The First Billion

by Christopher Reich

  She mounted the steps rapidly, nodding perfunctorily to Boris as she entered the cabin. Over the wind, Gavallan was only just able to hear what he said to her.

  “Good evening, Miss Kirov. Your father sends his regards.”

  47

  The twelve members of Team 7 crouched low on the riverbank, knees dug into the sandy moraine, watching, waiting. Fifty yards away, inside the compound, a man left the administration building and headed toward the pump house. He walked slowly, taking time to stretch and light a cigarette.

  “Mark?” whispered Team Leader Abel. Each member of Team 7 was known only by his operational name. Personal details were not to be shared.

  “Mullen. Jonathan D. Shift supervisor,” responded Baker, his second in command. He did not add that Mullen was thirty-four years of age, an engineer who had received his degree at Purdue University in the state of Indiana. They had long ago memorized the faces and vital statistics of the crew who worked here. Mullen was easy. He never went without a Yankees windbreaker.

  The American stopped a few feet from the pump house, flicked his cigarette to the ground, then opened the door and disappeared from sight.

  To a man, Team 7 focused their eyes on the industrial landscape that lay beyond the fence, a dull metallic carcass sprawled beneath the half light of the midnight sun. Pump Station 2 of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, or TAPS, lay at the foot of the Endicott Range on the border of the Arctic National Refuge. Its job was to guarantee that crude oil flowed smoothly through a sixty-five-mile section of pipe along the environmentally sensitive south fork of the Koyukuk River. The pipeline began two hundred miles to the north at Prudhoe Bay and cut south in a zigzagging pattern to Valdez, the southernmost Alaskan port that remained free of ice year-round. There, the oil was loaded through one of four primary pumping berths onto the giant supertankers that carried it to points south in America, Europe, and Asia. Over a million barrels of oil arrived at Valdez each day, and at any time some nine million barrels filled the length of the pipeline.

  Pump Station 2 was built on a flat rectangle of land five hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide that had been razed from surrounding grasslands and forest. Three oil storage reservoirs stood in a row on the western side of the station, mint green lozenges two stories high and a hundred feet in diameter capable of holding 420,000 barrels of oil. Due to the breakdown of two of the Valdez Marine Terminal’s four pumping berths, the reservoirs were topped out.

  In the center of the facility, a power plant had been constructed capable of generating four megawatts of electricity daily. It took fuel to make energy and energy to move fuel. The power plant stood gleaming in the dusky night, an elaborate steel Tinkertoy with blue and red lights blinking from catwalks and stairways and metal mesh terraces.

  Dormitories, administrative offices, and the pumping station itself occupied the grounds on the eastern side of the compound. Staffing ran between ten and twenty-five persons, depending on whether maintenance was being performed. Current manpower stood at eleven. The exclusively male complement worked twelve-hour shifts, seven days on, seven off. In five minutes, at the designated strike time of 2 A.M., a skeleton staff was set to be on duty: a foreman and a technician. Others were asleep, catching up on some precious rack time before suiting up for their grueling shifts at 6 A.M. Six days into their shift, the lot could be counted on to be tired, irascible, and unobservant.

  The pipeline entered the complex from the north, a giant stainless steel tube forty-eight inches in diameter lifted three feet above the ground by a series of vertical support members, or VSMs, located every sixty feet. From afar, the pipeline looked as if it had been built yesterday. But Team 7 knew different.

  The Trans-Alaska Pipeline was a disaster waiting to happen. Defective berthing pumps at one end. Rusted and corroding pipeline in between. Hazardous drilling practices on the North Slope. Over 50 percent of all shutoff valves—valves strategically placed to isolate sections of the pipe and minimize the volume of spills—were inoperative. The earthquake monitoring system designed to cut flow through the pipeline no longer functioned. A year earlier, a temblor measuring 5.7 on the Richter scale had shaken the residents of Central Alaska out of their beds. The monitor hadn’t given a peep. Oil had continued to flow as normal. Not a single valve closed automatically, not one pump station shut itself down. It was a miracle the pipeline had not snapped clean in two.

  Completed in 1977, the TAPS was an aging, brittle dinosaur, one slip from an ecological disaster of heartrending proportions.

  Team 7 had arrived to give it the push.

  Ghosts no longer, the members of Team 7 had exchanged their anoraks, fatigues, and combat boots for the casual attire favored by American blue-collar workers. They wore blue jeans and corduroys, denim jackets and parkas, work boots and baseball caps. In place of rank, they boasted the insignia of western apparel: North Face, Nike, and Levi’s. The uniform of the enemy.

  They had buried their parachutes, jumpsuits, and altimeters two miles away in holes four feet deep, now filled and covered with stones and moss and the natural vegetation of the region. Each wore a compact backpack no different from one a college student might be likely to carry. In it they hefted eight 125-gram sticks of C-4 explosives, a length of det cord, three electronic fuses, and a model TA9 remote detonator no larger than a transistor radio. All traces of the C-4 would theoretically vanish in the blaze following the explosion. If, however, investigators were to discover a trace of the plastique and to analyze its chemical signature, they would learn it belonged to a shipment stolen from an American armory two years earlier.

  No one carried a weapon. Ghosts did not leave behind corpses.

  From somewhere in the wilderness, a foghorn sounded. One bleat, rude and ominous, then silence.

  The members of Team 7 scattered.

  They were divided into three squads of four persons each, designated, in American military vernacular, as “Alpha,” “Bravo,” and “Charlie.” Alpha and Bravo Squads climbed from the protective cornice of the riverbank and ran at a crouch to the fence surrounding the enclosure. The fence stood only six feet high. It was designed to keep animals away, not to deter intruders. Coldfoot was the nearest town and it was seventy miles away. Springing over the fence, they landed softly on the balls of their feet, eyes peeled for oil workers.

  Alpha Squad moved to the right, toward the giant reservoirs filled to capacity with North Slope crude, oil from the mammoth field at Prudhoe Bay. Skirting the rear of the reservoirs, they kept out of sight of the supervisor’s office (located some two hundred feet across an open concrete field) until they reached the fat, white intake pipes that fed oil into the tanks. Team Leader Abel slung his pack to the ground and removed two sticks of the green C-4, several fuses, and a length of det cord. He gave Baker one stick. One stick he kept for himself.

  Immediately, Baker began to roll the stick between his palms to soften the putty. As the C-4 grew malleable, he broke the explosive in two, affixing a slim strip to joints in the pipe that had recently been welded together.

  At the same time, Abel ran up the metal staircase attached to the side of the reservoir. He stopped halfway to the top where a blunt valve extended from the side of the wall. The valve allowed for the manual release of oil from the reservoir. After softening the explosives, he fashioned a long tubular section and wrapped it around the valve. With his fingers, he worked the putty into the crease at the base of the valve, as if stanching a leak. Plastique was a forgiving mistress, he thought as he pressed the putty against the cold metal; hit it with a hammer, burn it, shoot it even, and still it would not ignite.

  Between his fingers, he held an electronic fuse, two inches in length, one half inch in diameter. From his pocket, he withdrew the det cord and plugged it into the electronic timer. Next he stabbed the det cord deep inside the putty. Det cord was simply a thin plastic cord filled with PETN, a fast-burning explosive. With a glance over the stairs, he snapped his fingers and dropped the cord to
the ground where Baker picked it up, similarly attached it to the electronic fuse, and inserted it into the C-4.

  From the corner of his eye, Abel spotted the other two members of his squad doing a like job on the next reservoir in line. He checked his watch. They were ahead of schedule.

  Bravo Squad had split in two. Two men were now at the north end of the complex, lying on their backs beneath the pipeline itself. They worked quickly and efficiently, molding the plastique to the joints of the pipe, where one forty-foot section was welded to another. Det cord was produced, electronic fuses primed and inserted.

  The other two men of Bravo Squad moved to the pump station itself. Sliding against the wall, they lifted their eyes over the windowsill and glanced inside. They saw no one. As expected, the staffers on duty were huddled inside the supervisory shed, where they would remain unless an equipment failure or breakdown summoned them to one part or another of the compound.

  Turning the corner of the building, they opened the door and entered. Inside, they moved to the control panel, a wall of dials and gauges, none younger than twenty years old. Screwdrivers were produced. Wire-cutters. Needle-nose pliers and a miniature battery. Their work required five minutes’ time. The sensitive gauges that comprised the leak detection system and monitored the pressure of oil flowing through the pipeline had all been “adjusted.” Even when all oil had ceased coursing through Pump Station 2, it would relay flow as “normal” to the other ten stations up and down the line.

  A half mile north of Pump Station 2, Charlie Squad swarmed on top of and around a remote gate valve. The valve looked like the conning tower of a submarine. A red pennant flew from its uppermost walkway, crackling in the wind. Ninety-five such valves were placed up and down the length of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, eighty-six of them remote-controlled to close in event of a rupture or spill. Plastique was carefully formed to the joists and the undercarriage of the 78,000-pound valve. The charge used was minimal, enough to rupture the pipeline cleanly without igniting the oil inside.

  Tasks accomplished, Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie Squads met up at their assembly point, one hundred yards from the periphery of Pump Station 2. No one spoke a word. All took a knee as Abel activated the TA9 transmitter. Three white pinlights came to life, indicating that the electronic fuses were primed and a signal established. Moving his thumb to the ignition switch, Abel paused and, in the second before he depressed the button, imagined the horror of what he was about to unleash.

  The charges placed on the reservoirs would simulate a “sparking” incident that occurred when rusting, corroded pipes brushed against each other. The oil would ignite. The reservoirs would blow. The ensuing explosion would shoot hundreds of thousands of gallons of flaming oil hundred of yards in every direction, scorching the sensitive landscape, fouling the air, and incinerating the crew of Pump Station 2. Seventy miles distant from the nearest habitation, the explosion would go unnoticed until the next day when Pump Station 2 did not respond to its routine morning calls.

  The charges placed a half mile north of the station would rupture the pipe and allow the crude oil to flow freely onto the Alaskan plain. Oil would spill at the rate of forty thousand barrels per hour. As each barrel held forty-seven gallons of oil, nearly a million gallons of North Slope crude would foul the pristine meadows of the Arctic National Refuge each hour. The oil would form first a pond, then a lake, and soon it would spread into a black viscous ocean. The oil would seep into the ground and foul the water table. It would leak into the streams and the nearby Yukon River. Entire colonies of steelhead trout and chinook, chum, and coho salmon would be destroyed, their pristine habitats forever fouled.

  As the oil spread across the rolling plain, it would take with it rookeries of Canada geese. It would tar the nests of the sandhill crane. It would permanently spoil thousands of acres of feeding area for caribou, elk, moose, and Roosevelt elk. By the time the spill had been stopped, somewhere between three and seven million gallons of oil would have blackened the Alaskan landscape.

  Abel pressed the button once, firmly. Clouds of green smoke burst from the oil reservoirs and, farther away, from the remote gate valve. But there were no explosions, no fireworks, no hellish cataclysm to light the early-morning sky.

  The Klaxon sounded again, this time longer, a full three seconds.

  The only explosion, if indeed it was one, came from the sky, where a hundred feet above the ground, rafts of fluorescent lights flickered to life. The lights hung from the ceiling of an enormous hangar, eight hundred yards by a thousand.

  Alaska had come to Severnaya high on the Siberian Plain.

  A digital clock hanging from the observation tower at the far side of the hangar stood frozen at 8:23:51. The soldiers cheered, if briefly. On this last dry run, they had bettered their time by twenty-two seconds.

  Their cheer died down, replaced by a grim determination, a silent resolve. One man after the other met his comrades’ eyes. The time for training was past. After four months, the operation was at hand.

  Clapping one another on the back, they moved off at a jog to return to their barracks. It was time to write the letter. In a month or two, their parents, girlfriends, loved ones (none were married or had children), would receive the short note explaining simply that Jan, or Ivan, or Sergei had decided to leave the country to seek a new life outside of Russia. He didn’t know where or how long he might be gone, only that his absence would be a long one and that they should move on with their lives without him.

  One meal remained, one night’s sleep. Tomorrow, they would board planes to take them east across the top of the world.

  To their destiny.

  To America.

  48

  They took off into the storm, the last plane out before the clouds enveloped the airport, and Gavallan wondered if the pilot had disobeyed the control tower and said, “To hell with it, I’m taking off whether you like it or not.” The sky was black, absolutely black, the plane jolting up and down and every which way with sudden, violent tremors.

  “I want to talk to Cate,” he said to Boris. “Excuse me, I mean Miss Kirov. Your boss’s daughter.”

  The two men were seated facing each other at the rear of the roomy cabin. Cate was up front with the sofas and conference tables, Tatiana her assigned guardian.

  “Sorry, Mr. Jett. You are not to talk to her.” Sweat coursed from his forehead and his complexion had gone sallow. “Right now, you stay in seat.”

  “Just give me five minutes,” Gavallan persisted, undoing his safety belt, standing. “It’s important. I’ll be right back.”

  Despite his sickly mien, Boris was up in a flash, thrusting an open palm against Gavallan’s chest. “You sit. Understand? You talk to Kirova when you get to Moscow. Okay?”

  Gavallan knocked away the offending hand. “Yeah, I understand.”

  Sitting down, he refastened his seat belt. Boris waited a moment, glowering above him. The plane hit an air pocket, fell for a second, then pancaked, shoving Boris into his seat. His hands scrambled for his seat belt. His mouth was open, breath coming fast and hard.

  “You should be scared, buddy,” Gavallan whispered.

  He knew he should be scared, too, but right now anger was kicking fear’s ass in the emotional war raging inside him. Leaning his head to the right, he caught sight of Cate, seated forward in a separate grouping of sofa and lounge chairs closer to the cockpit. Even now, she looked as if she had things under control. Eyes closed, hands laid calmly on the armrests, head back, she looked as though she was taking a nap. He knew she had to be frightened to death. Why didn’t she just show it like anybody else?

  Suddenly, it was painful even to look at her.

  He stared out the window. The wings were torquing something awful. The pilot had flown them directly into the maw of a thunderstorm. Either he was one crazy mother or he was under instructions to get his new passengers to Moscow as quickly as possible. Either way, he was reckless—the pilot’s cardinal sin—and Gavallan h
ated him for it.

  A bolt of lightning struck the aircraft, a hellishly bright flashbulb that bathed the cabin in pure, electric luminescence. Then came the thunder, a rollicking, tumultuous clap that seemed to explode inside the cabin itself. The plane rolled into a thirty-degree bank, the nose going down, down, down. Skeins of Saint Elmo’s fire flitted around the bulkhead, a freakish blue and white light emanating from every piece of exposed metal. The port engine whined furiously, the turbine seeking purchase somewhere in the maelstrom of conflicting air currents. The fuselage shuddered as if God had taken the plane in his hand and was shaking it to within an inch of its life.

  Gavallan looked around. Soldier Boris’s eyes were closed, his chest pumping up and down, hyperventilating. Fore, Tanya had gone whiter than the dead. Her diamond blue eyes were wider than they’d ever been, the cords of her neck stretched to breaking. Her mouth was parted, and over the rattle and hum he could hear her moaning. Anytime now, he figured, she’d either break out into hysterics or throw up all over herself.

  He caught Cate’s eye. She was scared all right, and despite his distrust of her, his unremitting fury that she had deceived him not once but time and time again, he wanted to be next to her.

  The shaking worsened. The starboard overhead luggage bin fell open. A handheld fire extinguisher tore loose from its clasps and crashed onto Boris’s head. Oxygen masks dangled from the ceiling. In the galley, plates tumbled from their shelves, shattering. A chaotic choreography danced to the nerve-jangling accompaniment of Tatiana’s grating scream.

  Then, just as suddenly, there was calm. The plane righted itself. The nose came up and they resumed a steady climb. The engines purred. Sunlight flooded the cabin.

  Unbuckling himself, Gavallan crossed to the Russian. Boris was shaken, and a gash on his forehead was seeping blood. Bastard, thought Gavallan, too bad it didn’t break your neck. Finding his handkerchief, he pressed it to the cut. “Keep pressure on it.”