The Rig 3: Eye of the Hurricane

by Steve Rollins

  He had not counted on Elly having copies of the file on other drives and on her computer. And the copy that was now being played on Helen's speakers. Between them, they did not know what they should do. Helen's first instinct was to go to the police, but she realized she could not count on them. The evidence was too thin to sue, and there was no authority to turn to.

  Elly suddenly realized there was something to be done. There were some people who might be willing to give some money for this information, or give her another chance. She would attempt that. It was the only thing she could attempt. Her career was ended on the basis of her having done the work of a journalist. So she would try and make the truth pay another way.

  ***

  Wes woke up in the hospital. He had no idea how he had gotten there. All he knew is that his chest hurt and that he could barely move. He tried to lift his left hand, but found someone was holding it. He looked over and saw Sheila Briggs there. She looked exhausted. She still had obviously showered and had been provided with some clothes, but she looked exhausted.

  On the bed stand, he saw his phone and he picked it up. He looked at the date and shook his head. It was two days after the events on ‘The City’ and he must have been unconscious ever since he was shot.

  He checked to confirm that the audio file was still on his phone and when he found it was, he sank back into the plump pillows of the hospital bed. He had no energy left and he felt like the gunshot had drained all the life out of him. He supposed it had nearly done so for real, but he felt like he was a shell.

  ***

  A month later, Wes and Sheila walked through the house on the shore by Pago Pago where Joy and Dave had taken up as their base. A little pressure from Wes had ensured new funding for the project Joy had wanted to invest her time in.

  Sheila and Wes were visiting from California. Wes had been recovering from the gunshot wound at his parents’ vineyard and Sheila had stayed with him. Joy and Dave had traveled to Samoa and began work on a research project on the reefs around the archipelago there. They did not speak about what happened on the rig. There was nothing to say. There was nothing to do.

  Wes had written to several newspapers, even sent the file along, but nobody published the statements made by Agent Smith. He had found a letter on his doorstep one day telling him never to try and make that public again. He had not done so. For a moment he wanted to delete the file, thinking of Sheila, too, but he decided against it. He wanted to keep it, just in case.

  But there was no way he could stay in the US. He knew it, and Sheila knew it. She had refused to let him go off alone. They had traveled to Samoa to meet with Joy and Dave and then would go on to some of the other Pacific islands, in the hope of escaping any danger.

  Because they were in danger. They were in danger because they were a danger. They knew something about what was going on in the world around them. And thus they had two choices: opt out or let themselves be shut up.

  Portis had personally contacted them and threatened them. An FBI agent had come by as well and when Sheila's car suffered from Boston Brakes, they knew they had to go. But going away was not something that scared them. Not now. Because what was left to be scared of?

  The End

  Also Avilable:

  The Jade Dagger

  by

  Steve Rollins

  (read on for a sample)

  Chapter One

  No feeling that he had ever experienced in his life was as exhilarating as the breakneck ride on the back of a painted pony along the rim of the mesa. The wind rushing by his face and the plunging ledge to his right made him feel like he was aloft and he cried out. He was free. Nothing was holding him back. And then the panic hit him.

  Someone was following him. He could hear the sound of the thundering hooves behind him and he could feel his heart racing faster within his chest. He urged his mount forward, willing it to go faster. Its ears were laid back and its neck stretched flat out as it put every effort into its speed. He did not dare look back over his shoulder. He knew they were coming.

  Why were they chasing him? What had he done? He leaned into the flying mane of his mount, closed his eyes and tried to say a prayer, but none came to him; only a deeper sense of panic. They would catch him, he was certain of it. Something that sounded like a bee buzzed past his head. What was… the report of a pistol from behind him answered the question before it formed in his mind. They were closing in.

  He searched the broad expanse of the mesa to his left hoping there was cover for him to dart into, but the space was wide open, with only a few juniper trees dispersed at random. There was nowhere for him to hide. It would all be over soon. The realization that he would take a bullet in the back was replaced by the sight of the edge of the mesa coming up toward him rapidly.

  He wouldn’t die from a bullet in the back, he would die along with his mount as they plunged into the canyon below them. He leaned into his horse’s neck, squeezed his eyes tightly, let go of the reins and threw his arms out to his sides, accepting what was to come.

  The sound of thundering hooves below him suddenly ceased and he felt weightless. He knew in an instant that they were airborne. He clenched his teeth together and waited for the impact that was sure to be coming. Any moment, he would be tumbling head over heels with the painted pony as they collided with rocks, juniper and the thick trunks of piñon pine.

  When the collision did not come for a very long while, he risked opening his eyes. They were still in the air. It was impossible. He sat up and looked around him. Far below, he could see the traces of the canyons, mesas and the branching, tree-like pattern of the tributaries that plunged down from the jagged edges of the mesas.

  He looked behind him and saw those who were chasing him plunging from the edge and tumbling down the steep slope. He had escaped, but how? He suddenly realized that it didn’t matter anymore. He had escaped, he was free and he was flying. There must be some sort of magic in the pony, because he, Parke Higgins, was flying.

  He squealed as though he was a little boy once more. All of the worries, stresses and especially the nightmare of being chased disappeared behind him. With his arms spread and his face turned toward the sun, he let the feeling of the wind envelop his entire body, covering him like the waves of an ocean. He was alive and he was free. He closed his eyes once more and floated peacefully. And then he heard crying.

  There could be no crying in his new world of freedom. It was impossible. When he ventured to open his eyes, there was a woman. There was no doubt that she was a Native-American woman by her dress and the long, jet-black hair flowing down her hunched back. Where had the pony gone? Why was he no longer flying? He looked around for the pony, but saw nothing but the chinked, log walls of an octagonal house and only the very basics for living. Why was he in a hogan? He wanted to go back to flying. A particularly gut-wrenching keening came from the hunched woman and his attention turned back toward her.

  Hesitant, he moved toward her, perhaps he could comfort her. When he placed a hand on her back, her sobbing ceased and she slowly turned her head toward him. In spite of the trails of tears which had streaked the prominent lines of her cheeks, she was stunning. Her smooth, caramel skin, her full lips, proud nose and chin were all perfectly formed as though sculpted by a master; but it was the deep, haunting, black eyes that made his heart stop and then begin again in a rhythm he hadn’t felt since he had first tried to ask a girl on a date.

  He started to speak and she was gone. He sat up in a panic. Where was he? Nothing around him was familiar. Had they captured him? Who were they? He looked at the figure lying beside him in the bed and everything came rushing back to him. No one had captured him. No one was chasing him. He was in a motel room, the Kachina Lodge, on the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

  He looked at the lit numbers on the digital clock beside the bed. Its red numbers displayed 3:27. He had planned on getting an early start, but this was ridiculous. He briefly thought through the dream that he had just
had. The flying, the woman, the wind, the freedom; it was all so real and yet, not real. Hoping to return to it, he settled back into the overstuffed pillow which made his neck hurt. Motel pillows always made his neck hurt. He had intended to bring his own, but had forgotten it in the rush to get out the door.

  He closed his eyes and tried to draw the painted pony back into his mind. When that failed, he attempted to place the face of the woman back into his consciousness, but that wouldn’t work either. He finally turned to look at the clock again. It had changed to 3:31. He had set it for 5:30. If I go to sleep right now, I can sleep two more hours, he reasoned. He closed his eyes and tried to force sleep to come.

  When he looked at the clock again, it read 3:47. He quickly did the math. An hour and forty-five minutes of sleep. That’s not too bad. He tried to force sleep again. He saw 3:53 pass by without sleep, 4:03 and 4:17 as well. Frustrated, he finally tossed back the covers and slipped out of bed. He glimpsed out into the darkness of the canyon below the rim where the Kachina Lodge was perched. The grand view that was there during the light of day was eerily absent when covered in a shroud of darkness. He turned toward the table and took a seat in front of his laptop; trying not to awaken his wife with the light of the screen, he turned it toward the window and repositioned himself in front of it.

  He opened the web browser and clicked on the bookmark for the Dreams Dictionary. He’d been there before and found that often times; he gained insight into things whenever he visited it. He typed in a search for flying and read the interpretation; in general, it meant that he had a positive feeling of freedom in his life. As he typed in each of the other things that he could remember from the dream, however, the interpretation became much more confusing.

  He closed the laptop and considered slipping back into bed, but noticed that the clock read 5:08. Not much point in trying to sleep for 22 minutes. He looked out the window again. This time, he saw a tiny glow from the rising sun, beyond the eastern horizon, though it would still be nearly an hour before it made a full appearance.

  He sat once more and looked over at the sleeping form. He loved her, but it was becoming more and more difficult to like her. He had hoped that their vacation to the Grand Canyon would help them restore some of the vitality which had long passed from their marriage. Initially, it had, but as the days wore on, she began to complain. Backward people, cheap motel, too dry, too dusty, the mules stink, the damned wind never stops and she hated motel beds, were only some of the complaints that seemed to be repeated the most.

  She simply wasn’t used to a simpler way of life. She was used to being catered to by everyone. She was used to the sharp, rectangular lines of the business world in St. Louis and the predictable logic of spreadsheets and monetary facts that never changed. She hated change. He had caught the brunt of her hatred of it several times. He had aged in the past 15 years of their marriage and, like every other male in the world past the age of forty, his middle was attempting to match the width and depth of his chest.

  There was no doubt in his mind that he had become fat, old and boring. Maybe that was the real problem that she had, though she would never say it out loud. She was constantly critical, but never enough to come right out and lay out the whole truth. It was like being picked apart by ants rather than being fully devoured by a wolf. In many ways, he’d rather just be devoured and get it over with.

  He was not helping the situation either. He simply pressed it all down inside of himself and refused to confront the obvious issues which had come between them. He hated conflict and would rather wait for things to settle down. They always did after a while, though in the recent past, his waits had been longer and longer.

  So where was the freedom that the dream interpretation had given him? He certainly could not see it arriving any time soon. The chase scene of the dream was much more accurate; it and the crying woman. His mind tried to retrace the features of her face, but failed. He wanted to try to remember her face for one of his paintings. Frustrated by his attempt to recall her, he looked at the clock once more; 5:28. That was that. He headed for the shower.

  “Let the alarm wake sleeping beauty,” he muttered to himself.

  He turned on the water and let it cover up the sound of the annoying beeping of the alarm clock. He hated the damn things and only used them on the very rare occasions when he had something pressing that he needed to start early in the morning. Today’s pressing event was their return to St. Louis.

  He stepped into the shower, ignoring whatever tirade was coming from the other side of the wall. She was very likely pissed that she had to roll over and turn off the alarm. The water flowing over his body washed away the sound and he relaxed into the feeling of its warmth. It was almost like the way that the wind had wrapped itself around him in his dream. Again, he tried to pull up the image of the woman and feel the weightlessness of flight, but it had all disappeared. The opening of the bathroom door killed it completely.

  “What time did you get up?” Melissa grumbled.

  “5:28,” he replied, just for spite. He knew what would follow, but somehow the stab seemed to give him a little bit of satisfaction.

  “Why the fuck didn’t you turn off the alarm?”

  “I thought I’d let you sleep a little longer.”

  The smile spreading across his face was hidden by the shower curtain.

  “Bastard,” she mumbled, closing the door behind her.

  Chapter Two

  They were on their way a little bit behind schedule according to Melissa’s reckoning of things and, like always, it was Parke’s fault. He had taken too long in the shower, lingered over breakfast too long, was too slow getting the car loaded; it was a never ending rant which he simply ignored. The final straw came when he pulled into the 24-hour convenience store to fuel up.

  “Why the hell didn’t you do this last night?”

  Her penetrating glare held a particular sort of venom that burned through his skin in an attempt to consume him with fire.

  “What the fuck difference does it make if we leave at 7:12 instead of 6 fucking 59?”

  He slammed the car door as hard as he could and moved toward the handle on the pump and turning to fill the car with gas. He had finally taken all of her shit that he could handle for one morning and snapped. It would shut her up for a while and might actually make the morning drive more pleasant.

  He had mixed feelings about leaving the Grand Canyon behind. He had plenty of new photos, memories and concepts to incorporate into his paintings and was eager to return to his studio, but he could also feel the tension which had been conspicuously absent while he was enjoying the sunshine and breezes of the southwest.

  A rather sharp breeze came up suddenly and swirled around him as if it was doing a scan of his body. He let the feel of it move over him for a moment, closed his eyes and let it cleanse the tension in his soul. The wind back in St. Louis had never been able to do anything of the sort. In St. Louis, it was just another irritant to go along with the noise, the smell, the humidity and the penetrating flavor of toxic smoke in his mouth. He had escaped all of that for a while. Something had to be wrong, seriously wrong with him to want to return to it.

  His mind would have wandered further if the smell and sound of fuel overflowing from the filled tank had not brought him back quickly. He fought with the pump handle to get it to shut off, but not before a fairly generous stream of fuel spilled on the concrete and created a small stream around his shoes. His hands were soaked in it as well. He swallowed the expletive that had formed in his mouth and finally put the handle back in its holder and started into the store.

  The glare that he received from Melissa when he returned didn’t need any words along with it to let him know that she was neither happy with the extra time that he spent in the bathroom trying to get the smell of the fuel off of his hands nor of the fact that he had basically told her to fuck off earlier.

  Good, he thought. That will keep her quiet for a while. Satisfied that he w
ould at least have a few hours of peace to enjoy his last morning in Arizona, he put the car into gear and pulled back onto the highway heading south toward Interstate 40. The sun touched his left shoulder and warmed his cheek as they traveled through the dessert toward the mountains to the south and west near Flagstaff. By the time they reached Williams and turned onto Interstate 40 to head east, Melissa was asleep.

  “Thank God for small miracles,” he whispered when he looked over at her.

  She was still strikingly attractive when she was asleep. It reminded him of the early years of their relationship when she was so beautiful and pleasant to be with. She was excited by his artistic skills and loved going camping. She loved nature, she loved to feel the breeze in the open spaces and the feeling of living free. He marveled at the fact that someone who hated change so much had made such a drastic one.

  She had become the darling of the accounting firm in Tulsa and had moved rapidly into a supervisory position. Her new position demanded more of her time and energy and she began to give it more and more as well. It slowly ate away at the fragile person inside of her, helping her to find strength and belonging. As she poured more energy into her work, she was moved further up the ladder of success and was asked to relocate to the main office in St. Louis where she would take on an even more substantial role in the firm. Being much more transient in his way of thinking as well as his means of earning income, Parke had encouraged the move; something he had begun to regret almost the moment they arrived in the gateway city.

  He contemplated the changes to their lives, their relationship and, most of all, the bitterness that seemed to cover them just like the darkness over the canyon during the night. The impossibly blue sky, the mountains, the different shades of red in the landscape and the feelings of isolation, even while being surrounded by a moderate amount of traffic, mostly semis, as they traveled along I-40 seemed to soothe him and his thoughts wandered up the long canyons and into the mountains.