Moratorium

by Chuck Sampson

  “Yeah I heard of them. They are a Chinese gang out of Frisco, so what?”

  “Duncan’s not a union man, Moon; he is a Chicom agent with a mission. That mission is to get oil for China. If you check his hand, you’ll find a tattoo for Camorra, a dragon with three heads.”

  Duncan was standing on the port side of the boat holding a line that ran through a block and tackle and held up the torpedo. It hung over the side rail, swinging back and forth and waiting to be dropped into the water.

  Moon pointed his nine-mike at Duncan. Duncan raised his Colt and squeezed the trigger, but his weapon did nothing but click. Moon fired and shot him in the shoulder. Duncan fell to the deck, letting go of the line that held the torpedo as he went. The line snake danced through the block and tackle making a loud hum as the underwater bomb fell into the sea. Briana stood up as soon as Moon fired and kicked him hard in the back of the head, knocking his weapon from his hand and sending him even harder to the ship’s deck.

  One of the guards holding Cyrus ran over to Duncan and knelt down beside him. Max darted out from his hiding place. Taking up the piece of chain in his hand, he slapped the guard’s wrist that held his automatic with the chain and sent the MP5 tumbling across the deck. Jumping up and swinging at Max wildly, the guard left himself wide open for the uppercut punch to the stomach which Max delivered with catlike speed. Winded and choking, the guard grabbed his stomach and fell to the deck.

  Reacting to the assault on Duncan, the guard covering Cyrus trained his automatic on Moon, but Dana was in the way, so he raised the automatic’s muzzle into the air, just at that moment, Cyrus landed a solid punch to the side of his head that knocked him to the deck. He lay there, motionless.

  “Are you all right, Briana?” Cyrus called out as he ran to her side. He took the knife he still had from the boat and cut her loose. Then he freed Dana.

  “I’m fine, except I think I sprained my ankle on Moon’s hard head.” Sitting back down on the hatch, she reached down and rubbed her ankle.

  “You ought to try punching the perp in the head.”

  “No, it’s too hard on my nails.” She sat up and showed off her beautiful red nails to him.

  Cyrus smiled and shrugged his shoulders. He shook his swollen hand. Maybe she has a point, Cyrus thought. How could he argue with her? Moon was flat on his back, laying spread eagled and motionless. He knelt down beside him and checked his wrist for a pulse. “He’s still alive, believe it or not,” he said. He got up and began searching the deck for Mike’s nine-mike, “Where’s the other guard, Max?”

  “He’s near the bow. I tied him up and took his automatic.”

  Max ran across the deck, leaving Duncan alone, and stopped when he got to Moon. He nudged him with his foot several times.

  “Briana, remind me never to cross you. This guy is done.” He knelt down beside him and removed his wallet.

  “What are doing Max?” Cyrus asked.

  “I am getting back the thirty-five dollars I gave him, see?” He held out a twenty and three five dollar bills he took from the billfold. Briana and Dana laughed and Cyrus shook his head. As Max put Moon’s wallet back, Cyrus noticed Duncan sit up and reach into his pocket. He pulled out what looked like a TV remote control and pressed several buttons in a sequence.

  “What’s that in Duncan’s hand?” Dana asked.

  “He’s setting the fuse.” Cyrus shouted.

  Max jumped across the hatchway and ran across the deck until he reached Duncan. He kicked him in the head and bounced it into the side of the boat. The remote he had been holding flew onto the deck and shattered into pieces.

  “I was too late to stop him Cyrus; I saw the “fuse on” indicator flash on the remote.”

  “Briana, you and Dana look around the deck or by the wheel house and see if you can find some line or rope to use to tie up Moon and the rest of the guards. Max and I will see if we can reach the Coast Guard from the trawler’s radio.”

  Briana found an axe and Dana used it to sever several lengths of rope. They used them to secure the three Asian guards and Moon. Duncan was in no shape to go anywhere so they left him where he was. Cyrus and Max went into the wheel house. Everything was charred black and the air stank like boiled plastic. The VHF radio hung from the ceiling, an elongated, mass of melted plastic and steel.

  “It’s no use, Cyrus,” Max said. “The ship’s VHF is fried. And Moon ripped the mike off the radio in the Grady White. I think we have about twenty minutes before the torpedo goes off.”

  “Will the engines still work?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a lot of damage to the electronics.” Max replied, “Why don’t we just get in the Grady and get out of here?”

  “No gas,” Cyrus said, “I noticed that when were making the gas bombs.”

  “I guess they weren’t that stupid, were they?”

  The sound of someone running diverted their attention. Cyrus put his head out of the wheel house and spotted Dana coming up the side runway.

  “Hey Max,” Dana shouted, “Look out to the southwest. I can see a boat.”

  “Find some flares or anything. Maybe a horn, we’ve got to get their attention.” Cyrus said.

  “I think it’s the whale watch boat from Ventura,” Max said.

  Cyrus shook his head, “No, it’s going the wrong way for that. You two check out the hatchway, engine room, and the main deck.”

  “Right.” Max said and then headed toward the stern with Dana right behind.

  Cyrus searched the wheel house for a flare gun or a horn. The wheelhouse was a mess. All the equipment was charred and melted. Below the helm he spotted a part way opened cabinet door. Inside the small compartment he found a horn, only slightly damaged from the fire.

  He hurried out of the cabin and flipped it on, letting loose one loud blast after the other. Max, Dana, and Briana came up quickly along the side runway toward him.

  After a dozen or so more loud hoots, the horn fizzled out until it could only produce a soft hiss. They all stood along the rail and watched the boat disappear over the horizon. Cyrus threw the empty can down on to the deck and walked back into the wheelhouse.

  “What are you doing?” Dana said, standing in the doorway, “You can’t leave. That torpedo is armed and sitting down there next to the pipeline!”

  “I am not going to sacrifice our lives just to keep the birds from getting oil on their feathers and the ocean side restaurants open.” Cyrus said.

  “That’s a main connection; it’s called a Christmas tree.” Dana replied. “This is where the FPSO connects to TANOCO’s other platforms and extracts oil. If it goes up, the natural gas could explode and cause a blow back on those rigs.”

  “I don’t care if there are a hundred oil rigs connected here, it’s not worth us getting killed over.”

  Dana shook his head and raised both his hands, “You don’t understand, Cyrus, When this torpedo blows it is going to ignite the natural gas that flows in the pipeline. That explosion could make its way back to the oil platform it is connected to and kill everyone.”

  “What gas?” Cyrus asked.

  “There’s always natural gas with the crude oil, it is what creates the pressure that pushes the crude to the surface,” Dana said, “And one other thing, I think you are right about the boat, it’s not the whale watcher’s boat.”

  “What?”

  “I have friends on Platform Irene. Today’s open house on that rig. That boat we just saw is taking their kids out to them.”

  “They have ‘Take you kid to work day’ on oil rigs?”

  Dana nodded.

  “So instead of several hundred, the explosion of this oil pipeline could mean the deaths of thousands of people, men, women and children.” Max said.

  “That’s right.” Dana replied.

  “I really, really, hate it when people use acronyms. What in hell is an FPSO?” Cyrus asked.

  “It stands for floating point storage and offloading. It’s a big tanker specially
designed to connect to this junction and extract the oil. Anyway, we can’t let this torpedo explode.”

  “So what do you want to do, dive down there and disarm it?”

  “What else, we can’t just cut and run!”

  Chapter 20

  Dana lay down on the deck and prepared himself for a deep free dive. After some stretching exercises designed to loosen the muscles around the lungs and abdomen, he took several "warm up breaths", exhaling more completely than one would think possible. He completely compressed his taught stomach, expelling all the air in his lungs. Then Dana’s abdomen swelled until he looked pregnant, his back arched as he completed the intake into the nether regions of his lungs.

  Returning from his inspection of the trawler’s engines, Max froze at the sight of Dana. “I don’t know what you are doing, Dana, but it looks painful,” he said.

  “He’s prepping himself for the dive to the torpedo.” Briana said. She stood over Dana and looked down at him, “You know you can’t make it,” she said, “The water temperature is sixty degrees, but that’s at the surface. If the torpedo is sixty feet down, like Moon says, you will have to work in water much colder. Your hands will freeze up and you won’t be able to feel what you are doing.”

  Dana stopped his exercises and stood up. He looked out over the ocean and said, “I know. I’ll probably hit the thermocline, and the temperature will drop immediately at least ten degrees. It will be O.K. I can hold my breath at least ten minutes, maybe fifteen if I am pushed, I’ve done it before. I can manipulate my fingers even when I can’t feel; I’ve had to do it before, in big surf up north at Mustang’s. If Max can get me the wires and dummy loads I need, I can do it.” He turned and faced her, “Everything is very clear to me now,” he said.

  “What is clear?”

  “Why I’ve been through the things I’ve been through. It just now made sense to me.”

  “Why Dana?”

  “So I can be here and dive down into that freezing water and save those people. No one else could do this but me- no one.”

  “I like you Dana Mathers,” Briana said and squeezed his hand. “You are a brave man.”

  Dana turned to face her and said, “Thanks Briana, I like you too, but right now I don’t feel all that brave.”

  As Briana started to reply Max came up beside her and said, “I got what we need to disarm the fuse, Dana, I yanked out some of the wiring in the wheelhouse and found some alligator clips. I also have the dummy loads.” Max pulled four pieces of electrical wiring and two white, square shaped, components out of his pocket and held them out for Dana and Briana to see. “I scrounged these off my soaking wet and now useless cell phone. I’ll go ahead and connect the leads to a pair of wires and the wires to the alligator clips. Take this knife. When you get to the fuse, remember you have to scrape away the insulation from the red and the black wires on two of the three pairs and then attach the dummy loads, these square components, before you cut the remaining two wires. If you don’t, the computer on the fuse will sense that it is being tampered with, and set off the torpedo.”

  “Understood,” Dana said.

  Dana watched Max twist the grease covered ends of the wires. Max steadied himself as a large rolling swell gently rocked the trawler and caused the wooden deck of the trawler to moan and creak. “Make sure you have a good connection to these dummy loads before you cut the wire, that’s very important.”

  Dana looked around the deck for Cyrus. He spotted him next to the runway by the wench, kneeling down beside Duncan, holding a towel over his wound. Cyrus raised his head,

  “Duncan will live. He’s still unconscious. The bullet went through the outer part of his shoulder. The bleeding has stopped. Briana, where’s Moon and the two other guards?”

  “They are over here, Max found some tie wraps in the wheelhouse and we tied their hands.”

  “Good, so what’s Lloyd Bridges over there decided? Is he going down or do we get the engines on this trawler started?”

  “We’re going to do both, Cyrus.” Max said. “I’ll work on the engines while Dana tries to defuse the torpedo. We’ve got about fifteen minutes.” Max turned to Dana and continued, “If I can get the engines started in the next ten minutes I’ll use the trawler to move the torpedo away from the connection. Otherwise, it’s all up to you, Dana.”

  “Who is Lloyd Bridges?” Dana asked.

  “Never mind,” Briana said.

  Dana shrugged his shoulders, took the wiring and components from Max, and walked to the rail of the trawler. He couldn’t help but notice how serene the sea looked. The wind had died down to a calm breeze and a crying sea-gull passed lazily overhead, completely indifferent to the predicament in which he and his friends had found themselves. Dana’s eyes followed the rope that held the torpedo and stared into the clear, clean, ocean water. He never got over how transparent the water was this far out. You could see at least ten or twenty feet down. He took several deep breaths, and dove off the side.

  He struggled to make headway down into the depths. He swam sideways toward the rope and once he reached it, he used it to climb downward toward the torpedo. The sunlight faded as he burrowed down deeper into the ocean. Straining his eyes all the while for the image of the torpedo, he could feel his hands harden and lose their sense of touch. He balled his hands into fists occasionally, trying to restore their flexibility.

  None of this was new to him. He had conditioned himself over the years to be comfortable in fifty five degree water. From his earliest days when his father took him to the beach, he would swim for hours in the chili Pacific. Sixty degree water temperature felt warm to him. And every day since he had started surfing, he went swimming without the protection of a wet suit after every surf session.

  But as he entered into thermo cline depth, he felt the shock of the sudden drop in water temperature and his head pounded and throbbed with pain. He blinked his eyes over and over to maintain consciousness and focus his thoughts. He pulled harder on the rope. He knew his only chance was to go as fast as he could. The more he exerted himself, the more his blood would circulate and warm his body. But the trade off was critical. His physical exertion not only increased his blood flow, it increased the use of the small amount of oxygen he had left in his lungs-lungs that were contracting from the increase in pressure the further down he went.

  The outline of the torpedo finally came into view, wedged underneath a great, black, oil pipeline. Covered with tea colored barnacles and pink and blue coral, its diameter was wide enough for a car to pass through. Swarms of golden Garibaldi and pinkish-orange vermillion rockfish flitted nervously over and under it. The giant, black, pipe protruded from the ocean floor and ran for several yards, a foot or so above the bottom. Several yards further down it submerged again. Dana marveled at the immense fitting in the middle of the pipeline where he assumed the FPSO connected and extracted oil.

  He followed the line down to the large C clamp in the middle of the torpedo. The blinking LEDs of the fuse led him to the backside. He went to work scraping the insulation from the black and red wires where he would insert the dummy loads. He could feel the air in his lungs pressing against his throat, trying desperately to escape. It was only the first crisis. He knew he would have three or four more before he could no longer push back against it, and the oxygen-less air would rush out from his lungs. He only hoped he could hold off until he reached the surface. His numb fingers could not feel the wires. He had to go slowly and make sure he only scraped insulation and not copper.

  Once the first two wires were scraped down to the bare metal, he attached the dummy load, securely twisting the bare wire to bare wire. Then he deftly cut each wire from the fuse at the point just past where he had attached the loads. The fuse’s LEDS continued their countdown. All that was left was to cut the last two wires and disable the fuse. With trembling, half-frozen, hands, he held the wires between his thumb and forefinger and began to saw them with the knife.

  But before he could cut d
own through the insulation of the wire, he felt a sharp pain on his right side from a blow that sent his body spinning away from the torpedo and landing on the dark, cold, sand below. His body spun two full turns and the force of the blow sent him several yards from the torpedo. Amazingly, through it all, he kept his breath and his grip on the knife. Dazed, he lay still and then he checked his side for blood, but there was none. On his way back to the fuse, he caught sight of the monster responsible for the brutal attack. A giant, blue and white blur, shaped like a bull shark, turned sharply and headed back toward him.

  Dana swam for the space between the pipeline and the ocean bottom. He found a spot at which the sea floor pushed upward and nearly touched the pipeline so that there was only a small crack between the pipeline and the bottom. Within this small cavity his back would be protected. He squeezed his thin frame as far as he could into the crevice. He pointed his knife, a short, shiny stub only a few inches long, in the direction of the oncoming behemoth. He swung it back and forth as fast as he could. He believed if he could hit the shark’s nose and he could discourage it from attacking again.

  Its image grew larger second by second, until he could clearly see its coal-black, mindless, eyes and jagged, protruding teeth. Only a few inches of being within the range of Dana’s wildly swinging toy of a knife, the shark veered away. Dana heard splashing and faint cries. He wasn’t sure where they came from, but from the direction the shark was heading, he guessed that they must have been coming from the surface. Pushing himself up out of his hiding place, he could see the shark speeding upward, toward the surface. It must be the commotion of a wounded, larger prey, Dana said to himself.

  He cut the last two wires of the fuse with a single motion. There was no longer any point in being careful. He could only last a couple of minutes more before the used air in his lungs forced its way out of his body and it was replaced with deadly, cold, seawater. The LEDs of the fuse went out, and Dana ripped it from the straps that held it in place. He grabbed the line and headed for the surface. He could not wait to see if the bull shark had left, there was no more time or air. He had to get to the surface now!