Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, where eleven men were killed, engineers began to explore better ways of evacuating a rig—other than by helicopter which was the accepted method at the time. Helicopters can only carry three or four people at a time. And they don’t land on rigs that explode. So... the ladder. And this ladder was built as an alternative to the helicopter and to jumping into the sea, some 70 to 100 feet below—depending on the rig.
The ladder I was contemplating climbing boasted several stops on the way—and that was a good thing. One was at a caged platform about twenty feet above me. There was another one about twenty feet above that one, and finally a larger platform that jutted to the right of the ladder and sat about fifteen feet below the gunnels of the rig. The final ladder dumped into what appeared to be a passageway that skirted a white structure. Maybe living quarters.
The only problem with climbing was meeting someone coming back down. But...
“Okay, I’m going up—alone,” I insisted, as I saw the three of them start to object.
“What do you hope to accomplish?” asked Louise, showing irritation.
“I don’t know,” I said. And I really didn’t. “Maybe find some crazy reason for why they’re shooting at us. Who knows? Maybe they’re running drugs out of this damn thing,” and I was being facetious. But then, on second thought, crazier things have happened. “Anyway, I just want to have a look-see. Besides this rig is awfully quiet.” And I wondered why. Something this costly—hundreds of millions of dollars—should be working 24/7.
“I’ll signal when I get to the final platform if I want the rest of you to follow. But somebody has to stay with the boat,” I added.
Water washed over the hull as a wave broke under the rig. A storm coming. It had been threatening all night, spitting rain intermittently, hanging out above the clouds, but there none-the-less.
“Me and Huck are going with you,” Richie said. “No way you’re going alone.”
“Right. And I’m also going with you, bozos,” Louise said. “This isn’t a one-man show, Coop. We’re in this together.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My friends in a full-scale revolt. Mutiny on the Bounty.
“Okay,” I said, not really happy about the mutiny. “But somebody needs to stay with the boat,” I told Louise.
“In case the bad guys pull a gun on you and you have to run,” she said.
“Good point,” said Richie, reaching for his shotgun and getting ready to mount the ladder.
“It’s why I’m going,” she continued.
“Listen, Lou…” Huck began.
“Lou?” said Louise, glaring at him. Huck looked down. “If someone needs to stay below, you stay.” She pulled her Glock, ejected the magazine and checked the load. When she was satisfied, she slammed the magazine home and followed Richie up the ladder.
Huck shrugged. “Okay. I’m good with that.” Then he turned to me. “I’ll keep the motors at slow idle. Nobody’s gonna hear this baby down here. She’ll run quiet as a bobcat hunting a rabbit.”
Climbing the damn thing was like working my way up one of those massive transmission towers that carry electric power cross-country. The ladder seemed to narrow as I worked my way up, and the top so far away.
After what seemed like a hike up Mount Everest, we were finally there, Richie struggling to pull himself over the gunnels and onto the passageway. He looked around quickly then reached to hoist Louise up. She slid easily off the ladder. I followed.
Off to my right and extending out over the water was a helicopter pad—empty. It was a half circle of deck and just large enough for an experienced pilot to land. God help anyone who tried to drop down in bad weather—like the kind that’s threatening tonight.
There was no activity, and very little light, only the glow from the nightlights hanging off the towers, keeping the rig visible to air traffic or boats that might wander through a mist into the area. The lights threw a mysterious glow about the rig as they struggled to fight through the darkness. And it was quiet, except for the thrum of the giant drill that plunged from the top of the tower into the seabed below. It hummed while it worked, like thousands of bees swarming around a nest as it punched ever deeper into the bed of the Straits. And we kept pace with the thump, thump, thumping of the drill as we crept around the building into the heart of the rig, through a maze of I-beams supporting the tower housing the drill, and past the long tubes that held the drill extensions, and past the pipes, and around the cages for the machinery that drove the drill and housed the diesels that powered the rig, and the sound of the drill grew louder as we neared the tower, like a machine hungry for oil, a sound we couldn’t hear when we were at the base of the ladder where the wash of waves against the legs of the rig drowned it out.
“So, what are we looking for?” whispered Louise as we huddled near the tower trying to stay out of the wind.
“Good question,” I said. “See what they’re hiding. I mean what’s the deal with the fast boat? And why are they shooting at us?” I paused until a gust of wind died out. “Why don’t we split up.”
So that’s what we did, Richie moving to the left around the tower and through the maze of pipes and metal beams, Louise and I to the right. I was hoping that the crew was asleep.
We hadn’t gotten more than twenty yards from each other when I heard the sound of a chopper in the distance.
“Hey,” I whispered as loudly as I could. “Come over here.” Richie doubled back and we watched a light steadily grow larger. Then a powerful beam hit the rig, lighting it up like it was noon on a summer’s day. The copter must have been still a quarter mile or so away.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, leading the way quickly back around the passageway that skirted the white structure and back to the ladder that was just below the helicopter pad. Richie was first on the ladder, then Louise. I scrambled down right behind her, barely missing her hand
“Watch it!” she said, louder than I would have liked and just about the time I heard some hatches break open. I looked up but there was no one in the passageway above us. The lights from the copter finally found the landing pad, flooding the entire side of the rig, sweeping over us momentarily then zeroing in on the helipad. It circled the Zhi Zhu Nu then hovered and slowly descended. I grabbed my ball cap before the pressure from the blades blew it into the Gulf.
The copter hit the pad at a tilt at first, the blades coming dangerously close to the rig’s bulkhead, then it straightened and came to a safe rest.
I had stopped on the first platform below the top of the ladder, hoping no one would spot me in the cage. Richie was still descending. Louise was waiting.
Two men had come down the passageway from the right side of the white structure and were waiting for the copter’s blades to come to a complete stop. It never happened. So they stooped and moved slowly, keeping their heads well below the thresher above them.
A young Chinese woman in a black jump suit leaned out of the hatch and reached for the hands of one of the two men waiting. He lifted her away from the door and swung her down onto the deck.
“Li Lang,” whispered Louise. “I would recognize that bitch anywhere.” I was surprised. I never heard her use that expression before. She must have noticed. “She’s a bitch—believe me!”
I nodded. Spider Woman.
And then a man jumped down. He was tall and lean, wearing khaki pants and a leather jacket. He was also Chinese.
I tried to listen to what the men said to the visitors, but their voices were muffled by the wind and the blades churning in it.
“My guess, Li Lang and Lei Sun just landed,” I said, as we headed down the ladder, in the dark, in the wind, in the spattering of rain. A presage of the coming storm.
Chapter Forty-Three
Jillie
Tuesday Night, December 6
It was late when her cell went off—after 11:00. Late calls made Jillie nervous. Someone died—maybe her mother who had been figh
ting breast cancer for the last four years—maybe her brother who disappeared from her life regularly and only showed up when he needed something—and he was older than she was. Yet she felt she had to take care of him. She looked at the number on the screen. She didn’t recognize it.
“Yes?” she said, tentatively. Why did she answer the damn thing? she thought to herself. Well, because she thought it might be Cooper—hoping it might be him—with news about Maxie—about anything, she didn’t care. She was still in love with him, she thought. Her friends all said, You have to move on. Her mother said that. Even her brother, and really just about everyone who knew her.
“It’s Henry.”
And before she could say anything, he continued, “Have dinner with me.” Just like that. No explanation of where he was. As though they had just seen each other last night.
“You in town again?”
“Right. Decided to stay. Tie up some loose ends.”
“Oh,” and she hesitated.
“Can’t keep us apart,” he added.
The last time had been good. A distraction from Cooper and Maxie—memories of college—a time when there was nothing to worry about except grades and where the next meal was coming from.
“How about tomorrow night?” he said, not giving her time to think. “I’m tied up with meetings during the day but am free after six.” Silent then. Expectant.
She hesitated.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “No pressure.”
“No... Not a problem,” she said, trying to think. Then…Oh what the heck, she thought. Why not?
“Yes,” she said. “I would love to.” She thought she heard a sigh of relief, and smiled.
“Great!” he said. “How about the Worthington Inn at seven?”
“My favorite place,” she said, and then began thinking about her times there with Coop and wondered why she had said that—to a man who was a rival many years ago.
Chapter Forty-Four
Run for your Life
Early Wednesday Morning, December 7
When Huck started the Yamahas, they sounded like Niagara Falls dumping water. I could picture them: Li Lang, Lei Sun and others rushing to the side of the derrick to see what the hell was going on. Then Huck opened up the Yamahas and they blew the Canyon away from the rig and into the open water of the Straits.
I saw several men scramble for the ladder and just as quickly disappear into the darkness of the cage, but Huck had us almost a half-mile out to sea in minutes.
So we ran with the motors wide open—three Yamahas pushing us close to sixty miles an hour, the boat hitting every wave like a brick wall. And when the boat fell into the empty space after cresting on a wave, it slammed back into the water, like a hard landing in a parachute jump. I thought if I was ever going to have a concussion, it would be now. All the time Richie hung onto the gunnels as if they were his last connection to life.
I watched for the lights of the go-fast boat chasing us. But they never appeared. So, I told Huck to ease up. He backed the boat down and it slowed like a wild horse that had just been busted. Then the Canyon settled into a peaceful run. I asked Richie and Louise if they wanted a beer. And they said, Sure! So I went below and grabbed three Rolling Rocks and brought them topside.
“Where’s mine?” said Huck.
“You’re driving,” I said, as I took a long drink.
Chapter Forty-Five
Back Home
Wednesday Morning, December 7
Sleep was something that was not happening these days. If it came, it was during the day. My nights were consumed by nightmares. And they were becoming more frequent. And my days? Well, I spend those chasing or being chased by bad guys, as happened this morning.
So all of us sacked out when we got back to my house, Richie and Huck in the guest bedroom, Louise and I in the so-called master bedroom which was no bigger than the guest room—but master sounded better.
We didn’t sleep long. A couple of hours. Then I headed for the kitchen to make some coffee. Louise followed me. Richie and Huck had gone outside to check on Herman and to leave us alone. The lovebirds, I heard them say on the way out.
We stared at each other, and then at the wall, and then out the window, until we had no choice but to stare at each other again.
“I’ve been thinking,” I said.
“Wow,” she said. Always the kidder.
“Remember what Huck said he had found on the boat?”
“Some residue. Oil? Chemicals?”
“Right.”
“So?”
“So we have to go where the oil leads us.”
“Uh-huh. And…”
“The most likely place where Jack might have gone that’s reachable would be Shark Island—he fishes there. But I can’t figure out how oil—or chemicals—would get on his boat there.”
Louise took a sip of coffee and stared off through the living room where the early morning sun was beginning to leak into the house.
“I guess that’s what we’re going to find out,” she said. “You think he got shot there?”
“Maybe. Probably. Too hard to shoot him and drag his boat there.”
“Maybe someone’s drilling where they shouldn’t be. Is that what you’re thinking?”
“Maybe.”
“So, shot him there, huh?” Like she was still thinking about the bullet holes in the hull.
“Uh-huh.”
“You say that a lot.”
“What?”
“Uh-huh,” she said.
“Uh-Uh,” I said, and leaned across and kissed her.
“What was that about?” she said.
“I just love your repartee,” I said.
“I don’t know French,” she said.
“Neither do I,” I said, and kissed her again. She kissed me back…hard…and we made our way to the bedroom and locked the door.
.
Chapter Forty-Six
Back to Shark Island
Wednesday Afternoon, December 7
The closest place for Jack to have come across drilling, except for the deep-water drilling in the Gulf, was in the Big Cypress where the Feds have allowed wells. There are about twelve in all in the Big Cypress, which is, by the way, part of the Everglades. Not part of the National Park, someone might add quickly. But hell, it’s all the Everglades, the Big Swamp, the River of Grass which flows from Lake Okeechobee through south Florida until it reaches Alligator Alley which slows the flow, and then to the Tamiami Trail, which slows it again. Is that progress? Civilization chasing the tropics away, clearing the way for massive developments, outdoor malls, highways that are two, four, and six lanes—both ways—that connect the new communities, and bring hundreds of thousands of people to the southern tip of Florida, as well as culture, and education, and companies (Big Oil and Big Sugar), to a previously untouched area that a writer once described as a land not fit for man nor beast, but is now civilized—finally. And now that developers had cut large swathes of land from the Great Swamp, it was time to begin to extract the minerals from it, and so the exploration for oil, and gas, in an ecosystem already damaged by Big Sugar and big developers, would continue the slow eradication of the Everglades and its reduction to a shadow of its original self.
When Richie and Huck came back, Louise and I were just coming out of the bedroom. Richie smiled.
“Did I interrupt?”
“Planning session,” I said.
“Inna bedroom?” said Richie.
“Secret meeting. If I tell you, I will have to kill you.”
“Ma won’t like that,” he threatened.
“I’ll never tell her,” I said.
Huck was staring and shook his head. “White man loco,” said Huck.
Richie turned his back on Huck as he said it. Exercising patience.
Huck smiled. “So, what’s the plan, Coop?”
“Louise and I are going to follow up your lead about the spillage you found in Shark River.”
�
�Good thinking. Why don’t we go with you—”
“I have an idea,” I said. “We didn’t come up with anything tangible in our aborted trip to the Zhi Zhu Nu.”
Huck and Richie nodded. “Okay…” said Huck.
“So, I’m thinking you and Richie go back out to the big rig. See what you can stir up.”
“Do surveillance,” said Richie. He said it right and he loved it.
“That’s right.”
“We will be silent like O-pa, follow like chen-te, and watch like ke-hay-ke,” said Huck. I stared at him.
“The owl, the snake, and the hawk.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Shark Island
And so, the four of us headed back to the marina, this time to gas up both of Jack’s boats. I warned Richie and Huck about getting too close to the rig. They both nodded. Humoring me. Jack’s 306 Canyon was back at the pier now. The repairs had been minimal—the bullet holes well above the water line. The only other damage was from being in the weather without maintenance for a few days.
“Hmmm,” observed Louise, checking out the hull.
“Grady Whites don’t sink,” I said, but she still looked worried. “The Grady White Canyon is like the Boston Whalers. Holes don’t sink them.”
A Cold Copper Moon (The Cooper Series Book 3) Page 14