Where are you going?”

  “To the Magellan. Phil Gregson just called. He’s got some doubts about the readings coming up from the wellbore, with the larger problem being the lack of confidence in Elton. I can’t go tomorrow because I need to run errands, so Wednesday it is.”

  “You won’t stay overnight, will you?”

  Did I detect a note of anxiety? “I hope not,” I said. “Why?”

  “Nothing. No reason.” Bud cleared his throat. “How long will you be staying?”

  “Probably just a couple of hours,” I said. “In fact I need to call right now and see about catching a ride out on one of the supply boats.”

  “Supply boat? For heaven’s sake, Cleo, this is why the military invented helicopters. Learn to enjoy them.”

  “Actually, Da Vinci came up with the idea, and frankly, I don’t think they’ve progressed much since his time. So, no thanks, I’ll stick with the boat.”

  After putting in a help-is-on-the-way call to Elton and with quitting time fast approaching, I drove over to the port and Global’s shorebase. While the company headquarters was in Houston, its deep water group was in New Orleans. Exploratory wells located in far-flung parts of the globe use the closest port as a temporary shorebase of operations. In the case of Manteo One, that was Morehead City.

  “Can I help you?” asked a tan, fit woman. Her spiky brown hair was tastefully highlighted, her face deeply lined and weathered, yet her lips were full and her bright blue eyes sparkled. Her accent was Cajun.

  “Are you Wanda?”

  “Sure am, doll, and I bet I know who you are,” she said, scrambling through some papers on her desk and retrieving a Post-it note. “Ms. Cleo Cooper?”

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “We don’t get a lot of woman boarding, only a few, but not enough to make my guess a risky one,” she laughed. “Got your TWIC card?”

  I pulled out my Transportation Worker Identification Credential, a tamperproof biometric card required by the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, and the TSA for anyone boarding a commercial exploration vessel. She checked it and handed me a form. “Sign here, here, and here. Just liability release forms. Helicopters are based over in Beaufort—’course you already know that—and supply boats run out of here. Here’s your port pass, a boarding pass for the Magellan, and a list of all the numbers you’ll need, including mine.” She’d made a tidy stack of document in front of me as she spoke.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m going to chase you outta here now, ’cause I got a bunch of errands to run and a hot date tonight.” She laughed, then said, “Oh. If you want, you can make arrangements direct with any of the captains if you catch ’em at the dock. I believe Eddie’s down there now on one of the crew boats.”

  I said a quick goodbye and made my way across the yard, my feet crunching on a zillion tiny limestone fossils in the marl that had been hauled in to create the enormous square-shaped port. I was headed to the western seawall, where three supply boats were docked. Exploration companies like Global don’t own their own, but instead contract with others maintaining a fleet of different types of boats, each designed and outfitted to meet the specific needs of the rig being serviced. In this case Global had hired a Louisiana outfit, Belou Brothers. I drew near the boats as I mused about the complicated mess of contractors and subcontractors involved in such a huge undertaking—no wonder it was costing so much money.

  Three of Belou’s heavy-duty steel boats were tied up at the dock. All had bright-blue hulls and white superstructure and ranged between 100 and 200 feet. Two of them were veritable beehives of activity: one was being loaded with large tanks of drilling mud, the other with pipe. Hopping aboard the third boat—a 108-foot crew boat appropriately named Iron Responder—I climbed metal stairs to a helm station and tapped on the thick glass window.

  The captain waved me inside. A thin, mustachioed man of about fifty with dense, white hair pulled in a short mullet, he introduced himself as Eddie Cheramie. Said to call him Captain Eddie. In no time I’d arranged to make the 136-mile trip out to the Magellan, departure scheduled Wednesday morning at the ungodly hour of 3:30 a.m.

  When the alarm went off, I jerked awake, having slept for what seemed like ten minutes, and wished not for the first time that I was a morning person. I’m not, and this was a serious morning. That my short sleep had been marred by tossing and squirming, thinking still about that scrap of orange material, didn’t help me feel all bright and shiny either. I’d managed to get all my little errands done yesterday, but returning to the Magellan had my emotions running high.

  By the t
ime I’d parked the Jeep and taken a sip of the giant coffee I’d picked up at the Kangaroo station, I was a bit more pulled together. Part of me was resistant to what lay ahead, but I sensed that another part was actually eager. I hate mysteries, is all. I needed to know.

  “Morning, Miss,” Captain Eddie said. “Find a seat anywhere you like. It’ll be a few more minutes before we depart, so just make yourself at home.

  I dropped my pack in a seat and went to the window to watch a crane operator load boxes of food stores on the Iron Responder’s deck. Behind me about twenty sleepy crew members began to file aboard carrying duffel bags. Most MODUs—mobile offshore drilling units—have crews that work fourteen-day shifts.

  A low rumble of engines was followed by a shudder and a slight lurch. The Responder was dancing in her lines like a racehorse pushing on the gate. We were about to get underway. Several dock workers tossed lines to crewmen as I took my seat. Then Captain Eddie, one deck above me, spun the bow of the boat smartly into the channel and we were off.

  As we slipped past Radio Island on our port side at a sedate speed, the Civil War gun mounts at Fort Macon showed themselves on the starboard side. Once we were beyond the rolling swells of Beaufort Inlet, the captain throttled down on the engines until we planed off in the open Atlantic. From past fishing trips in this area, I knew we would keep this heading until we rounded the Knuckle Buoy, which marked the end of Cape Lookout shoals. At around twenty knots per hour, the trip would take at least four hours, so I reclined my seat a little and settled back to enjoy the beauty of the ocean before sunrise. Even though I knew what our arrival would bring, I relaxed.

  But all good things, as we know, must end.

  As we came alongside the Magellan, I picked two extremely tough-looking guys in gray jumpsuits to follow as they moved up in the line waiting for the air tugger, or personnel basket. This demonic device is used to raise passengers from the crew boat sometimes as much as 40 feet to the deck of the rig. Picture a large drawstring purse made of fish net with a round, flat bottom. Suspend it from a crane and you’ve got a pretty good idea what an air tugger looks like.

  Worse still, crane operators often think it’s funny to dunk new people in the water. That’s why it’s wise to ride up with guys he wouldn’t want to take on. Making sure my life vest was pulled tight, I stuffed myself between my new large friends, tossed my pack in the center with their duffels, grabbed the rope netting, and hung on for dear life as the crane lifted us aboard and set us gently on the deck. At this point, everyone, including me, set off on their appointed jobs.

  With only a few hours before the Responder was fully unloaded and ready to head back to port, I wanted to complete all my tasks, after which I hoped to have a few minutes to revisit the ROV platform. This time, in the full light of day.

  Collecting my hard hat, I went first to the radio operator to have my name added to the POB—personnel on board—list and be assigned a lifeboat station. Then I went to find Captain Duncan Powell to let him know I was aboard.

  I didn’t have to go far. Powell was standing at the bottom of the stairs leading from the helipad, having what seemed like a tense discussion with Braxton Roberts, the company man. They stopped talking and stared at me as though drawing a blank as to who I was.

  Saving them embarrassment, I put my hand out to the hawk-nosed captain and said, “Cleo Cooper, I’m—”

  “Oh, right, you’re Bud Cooper’s wife, the wellsite geologist.”

  “Ex-wife,” I said. “And Elton Patterson’s the wellsite geologist. I’m just helping out.”

  “Glad to have you aboard,” he said. Giving me a pat on the shoulder, he explained to Roberts, “She’s basically here to calm Phil Gregson by making sure he gets the information he needs when he

  needs it.”

  “Yes, glad to have you aboard,” Roberts said. Terse but polite.

  “Well, speaking of that,” I said, “I’d better get to work. Nice to see you both again.” As soon as I walked away, headed for the logging lab, I could hear their heated discussion start up again. It seemed the relationship between the company man and the site manager was a fractious one.

  One of the most important tasks of the mudlogger is to record in real time the lithology, or mineral makeup, of the rocks in the well hole. They mostly accomplish this through analysis of rock chips returned to the surface in the drilling mud and sifted out in large shaking screens. If the drill is penetrating a soft rock, it moves faster, and samples have to be collected and analyzed very quickly. Since Phil wasn’t happy with the daily readouts he was receiving, my job was to identify the problem, correct it, and facilitate the flow of information.

  I entered the trailer and introduced myself to a crew-cut, middle-aged mudlogger from Texas named Charlie. We looked at the newest samples to come up in the mud, and I collected several to study at home later. When I asked him how things were going with Elton, he looked a little annoyed. “Well, some of them guys in the crew think it’s kinda funny to scare somebody.”

  Uh-oh. “What do you mean?”

  “Well … Elton was up on the derrick—I’d say about forty feet—checking the kelly-height sensor. I don’t know who was on deck holding the other end of the cable he was harnessed to. Anyway, somehow he … lifted and swung out a little. They lowered him right away, but not before he screamed like a girl. I think it might’ve embarrassed him a bit.”

  My eyes must have looked like they were about to pop from their sockets, because he hastily added, “There’s no way he was ever in danger. He had on a safety harness.”

  That explained Elton’s obsession with safety and knowing every possible way off the ship. Poor man. Curbing my impatience with such stupid guy tricks, I asked, “Did he complain about it or make a report to Mr. Powell?”

  “No ma’am,” he said.

  “Then let’s not mention it again, okay?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Gathering my samples, I quickly made my way to Elton’s office, where he was working on his daily report. After we’d gone over what had occurred downhole and what type of rocks had been drilled during my absence, I took a breath and said, “I know about what happened with the crew and your trapeze act.”

  He stared at the floor waiting to hear what I was going to say next.

  Feigning the impatience of a mother with a daredevil child, I admonished him, saying, “I know those types of antics don’t scare you guys and you need a little something to fight boredom. But understand they do scare me, so find some other way of staying amused.”

  “Uh, yes ma’am.”

  “That said, I very much approve of your safety station checks. Mr. Gregson mentioned what a swell job you’re doing there.” I checked my watch. There was still an hour before the crew boat departed, leaving plenty of time for a visit to the ROV platform. “Well,” I said, standing, “that’s about it. I’ll be in touch later tonight.”

  Elton stood as I left and, while I couldn’t be sure, I thought I detected a whiff of cockiness that hadn’t been there before.

  As I climbed the stairs to the platform, I was relieved to see no one was working with the ROV. I walked around it again much as I had the night of the attack, only this time I looked to the glass control box at the top of the crane. It was unoccupied now. I walked to the edge of the platform and looked down at the water so far below. A chill crept over me remembering the night of the attack—those feelings of desperation and terror so intense I’d rather have jumped than submit, even though the consequences would probably have been fatal.

  Had it just been a strange twist of fate that preserved me, or human intervention? Would I ever know? I knew confronting Bud was step number one in finding the answers I needed—but I couldn’t do it. What if he had killed this Nuvuk Hunter? What would I do then?

  And, if all that wasn’t enough, I’d let the gambler in me—the same one who dwells in all pro
spectors—take over and run roughshod over my common sense. What I’d failed to tell Bud was that I’d gone way out on a limb on this deal. I had actually put up the future royalty income I was set to receive from my quarry deal as collateral for a loan hefty enough to allow me to play with the big boys.

  While my contribution to our investment group was certainly nothing like Bud’s $15 million, and a pittance when compared to our group as a whole, it was big bucks for me. Moreover, the possibility existed that everything—and I did mean everything—I’d saved would be gone. I’d used my $1.5 million along with $3.5—borrowed from the same friendly banker who’d given me the money to clinch the granite deal—to reach the nice round number of $5 million. While I wouldn’t be out on the street if we hit a duster, I’d definitely be back on a boloney-and-cheese diet for years and years.

  No granite quarry income, no retirement account, no real savings.

  Usually investor groups like ours partner with major oil companies through large investment institutions such as banks, trust funds, and hedge funds. But that means buying into the hedge fund and not necessarily buying a particular deal, thereby diluting the profit. In our case, Bud was the managing partner of our fund, and we were investing directly as working interest holders. While that meant a much higher return on our investment, it also guaranteed that hitting a dry hole would constitute a complete loss of our money.

  But the worst part? Bud would know I’d been foolhardy. I couldn’t have that. I’d been very proud that he hadn’t questioned me about the size of my investment. That meant what he’d told me after I’d cobbled together the financing for my granite quarry—that he’d been impressed at my ability to put together such a complicated deal—had been true. I didn’t want to do anything to erode the real progress we’d made toward the new post-divorce equality we seemed to be reaching.

  I inhaled deeply, drinking in the beauty of the day, the far horizon, the gentle lift of ocean swells against the ship. Sea birds dove hungrily into schools of bait fish that swarmed in the turbulent currents created by the ship’s giant thrusters. Just then, an air return came on below me and caught my attention. Looking down through the grating, I spotted, on top of the ventilation housing, the metal wheel I’d been trying to pry loose the night of the attack. But as I started back down the stairs, my iPhone vibrated in my pocket.