Taking the Heat

by Paul McDermott

  “Pete, can you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear, bro.”

  “Good stuff. Okay, credentials, for the benefit of whoever’s in the room with my brother and his wife. Pete Whelan, marine biologist, on secondment to the Bay of Plenty Wildlife Refuge for the WWF. I have news of something which is going on literally as I speak and is linked to earlier events in this neck of the woods.”

  “Please be brief,” Joey cautioned. “This is a secure facility.”

  “Roger that,” Pete said. “I knew Dave would be somewhere official by now, and it’s vital I get this info to you. What you do with it is up to you, but I’m sure it’s important. New Zealand is experiencing aftershocks following last week’s tidal wave. The shocks are nowhere near as strong, but each one is lasting longer. That tells me they’re much, much deeper underground.

  “Now the bad news. A super-tanker has run aground on a reef just off the coast. It’s carrying something in the region of thirty thousand tonnes of crude, and it’s already lost a couple of thousand. It’s all but broken in half. We’re facing another Torrey Canyon scenario, and this wildlife centre has no chance. The ship’s so close we can see it from the shoreline. Every available aircraft has been scrambled, but it’s a losing battle.”

  “There isn’t very much we can do to help from this range,” Dave said. “How did they even manage to hit the reef? In calm, clear weather, it would be easy to avoid.”

  “They were tossed off course by the tidal wave or the tremors or whatever,” Brenda suggested. “It must have hit New Zealand from that direction.”

  Her entirely non-scientific hunch or instinct seemed right, somehow. Despite being the last thing any of them had expected, it was the only logical interpretation of the facts.

  “Let’s go with that for the moment,” Pete said. “How the ship got on the reef doesn’t really matter. The real question is, how do we contain the oil spill?”

  “And is there any chance of saving the wildlife centre?” Dave added.

  Joey shook his head. “If they can see the ship, the horizon’s only about seven or eight miles away. Any leak that close to the shoreline will be too late to contain. Thirty thousand tonnes of crude is going to wreak monumental damage—it’s probably ashore already.” He sighed and scrawled a few hieroglyphs on his notepad. “The wildlife centre will be one of the first casualties.”

  “Action?” Errol asked.

  “Chain of command. This is hot news if anything ever was. Most likely, my immediate superior won’t have heard the scuttlebutt yet.”

  ***

  Joey was right. Brigadier Groth hadn’t heard of the impending disaster off the coast of New Zealand and was gracious enough to admit it.

  “Thank you for the advance notice, Doctor Hart. I’ll forward this information to the relevant offices. Have you received any videos or other photographic evidence? No, perhaps that would have been asking too much. Forward it as and when you receive anything.” The burr of an open line sounded from the phone’s speaker.

  “He doesn’t waste words.” Errol was the only one present who hadn’t been party to an exchange with Groth, who was evidently back to his usual self.

  Joey chuckled. “You get used to it pretty quickly—”

  “Incoming from Pete,” Brenda interrupted, nodding at Joey’s monitor. “He says he’s got pictures and we should all see them.”

  The series of clips scrolling across the screen was a mix of amateur videos shot by local people on handheld cameras and mobile phones, interspersed with more professional footage, aerial photos from NZAF and Coastguard planes.

  “The oil’s just pouring out! No way that can be contained.” Errol’s years at the sharp end learning the oil trade from the grassroots upwards hadn’t prepared him for the shocking images on the screen.

  “We’re dumping all the detergent we can lay our hands on.” Pete’s disembodied voice floated from the speakers. He kept himself off-camera while he spoke, presumably to avoid distraction from the scenes of desolation on the screen.

  “What sort of weather’s expected?” Joey’s practical query about conditions, which would be vital in controlling the oil slick, refocused their attention on the scale of the problem.

  “Doesn’t look very promising. There’s a storm warning been issued less than an hour ago—I’ve only just read the email—and we’re expecting the wind to reach at least gale-force ten. Rain’s right behind it, sweeping southeast from Japan. It’s the start of the monsoon season in the Southern Hemisphere.”

  “That’s all we need,” Joey muttered. “Suggestions, anyone?”

  “What’s this ‘detergent’?” Brenda asked. “I mean, I’ve heard of this before, but I’ve never thought to ask anyone about the whys and wherefores.”

  “I don’t know too much about the chemistry involved,” Errol answered, “but the detergent forms a barrier the oil can’t seep through. Well, maybe it does, but it slows it down, helps to contain it in a small area. Relatively small.”

  In his head, Dave added a drawled y’all to the end of Errol’s statement, but Errol wasn’t hamming up the situation. He was very serious.

  “Would it help to conscript some crop dusters?”

  In the tense atmosphere of the observatory control room, they’d temporarily forgotten that Pete was eavesdropping on the conversation via Skype, and everyone jumped when he spoke.

  “Can you contact someone who might be able to set something up, Pete?” Dave suggested.

  “I can ask, but I can’t see anyone with a plane refusing to lend a hand. They’ve got a vested interest in keeping this pollution from contaminating the land they farm.”

  “And I’ll contact the military from this end,” Joey said, reaching for the phone. “We must have some aircraft at bases within flying range.”

  Brigadier Groth listened in silence as Joey relayed Pete’s suggestion. Noises in the background confirmed he wasn’t alone wherever he was working.

  “Good teamwork. I’ll make sure the RAF and others are aware of the offer of civilian aircraft to assist in mopping-up operations. Send me your man’s contact details, please. I’ll assume he’s no objection to the same level of security checks as you’ve already been through.”

  There was no inflection, nor even the hint of a question in this sentence. Groth was accustomed to giving orders; he wasn’t in the business of making polite requests and as usual signed out without formalities.

  ***

  Eddie steadied his cup with one hand and snatched his mobile with the other. “Dave? Not far from Chester now, on the old A55 bridge, near-as-damn-it the Welsh border.” … “Yeah, that one. Those tremors and signs you asked me to watch out for? I’m witnessing something right now. Listen to this.”

  The tremor shuddered its way north before their brief phone call was over, but it didn’t appear to have caused any damage to the road surface or the surrounding drystone walls, the fields or the countryside. Eddie gulped his cooling coffee in a single swallow and headed back towards Liverpool as fast as the roads would allow. He was grateful for the motorway network and the chance to open up the throttle but also acutely aware that there was nowhere near the volume of vehicles he’d expected, even allowing for the relatively quiet time of day. Glancing at the map, he decided to take the slightly shorter route through the Birkenhead Tunnel. Much as it pained his avaricious soul to pay for the privilege, it was best to get his ass back home as quickly as possible.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “This is the BBC. The Meteorological Office issued the following gale warning to shipping at 0050 hours GMT.”

  The calm measured voice of the anonymous World Service presenter had the intended effect of steadying the nerve of every sailor and aircraft pilot listening to deal with the inclement weather due to be unleashed on them.

  “The overall position at midnight GMT. A high pressure is developing…”

  The technical details went over the heads of everyone in the Bidston Hill Observat
ory—everyone except Joey Hart and Pete Whelan, half a world away in New Zealand, where it was late morning.

  “That storm’s moving in fast. The origin looks to be over towards Japan, heading southeast.”

  Despite the furious speed of Joey’s pencil across the pad, it was Pete who made the first comment. A few tense seconds dripped by before Joey threw down his pencil and nodded.

  “I won’t argue with that. Are you using a computer to calculate this data? I thought I was pretty quick with notebook and pencil, but…”

  A short humourless laugh greeted this question.

  “That’d be telling. No, as a matter of fact, I think on my feet and rely on my gut feelings. I’m generally out in the field where there aren’t too many power outlets available, and decision-making can literally mean the difference between life and death. It’s stood me in pretty good stead to date. I’m still alive an’ kickin’, and I intend to keep it that way. These figures the Met Office is quoting are probably already out of date, anyway, especially at the speed this weather’s arriving.”

  “But if it’s blowing southeast from Japan,” Brenda interjected, “won’t there be a risk of contamination from the nuclear plant that went up at the start of these problems?”

  “Good question, Brenda,” Joey replied. “I’ve been saying for years we ought to have staff members who aren’t scientifically trained in on all our projects for when we science bods fly off into the realms of fantasy. And I mean that, Brenda, I really do.”

  “But do you have an answer?”

  “My point exactly. You won’t be put off with a non-answer. I like that, too. However, you can rest easy where nuclear contamination is concerned. Wind and weather aren’t entirely irrelevant, but they’re not a major factor when we’re dealing with this sort of incident. Admittedly, it was touch and go, but a meltdown was avoided, and the area was quarantined. And we were prepared for the monsoon season, which starts regular as clockwork. We aren’t totally unprepared to deal with the sort of weather problems and damage limitation precautions we go through in the Southern Hemisphere around this time every year.”

  “Pardon me, Joey, but who’s this ‘we’?” Dave asked. “Are you involved? Have you been down to Oz or NZ to advise and get involved personally?”

  “I don’t even possess a passport, Dave. But I received multiple phone calls asking for advice or assistance with some of the technical matters arising whenever we’re dealing with severe weather.”

  “So what practical steps can be taken, right now?” Pete asked. “The tanker will break apart completely as soon as the storm hits, and I’d guess it’s already too late to do more than limit the damage. The vessel’s a Liberian-registered supertanker.”

  “That’s a damn sight bigger than anything we could tie up at the Pier Head. That’s gonna be a helluva lot of crude oil.”

  As they digested this and imagined the implications for the rapidly deteriorating scenario as it unfolded, the red phone on Joey’s desk shrilled. He mouthed Groth before picking up the receiver. “Brigadier, any update you have for us will be very wel—”

  Joey froze in mid-greeting. As he listened, his face showed concern mingled with a hint of incomprehension until, finally, he replaced the handset at the speed of a B-movie zombie and turned to the screen.

  “Pete, this is one for you. RAF flights from two different and widely separated locations report whales forming into groups large enough to be identified on radar screens, all of them, without exception, swimming hard in seemingly random directions.”

  Pete clearly hadn’t expected this curious detail, and his involuntary gasp of surprise was amplified by the speakers dotted around the room.

  Joey continued. “It’s as if they’re taking the quickest way out of Dodge before something happens—something I think we can take for granted will not be good news for the rest of us.”

  “Uh-huh.” Errol nodded. “Anything dangerous enough to faze them big daddies, I for one don’t wanna know what it is.” His pretence of casual indifference wasn’t fooling anyone in the cramped office that had become their operations centre.

  Joey had been scribbling furiously throughout this exchange, becoming increasingly agitated in the process. “We have another problem to deal with, but we might have got our noses in front. This latest report from Japanese airspace indicates the storm’s heading southeast, mostly over open water where there are no major landmasses. But if we look at the wider picture…what if it tacks off in another direction? Turkey, for example, is not too far from the path the storm’s expected to take.”

  “Surely it’s too late to do anything to prevent damage being done,” Dave said.

  “I agree. But if we relay this gen immediately, it’s still possible.” He reached for the phone as he spoke, pausing barely long enough to confirm that he was connected to Groth before launching into a condensed summary of the scenario developing in the Southern Hemisphere.

  “Thank you, Doctor Hart. I’ll ask the RAF to supply some photographic evidence. Perhaps they’ll be able to get some shots of the whale exodus as well.”

  As usual, the line went dead without any formalities. Joey was accustomed to it by now. It wasn’t bad manners, he reminded himself, just military efficiency, but he didn’t have to like it.

  Another phone shrilled with an incoming call. Dave fielded the call and listened for a few moments.

  “Joey, it’s Carlisle. We may have a problem much closer to home.”

  “Great. Just what we needed. Okay, let’s hear the latest bad news together, shall we?”

  Dave switched the call to loudspeaker.

  “Go on, make my day. We’re all on the speaker at this end, so no cussing.”

  “I’m not entirely sure if this is related, Joey.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time one of your gut feelings has pointed us in the right direction, so let’s hear it.”

  “We’re getting readings of seismic tremors on our screens—but they don’t seem to be originating north of here, as you told us to expect. They’re coming to us from the south, and fairly close at hand. And they aren’t from the event further south. Those aren’t expected for another six to eight hours, and it’s not certain we’ll be able to log them this far north. They might lose momentum altogether before they get here.”

  “Best guess?” Joey prompted. “I can hear you aren’t giving me the full story.”

  “The graphs are showing tremors which originate somewhere close by—fifty miles from here is my best guess, eighty tops.”

  “And…? Come on, I know there’s something else.”

  “Something I haven’t seen before, and I don’t like things I can’t explain. The tremors are too regular to be interpreted as being caused by any weather or natural event I can think of. So, logically, that means—”

  “It’s manmade? Is that what you’re saying? Which means we’re looking for some underground activity.”

  “Mining’s the only one that springs to mind, but I can’t think of any mining being carried out in North Lancs or the Lake District. Not in my lifetime, anyway. Not on any commercial scale.”

  “Can I butt in here?” Errol had been sifting through the latest updates on the BBC News Channel. “There’s another news item here about that environmental protest group at the fracking site near Southport. They’re concerned about potential damage as a result of explorations for gas in shale layers about eight thousand feet down. The process is actually called fracturing.”

  “That sounds pretty destructive,” Dave said.

  “It really isn’t. Basically, water’s pumped into the shale under pressure and held in place. When the pressure is released, any gas flows back to the surface where it can be analysed to see if there’s enough to make it worthwhile carrying on.”

  “So it’s possible that the washed-out shale could result in some subsidence, landslip?”

  Errol shrugged. “I’m no specialist, and the fine details of the geology involved is way over my head
, but the short answer is, theoretically, yes. It could happen, but it’s been SOP—standard operational procedure—since commercial oil and gas drilling first began, and I don’t know of any major problems affecting the environment anywhere fracking has been performed, which includes just about every drilling operation in history, I would think. But don’t quote me on that. Like I said, I’m no expert. I can only give you a rough idea of the basic procedures.”

  “And the regularity—the pulse of the seismic records?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s related to the pumping of gas and liquids out of the drill shaft after the pressure is released. Just a guess, but a prolonged and regular, rhythmic beat of this nature is not something you’d expect to find in nature.”

  Joey turned back to his man in Carlisle. “How long do you need to be sure what you’re recording is confirmation of what’s happening? Or that it’s coming from an identifiable location in the Southport area?”

  “I’m already sure of the point of origin. The graphs are easy to read if you know what to look for.”

  “Yeah, okay. We’ll have to take your word on that. Can you email me the results and—no, forget that.”

  “Already sent.”

  “Damn. You haven’t got security clearance. I’ll have to do that, and this conversation never took place.”

  “Security clearance?”

  “I’ve already said too much. The less you know, the better for you,” Joey snapped and regretted it immediately. “Geez, I’m sorry. I’m under a lot of pressure here. There are things happening that are out of my control. If I get the green light, I’ll fill you in as far as I can, but that decision’s not up to me, okay?”

  “Okay, Joey. I knew you worked for a government office of some sort. I hadn’t realised it was one of the hush-hush departments.”

  Joey’s inbox pinged, and he breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Thanks for taking it in the right spirit. I promise, as soon as I’ve made a few calls, I’ll get back to you and tell you as much as I’m allowed. For now, you have to trust me when I say we’re on the side of the angels. There’s nothing dodgy going on, I promise.”