The Ark tl-1

by Boyd Morrison

  Finn shook his head as he distributed the walkie-talkies.

  “Let me know when you find it,” Locke said to Finn, “but don’t touch it. It may be booby trapped.” He took off his watch and tossed it to Hobson, who bobbled it like it was white hot.

  “What’s this for?” he said.

  “Call out on the walkie-talkie at every minute mark,” Locke said. It would keep them all informed about the time left, but in reality, Locke just didn’t want the distraction of looking at his watch any more. “And when you get down to four minutes, head to the safety block. You don’t want to be here if the bombs go off.”

  “All…all right,” Hobson stuttered.

  Locke followed Grant and Finn out of the control room and then sprinted toward the safety block. Masses of people were already herding in that direction, slowing him down.

  “Coming through!” he yelled. “Make a hole!”

  He pushed past one woman and saw that it was Dilara. She looked bone-tired and terrified.

  “What’s happening?” she said, trying to keep up with him.

  “We have a situation,” Locke said, deliberately not using the word “bomb” for fear of panicking those around him. But Dilara was persistent and latched onto his arm.

  “What kind of situation?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “It’s them, isn’t it? They’ve sabotaged the rig.” A few passersby murmured in response.

  Locke pulled her aside and put his lips next to her ear. “Look, I believe you now,” he whispered. “There are people trying to kill you. And now it looks like they’re trying to kill the rest of us with you.”

  “Oh my God!” she said loudly, drawing more stares. “I’m right?”

  “Keep quiet! The last thing we need is a panic. There are bombs on the platform.”

  “Bo…” Dilara began to shout before Locke clamped his hand over her mouth.

  “Just stay with me. I might need an extra pair of eyes to find it.” She still looked scared, but she nodded and Locke released her.

  Hobson’s trembling voice came over the walkie-talkie. “Ten minutes.”

  Locke led her past the others streaming toward the safety block. The block’s ordinary purpose was as a massive storage room underneath the helicopter deck, but it doubled as a safe haven in emergencies. Blast walls surrounded the room, and the door was heavy-gauge steel. The safety block was fed by an air system that would protect those inside from smoke emanating from fires on the rig. The room was so well protected, Locke was sure the bomb would be inside it.

  Over 100 people already crammed the safety block. The room was big enough to fit every worker on the platform. If the C-4 went off inside here, the effects would be catastrophic.

  “Start on that side and work around to me,” Locke said to Dilara. “I’ll take the other side.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “It’ll be about the size and shape of brick. Check inside any drawers or lockers.”

  “What if I find it?”

  “Just call me over. And for God’s sake, don’t touch it.”

  “I’m not insane,” Dilara said and began throwing open locker doors.

  Locke quickly ran his eyes from floor to ceiling and over every piece of stacked equipment. The intruder wouldn’t have moved anything to set it. He’d simply choose an out-of-sight location because he didn’t expect a thorough search. Storage lockers abounded, containing all kinds of survival suits and other safety equipment, and Locke felt sure that was where the intruder would have hidden the bomb. He rooted through each one, tearing everything out.

  His walkie-talkie squawked.

  “Ty, this is Grant. I found one, right next to the main gas line.”

  “What does it look like?” Locke said into the walkie-talkie as he continued to search.

  “Black, rectangular, 12 by 4 by 4 inches. LED readout matching our dead man’s timer. The detonator casing is wrapped around the C-4.”

  That wasn’t good. It would make the bomb trickier to disarm.

  “Mercury switch?” Locke said. Some bombs were activated by a motion sensor.

  “Uh…nine minutes, guys,” Hobson said.

  “Thanks, Frank,” Locke said. “You’re doing great.”

  “Negative on the mercury switch,” Grant said. “He couldn’t have placed it where it is and then armed it. Guess he thought vibrations might set it off prematurely. It’s just laying there, hidden under a pipe. No attachment to the rig.”

  That was good. Meant it could be moved. But they couldn’t simply dump it over the side of the platform. The wave action might land it on a feed pipe, causing a gas explosion underneath the platform, or the bomb might fall next to one of the support pillars. If one of those gave way, the entire rig might topple into the ocean. Neither was a pleasant thought.

  “Disposal?” Grant said.

  “I’m thinking about it. Go help Finn find the second one.”

  “On my way.”

  Locke continued searching as fast as he could. He was halfway along the wall when Hobson called out, “Eight minutes.” Locke cursed under his breath and kept going. Maybe giving Hobson the watch was a bad idea. Then he heard Dilara yell to him from across the room.

  “Tyler, come here!”

  He rushed over, drawing attention to the area. By this time, people had already seen Dilara’s find and started speculating about what it was, but Locke didn’t have time to calm them down.

  “I think I found it,” Dilara said, pointing at the object.

  It was just as Grant described. The C-4 was hidden behind some gas masks on the top shelf of a storage locker. After a cursory inspection, he couldn’t see any sign of a mercury switch. He pulled the bomb out to examine it.

  “Seven minutes left,” Hobson said. The calls seemed to be coming faster, but Locke tried to ignore it and focus on the bomb.

  He hadn’t seen anything so sophisticated since he left the Army. The brick of C-4 was enough to destroy the entire safety block. The detonator was clamped to the top of the brick. The detonator was wrapped around the explosive. If he tried to remove it, the bomb might explode. By prying open the case, Locke might be able to disarm it, but not all three bombs in less than seven minutes.

  He got another call on the walkie-talkie from Grant.

  “Ty, I’m with Finn. We found the second one. It was under the main diesel generator for the firefighting system right where you thought it would be.”

  “Good. I’ve got the third one.”

  “Disarm them?”

  “Oh my God!” Hobson said. “Only six minutes now!”

  “Not enough time,” Locke said.

  The only other choice was to get rid of the bombs. He had to figure out a way to get them far away from the rig. Then he realized the means had been staring him in the face.

  “Grant,” Locke said into the walkie-talkie, “you’ve still got the case?”

  “The first two are already in it. They won’t rattle around in there.”

  “Good. I’ve got an idea.”

  THIRTEEN

  Locke told Grant to meet him at the lifeboat station with the two bombs. Then he searched for a heavy metal bar, preferably an ax, something that he could use as an impact tool.

  “An ax!” he yelled to the crowd. “A crowbar! Anything heavy!”

  A man in a blue jumpsuit and tool belt answered him. “How about a hammer?” he said. He raised a handheld sledge and handed it to Locke.

  “Perfect,” Locke said. He turned to Dilara. “Stay here.”

  “But…”

  He leaned over and whispered. “If this bomb blows up, the safest place on the rig is right where you’re standing.”

  She wasn’t comforted. Her face was etched with fear.

  Locke smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan.”

  That seemed to help. She didn’t protest further.

  With the sledge in one hand and the bomb in the other, Locke flew through the exit and down the s
tairs. One flight down, he heard Hobson’s voice bleat from the walkie-talkie on his belt. “Five minutes!”

  Locke reached his target, the chemical storage room. He threw open the door to see shelves lined with chemical bottles. Glass, plastic, and metal containers were haphazardly stacked in no discernable order. He ran his fingers over the labels searching for a bottle of acetone, the chemical in fingernail polish remover. On the rig, it was used as a heavy-duty degreaser.

  “Four minutes!” Hobson said. “I’m heading to the safety block!”

  Locke was beginning to think his plan might be screwed. He saw bottles of ammonia, benzene, hydrochloric acid, ethylene glycol, but no acetone. One of those other chemicals might work, but the only one he was sure of was acetone, and he couldn’t find it in this mess. He’d seen plane crash sites that were neater.

  If he heard Hobson call out “three minutes” before he found the acetone, he’d have to take a chance with the benzene or ammonia.

  Locke started shoving containers aside, looking in the back rows. He knew it was here. Then he saw a capital A on a plastic 16-ounce bottle. He twisted it around and saw the word, “Acetone.” He breathed easier now that it was in his hand.

  “Three minutes left!”

  Locke stuffed the acetone into his pocket and took off for the stairs, the grating clanging under his feet.

  The lifeboat station was five levels below the safety block. He made it there just as Hobson said, “Two minutes.” Grant and Finn were waiting for him.

  “Glad you could make it,” Grant said cheerily, but Locke could see the faint lines of tension around his eyes.

  Although Finn’s face was white, he still had some of his bluster. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “In your moronically-organized chemical storage room,” Locke said as he placed the third bomb in the case. Grant snapped it shut.

  “Now what?” Grant asked.

  “We’re going to put the bombs in one of the lifeboats and launch it.” The boats could be launched from the outside as well as inside. He handed the sledge to Grant and removed the acetone bottle from his pocket.

  “In one of the lifeboats?” Finn protested. “But the doors are welded shut. How do we get the case inside?”

  “Through the cupola window.”

  “One minute!” Hobson shouted. This was getting a lot closer than Locke wanted.

  “The windows are made of polycarbonate, genius,” Finn said. “They’re unbreakable.”

  From his belt, Locke plucked his Leatherman tool — a sort of Swiss Army knife on steroids — and opened the saw blade, which he dragged across the window to score the surface.

  “Normally, it is unbreakable,” Locke said as he unscrewed the top of the acetone bottle and carefully poured the contents along the top of the small port cupola window. “But when you treat it with acetone, polycarbonate crystallizes.”

  He dropped the bottle and smeared the acetone over the entire window with his hand to make sure it was covered with the liquid. Locke took the hammer from Grant and counted to ten, giving the acetone time to be absorbed through the scoring marks he’d made.

  “What are you waiting for?” Finn shouted.

  Locke ignored him and kept counting down. On one, Locke raised the hammer and swung it with all his strength at the window. The pane of polycarbonate shattered like glass into the lifeboat.

  “Voila,” Locke said more calmly than he felt. He tossed the case through the window.

  “Thirty seconds!”

  Locke took hold of one of the two launch levers on the outside of the lifeboat. Grant grabbed the other.

  He nodded at Grant. “Ready…Now!”

  They both yanked simultaneously. The clamps released, and the lifeboat began its slide down the rails. It accelerated and then dropped into space. After falling gracefully for two seconds, it hit the water with a tremendous splash.

  The entire boat disappeared beneath the water. For a moment, Locke couldn’t see it. Then it resurfaced again 100 yards from where it had gone under, and Locke breathed easier. He had specifically chosen that window because it was the smallest. No doubt the lifeboat had taken on water, but it wasn’t enough to sink it. The forward momentum from its slide down the rails continued to push it away from the rig at ten knots.

  “Behind the lifeboats!” Locke yelled. They had no sooner retreated to the safety of the huge lifeboat when a tremendous roar ripped the air. The rig was briefly lit by a flame shooting hundreds of feet into the air. Bits of orange debris rained down around them.

  When the hail of lifeboat hull abated, Locke got up and peered around the side. Bits of burning fiberglass and metal littered the sea, but no large pieces of the lifeboat were left. The intruder hadn’t been playing around. Any one of those bombs would have been strong enough to blow up half the platform and ignite a blaze that would have been impossible to put out.

  “Well,” Locke said as the adrenaline drained from his system. “That was interesting.” He leaned back against the railing, suddenly exhausted.

  “That may be the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard,” Finn said. “You must have ice in your veins. I nearly crapped my pants.” He pointed at the dead man still sprawled on the catwalk. “Who is that guy? A terrorist?”

  Locke stared at the body. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Someone seems to want Dr. Kenner dead. And I’m guessing they want me dead now, too.”

  “Why?” Grant said.

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  “That was a hell of close thing. That guy sure knew what he was doing.”

  “True, but he made two mistakes.”

  “Which were?”

  “First,” Locke said, “he shouldn’t have tried to kill me. Gives me a personal stake in Dr. Kenner’s problem. It also just pisses me off.”

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Grant said, “he didn’t finish the job. You’re still alive.”

  “That, my friend, was his second mistake.”

  FOURTEEN

  It took two hours for one of the rig’s electricians to rewire the radio antenna, but because of the destroyed junction box, the satellite link-up wouldn’t be fixed until Sunday evening when the fog was supposed to lift. With Grant’s help, Locke used the time to complete Gordian’s consulting work on the platform. The job kept his mind occupied since he couldn’t continue the conversation with Aiden MacKenna and find out more about Coleman until the Internet hookup was back online. Dilara could only wait in her cabin and stew.

  At 10 PM the satellite connection was finally repaired, allowing Locke to rearrange his travel plans. At the same time, the fog dispersed, and a helicopter left from St. John’s, bound for Scotia One. When it took off from the oil platform, Locke planned to be on it with Grant and Dilara for the return to Newfoundland. Gordian’s private jet was en route from New York and would meet them at St. John’s to take them back to company headquarters in Seattle where he could investigate the incidents of the last few hours. Since the rig was in international waters, the oil company would be doing its own investigation. In the meantime, they were having new hatches rushed from the manufacturer to make the lifeboats functional again.

  His work on the rig done, Locke turned his focus back to the bizarre incidents of the past day while he, Grant, and Dilara waited in his cabin for the helicopter to arrive. He had to find out why mild-mannered archaeologist Dilara Kenner had drawn two attempts on her life in the span of 12 hours.

  As Locke expected, the intruder had carried no identification. The body was taken to cold storage after Locke had taken digital photos of the man’s face and close-ups of his thumb and index finger prints. The wi-fi system was now up and running, as were the telephones. He loaded the photos onto his laptop and emailed them to Aiden MacKenna so that he could start tracking down who this guy was. Locke spoke with Aiden while Dilara, who was now convinced that Grant could be trusted, filled him in on the story she had told Locke the previous day.


  “I sent you a photo and some prints,” Locke said into the phone. “Let’s get an ID on this guy.”

  There was a slight pause before Aiden’s answer. Aiden had gone deaf five years ago from meningitis. Aiden had seen Locke signing at an engineering conference and introduced himself, and Locke ended up recruiting the Irishman to Gordian. One of the toys Aiden had, courtesy of another Gordian contract, was a speech-to-text translator. Since his deafness hadn’t affected his ability to speak, it allowed him to talk on the phone with anybody. The only drawback was the milliseconds required for the software to convert the spoken words on the phone to printed words on his computer.

  “Opening the photo now,” Aiden replied in a thick brogue. “Good lord! He looks like he’s had a few pints too many.”

  “He’s dead. Tried to turn us into flambé.” Locke gave him the quick summary of the day’s events.

  “Sounds dreadfully boring,” Aiden deadpanned.

  “Yeah, it’s been a real yawner here.”

  “I don’t suppose your dead ninja wannabe had a wallet on him.”

  “No, but he had an ex-military vibe. I’d start there.”

  Because of the work Gordian did with the FBI and the military — investigating plane crashes, evaluating new weaponry, assessing terrorist threats on infrastructure targets — the company had access to confidential databases not available to many other companies. Like Locke, Aiden had a top military clearance.

  “And see if you can find out whether there was a Lurssen or Westport yacht in the area today. Eighty-footer. It’s got to be connected.”

  “Can’t be too many of those cruising the North Atlantic.”

  “Now what’s this about Coleman?” Locke asked. “You left me hanging.”

  “Right. I was all ready to blow your mind, but you took the air out of my plan.”

  “You said he was dead. When?”

  “Three weeks ago.”

  “How?” Like Gordian, Coleman’s company was based in Seattle. Locke was sure it had been front-page news there, but he had been on the road for the past month and hadn’t read any newspapers.