Trusting Viktor (A Cleo Cooper Mystery)

by Mims, Lee

  Fingers flew on calculators, theories were bandied about, and a few tempers flared on the screen as we on the Magellan quietly waited. I felt a little like God was about to speak when Hightower suddenly cleared his throat. All computing and theorizing stopped. He leaned back, looked into the camera transmitting his image to us, and said with a Texas drawl, “We need to stop wasting time and money. I believe we’re all in agreement to go with the new azimuth angle.”

  Grant took a joystick in each hand and geosteered the bit with a surgeon’s touch, using his new coordinates. In a little over an hour, the gas readings went up dramatically. We’d hit our target. Now it was just a question of how thick the gas-bearing formation was and how high the pressure was, what the flow rate of the gas would be. At five minutes per foot to drill the reservoir rock, it would likely be a couple of days before we knew that answer.

  I was contemplating how large the reservoir would need to be to satisfy Global’s enormous financial demands when I saw Bud and a cameraman directing the woman he’d brought with him in various poses beside the massive drill. Through the three-sided window overlooking the drilling floor, I watched Bud point toward the aft end of the ship. The woman and the cameraman set off in that direction. Seizing the opportunity of slightly less noise due to the temporary pause in drilling, I placed both pinkies between my lips and let out a Tulip field whistle. Bud turned, smiled, and trotted to me.

  “Hey, babe,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Really?” I said. “I imagine if I’d been in your friend’s ear, you might have found me.”

  He gave a little uncomfortable laugh. “Whatever. I’ve been wanting to give you a heads-up on what’s going on, but our schedule has been so crazy. We’ve got a photo session out here, then back to Raleigh for an emergency meeting with other legislators, and I’ve had to be on the phone with Global. Constantly.”

  “Duncan said there might be some problems with permitting. But I sure hope not, because we just cut into our target and there’s definitely gas there.”

  Bud’s face lit up. “Babe! We did it!” He grabbed me in a big bear hug.

  “Bud, please,” I shook my head laughing. “Put me down. Those reporters might see, and we aren’t ready to make any disclosures just now. Not until we know exactly how big our discovery is. It’ll take a couple of days.”

  “Okay, okay,” he sighed happily. “It’s only that I just know it’s going to be a huge discovery, and I can’t wait for the world to hear!”

  “What would be a real shame is to have finally found it and then have the state shut us down,” I reminded him.

  “Well, that’s not going to happen. Don’t you worry. That’s why we’re here. Coastal Management may try to stop us on the basis of discrepancies in our discharge plan—that’s how they halted the first exploration out here, by finding an inconsistency between the discharge permit and exploration plan and the state’s regulations—but we’ve gone to great pains this time to make sure that doesn’t happen. We brought heads of all the agencies involved to show them in person.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Oh sorry. You haven’t met Amanda yet. She chairs the Legislative Research Commission Advisory Subcommittee on Offshore Energy. She’s been the tip of the spear in the battle to allow exploration and production of hydrocarbons on the twenty-one leases of the Manteo Prospect.”

  “Impressive.”

  “Yes, she is,” Bud said. His tone was admiring. “And believe me when I say right now, without her, our chances of getting at least a Suspension of Operations or Memorandum of Understanding slapped on us would be very high. A company like SunCo might withstand the years of delay that would entail. Global couldn’t. It would be the end of them—and of our investment.”

  The awkward silence that fell between us was cut short when Amanda appeared out of nowhere, grabbed Bud’s arm possessively, and drawled, “Do hurry, dear. Everyone’s waitin’ on you. Oh sorry. Did ah interrupt somethin’?”

  Before Bud could respond, Amanda thrust her hand at me and, continuing her Scarlet O’Hara impression, said, “Ah don’t believe we’ve met. Amanda Whitfield. And you are?”

  I hated her instantly, but consummate professional—and very good liar—that I am, I gave her hand a firm shake and responded, “Cleo Cooper. So nice to meet you and thank you in person for all your hard work during this difficult permitting process.”

  Amanda, whose dewy complexion said she couldn’t have been much over thirty, turned to Bud, flashed a perfect Southern beauty queen smile, and said, “Now, Bud, have you been braggin’ on me again?”

  Bud flushed but didn’t respond. I hesitated, waiting for her to add, “ Well, ah do declare.” When she didn’t, I continued, “ And for your continued help in the fight apparently to come.”

  “Now don’t you worry,” she said, removing her hard hat and smoothing her immaculate French twist. “I’m a tough Southern lawyer from a long line of tough Southern lawyers, and this type of thing is pure Pablum for me. Besides, what could be better than helping Bud and the people of my district at the same time?” She replaced her hard hat and turned to him, “It’s never wise to keep reporters waitin’, I always say.”

  Before they left earshot, however, I heard Amanda say, “Don’t forget, dahlin’, we’ve got dinner with the speaker tonight and then …” This she followed with a lilting laugh, holding the rim of her hard hat coquettishly with one hand while giving him a pat on the butt with the other.

  I said aloud, “Well, shut my mouth.” Then the ship’s loudspeaker announced the arrival of the copter that I imagined was their ride back, and I got a sinking feeling. The jubilance I’d felt only moments earlier over the well coming in dimmed. Moreover, I definitely wouldn’t be discussing my U-boat theory with Bud. Not today—and maybe not ever.

  “There you are,” Powell said, coming up behind me. “I’m headed back to the helm. You going back today or staying out here?”

  “Going back, definitely,” I said. “I’m optimistic, though, that it’ll take a couple of days to reach the bottom of the reservoir. Then you’ll have to trip back out, run some wire-line logs for more precise measurements of gas content, and that’ll take another few days. No sense in me and Elton both just marking time out here. You guys know where to find me.”

  “That we do,” Powell said. “I’m sure glad it’s looking so good, Global could stand to catch a break.”

  We went over a few more details with Phil over a celebratory lunch in the galley, then I caught my own helicopter ride home.

  About fifteen minutes into our flight, I realized I was actually enjoying the ride. The warmth of the sun through the window felt good on my face while the air-conditioned cabin kept me cool enough to drop off for a quick power nap. My lids drooped. Predictably, my iPhone vibrated. Damn. I checked the screen: Pierce. I hadn’t spoken to him since he said he was probably going to rule Hunter’s death an accident as soon as he talked to Bud.

  “Detective Sergeant Alex Pierce, here, Ms. Cooper. How are you?”

  “Fine, and—”

  “That’s good. I need to speak with you. Would tomorrow be suitable?”

  “Sunday?”

  “I have some catch-up work in the office. If possible, I’d like to drop by on my way there. Say about eight?”

  “Uh … can’t you just tell me on the … hello?”

  I looked at the screen. Call ended. “Bastard,” I muttered. Maybe he wasn’t going to close the case after all. Maybe he wasn’t satisfied with Bud’s poker alibi. Maybe the bathroom breaks were an issue with him.

  All of a sudden we passed under a large cloud. As its shadow darkened the cabin, I tried to shake off the feeling of impending danger that crept over me.

  eighteen

  Sunday morning I sat across my kitchen table from Detective Sergeant Alex Pierce. His trusty sidekick, Myers, wa
s absent from today’s proceedings. I stirred my coffee waiting for him to finish doctoring his.

  Finally, he took a sip, “Great coffee.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  He took three more swallows but said nothing.

  Having already grown tired of our little party, I nudged the conversation along. “Have you made a final ruling on the death of Nuvuk Hunter yet?”

  “No.” Sip. Sip.

  What an ass. I studied my spoon.

  Finally Pierce, setting his mug down, laid his palms flat on the table as though he thought it might levitate, and asked, “Can you think of what Mr. Hunter might have been looking for out there where y’all are drilling?”

  Fortunately I’m an old hand at the fine art of holding a poker face. I gazed placidly at him. “Of course. Dry natural gas. The same thing we’re all looking for. It’s out there somewhere under twenty-two hundred feet of water, trapped in fourteen thousand feet of sand, silt, and ancient limestone.”

  “No. Not that. I’m referring to a more tangible object of great value. Like uh … uh … ” He paused, tying to summon just the right word to describe what he meant.

  I leaned forward, an exaggerated look of expectation on my face. “Like the Fountain of Youth … or … chests of gold and silver? Blackbeard’s treasure, maybe?”

  “Maybe not treasure in the traditional sense of the word, but something like that,” he said defensively.

  “Jeez. I can’t imagine what you could be referring to,” I lied. “Perhaps if I had more information …”

  Pierce inscribed little circles on the table with his index finger.

  How great was this? I knew just as clearly as I knew I was sitting at my kitchen table that Pierce had finally gotten around to digging through Hunter’s personal computer and found a clue on it that had led him to this conclusion. I desperately wanted to know what he had, but I had to be very careful how I phrased my next question. “Did one of his Voyager teammates say something to make you think he’d been on the trail of some pirate treasure?”

  “No. But there were numerous emails on his computer seemingly from a colleague, asking about the status of ‘the cylinder’. ”

  “Cylinder?” I asked with a shrug. “Sounds more like a part to me.”

  “I’ve already talked to a guy out on the Magellan, who does maintenance on that underwater robot, the … uh … ”

  “The ROV?”

  “Yeah, right. I asked him about it. He said no, there’s nothing on an ROV known as a cylinder. But there are several emails, all two days before he died, that tell him, in what seems to me to be a desperate tone, to”—Pierce put down his mug so he could use his fingers for air quotes—“ ‘find the cylinder’ and ‘find it quick before your rotation is over’ and ‘it has to be in there.’ Oh, and ‘look in the forward holds again’.”

  “Interesting,” I said, nodding my head like Watson to Holmes. “What did the replies say?”

  “Basically just variations on ‘I already did’,” Pierce said, making air quotes again.

  To look extra serious, I chewed a hangnail. “So, these emails were sent right before he died. What about earlier? How far back did you go?”

  “Everything was deleted after a few days, and with Gmail, you can’t retrieve correspondence once it’s deleted from the trash bin. It’s not stored on a hard drive anywhere. Just gets scattered into cyberspace.”

  “Well, what about whoever they were from? Did you try to reply?”

  “Yep. Returned as a failed message. But we’ve got someone working on it.”

  Good luck with that. “What about his favorites list or bookmarks or sites he usually visited? Maybe there’d be something there,” I added helpfully.

  “Nothing but porn. Lots and lots of porn.”

  “Gross.”

  “I’ll say. At least there was no kiddie porn. One thing about him, though, he definitely favored women of your type.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean that like it sounded,” Pierce said, turning red. “What I meant was tall, blond, beautiful … you know?”

  I looked at him like he was a worm that had just crawled out from under an outhouse. He squirmed. I took advantage of his discomfort at venturing too far into sexual-harassment land and said, “Know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “I think you’ve been reading too many Clive Cussler novels. Seriously, where would he be looking for this ‘cylinder’? How big is it? Is it big around as a five-gallon bucket or a fifty-gallon barrel or a half-inch toothbrush holder? And what’s in it?”

  “As to how big it is … I don’t know. What’s in it? Again, I don’t know; it could be anything from heroin to uncut diamonds. But where it is, that I do know.”

  I raised my eyebrows expectantly.

  “On the Magellan, of course.”

  I couldn’t stop myself: a little smile escaped my lips. Quickly adjusting it to more resemble a skeptical smirk, I said, “Sounds very far-fetched to me, but assuming this mysterious cylinder exists, what then? You planning to hire the army of lawyers it’d take to get permission through the courts to hire another army of people to tear the Magellan apart looking for it? Do you even know where the Magellan is registered?”

  “The United States?”

  “Hardly. Try Majuro.”

  “Majuro?”

  “Part of the Marshall Islands, but that’s not the point. You’re talking about undertaking an impossible task.”

  Pierce looked deflated and blew out a heavy sigh.

  I almost felt sorry for him. Almost being the operative word. I said, “You’re single, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “Divorced?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Knock off early today. That’s my suggestion. It’s Sunday, for heaven’s sakes. Go out to the beach, be around people. You’ve been working too hard.”

  Pierce nodded as though considering the suggestion, then stood and pushed back his chair. I walked him to the door. This time, before he could turn and ask me some last minute question, I said, “Oh, and Detective?” He stopped and turned to me. “Let me know when you make a ruling on Hunter’s death.”

  “Oh that,” he said and walked a few feet to his car. “I forgot to tell you. I’m sending the body home, but the case is still open. Given this new information, it’s going to stay that way a while longer. Maybe he was looking for some kind of treasure. Maybe, even, you are too.” Then he opened his car door and, resting one foot inside, he added, “Maybe that’s why he’s dead,” giving me a wave; then, he was gone.

  One of these days I’d get the last word with that bastard.

  I navigated Henri’s boat—now seaworthy again—beneath the Highway 70 bridge, dodging commercial vessels and weekend captains as I began retracing the route I’d taken only days ago to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. I was on a mission, which fate had apparently decided would be a solo one for me this time. Viktor was busy preparing to return to school this fall, and judging from yesterday’s performance by Bud’s new girlfriend—whom I’d privately dubbed Miss Tobacco Worm, since she had to have at least one beauty queen title under her belt—he had his hands way too full to bother with me.

  Granted, my mission today was based on a hunch, but all of life’s greatest discoveries started with one, right?

  In a nutshell, mine was based on my online research and the following assumptions: Davy Duchamp had discovered a U-boat when he was hired by Global to conduct the seismic survey for Manteo One. Being a history buff with a penchant for all things Nazi, he’d read about the secret mission of U-498 to spirit the map to the Amber Room to a safe location.

  He knew the bottom terrain better than anyone else, knew that the sub lay in a relatively flat location. Logic said it had to; flatness woul
d be one of the first requirements for Global when looking for a spot to spud the well. This was a big break for Duchamp because that more than likely put the sub within tether-reach of an ROV.

  Here’s where my hunch had a hitch, however. All exploratory wells require a site survey. It’s a primary part of the years-long permitting process. The site survey for an offshore well is no different and consists of many parts, depending on the location of the proposed well, the water depth, distance from shore, and what kind of drill rig is used. It is derived from the original 2D seismic survey and would include information regarding the existence of man-made features such as other wells, oil infrastructure, or shipwrecks.

  I’d seen the site survey for Manteo One and read the reports. There was no mention of any shipwreck in either the written report or geohazard analysis, certainly not within tether-reach of the well. This told me three things: the original seismic survey had to have been altered before the site survey had been created, the alterer had to have been Duchamp, and I needed to have a closer look at the original seismic survey.

  What I really needed, though, would be to compare it to an even older seismic survey of the same area. But, of course, that was impossible because even if one had been made by another seismic survey company, it would be proprietary, not available to the public. Anyway, I seriously doubted another had ever been conducted. This wasn’t the Gulf, after all.

  Yielding to a hulking oncoming barge, I maintained my speed, skimming the shallows at the edge of the channel. I was imagining Davy’s initial excitement at seeing the shadow of the sub on his seismic readouts. He must have found it early and kept it a secret until the survey was complete. That would have given him almost a year to discover the monumental significance of his find—he’d stumbled onto the map to one of the world’s greatest lost art treasures—and come up with a plan to retrieve it.