by Mims, Lee
I paused when I reached the landing at Magellan’s top level. Almost to the horizon, SunCo’s Able Leader was visible, positively glowing in the orange light of the setting sun. I wondered if they’d resumed drilling. The sound of another helicopter approaching quickly brought me back to the tasks at hand.
“Phil,” I said upon entering the conference room where most the well data was stored. “Data will be coming in during the next hour that’ll show us in the reservoir.”
Phil jumped up. “Great! I haven’t been down yet. I’ve been working on other projects all day. How do you feel about it? Any readings yet on gas content?”
“They’ll be starting to come in soon. Assuming the lag time’s correct—and Elton’s seeing to that right now—we’ll have a good idea of where to take another side core for rock eval.”
“Sounds good.” He started to pace nervously.
I checked my watch, counting the minutes until I could rejoin Viktor and the ROV. I was thinking maybe around two hours.
“Today’s going to be a great day for this company,” Phil said.
Soon we were joined by Duncan Powell, Braxton Roberts, and other Global honchos who wanted to discuss a press conference. Later, when the discussions turned away from my area of expertise to creating the nonexisting infrastructure for delivering the gas to shore, I checked my watch. The two hours were almost up, so I excused myself. Just as I reached the door, Bud came through it.
“Where are you going?” he whispered as I slipped past him. “I need to talk to you.”
I should have planned on Bud’s being included in this discussion group, but with so much going on, I just hadn’t thought that far ahead. As usual, I was running headlong, making adjustments when needed. But what kind of adjustment was needed when one’s ex-husband and current lover were both on board the same ship, I wasn’t sure.
“I can’t right now,” I said. “We’ve hit our target. The first cuttings have come up by now, and I need to be with the wellsite geologist.”
He followed me outside the conference room. “What’s the plan?”
“Well, first off, you stay up here out of the way …”
Bud squinted at me.
“With the investors, I mean, and I’ll send word up when we get to the bottom of the reservoir. We have equipment on board that’ll give reliable estimates for all the biggest questions; namely, is the gas dry and abundant enough to put Global in the black? After that, if everything looks good, they’ll run logs for days to be certain about what we have.”
“Text me when you can get free for dinner.”
“Uh, okay. Later,” I said. I waited until he’d closed the door behind him, then booked it for the ROV van.
Two roughnecks dodged aside to avoid colliding with me as I raced by them. Breathless as I reached the door, I thought twice about opening it. I didn’t want to startle Viktor and cause him to crash the huge ROV into something delicate … like a friggin’ torpedo. I briefly wondered if the other three tubes were still armed. I softly pushed the door open. Viktor was biting his bottom lip as he manipulated Scooter’s controls.
“Cylinder’s definitely in the tube,” Viktor told me as I entered. “There was some other rotted debris like old wooden boxes in there too, but they were within easy reach and I pulled them out of the way. Cylinder is a bit farther up in the tube.”
I gave a fleeting thought to the top-secret military documents those wooden boxes were thought to contain. Now disintegrated, the horrors they’d likely reveal and the lessons to humanity were lost to the sea forever. But then the reality of the enormous find within our grasp overcame me, and I was giddy with excitement.
“The trouble is, I can’t reach it from either end,” he said. “So I’m looking for a piece of railing that I saw in the debris field between the main part of the wreckage and the bow. I think it’s long enough to use to push the cylinder out the exit end.”
He navigated Scooter along the bottom, using the levers to illuminate first left, then right until he found the railing. Manipulating the stainless-steel pincers on the jointed arm,Viktor grasped the railing, spun Scooter around like a jouster with a javlin, and made a beeline for the torpedo tube again.
“Good job!” I said, my adrenaline pumping so hard I was panting.
“I hope it’s long enough to reach,” he said, inserting it in the tube.
“Wait!” I said.
He jumped. “What?”
“You don’t think there could be any explosives in there, do you?”
“Like what? The torpedo is gone. This is just the tube.”
“Well … I don’t know anything about bombs and warheads and stuff like that. But the sub was pretty wrecked. Do you think there could be pieces of the other torpedoes in there or something?”
Viktor gave me the same look my older brother used to give me when I asked girly questions. “No,” he said, “there couldn’t be. If you’ll just …”
“Yeah, yeah. I know,” I said. “Trust you.”
“Right,” he said, and rammed the railing into the tube.
Tap, tap, tap. Viktor and I froze at the sound of someone tapping lightly on the door. We stared at each other. “Who could it be?”
“Not Ray and the boys,” I said, standing. “They wouldn’t knock.” I opened the door and poked my head out.
Bud.
“What are you doing here?” I was accusatory. “I told you to stay upstairs.”
“I know but—”
“No,” I snapped. “Obviously, you don’t know.”
“Huh?”
“Can’t you read?”
“Read what?”
“That,” I said, pointing to the no admittance when ROV is operating sign.
“How would I know if the ROV is operating?”
Pushing him back a few feet and pulling the door closed behind me, I said, “Do you see the ROV anywhere?”
Bud looked around, feigning serious observation. “No, I don’t,” he said.
“Then it must be down below, huh?”
“Makes sense.” A big grin spread across his face. “Actually I came up here looking for you and … your friend.”
“Friend?”
“A guy named Elton said you might be with your friend, an ROV pilot.” His voice held curiosity. “Viktor, I believe he said was his name. Have I met your friend Viktor?” he asked pointedly.
My adrenalin rush doubled down. I stepped to the railing to steady myself. “Uh, no,” I said. “No, you haven’t. I was looking for him too, but he isn’t in there.” The wind, continuing to gain in strength, now whipped my ponytail about my face and I realized I didn’t have my hard hat on.
I slapped my hand on top of my head. “Jeez, I’ve got to get my hat and you need to go.” I looked below to see if anyone, like a safety inspector, had seen me. That’s when I spotted Davy Duchamp.
He was talking to Braxton Roberts. Their conversation looked heated. This last surprise sent me into lightheaded land. Bud, following my line of sight, startled me even further by shouting down to them. “Braxton! Davy!”
Oh my god. “Bud! What are you doing? Do you know that man with Braxton?”
“Of course I do. Name’s Davy Duchamp, from SeaTrek. He’s an investor.”
“Investor?”
“Yes. It’s quite common for oil companies to take other companies in as investors,” he explained impatiently. “Especially those with an ongoing stake in a project.”
I looked down again for the two men, but they’d disappeared. Clumping sounds on the stairs to my right let me know where they were headed. I grabbed Bud’s arm and turned him in their direction. “I hear your friends coming. You shouldn’t be up here and neither should they. Why don’t you go head them off, let them know the ROV’s down. I need to go find my hat. Oh, and Bud?”
�
��Yes?”
“Don’t mention me to them, okay?”
“Okay,” he said, drawing the word out dubiously. “But what about dinner?”
“Maybe later,” I called over my shoulder just before I descended the stairs at the opposite end of the catwalk. Halfway down, I stopped. I knew I’d be leaving Viktor in a vulnerable position, yet at the same time I desperately needed to talk with Bud … alone. I had to find out what he knew about Duchamp, who was obviously here looking for Viktor and me.
What if Duchamp looked in the van? What would he do? He’d already pulled a gun. I needed to think. I sat down on the stairs and tried to make out what the three men were saying. I couldn’t. But when metallic clumping at the other end of the catwalk told me they were leaving, relief washed over me. I tiptoed back up the stairs and peeped over the railing to make sure the coast was clear before entering the van.
“Davy’s here!” I told Viktor as I closed the door.
“I knew it,” he said. “I knew he wouldn’t give up so easily.”
“How much time do you think we have left?”
“About fifteen minutes by my calculations, but I’ll make it. I’ve already pushed out the packing that was jammed in the torpedo exit and I’m pulling it apart now, looking for the cylinder.”
“Great!” I said, jumping back into my chair to watch him operate the hand-sized duplicate of Scooter’s jointed manipulating arms. With the plastic arm resting against his thumb, he opened and closed the pinchers, shredding the rotted material. Then, in the flash of an eye, the cylinder rolled out of the murky cloud of mangled wadding and silt onto the sea floor, looking just as it had in the photo when Erich Koch handed it to young Gerhard Coester back in 1945.
Viktor and I gasped in unison.
“You know what has to be done now?” Viktor asked.
“Uh, bring it up and hide it until we can get it off the ship, of course.”
“Of course. Problem is, in order to get the cylinder, we’d have to dock Scooter. That takes three strong people. Even if the two of us could manage, we might be seen. No, our best option is to hide it somewhere below the waterline on the Magellan.”
“Do what?”
“You heard me,” he said, pushing the ROV at top speed back to its cage, spinning it around, then backing it in. “Ray and his crew are responsible for ascent and docking. Anything out of the ordinary would bring about an immediate inquiry. We don’t want that.”
All I could do was shake my head. We were so close! Viktor looked at me. “Don’t worry. I’ve got the perfect place to hide it where we can easily collect it later. But we have to hurry. Bringing it up two thousand feet will take a few minutes.”
I waited as he began the ROV’s ascent, then asked, “So, where are we hiding it?”
“On one of the thrusters.”
“On a thruster! Are you crazy? How do you expect to collect it as you say? They operate constantly.”
“Correct. But if we go to the back side of the thruster, out of the propulsion stream, and avoid the intake stream, we’ll be quite safe. There is a graduated space between an arm that projects from the rear of the thruster and the hull of the ship. It is part of the housing on the thruster and doesn’t move with it. I’ll just jam the cylinder between it and the hull. Then we come back tomorrow night and pick it up,” Viktor said casually as he were talking about dropping by Pizza Hut for two large pies to go.
“How do you know this? There are several different models of thrusters used on drillships, and they’re all slightly different.”
“We did some observation right after I came aboard. Captain Powell wanted the starboard one checked for vibration, so I know exactly what they look like.”
“Have you not noticed the security boat that patrols the perimeter here 24/7?”
“Yes, yes,” Viktor said dismissively. “Tomorrow night we rent a fast fishing boat to get out here, then pretend we have steering problems that cause us to slowly cruise in a large arc beyond the patrol boat. You act like you’re working on the problem, smile, and wave to the security boat. But, meanwhile, I go over the side. I pick up the cylinder, swim back to you. We pretend the problem is fixed, go back home with our prize.”
I checked my watch. Ten minutes had gone by, so only about five were left. With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I watched the ROV change direction by 180 degrees and approach the rear of one of Magellan’s gigantic thrusters. Then, just as Viktor had described it, Scooter’s jointed arm extended and shoved the precious cylinder between the graduated arm and the hull until the fit was tight. Next, the robot backed away, executed a smart turn, and began the return trip to its cage.
I left my chair and went to the door. “I’ve got to get back to run pyrolsis on samples of the reservoir. I’d really like it if you could … um … go back ashore.”
“What, without you? How will you deal with Duchamp?”
“Don’t worry about that, I’m going to call Pierce right now, let him know Duchamp’s out here. He won’t try anything with so many people around. Besides,” I said, “I’ll be right behind you as soon as I square things up out here.”
No sooner had I reached the deck below than I heard Ray and the crew clomping about above me, proving once again that life is a game of inches and seconds.
Twenty-Five
Buffeted by the wind, which had now picked up to a steady 20 knots out of the southeast, I ducked my head so I could use both hands to pull open the door to the logging lab. I squeezed into the tight space occupied by Elton and the ever-smiling Tom. Apparently there’d been a shift change, as Jonathan was nowhere in sight.
“Listen, Elton,” I said. “We need to come up with an estimate for size of the reservoir. The execs on board will need it when they conference with Houston. We know it’s just an estimate, but we want it as reliable as possible. Got that? I need to step outside right now and make a call, but I’ll be right back.”
Detective Pierce’s cell went right to his voicemail. I left the following message: “Cleo Cooper here. Your theory about Duchamp was wrong, buddy. He’s on board the Magellan, where I am. I don’t know about his sons. If I were you, I’d send your friends from the Coast Guard out here for him. Oh, and just a suggestion, but the orange jumpsuit material in Hunter’s watchband would seem to me to indicate that the twins might know something about what happened to him.”
Time to get back to my other treasure hunt: natural gas.
It was exactly like Christmas morning when I handed out the preliminary reports on the size of the second reservoir and the quality of the gas it contained. Elton and I had gone over the numbers one more time before we printed the report. Immediately upon entering the room, I’d scanned the men assembled there for Davy Duchamp. As an investor, I wondered if he’d be included. He was no where to be seen.
There were collective gasps as the numbers were read. Braxton Roberts was practically crowing. “By God, this discovery is the largest domestic find since Prudhoe Bay!” That he had so recently wanted to pull out and start another well somewhere else was long forgotten.
Bud sat next to me, patting me on the back from time to time like a proud parent. I hated to dampen their high spirits, but since it was my job as an outside consultant to bring objectivity into the picture I stood, tapped on the table for attention, and said, “If I could just remind everyone: we have some waiting still to do and some numbers to be crunched.”
“But we aren’t expecting any big changes to our projections,” Roberts declared firmly. “And what about SunCo? We will still beat them to the punch, won’t we?” They all looked at me since I was still standing.
Quickly sitting, I pointed to Duncan Powell, who stood and said, “We’ve kept up our observations of SunCo’s activity and it’s clear that after reconnecting to their riser, they’re drilling again. More than that, we don’t know. We don’t even kn
ow if they’ve made a strike.” He paused. “However, there’s no way they could catch us even if they had.”
There was more cheering. You can’t blame a bunch of guys who are about to make a whole lot of money for getting excited.
Fine for them. And good for me. I was a winner here, too, after all. But it was nice also that they were distracted. At this moment my mind was on treasure number two and my need to catch up with Viktor and make plans to retrieve it.
A quick stop at the radio operator’s office let me know that a Sikorsky would be arriving in about thirty minutes. Arrangements were made for me to hitch a ride back to Beaufort. Then realizing I hadn’t eaten since I’d shared ice cream this morning with Coester, I headed for a drink machine in a quiet area up near the bow.
Icy cold and spicy, the soda tickled my nose and gave me the sugar rush I needed. But I had to get off the ship and away from any danger Duchamp might pose. Suddenly I realized the wind that had been so strong earlier today had dropped out altogether. I stepped to the rail and looked to the horizon.
A waning gibbous moon reflected a streak of hammered silver over the black, gently heaving swells that belied the massive currents just under the surface. I watched their progression until they boiled and roiled against the hull. Standing there, it seemed odd to have realized such a goal—the gas deposit—and yet feel nothing. I told myself the enormity of my good fortune just hadn’t sunk in yet.
Another swallow of soda slipped cool and sweet down my throat. I thought I heard voices. Taking a step back into the shadows under some stairs leading up to a pair of lifeboats, I listened.
“I’m telling you, Davy, get the fuck off this ship now. The radio operator told me he just received word that the Coast Guard is making arrangements to pick you up. We don’t need this kind of publicity. I don’t know why you came out here in the first place. We agreed—”
“Calm down, Braxton.” Duchamp’s voice held menace. “We agreed to nothing. I know what I’m doing, and we can still accomplish our goal here.”
“No, we can’t! You said it yourself. Your man couldn’t find the cylinder. Give it up! We don’t need it anymore. When you came to me with this harebrained scheme, I agreed to help you by putting your people onboard only because I figured if the well didn’t come in, we still had the Russian treasure and your deal with the Chinese, which you agreed to share for a percentage of the company. Well, the well did come in, there’s no Russian treasure, and a man is dead!”