by David Lender
“My brothers, I am a religious leader who must interpret the way for our Islamic brothers in these times.” The Sheik trained his eyes on them in turn so they could see the fire of his commitment. “I must be available to counsel the Believers on the one true path.” He paused. They reluctantly bowed in agreement. “There is no God but Allah!”
September, This Year. On the PeakOil Challenger, two hundred seventy miles southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana. A consortium of three oil companies had been formed to tap the estimated 15 billion barrels of high quality crude oil in the Jack field, one of the largest oil discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico. The project had an estimated 50-year lifespan.
Robert Nesbitt, one of 126 crew members on the PeakOil Challenger oil platform anchored to the ocean floor 270 miles southwest of New Orleans, was nearing the end of his two-week evaluation. Nesbitt had been the lead engineer on the design and construction of the 1.2-million-ton structure. Now he rolled his chair back from his computer-controlled monitoring station. He was a proud parent and the PeakOil Challenger was his baby. Nesbitt had even assisted in the alterations to the software adapted from Intelligent Recovery Systems’ most sophisticated exploration program. He’d allowed himself to imagine the accolades he would receive for this first-of-a-kind drilling platform, designed to drill 30,000 feet down into the lower tertiary rock below 7,000 feet of Gulf waters.
What the hell? There was something odd on the sensors. Nesbitt punched keys on his computer and got another reading, then another. He dialed Frank Jamison at the drill controlling station. “What you got on sensors twenty-seven and thirty-nine?”
“Jesus,” came Jamison’s reply. “Hundred ninety degrees at twenty-seven and hundred eighty-seven degrees at thirty-nine. That what you got?”
“Yup. What do you think? Is it over-revving?”
“No question about it,” Jamison said. “And it shouldn’t be. The software’s set up to rev it as fast as it can take it, but only if the temperature is within operating parameters.” Jamison typed at his own computer keyboard. “Shit, I got 3,150 rpms. That’s not too fast, that’s way too fast.”
Nesbitt had a curse on his lips but felt a quake of despair deep inside. When he spoke he tried to sound calm. “Something’s definitely wrong. The drill head is down about ten thousand feet. That’s solid bedrock, not some north Texas sand and shale substrate.” Nesbitt cradled the phone in his neck and began playing with the computer keys. “Through rock that hard this puppy shouldn’t be cranking any faster than 2,100 rpms without risk of a burnout. Slow it down, Frank. Override the software and reset it to 2,100 rpms.”
“Righto.” Nesbitt watched on his screen while Jamison typed in the commands to access the manual loop in the software. Now it would be hours before the system could run normally. Something must obviously be out of kilter with the software. Maybe bad sensors? Nope. Can’t be, there are multiple sensors. The good ones would override a bad one. He watched on his screen as Jamison accessed the drill functions software routine.
Welcome to drill functions parameters
Command: reset drill speed
Current speed 3162
Enter new speed: 2100
Resetting………
Current speed 3166
Command:
“What the hell?” Jamison said into the phone. “You see that?”
“Yup. Should’ve started slowing down right away.” Nesbitt typed. “I got three other sensors showing the same thing. Now over 3,170 rpms. Temperature on twenty-nine and thirty-nine up to one ninety-six and one ninety-two degrees.”
“I’m trying it again,” Jamison said. “We’ve got a problem with the software.”
“I’m afraid so,” Nesbitt agreed. His stomach dropped. He imagined the conversation with the head of operations in Dallas, played it out in his mind in three or four different ways. He didn’t like any of them.
“Bob? You still there?” Jamison asked.
“Yup. I’m phoning this in to Dallas. I’ll call you back.”
September, This Year. Houston, Texas. “It’s running too hot,” Walt Stall said aloud, observing the digital readings on the electronic refinery monitoring console in front of him. He darted back and forth, squinting along the twelve-foot length of the six-foot-high triptych bank of blinking lights, pulsing digital readings, computer screens and switches. “Even the switches have switches,” he had told his wife.
“Damn these digital sensors. Just give me my good old pressure gauges I can kick to make sure they’re working properly.” He squinted at the panel. “Too hot.”
Walt liked being known as the Wizard around the refinery. He knew Rouge North down to the wiring diagrams, and could sense what was wrong just from listening, smelling, feeling its rumblings. He hadn’t liked it at all when new management at Dorchester Refining replaced the manual controls with new computer hardware and software systems. Walt’s phone rang. “Walt Stall,” he answered.
“What the hell’s going on down there? I can see you jumping around like some jackrabbit.” It was Carey Struthers, talking from his plant manager’s perch at the far end of the refinery.
“She’s running too hot.”
“Which section?”
“The catalytic reformer.”
“Shit. You think we picked up one of those bugs that Youngblood and Feds called about?”
“Could be. Sorry to be so abrupt, Carey, but I don’t have a lot of time to be screwing around with you on the phone.” Walt hung up and looked at the temperature monitors for the Number Six through Number Ten catalytic reforming reactors, then typed:
Reactor function: catalytic reformer
Function desired: reactor temperature
Reactor(s) desired: Number 6…10
Temperature desired: 850
Resetting………
Current temperature:
Reactor Number 6: 1002
Reactor Number 7: 1003
Reactor Number 8: 1006
Reactor Number 9: 1002
Reactor Number 10: 1007
Command:
“Swell, just swell.” Walt stood. He picked up his cell phone and dialed. “Daniel? Walt Stall.” Daniel had phoned to warn Walt from the army transport plane on the way to Houston two hours earlier. “You’re not gonna believe this, but my catalytic reformer controls have gone haywire. I think those bastards may have stuck one of those things in it.”
Daniel said, “I’m in a car about ten minutes away. I’ll bring the computer team with me.” Walt spent the next ten minutes pacing in front of the monitoring console, checking the readings. The ten minutes felt like an hour.
When Daniel arrived he could see something was wrong. Walt Stall, whom he knew from the Dorchester deal he’d just closed, was walking back and forth in front of the control panel. Three other refinery employees stood around him, observing. Other groups of employees were huddled together, nobody manning their stations. Daniel and four computer techs hurried up to Walt.
“What’s the status?” Daniel said.
Walt turned to see him, then back to the screens. “All the reactors are over a thousand degrees.”
“What’s that mean?” one of the computer techs asked.
Daniel said, “Another couple hundred degrees and the plant could blow.”
“Not if I can help it,” Walt said. He typed at the screen:
Command: emergency shutdown
System command not recognized
Command: emergency shutdown
System command not recognized
Command:
“That’s it!” Walt yelled. He stomped to the end of the console and slammed his left fist onto the three-inch red emergency shutdown button.
Nothing happened. No alarms, no lights, no change in the sound and rumblings from Rouge North. Daniel stepped to the console and looked at the digital temperature readouts. They were all over 1,150 degrees Fahrenheit. Walt grabbed the phone and punched some digits.
“Yeah! Talk to me! I can�
��t believe this!” somebody yelled through the phone.
“Pull the plug! Sound the fire alarm and get everybody the hell out of the plant!” Walt bellowed.
The room filled with sound.
A lot of good that’s going to do, Daniel thought. Unless these guys can run a lot faster than me they’ve got about two minutes to get about a half a mile away. He knew that at another 50 or 60 degrees the entire catalytic reforming section of the plant would erupt. He thought of Sasha, waiting in the car outside with the other techs, felt a blast of panic.
“Where’s the computer room?” he yelled.
Walt pointed and started running across the plant, limping, his fat legs pumping. Daniel saw the door all the way on the other side of the plant and passed Walt after a few yards, sprinting as fast as he could.
C’mon, c’mon! he told himself. He had only another fifty yards to cross to get to the door, and he closed his eyes against the pain in his lungs and pushed his legs to carry him faster. Then he was at the door, and he crashed it open without turning the handle, burst through the outer electrical room and through an inner door that someone had left open, into the computer room. He froze. In that 1.67 seconds of immobility he felt as if the world was moving in slow motion, but in an instant he charged across the room and reached down behind the main bank of computer servers and one, two, three, four in turn he pulled out the plugs. He gasped for breath and braced for the shock of the explosion. But then he heard the whine diminish, and he felt through the wall and the floor the slackening rumble of old Rouge North.
Walt burst into the room a moment later. Tears were in his eyes. He hunched over, panting, then sat on the floor. “Saved you, old girl,” he said and slapped the floor. He looked at Daniel, then at the backs of the four servers in front of him. “Gotcha, you dumb sons of bitches.”
September, This Year. On the PeakOil Challenger, two hundred seventy miles southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana. “I can’t shut it down!” Nesbitt yelled into the phone to Jamison. He was standing in front of his computer screen, having just been told by the Vice President of Operations back in Dallas to cut all power.
“What the hell is going on?” Jamison yelled back. “I just hit the manual shutdown button and nothing happened!”
“So did I up here!” Nesbitt was worried about his job, the repercussions in Dallas. The mud was overheating. Soon the drill hole would seize. The “mud,” a mixture of clay, oils and chemicals, was pumped down into the drill pipe to the bottom of the shaft and out of the drill bit. It was designed to flow up the outside of the pipe back to the surface of the rig, cool the bit shaft, and bring up ground rock before being filtered, cooled, and recycled back down into the pipe again. If the temperature rose only a few more degrees, the mud would seize and harden into rock around the bit and drill pipe, and the entire ten thousand feet might have to be abandoned. A new hole would have to be started. That would cost millions.
“Ah, Jesus Christ, Frank, there goes my pension,” Nesbitt moaned into the phone. “Look at the temperature for Christsakes. I’ve got sensors twenty-nine and thirty-nine at two hundred ten degrees! We’re gonna have boiling mud in a couple of minutes.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Jamison said. His voice had the calmness of resignation in it. “I’ve never seen one of these things seize before.”
Nesbitt felt the words like a smack in the face. He thought about what he was going to say to his wife about losing his job, about how the VP of Operations in Dallas would carve him a new asshole.
A software subroutine ordered the spray injectors in the mud pump to switch the chemical mixture to 100% naphtha, the volatile solution used for cleaning during shutdowns. At that level of concentration, once the drill shaft reached a temperature of 222 degrees it was only a question of moments before the entire ten-thousand-foot length would constitute one of the most effective and largest pipe bombs ever manufactured.
Nesbitt was still thinking about how he was going to explain to his wife when the mud near the top of the shaft exploded. The blast shattered the steel superstructure of the PeakOil Challenger, blew the drilling rig itself off the platform, and split the huge platform’s concrete base in half. The entire crew was incinerated in the initial thrust. The PeakOil Challenger sank within fifteen minutes, its massive concrete base sucking it to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico 7,000 feet below.
CHAPTER 38
SEPTEMBER, THIS YEAR. RIYADH, SAUDI Arabia. Tom Goddard heard the news about the PeakOil Challenger in his hotel room on CNN. Up and pacing, now not killing time, killing brain cells, wondering why he hadn’t prevented it, why he was a step behind.
Tom picked up the phone but did not dial, still riveted to the television. I should have made a move after we found the North Sea refinery logic bomb. Might have prevented this.
“The crew reported computer malfunctions shortly before the drilling platform exploded and sank. Authorities believe all one hundred twenty-six crew members were killed and…” Tom dialed the Washington incoming CIA satellite line.
“Where are you?” Jim Rattison, Tom’s divisional head, asked.
“In my hotel room in Riyadh watching CNN. Jesus.”
“It’s worse than you think,” Rattison said. “We heard from our computer techs that a refinery explosion in Houston was narrowly averted. Their computer systems went off the reservation. I was hoping you’d have some answers by now.”
“I’m heading out now. It’s gotta be the al-Mujari.”
“And I don’t see how we hadn’t picked it up. How the hell could anybody catch us so completely flatfooted?” Rattison’s anger rang in Tom’s ears.
Not completely, Tom wanted to say.
“I thought you had the computer jocks on it.”
“I do. Our guys, JTTF, the NSA, and now some top-level FBI guys from the Bureau’s Com-Tech group. I’ve got them chasing down the clients of some investment banker from New York who we think are how they’re targeting the oil and gas industry.”
“Enough talk, get going,” Rattison said. “I’ve got a C-5 Army transport warmed up down in Riyadh. I want you and the computer guys on it pronto. We can hook them back up to our systems via wireless into satellites when you’re in the air. By that time, we’ll have figured out how to patch in all the people we need from the Bureau’s Com-Tech jocks, their anti-terrorist team and anybody else you think you’ll need.”
“Get me Nigel Benthurst from British Intelligence and Ira Land from the Israeli Mossad,” Tom said.
“You got it. Call me on the way to the airport.”
“Right.” Tom headed for the door, his breathing short, the image on CNN of the fireball as the drilling rig exploded, filmed from 20 miles away, etched in his mind.
September, This Year. Buraida, Saudi Arabia. Sheik bin Abdur was seated cross-legged on the dirt floor of the back room in the ramshackle building next to his mosque. Six of his devotees, many of his closest, including Abdul and Waleed, were seated across from him. He couldn’t contain his exultation. “The manifestation of our power is beginning! It is clearly the work of Allah to reunite the Muslim world!” As he spoke, he began to comprehend his own words. “There is no god but Allah!”
“La ilaha ilallah!” the others said in unison.
But now he was overcome by the presence of Allah. He felt he was imbued with Allah’s power, knowing the new purpose, the certainty of his faith, the justification of his actions. Surely, only the work of Allah could have effected it, an undeniable sign, the justification of the jihad, the reunifying war that would create an Islamic state and return control of Saudi Arabia, with its holiest of the holy Islamic sites, back to the Believers. He felt his very being burning with the knowledge that he was the earthly manifestation of Allah’s will.
“My friends, this is the manifestation of the spirit of Allah, with which I am infused. Abdul,” he said, looking at the fine Islamic young man. “Publish my words in our Muslim newspapers in London and Pakistan. I will take ful
l responsibility for this, our jihad. We will proclaim that it will unfold and unite our brothers in a new holy Islamic state.”
He paused, then motioned for Abdul to approach. He whispered to him, “I will need you to contact the man who calls himself Habib. I require an additional service from him.”
He waved Abdul away and turned his vision inward, his eyes closed, the eyes of his soul, searching skyward. Yes, it was Allah, in him. Nothing could stop them.
September, This Year. New York City. Kovarik’s eyes were stuck to the TV screen in his office like he was a kid watching his first pornography. The PeakOil Challenger explosion was all over the news. He could hardly believe it. Things like this only happened in the movies, not real life. At least not in his life.
What a rush. At first he was embarrassed to even think it, then as the idea sank in he let himself feel a thrill like never before in his life. He wasn’t just a player, he was a grand-scale, major-league titan. The exhilaration of being a part of—hell, he was the guy who made it all possible—a game-changing series of events that would rock the world was intoxicating. It made him tingle all the way down to his balls. He couldn’t wait to see what happened next.
If only he could tell somebody about it. That gave him the chills, made him think of somebody finding out. These nuts had paid him well, but if anybody traced anything back to him, he was cooked. He thought about Daniel’s phone message again. Maybe there was an angle there. He thought it through. A well-timed phone call to the FBI offering his help as an oil and gas expert with insight, like strategic information on whose client supplied the computer software that ran the PeakOil Challenger.
He smiled. Not a bad idea. He picked up the phone, then put it back in its cradle. He rubbed his shin. No, script it out first.