by Dale Mayer
“Where to?” Troy asked.
“I want to see this crew,” Axel said.
“Yeah? Do you know something about them that I don’t know?”
“Maybe,” he said.
“And what’s that?” Troy asked, intrigued.
“One of the communications specialists here is a friend of Tesla’s.”
At that, Troy sucked in his breath, as multiple things fell into place. “Which is why Mason is here,” he said, with a nod.
“It’s why a lot of us are here,” Axel said.
“Sure, a crew is needed. But who’s the friend?”
“Berkley Milford,” he said.
Troy stopped and turned to stare. “Berkley’s here? Why the hell is Berkley here?”
“Not because she’s part of the crew. She works for the company doing an overhaul and an update of the IT system on the rig. A global company and she’s a contractor for them. Similar to what Tesla was doing for the national defense system. Berkley sent out an SOS and gave us a heads-up that everything wasn’t what it seems. And that’s when the last of the tumblers fell into place.”
“So, we already know this is a FUBAR mission then,” he stated.
Axel nodded. “We sure do. Bottom line is, get her off here, along with anybody else who’s innocent. The rest of them? We really don’t care. Seal food maybe.”
*
Berkley Milford lifted her gaze from the monitors. She studied the data as it scrolled on her second and third monitors.
One of the men, Phil, stood beside her and swore. “How the hell you can even look at any of that shit is beyond me.” He sneered.
“Doesn’t matter if it’s beyond you or not,” she said firmly. “This is my deal, so get the hell away.”
He reached down as if to tap her keyboard.
She snapped out her hand and grabbed him by the wrist, applying pressure on the inside joint. She stood up slowly. “I don’t know what your problem is,” she snarled, glaring at him eye to eye, “but don’t you ever touch my fucking equipment.” He glared at her, and she could see the I’ll kill you threat in his eyes.
But then, glancing around at the others, with half a laugh, Phil shook off her hand. “Just kidding,” he said. “Don’t be so touchy.” He rolled his eyes, playing it off as if dealing with an overly hormonal woman.
She was all about hormones. Particularly the ones that raged the minute she realized she was in a shitty situation, and that millions, if not billions, of dollars of damage had been done, putting a couple hundred lives at risk too. Not to mention the profits of the company she was contracted for.
The facts worried her. Eight men were left behind with her, and she was here only because she’d fought to stay to work on the electronics and to keep communications open, and she was the one monitoring the oil pressure via the main computers. Bruce, one of the other guys, was a programmer as well, and Jonesy had several degrees in handling these kinds of engineering databases, whereas her expertise was in a completely different kind of database.
But she’d learned fast not to trust these guys. Jonesy had been friendly and open and, in many instances, had stood up for her. But she didn’t know how long that would last, since she was an outsider, not one of the regular crew.
He leaned toward her side of the consoles. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, brushing the hair off her forehead. “Phil’s an asshole.”
“That he is,” Jonesy said, as he patted her hand. “We’ll keep him in check.”
She doubted that. But she wouldn’t start any other issues right now. She’d sent out an SOS, and she trusted the men she’d contacted. Not that she’d made the contact, but she had a friendship with Tesla going back to their time together at MIT. If anybody would come and sort out this mess, it would be Mason’s group. She didn’t know who it would be or when they’d get here, but she sure as hell hoped it would be soon.
Two of the other men, Chucky and Winslow, walked in, dropping their bags.
“We’re screwed,” Chucky said. “One of the sets of drills and all the computer equipment on it are damaged.”
“What about the other three?” she asked.
“Ooh, you think you’re something funny,” Phil said, from behind her.
She shot Phil a hard look and turned to Chucky and Winslow. “The other three?”
“One is operational,” Chucky said, “but we’ve shut it down. One appears to need some new collars and potentially new drills. We’re not sure about the tanks though.”
“And the third one?”
He shook his head. “That’ll need several engineers to go over it first,” he said. “I’m not starting up that sucker. It looks buckled.”
“So the structural integrity is compromised on all of them?”
“On two for sure,” Winslow added. He walked over and sat down. “Jonesy needs to start running some diagnostics on the pumps and drills themselves.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing,” Jonesy said, “but I can’t run any tests on the structural integrity.”
“Why not?” Berkley asked, looking at him with a frown. “Don’t you have the ability to measure the steel chambers?”
“We measured the pressure inside and out,” he said, “but it’s hard to say what a blast like that might have done to the tanks themselves.”
She stared off in the distance as she thought about it, then shrugged. “That really is out of my league.”
Immediately Phil jumped all over her words. “Wow, look at that. Little Miss Brainiac here admitted she doesn’t know something.”
She ignored him, but it was getting downright hard to. She took a deep breath, trying to keep her cool, so she could keep an eye on the others. The atmosphere was generally negative and depressing.
“The helicopter also landed,” Winslow said.
She studied them closely. “What helicopter?”
“Board members,” he said. “Company men.” His tone turned, and he seemed to spit out the words.
She’d never spent much time on any rig, mostly popping in and out of several of them, troubleshooting various programs. But one thing they all had in common. The men working on the rigs couldn’t stand the men in the offices. She nodded slowly. “I guess that makes sense. Somebody has to come look at the damage.”
“Only if they brought some engineers with them,” Winslow said in disgust.
She kept her gaze on the monitor in front of her.
“How many men came then?” Jonesy asked beside her.
“According to Herman, three company men are on board.”
“That’s a lot,” she said.
Jonesy snorted. “One is too many. Three is a damn crowd.”
She shifted from one screen to the next, working to decipher what was going on; she ran split-screen testing, searching for malicious software in the system. On another one, she ran diagnostics on the software. Two different things but both related. On her center screen, she worked away on the electronics that ran the actual rig here. Just enough damage had been done on some of the computerized sections that she was rewriting code and creating patches to connect to the older systems. She sat back and said, “One day they’ll have to buy a new system.”
“If it makes our lives easier,” Chucky said with a half groan, “you know they won’t.”
She nodded. “That’s always the way, isn’t it? Save a few pennies, then blow a massive amount later to fix what they could have fixed now.”
“I’m sure there is a saying like that,” someone said.
“But it sure as hell ain’t that one,” Phil added.
She shrugged.
Jonesy clicked on some of the security footage around the place and whistled. “Why do we still have two guys outside on the rig?”
She glanced over his shoulder, and her heart stopped because no way could she not see Axel. That man was massive. She’d met him and Troy a couple times at Mason’s well-attended backyard parties. With her heart slammin
g against her chest, she said, “Maybe they came in with the helicopter.”
“It’d be typical of the company to do that,” Jonesy said, swearing. “Somebody better go roust them. They’ll be lost, looking all over this place.”
She wanted to go herself, but she knew that she had to stay where she was, and, even if she went, one of the guys would likely come with her anyway.
Just then the door to command central opened and in popped their foreman, Daniel.
She gave him a half smile. He looked a little rattled and, behind him, in came three men in suits. Daniel closed the door behind the men and disappeared from sight. Her gaze shifted to the suits that had walked in and froze when she caught sight of Nelson and Mason.
Chapter 2
Berkley’s breath caught in the back of her throat. She’d been in the act of standing, but she slowly sank back down again.
“Heads up,” the foreman said. “The company men are here, and we need reports as soon as possible. Two crewmen came on board with them, and everybody is looking to leave within a couple hours.”
“Good thing,” Chucky said. “We probably don’t have grub for longer than that.”
“Unless you came in with a new supply,” the foreman said, turning to the suits.
The only true company man she recognized—because she knew the other two were faking it—shook his head. “No,” he said, “I didn’t bring food supplies. Pretty hard to carry on a helicopter.”
Something about his tone she couldn’t register. Meanwhile Mason was looking around. He noted her, but his gaze bounced off her and went over her head. She was grateful for that. Nobody knew that she’d put out the word. It figured that Mason would come in person. Tesla wouldn’t have accepted very much else. Berkley would remember to thank her friend for that. What Berkley really wanted was to get off this rig, safe and sound, and to ensure none of the other men were in danger.
“We’ll break you up into threes,” the foreman said. “Actually no.” He stopped and frowned. “Maybe we’ll do this one at a time.” He walked to his office. “Chucky, you’re up first.”
Chucky bounced to his feet. “Up for what?”
“We want to hear from you just what happened,” he said, “but we’ll do it over here in the office.”
“Why? You’re separating us to get our stories straight?” Winslow asked, his tone disbelieving, yet a note of anxiety was in it.
Berkley kept her head down while she kept on working. She listened as the men grumbled among themselves.
Chucky had no option but to head into the one office on this rig, connected to the bullpen, where the rest of them worked—right where they could see him, sitting slouched before the suits, who sat off to the side and out of sight.
Jonesy leaned over and said, “That’s not cool.”
She leaned back and asked, “Why not?”
He studied her face. “Really?”
She flashed him a quick frown. “Where I come from, all meetings are done one-on-one. What’s different here?”
He settled back and said, “Yeah, I guess you’re more of an office worker anyway, aren’t you?”
It was a slight, but it was more than that. It separated her from them. She shrugged. “I’ve been here long enough to understand these nuances that I’ll never get because I’m deemed as different,” she said, “but I don’t understand what’s wrong about this.”
“They’re looking for somebody to blame,” Jonesy said, his voice short and tight.
At that, Phil walked over. “Well, they’re not fucking blaming me,” he sneered. “I’m lucky to be alive as it is.”
She’d heard his story. Apparently he’d been on his way back from checking one of the drills when the explosion happened. He’d been flung a good ten feet in the air to land on one of the poles. His ribs were badly bruised, and he had a slight concussion. She herself had been inside when it had all gone to hell. She didn’t have a clue what had gone on. It depended on what was the root cause of it all.
Winslow caught her attention. He was pacing back and forth. She glanced at Jonesy and nodded toward Winslow. Jonesy studied him. His gaze narrowed, and he nodded. “Well, he’s upset about something.”
She bent her head again to her monitors and kept working away. When the office door opened, and Chucky came out, a thunderous expression on his face, the suits motioned at Winslow to join them. As the two men crossed paths, they said something to each other, but she didn’t hear what it was because she was too far away. Something was going on. And they had everyone’s attention. Even Bruce, who tended to stay by himself, watched the proceedings.
Chucky glared at the wall as he threw himself into the closest chair and said, “Well, that went well.”
Phil walked over and asked, “What’s going on?”
Chucky turned and looked back at the men gathered in the office. Just as he went to open his mouth and say something, the foreman glared at him. Chucky shrugged, settled back. “You’ll find out.” He slapped the top of the desk and said, “I’ll roust up Denny and see if there’s any grub.” And, with that, he took off.
Denny was the only cook left on the place. He was the eighth man of the regular group—the six-man crew; the foreman, Daniel; and Denny, the cook. Eight men and Berkley—not the best odds.
Most of them were decent; just Phil worried her. He was the kind of guy who couldn’t stand to feel threatened by a woman. And his only way of feeling powerful was to subdue. She’d bet that he was the wife-beater type. But the last thing he would do was get a chance to beat on her. Still, knowing that Mason, Nelson, Troy, and Axel were here made her feel a hell of a lot better.
They needed to know that they were on camera.
That little inkling might not have been something they had heard about. She grabbed her purse and headed to the women’s washroom. She knew as soon as she left that the bullpen conversation would turn to something that she wasn’t privy to hearing. And that was okay because she wouldn’t let them know what was going on in her world either. And she had to warn Mason and his men.
*
Troy, with Axel at his side, headed out, getting the lay of the land in his head. When he looked up, he saw the foreman glaring at him. He raised an eyebrow. “Hey.”
“What the fuck are you doing here? I sent you to your rooms.”
“Company orders,” he said. That pretty well covered everything. There were always those with and those without, and those with had permission. If you could pull the company’s name on your side, you were good.
“Where’s the kitchen?” Troy asked. “We haven’t eaten, and, if we’re shipping right back out again, now’s as good a time as any.” It was almost like a note of relief crossed Daniel’s face. Troy canted his gaze slightly as he walked toward him. Something shifty was going on, and he didn’t know who this guy was, other than his name tag read Daniel. “Kitchen?”
“The mess is around the corner,” he said. “I’m heading there myself. Denny is the only guy we got left who cooks.”
“Good,” he said. “We’ve been traveling for hours.”
Daniel nodded. “I guess if you guys are heading back out again soon, it makes sense.”
“How come you guys are here?”
“Skeleton crew,” Daniel said calmly.
Troy looked at Axel, but his partner was studying the hallways, the layouts, the size of the rooms. You could almost see his analytical mind working in the background.
“Come this way,” Daniel said, his tone a little more on the friendlier side.
But not close enough to call it friendly.
Keeping an eye on him, they walked into the dining area, where a cook worked away behind a big stove in the kitchen.
Daniel said, “This is Denny, our cook.”
The cook looked up and frowned when he saw the two new men. “Is a crew coming back in? Why wasn’t I told?”
Troy immediately put up his hands. “Just the two of us,” he said. “It sounds to me like the co
mpany got their wires crossed somehow.”
Denny snorted. “What else is new? I’ve been asking for supplies.”
“Were they due to come in today?” Troy asked curiously.
“They were due in two days ago,” he said, “but, with the rough seas, they said we wouldn’t get them for another forty-eight hours. And then this mess happened. But, if you guys got in, my supplies should have made it in too,” he said, glaring at Troy and Axel, as if they were personally responsible.
Axel nodded. “Pretty hard to keep track of what you’re supposed to supply if you don’t know how many men are coming and going, isn’t it?”
Denny nodded as he sized up Axel. No way to treat Axel as anything other than what he was, which was one huge hulking man who looked like he could beat the crap out of everyone around him, all at the same time. Denny appeared to back down slightly. “Fresh coffee and some cinnamon buns are on the table behind you, if you’re interested.”
“We’re definitely interested,” Troy said with relief, only a little bit of it fake. “We haven’t eaten all day.”
“Of course not,” Denny said, with a shake of his head. “And yet you were expected to do a full day’s work. Figures that they don’t even give you a chance to grab a meal.”
“Well, a cinnamon bun is a great way to start,” Troy said, as he reached for a big one and slathered it with fresh butter. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat back, thinking that maybe life wasn’t too bad right now. Now, if only he could figure out exactly what was going on here. “If a meal is coming our way, then we’ll accept that gratefully too.”
“You aren’t likely to be here that long,” Daniel said briskly. “You’re going back with the company men.”
“What company men?” Denny asked, in a thunderous voice.
Daniel looked at him. “Three of them came with these two.”
Denny stared at him in horror. “Three company men and you didn’t tell me?”
