by Chris Ryan
Paulo and Hex kept their eyes on the tug, matching its speed. It slowed and stopped and so did they. Danny did too, Alex noted gratefully.
The figure in the back of the tug turned to Paulo and put a hand up. Stay there. Smoothly as a shoal of fish, the three jet skis stopped and idled, rising and falling in rhythm with the waves. The man on the boat took a green fluorescent buoy like a beach ball out of the boat, fixed a weighted anchor to it and attached his end of the boom to the buoy. He looked up at his row of helpers and indicated to them to lower the boom.
Li turned and looked behind her, checking Amber had seen. Amber turned and checked for Alex. Together they lowered the foam boom into the water. That was it – job done.
Now all they had to do was wait until the other half of the boom was positioned, join the two together, and the barrier was up.
But the other half didn't seem to be doing so well.
The team with the other boat had managed to pick up the boom but the jet skis moved off at different times and the boom knocked half of them into the water. As they struggled to get back on, the boom snaked out and away into the open sea.
Paulo and Li pulled up next to Hex and Amber. The two machines bobbed up and down in tandem.
'The yellow team need help,' said Paulo. 'If that boom comes over this way they'll do more harm than good.'
Amber nodded. 'Lead on, cowboy.'
Paulo revved the engine and his jet ski shot away, with Li's hair flowing out behind. Hex opened the throttle and shot after him; Amber let out a whoop of joy. The four of them disappeared in a triumphant wash of spray, the engines letting out a satisfying, deep-throated roar.
Danny and Alex, still holding the end of the pink boom, watched them. 'Any excuse,' said Danny.
A jet ski from the other team was heading out after the errant boom, but soon gave up as Paulo and Hex overtook them, Paulo going for the end and Hex for the middle.
As they reached the boom and cut the engines to idle, the girls on the back leaned over and reached out.
And missed. The sea was much choppier out here. The jet skis were rising and falling like surfboards.
Li leaned close to Paulo's ear. 'I can't reach it. Go closer.'
Paulo opened the throttle a little way. He found himself going backwards.
'Other way, idiot,' cried Li.
Paulo thought he had been going the other way, but the current threw him towards Hex and Amber instead. He caught a snatch of them arguing.
'Amber, just grab the big yellow thing.'
'You do it if it's so easy.'
Alex and Danny, still holding onto the end of the boom, could only watch. 'Do they normally use volunteers for this sort of thing?' said Alex.
'When they phoned me they said anyone could do it,' replied Danny. 'But it looks quite rough out there today.'
'Why don't they use boats?' said Alex.
'They said boats weren't manoeuvrable enough so it had to be jet skis,' said Danny.
The other jet ski riders just sat watching, bobbing up and down like ducks on a choppy lake.
Amber suddenly got it. Years of sailing had given her a feel for waves and currents and she suddenly understood what they needed to do. She yelled in Hex's ear, 'Let me drive.'
'Don't be daft,' said Hex. 'Just tell me what to do.'
But it was a question of feel; not something Amber could explain. She reached around Hex, grasped the handlebars and twisted. 'Full speed ahead,' she yelled.
Hex had to trust her. He opened the throttle as far as it would go. Amber took the jet ski hard sideways, almost in a skid, then leaned down like a jousting knight, scooped up the boom and sat up, triumphant at last.
Paulo and Li had been watching. 'Hey,' said Li. 'They've got some good moves.'
Paulo realized where he had been going wrong. He needed to come in fast and at an angle. Amber had studied the current and worked with it. Paulo gunned the engine. Li was ready. She grabbed the boom, flipped it up and moments later it was resting over their shoulders, tamed.
Together the four riders brought the end of the other boom back to Alex and Danny. From the watchers on the other skis came a polite round of applause. While one tugboat anchored the boom with a buoy, the second chugged into the middle, where Amber and Li held up the other two ends. Two more weighted buoys joined them together and secured them and that was it. The bay and the leaking tanker were now surrounded by 200 metres of sorbent boom.
The Fathom Sprinter rode the waves, heading back towards the shore. Oily water collected in puddles on the white floor as the six jet skiers peeled off their dive clothing.
The beach ahead was edged with black instead of white. A pair of figures in red ArBonCo overalls and full-face masks were walking down the cliff, carrying backpacks and hoses. They looked like they were clearing up a radioactive spill.
'What on earth are they doing?' said Amber.
'The next stage,' said Carl. 'They're either going to squirt the oil back into the sea or coat the beach with detergent so the oil starts to break up.'
'You sound as if you know about this sort of thing, Carl,' said Amber.
'I'm doing a master's degree in marine biology in Canada,' replied Carl. 'I've seen all this before.'
Li was looking at the small red figures with their hoses. 'Detergent,' she repeated. 'That's just more pollution. Do these guys have a clue what they're doing?' She gestured back at the sherbet-coloured boom behind them. 'That was a fiasco. And it's just floating there with two buoys in the middle of the sea – it's not attached to anything.'
'They calculate the position according to the currents and winds,' said Carl. 'That's the furthest the oil will go. Not much will get around the sides and if it does it's not enough to do any harm.'
Danny, at the tiller, had been quiet. Now he spoke. 'I'm going to send you guys home.'
As one, Alpha Force said, 'We're staying.'
'Me too,' added Carl.
'But you came for a holiday,' said Danny. 'We can't give you a holiday.'
'We came to learn technical diving,' insisted Alex. 'We can still do that.'
'And,' said Amber, 'we want to help.'
The mobile on the car dashboard began playing Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells. The driver hit ANSWER before it had got through the first bar and rested his hand back on the leather gear lever, waiting for the traffic lights to change. It was a top-of-the-range BMW, the interior a luxurious oasis of tan-coloured leather.
He snapped a greeting. 'Yes?'
The caller was equally abrupt. Either he didn't like to mess about with pleasantries or he was short of time. 'I thought you said the ship would blow up. It hasn't. It's just sitting there. I keep seeing it on every news programme.' The phone made the voice sound tinny and petulant.
The lights changed and the driver accelerated, swinging past an elderly brown Vauxhall. 'I thought it would blow up too. They said these things are unpredictable. It's highly unstable. It could go at any minute.'
'Unstable or not, people might go in there and snoop around.'
The driver blistered through the gears up to fourth. The engine calmed and settled to cruise. 'It will be all right. Nobody's going to snoop around.'
'You'd better do something to make sure they don't,' squawked the voice. There was a click.
The driver stabbed at the button to cut the connection and glared at the phone for a moment.
On his right was the TV company. He swung the car in through the gates.
5
BIRDS
'May 1 just say first of all how much we regret the incident,' said the figure on TV. He looked like a standard executive – suit, tie, clean-shaven and neatly groomed. A caption on the screen said his name was Neil Hearst, CEO of ArBonCo Oil.
Watching the news in the bar was becoming a new ritual. But tonight the audience was smaller – just Carl, Alpha Force, Danny and Lynn.
Lynn gave a derisive splutter. 'And you'll regret the bill you're going to get for all the guests
I've had to refund. Plus the cost of our boat.'
On the screen Neil Hearst said, 'We have now surrounded the site. There shouldn't be any further damage.'
Danny snorted. 'Look at that fat twit in his striped shirt. He couldn't care less.'
Amber wouldn't have put it quite that way, but she had to agree there was a certain insincerity about the man. She glanced at the others. They clearly felt the same.
The phone rang. Danny answered, one eye still on the screen. 'Yes? Oh hi. Greg. Yeah, we're watching it too.'
'Hi, Greg,' Lynn called across. 'I thought he was on duty tonight,' she added. She leaned across to Li. 'Greg's the coastguard,' she explained.
On the TV, Neil Hearst was looking earnest. 'I'm a sailing man myself, so I'm counting the cost personally as well.''
Danny snorted into the phone. 'Greg, did you hear that? He's saying he can't go out and play in his posh yacht so that means he understands.' Then Greg must have said something important because Danny took his eyes off the screen and concentrated on the call.
The interviewer was saying, 'I understand the captain of the tanker is receiving medical care, is that right?'
'Yes,' said Neil Hearst. 'He is suffering from stress and is taking sick leave.'
Danny put the receiver down. The interviewer wrapped up and moved on to another story.
Lynn hit the OFF button and turned to look at Danny. 'What did Greg say?'
Danny looked tired. 'They've cordoned off the cliff: we can't go near it because the impact might have made it unstable. Plus the tanker might explode because of air mixing with gases from the oil. His daughter's asthma has flared up because of all these fumes and he had to rush her to the medical centre. And the Fisheries Authority has introduced a fishing ban.'
Carl's expression was pained. 'Oh – and I was looking forward to some more of your delicious flying fish, Lynn.'
'Why don't they ban breathing while they're at it,' said Lynn, 'since that's now bad for us.' She looked at the six remaining guests. 'Honestly, guys, I don't know how you can still stand it here.'
The five friends kept thinking about Lynn's words. When they woke up the next morning the air still smelled of the rotten sulphur of the oil, but it had a new, astringent note. They could smell it all the time they were in the library, quizzing Danny about gas mixtures for different levels of diving while they waited to hear how they could help. Everywhere was quiet; instead of the constant cries of seabirds, there was just silence. When volunteers were once again summoned to help with the clean-up, they put on wetsuits and went back out to the beach. That was when they got their biggest shock.
The beach looked like industrial waste ground. Men in red overalls, gloves, masks and rubber boots were walking up and down, spraying it with chemicals from tanks on their backs. It no longer looked like sand; it looked like glossy tar. Between their footprints, the blackened corpses of birds struggled and twitched, or had given up the fight and were lying still.
An oil-covered bird staggered onto the beach and toppled over, its proud plumage sticking out in oily spikes and only its eyes looking normal. Paulo kneeled to look at it. A black pattern of scum swirled around the small depression its body had made, the liquid trickling down the shore and into the sea like tears. The bird blinked as the chemicals touched its eyes.
A busy-looking man in red overalls beckoned them over to a crate and gave them rubber gloves and face masks. Then it was time to start digging the birds out of the slimy sand.
Some locals were already at work, carefully picking up bird after bird. Hex never forgot the moment he touched his first one. Although he wore gloves he could feel the oiled texture of its feathers and the sharp lines of its bones through its skin. He cupped his hands and picked it up – and it twitched. Hex stopped and stared at it, stunned. He had never held a live bird in his hands before. And if this one hadn't been in such a desperate state he wouldn't have been able to hold it.
On the veranda was a trestle table, where a vet stood writing on a clipboard. Hex hurried up there, his feet slipping in the wet, slimy sand. The bird's heart beat like a frantic pump beneath his fingers. By the trestle table was a large basket full of blackened dead birds. It looked like a sick joke. The vet stood over them, her expression weary.
Hex held out the creature cradled in his hands. 'This one's alive.'
The vet carefully took the bird from him. Just touching the emaciated body told her enough. 'I'm afraid there's nothing we can do. She's poisoned. I'll put her to sleep.' She didn't even look at Hex as she spoke; she had obviously done this numerous times already.
Hex watched the vet take the bird to the end of the table. There was a small folding screen arranged on it, like curtained screens in a hospital. He couldn't see what the vet did next and he didn't want to, but he was struck by how carefully and tenderly she treated the bird. He looked at the other locals, working slowly and silently, then at Amber, kneeling down, excavating a bird with the utmost care. Paulo's expressive face showed all the horror he was feeling. Alex's and Li's faces were blank; they were locked in their own private worlds. Lynn, Danny and Carl were there too, digging in a silent line. Many of the other volunteers he didn't know, but one he recognized very well. He couldn't mistake the wild hair – Mara Thomas, the doctor they had seen on TV the other night.
Every hour they needed a break. Despite their masks the fumes made them nauseous and the full-length wetsuits were hot in the bright sunshine. The workers sat on the veranda, gloves off, masks down, wetsuits unzipped, gulping down water.
Mara pulled bottles of Evian out of an ice bucket and handed them around. 'I saw the Rastafarians come down this morning to fish. The Ministry of Fisheries has taped off their spot near the clinic.' She sighed, then leaned across to Li and touched her on the arm. 'Excuse me, dear, I'd wash that off quickly if I were you. I've got patients in my clinic with nasty rashes.' She pointed to the back of Li's neck.
Paulo, next to her, saw a streak of oil like black paint on Li's golden skin. 'You've got a smear of oil. Hold still.' There was a tray of wet wipes on the veranda. He tore one out of its wrapper.
'Mara's our local doctor,' said Lynn as Paulo moved Li's plait aside and dabbed at her neck. 'Have you met her?'
Li nodded a greeting at Mara, then turned to glare at Paulo. 'Don't scrub, you'll drive it into my skin.'
Paulo paused. 'It's not coming off.'
Mara put down her water and moved over to Li. 'Yes it will. Give that here.' She put out her hand and Paulo handed her the wet wipe. She began to stroke the area of oil. Then she looked at it, puzzled. The dark oil smudge hadn't moved. 'Funny,' she said. She held up Li's plait to Paulo. 'Here, can you hold this out of the way?'
Li swayed as Mara scrubbed hard. 'Stop looking like you've been proved right,' she said crossly to Paulo.
'It's not usually as sticky as this,' said Mara.
Carl came and sat down, pulling the top off a bottle of water and holding it up as if to toast the others. He took a long drink then looked at the bottle thoughtfully. 'Isn't there anything stronger?' He looked around for Danny. 'Where's our barman when we need him?'
Hex sat down next to Carl. 'Have you noticed,' he said, 'that some of the oil is thin but some is like treacle and sticks to your gloves?'
Alex was listening to them. He peeled off his gloves with a snap. 'Yeah, Hex, I've seen that. Weird, isn't it?'
Carl shook his head. 'It's impossible. The tanker was only carrying one type of oil. Heavy heating oils, they said.'
Alex shook out his gloves to turn them the right way out. He showed the streaks to Carl. 'No, look. Here I've got a greasy and pale bit, and here there's a sticky, treacle-like bit.'
Carl frowned. 'May I?' He took the glove and looked at it thoughtfully.
Amber rolled her eyes. 'You boys. You'll be comparing boogers next.'
'Mara,' called Carl, holding out the glove, 'what do you make of this?'
Mara put down the wipe she had been using on Li, took the g
love and considered the dirty marks on it.
'That's two types of oil, isn't it?' said Carl.
'It shouldn't be,' said Mara. 'They normally only carry one type.' She held up the glove so that the sunlight glinted off it. The lighter streaks had a pearly sheen, but the dark ones remained dull. 'But some of this looks a lot more refined than the other.'