Black Horizon

by James Grippando

  Rafael closed his eyes and gripped the ladder with all his strength.

  “Mother Mary,” he said softly, “I’m a dead man.”

  Chapter 3

  Technically, it would be lunch in bed,” said Jack.

  Andie had room service on the line. She rolled over, wiped the sleep from her eyes, and checked the clock on the nightstand. It was one o’clock in the afternoon.

  “Never mind,” she said into the phone, then hung up. Jack pulled her close beneath the sheets.

  “Let’s eat by the pool,” she said.

  “Let’s stay in bed,” said Jack.

  “Don’t you want to see me in my new Brazilian bikini?”

  Seeing as how they were naked, it was hard to know the right answer. “Uh . . . yes?”

  “Good one, Jack. You’ve got this husband thing down pat.”

  Andie popped out of bed first, and Jack followed.

  The honeymoon was at the Big Palm Island Resort in the lower Keys, about twenty-five miles up the chain of islands from Key West. Thatched-roof bungalows in a secluded tropical setting made it a favorite destination for newlyweds and couples who didn’t care how much it cost to reexperience Life B.C. (before children, that is). Jack and Andie followed the sandy footpath through the scrub of sea grapes and hibiscus to the pool area. The tiki bar was open, but it was as quiet as the warm ocean breeze, until a shirtless baby boomer arrived with his much younger woman. The boomer pulled up a couple of bar stools and flagged the bartender, his accent pure Texas.

  “Could you turn that up, pardner?”

  He was pointing at the television. The bartender obliged.

  It had been Jack’s intention to spend his honeymoon on a news blackout, but the soothing sounds of the ocean were suddenly mere background for CNN. He tugged at Andie to join him for a walk on the beach, leaving the real world behind, but the story caught her attention:

  “For many Americans, memories of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the biggest man-made environmental disaster in history, have not even begun to fade. Once again, millions of gallons of oil are spewing from a hole in the ocean floor, this time in some of the most pristine waters in the world. In a matter of just days, huge black slicks may be headed straight toward Florida’s coastline.”

  Jack stepped closer to the bar, staring in disbelief at the ominous satellite images of the spill area on television. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  Andie shooshed him. The newscast continued:

  “Critics point to lessons that should have been learned from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe that devastated the Gulf Coast. But last night’s deadly explosion of a massive oil rig in the Florida Straits presents an even bigger challenge. The oil company in charge of drilling, Petróleos de Venezuela, is owned by the Venezuelan government, which has done little to improve relations with the United States since the death of its very anti-American president, Hugo Chávez. The manufacturer of the $750 million, semi-submersible rig is Sinopec, the state-owned petroleum giant from China. The owner of the rig and the company in charge of cementing the well for periodic pressure tests is Gazprom Neft, the oil-producing arm of Russia’s largest natural gas exporter. And even though the rig exploded just sixty-five miles from Key West, Florida, it was in Cuban waters northwest of Havana, and the entire operation is controlled by a mineral lease from the Cuban government under a production-sharing agreement with Cuba’s state-owned oil company, Cubapetróleo, or ‘Cupet,’ as it is called.”

  “Well, ain’t that just fine and dandy,” said the Texan. He was on the opposite leg of the tiki hut’s four-sided bar, but his voice carried clear across the bartender’s work area to where Jack and Andie were seated.

  “Why don’t you shoosh him?” Jack whispered.

  “He’s not married to me,” said Andie. “He’s married to Miss Teenage U.S.A. over there.”

  Andie turned her attention back to CNN, but Jack noticed another couple approaching the tiki hut from the beach. The man’s skin radiated the atomic glow of too much sun on the first day of vacation, but it was the woman who seemed angry. She split the pair of empty barstools beside Jack and slapped a rolled-up beach towel on the bar top.

  “Excuse me,” she said in a tone so sharp that the bartender dropped his pineapple. “Does your manager know about this?”

  He gathered the fruit off the floor and went to her. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Know about what?”

  She unrolled the beach towel. Inside was a black blob that, from Jack’s angle, looked like a lump of wet coal.

  “This,” she said as she pushed the towel toward the bartender. “It’s a tar ball. I found it on your beach.”

  The Texan walked over and took a look. “That’s a tar ball, all right.”

  “See, I told you,” she said to her sunburned mate.

  “Marsha, I never said it wasn’t a tar ball.”

  Marsha ignored him, turning her glare back to the bartender. “I want to see your manager.”

  “Right away, ma’am.” The bartender went to the phone, no argument.

  Jack and Andie exchanged glances, each wondering if the other wanted to hang around for the imminent bloodbath. The Texan dove right in.

  “You know, ma’am, it’s not unusual to find tar balls on Florida beaches. They fall off barges, ships, what have you, all the time.”

  “This didn’t fall off a ship. Have you been watching the news?”

  “Sure have,” said the Texan. “But that Cuban spill just happened last night. Sixty-five miles from Key West means ninety-five miles from here. We wouldn’t be getting tar balls already.”

  “Oh, really?” she said. “And who are you, some kind of tar ball expert?”

  “Buddy Davis,” he said with a tip of his baseball cap. “Worked in the oil industry for thirty-seven years. If you call countin’ your money ‘work,’” he added with a wink.

  “No disrespect, Buddy,” said Marsha. “This is my honeymoon, and it took us ten months to save up the fifty-percent deposit on a suite here. I am not staying if there’s an oil slick on the way.”

  The point registered with Jack, even if Marsha’s attitude left something to be desired. Andie, too, had been listening. “I feel the same way, Jack.”

  “Y’all on your honeymoon, too?” asked the Texan.

  Andie was scheduled to start a new undercover assignment in two weeks, so Jack knew well enough to keep his mouth shut and let her respond in a way that was sure to shut down the personal questions from a total stranger.

  “No, I work for an escort service,” Andie said as she pressed herself against Jack, winking at the Texan, “if you call a week in paradise with a stud like this ‘work.’”

  Miss Teenage U.S.A. looked up from her iPhone. “Like, that’s so random! I work for a service, too! Who are you with?”

  “Babes R Us.”

  “Hmm. Don’t know them.”

  “We really need to get out of this place,” Marsha said to her husband.

  The bartender returned with the resort manager, a smiling and cheerful man whose accent Jack pegged as Jamaican. The oil spill was obviously a resort-wide concern, so he addressed all three couples at the tiki bar as a group.

  “I want to assure each and every one of our guests that—”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” said Marsha. “There’s an oil slick on its way, my husband and I are checking out of this resort before it gets here, and we want our deposit back. Period.”

  Jack cringed. It was entirely possible that he and Andie would be asking for their deposit back, too, but Marsha’s abrasive style made him reluctant to cast his lot with her.

  The manager maintained his smile. “Let’s all relax a moment, shall we? First of all, the oil slick is not on its way to Big Palm Island.”

  The Texan popped a gin-soaked olive into his mouth, chewing roundly. “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, as you might expect, our number-one objective is to make sure that both our guests and our beautiful resort are protecte
d. Our New York office has been in direct contact with scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and I am happy to tell you that they have assured us that geography is completely in our favor.”

  “Do you mean geology?” asked Jack.

  “No, geography,” said the manager. “The Gulf Stream flows right between northern Cuba and the Keys. Those currents are like a conveyor belt and will carry everything north, away from land and into the Atlantic. The only thing that could get the oil off that track is a minimum thirty-knot wind out of the southeast that blows continuously for days and days and days. And even with that kind of wind, it would still take the oil a week or more to reach land, which means that most of the oil would wither away before it got to the Keys. So even in the worst-case scenario, we wouldn’t have a lot of black oil coming ashore. What we will have are tar balls, which are much less of a threat.”

  Marsha poked at the blackened beach towel. “Tar balls like this one, you mean?”

  “Yes, but that one has nothing to do with the spill. We had the same situation after Deepwater Horizon in 2010. People all over the Florida Keys were freaking out, but a few tar balls on the beaches are an everyday occurrence on an island this close to a shipping lane. It doesn’t mean we are feeling the effects of an environmental disaster.”

  Marsha shook her head. “I’m not buying it.”

  The manager was still smiling. “I understand, ma’am. Please enjoy a complimentary cocktail from our award-winning mixologist, and let’s all stay in touch on this. I’ll certainly let you know if anything changes. Have a very pleasant afternoon on Big Palm Island.”

  He started away. Marsha grabbed her husband by the arm and followed. Jack could still hear her hammering away for a refund as they walked all the way to the other side of the swimming pool, and the badgering persisted as they continued down the walkway and disappeared behind a leafy stand of bamboo.

  The Texan looked at Jack and said, “That lady’s right, you know.”

  “Right about what, exactly?”

  “You didn’t actually believe that NOAA-scientist bullshit, did you?”

  “I was hoping the resort isn’t just making it up.”

  The Texan chuckled. “Listen, pardner. The only kernel of truth is that this tar ball’s got nothin’ to do with the spill. But don’t believe for one second that the slick ain’t headed this way.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He leaned closer, elbow on the bar top, narrowing his eyes. “I made a killin’ in this business, son. Got friends all over the world with a keen eye on Cuba’s North Basin. Those impact projections in that government report were based on the first exploratory wells drilled by a Spanish company called Repsol. Those were just fifty-five miles from Key West, but they turned up dry. So the Chinese, Russians, and Venezuelans moved farther west. Folks breathed a sigh of relief because the new drill site wasn’t so close to Key West and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. But moving farther west actually put the Keys and the Florida coast more at risk.”

  He had Andie’s attention, too. “How can that be?” she asked.

  “It’s a lot like the NOAA’s hurricane prediction cone. If you move the eye of the storm—in this case, the source of the spill—fifty miles, or even twenty-five miles, to the west, it means a huge change in the impact area.”

  Over the years, Jack had seen enough hurricane predictions and the “cone of danger” to understand. “That makes sense.”

  “’Course it makes sense,” said the Texan, “’cuz it’s true. My advice is to pack your bags and git. Unless you like the smell of petroleum blowing through your bungalow.”

  “Are you leaving?” asked Jack.

  “Yup.” He leaned even closer so that only Jack could hear, his eyes cutting toward his escort. “Which is just as well. Even with Viagra, a man needs a break every now and then. Get the picture, pardner?”

  “I so wish I didn’t,” said Jack.

  The Texan slapped Jack on the back, wished him luck, and led his escort away by the hand. Jack and Andie sat alone at the tiki bar with CNN. The bartender was rubbing the bar top furiously, trying to remove the black stain left by the “unrelated” tar ball. It wasn’t coming off.

  Andie breathed a heavy sigh and said, “This certainly puts a little rain on a bride’s wedding day in perspective.”

  “We’ll be all right,” said Jack. “That guy’s a blowhard.”

  “Thirty-seven years in the oil industry. Mr. Exxon Valdez seems to know what he’s talking about.”

  “Maybe,” said Jack. “I’ll give Marsha the pit bull a few more minutes to chew on the manager’s leg. Then I’ll pay him a visit and get to the bottom of that NOAA report.”

  “I really don’t know who to believe.”

  Jack glanced up at the television. “Spill Coverage” on CNN had moved to the next phase. The president of the International Drillers Association was in the hot seat.

  “I think we’re in for a lot of that,” said Jack.

  Chapter 4

  Jack woke to the sound of honking geese.

  He was half-awake, anyway. The room was still dark, and the windows were black as midnight in the Florida Keys, far from the glow of city lights. It was Monday morning, and he wasn’t sure if an actual flock of geese had wrested him from sleep or if he was simply a slave to his internal alarm clock and workday habit.

  He listened for it again, but the honking had stopped, and it must have been a dream. All Sunday night, the television news coverage had focused on the potential environmental impact of the Cuban spill, the screen flashing with images of past oil disasters and sludge-covered birds on despoiled beaches. Even with no sound, cable news was a poor choice for a lovemaking night-light. Jack settled his head into the pillow and slowly drifted back toward sleep.

  Honk, honk.

  He jackknifed in the bed, cursing those damn geese.

  Geese? In the middle Keys? No way.

  He reached for Andie, but her half of the mattress was empty. “Andie?”

  Honk.

  The noise was coming from the bathroom. Jack slid out of the bed and crossed the dark suite slowly, mindful of his toes and the hidden posts that seemed to jump out of nowhere in hotel rooms. He approached the crack of light beneath the closed bathroom door and tapped lightly. “Are you okay in there?”

  “No,” she said, breathless. “This has been going on since five a.m.”

  The first flock of geese.

  He tried the doorknob, but it was locked. “Andie, let me in.”

  “I’m okay. Go back to sleep.”

  The honking gave way to something more guttural, a retching noise worthy of Ferris Bueller and his famous day off. “You don’t sound okay.”

  “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Jack stepped back, not so sure. He thought of the grilled dolphin Andie had eaten for dinner last night. “Fresh as fresh can be,” the waiter had told them. Maybe fresh enough to contain petroleum from the spill.

  We need to get out of this place.

  Jack sat at the foot of the bed, found the remote that was buried deep in the twisted down comforter, and switched on the TV. The same story dominated every channel. Jack stopped surfing to catch the tail end of an interview in progress with a retired rear admiral from the Coast Guard.

  “. . . is releasing at least as many barrels per hour as the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010,” he said, “and there is no bilateral treaty between the United States and Cuba to coordinate a response. That’s a recipe for disaster on top of disaster. Cuba has no deepwater submarines, no capability to deal with a spill of this magnitude. U.S. containment equipment, technology, chemical dispersants, and expert personnel are literally on the sidelines. They cannot focus on the spill where the need is greatest—at the faucet. U.S. ships cannot even get close enough to drill relief wells.”

  More honking from the bathroom. Jack hit the MUTE button. “Andie?”

  “I’m okay,” she said in a
voice that faded.

  Jack left the television on MUTE, but the image on the screen spoke for itself. It seemed counterintuitive, but Jack was strangely reminded of the aerial photographs of the islands in Biscayne Bay that the pop artist Cristo had famously wrapped in pink fabric in the 1980s. These satellite views were the antithesis of art—ugly black blobs floating on beautiful blue seas in the Florida Straits. Comparisons were already being made to the worst spills in the history of exploratory drilling. It made Jack feel like a bridezilla to consider anything less than the big global view of the disaster, but he could apologize to the world later. Keeping one eye on an oil slick was no way to spend a honeymoon.

  “Andie, we’re checking out today.”

  She didn’t answer, but he’d said it loud enough to be heard. He grabbed their suitcases from the closet and started emptying dresser drawers. They’d packed light, and he moved quickly, so it didn’t take long. It felt like the high-speed rewind of that cute joke his grandmother had told at the reception in honor of the newlyweds, about the first thing that honeymooners do when they get to their hotel room: “Open their drawers and put their things together.”

  Jack zipped up the suitcases and put them on the bed. The bathroom door opened. Andie’s feet shuffled across the marble tile, but they didn’t take her far. She leaned against the door frame, exhausted. She was wearing the resort’s terry-cloth robe, but somewhere in the dash from the bed to the bathroom she’d lost one of the matching slippers. Her hair was up in a chip clip. The color was gone from her face.

  Jack caught himself before telling his new bride how she looked. “Do you feel like you’re getting better or worse?” he asked.

  “It comes in waves.”

  “I bet it was that dolphin you ate last night,” said Jack.

  “It’s not food poisoning,” she said.

  “I just heard on the news that fifty thousand barrels a day could be flowing from that spill. Commercial fishermen in the Keys go all the way out to the edge of Cuban waters if they have to. Yesterday morning’s catch could have easily been contaminated.”

  “Jack, it’s not the fish.”