He spotted a large building constructed on an specially hardened pad near one of the terminal’s tallest vent towers. Juan knew from the research his people had done there were three General Electric jet engines inside the structure that provided electricity to the whole instillation. High-tension power lines ran from it to every corner of the port.
Three miles off the coast sat a string of dozens of oil rigs running northward like a man-made archipelago, each connected back to the port by undersea pipelines. Though not as large as rigs Juan had seen in the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, each was at least two hundred feet tall, their superstructures held above the waves on massive support piers.
It all appeared normal except when he started looking more carefully. Some of the flames he saw weren’t from natural gas being intentionally burned off. Several trucks had been set ablaze, and more than one building was wreathed in sooty smoke. The tiny stick figures lying randomly around the yard were the corpses of workers and members of the security force who’d been gunned down by Makambo’s soldiers. What Juan first took to be shadows around them were actually pools of blood.
Tiny Gunderson then swept the drone over the shoreline and out along the causeway. The pipes that fed the floating dock looked as big around as railcars. Juan cursed when he saw the men swarming around the loading gantries. They had removed them from the tanker and now crude oil was being dumped into the sea in four thick streams. The spill already surrounded the pier and was spreading by the second. One of the men must have seen the drone because suddenly several of them looked up. Some pointed with their arms while others opened fire at the little plane.
The chance of hitting the UAV was remote, but Tiny juked the aircraft and headed for the nearest offshore platform. From a half mile away Juan could see it was ringed with oil. The crude weighed enough to crush the waves that tried to pass under it. All the ocean could do was to make the slick undulate like a lazy ripple of black silk. The prevailing current was already stretching the spill northward even as the slick grew in size from the oil gushing off the rig in a black rain. When the drone approached the second platform under the terrorists’ control, Cabrillo saw that this slick was even larger than the first.
Although it was impossible, Juan felt like he could smell the sharp chemical stench of the crude as it poured into the sea. It scalded the back of his throat and made his eyes water. Then he realized that what he was sensing was his own revulsion to the willful act of environmental destruction and the mindless waste of human life. Singer’s demonstration was the greatest act of ecoterrorism in history, and as much as he professed wanting to save the planet his actions would see the earth pay in a heavy coin.
And if the Corporation failed, the effects could spread half a world away.
He gathered up his gear and headed for the hold. When he arrived, he saw that the room was crowded with more than a hundred men, a few of them his own, the rest belonging to Moses Ndebele. The Africans had already been issued weapons and ammunition as well as clothing to make up for anything they lacked, sturdy boots mostly. They all sat on the floor and listened raptly as their leader addressed them from a dais made of pallets. His foot was swathed in surgical gauze and a pair of crutches rested against the bulkhead behind him. Juan didn’t enter the hold, but rather leaned on the doorjamb and listened. He couldn’t understand the language but it didn’t matter. He could feel the passion in Ndebele’s words and how they affected his followers. It was palpable. He spoke clearly, his eyes sweeping the room, giving each man a moment’s attention before moving on. When they settled on Juan, he felt a tug in his chest as if Ndebele had touched his heart. Juan nodded and Moses returned the gesture.
When he finished his speech the men gave him a thunderous applause that made the hold echo. A full two minutes passed before the cheering started to subside.
“Captain Cabrillo,” Moses called over the din. The men quieted instantly. “I told my people that to fight at your side is to fight at mine. That you and I are now brothers because of what you did for me. I told them you have the strength of a bull elephant, the cunning of a leopard, and the fierceness of a lion. I said that even though today we fight in a different land, this is the day we start to take back our country.”
“I couldn’t have said it any better,” Juan replied. He wondered if he should address the men but he could see in their eyes, in the way they held themselves, that nothing he could say would inspire them more than Moses’ words. He said simply, “I just want to thank you all for making my fight yours. You honor me and you honor your homeland.”
He caught Eddie Seng’s attention to get him to come over. “Do you have the duty roster figured out?”
“I have it here.” He tapped an electronic clipboard. “Mafana helped me sort through the men before their arrival so I have a pretty good idea of their skills. I also have seat assignments for all the vessels involved in the assault.”
“Any last refinements to the plan we came up with?”
“Nothing, Chairman.”
“Okay, then. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Juan would be leading the assault on one of the oil platforms that had already been taken over and Eddie would head up the other, so both men gathered up the handful of Zimbabweans coming with them and left the hold for the moon pool. Others would be using the ship’s lifeboat and her fleet of other watercraft to hit the loading pier and the facility itself in a coordinated attack with the Oregon, under Max’s command, acting as fire support.
On their way down Max called from the op center. “Just want you to know we’ll be in position to launch the submersibles in another ten minutes.”
Juan checked his watch. Eric had gotten them here quicker than promised. “Once we clear the doors it’ll take us another twenty to get to the rigs, so don’t approach the coast until we call.”
“I was paying attention at last night’s briefing,” Max said archly. “Just before you launch your counterattack we’ll make a dash for the terminal and send out the lifeboat. We’ll take out any of the terrorists hitting the other two rigs, then move into position off the dock. When we’re close enough and can cover for them, Ski and Linc will head out in the SEAL assault boat to cover the retaking of the loading pier.”
“Let’s just hope that Linda’s right and Makambo’s men aren’t willing to die to hold the terminal. Hopefully if we hit them hard enough and fast enough they will surrender quickly.”
“And if she’s wrong and these guys really believe in their mission?”
“Then this is going to be a long, bloody day.”
With the ship still under way, the hull doors under the moon pool remained closed, but the metal grating over the hole had been removed and the larger of the Oregon’s two submersibles, the sixty-five-foot Nomad 1000, was hanging above the opening on its lifting cradle. Capable of diving to more than a thousand feet, the Nomad sported a cluster of lights around its blunt nose and a manipulator arm as flexible and delicate as a human’s but capable of ripping steel. The smaller Discovery 1000 was suspended above the Nomad and would be launched as soon as its big sister was away.
Linda would accompany Juan while Jerry Pulaski was ready to mount up with Eddie. The shore attack would be commanded by Franklin Lincoln and Mike Trono, who were already getting their forces together in the lifeboat as well as in the amidships boat garage. Technicians had gone over the submersibles, so there was nothing for Juan to do but give the hull a slap for luck and mount the ladder a crewman held steady. The sub swayed slightly as he reached the top. He threw Eddie a quick salute and dropped through the hatch.
Juan climbed down into the sub and made his way to the cockpit, a claustrophobic pair of reclined seats surrounded by dozens of computer screens, control panels, and a trio of small portholes. Though she was bigger than the Discovery, the interior of the Nomad was actually smaller because of her hull thickness, the massive batteries she carried to give her a sixty-hour range, and the fact she was outfitted with a satu
ration dive chamber. Juan’s crew had stripped out enough gear to increase her passenger load from six to eight, the same number as the Disco could carry. It would be a small force to attack the rigs and only the cream of Ndebele’s fighters would accompany the two subs.
Linda crawled in after him, but didn’t take her seat. She showed the men how to strap themselves in while Juan went through the pre-dive checklist.
Cabrillo jacked a pair of lightweight headphones into the communications panel. “Nomad to Oregon. This is a comm test. How do you read?”
“Five by five, Nomad,” Hali answered immediately. “We’re nearly finished decelerating, Juan. Moon pool doors can be opened in about a minute.”
“Roger.”
He looked over his shoulder as Linda crawled into her seat, setting her silenced machine pistol next to Juan’s. “Everybody set back there?” A couple of the men didn’t look too keen on being confined, especially when the hatch was dogged tight, but they all managed to mirror his thumbs-up. “Mafana? You okay?”
Though injured slightly during Moses’ rescue, the former sergeant had insisted on accompanying Cabrillo. “I now have a better understanding of the Bible.” Juan’s face showed his confusion so Mafana added, “Jonah and the whale.”
“It’ll be a short ride and we won’t be more than fifty or so feet underwater.”
A series of strobe lights mounted throughout the three-deck-high room began to flash and a horn would be sounding, although Juan couldn’t hear it from inside the minisub. He looked down through the porthole as the large doors at the very keel of the ship began to open. Water sluiced across the metal as the sea was carefully allowed to enter the ship, quickly filling the moon pool to the Oregon’s waterline.
With a mechanical clank, the cradle supporting the submarine began to lower it into the sea. The water climbed over the portholes and the Nomad’s interior grew noticeably darker, lit now only by the computer screens and a low-voltage system in the crew’s area. Once the sub was floating free the cradle decoupled.
“You’re free,” a crewman called over Juan’s headset.
“Affirmative.” Juan hit the ballast controls to flood the tanks and in seconds the minisub submerged down through the moon pool and out into open ocean. “Nomad’s away. You can launch the Disco.”
He powered up the motors, listening to the mechanical whine as the props bit in, and set the computer to level them out at fifty feet, deep enough that an observer on the surface wouldn’t see the matte-black hull cruising by. The Oregon’s master computer had already calculated the course and downloaded it to the minisub, so there was nothing for Juan to do but enjoy the ride.
Five minutes later Eddie announced they had successfully launched the Discovery and they were en route to the second oil rig.
Capable of only ten knots, the ride toward the coast seemed to take forever, though Juan knew what was frustrating him was that every minute that elapsed meant more oil was being pumped into the sea. If he thought it would make a difference he would have gotten out and pushed.
“Oregon, this is the Disco,” Eddie called over the acoustical link. “We’ve arrived at the rig and are hovering just below the surface. The oil slick must be three miles across by now.”
“Disco, this is the Nomad,” Juan said. “Computer puts us under our platform in three minutes.” He knew by how dark the ocean had become that his minisub was traveling under an identical oil slick and had been for some time.
The Nomad’s GPS system guided the sub between two of the oil rig’s tall support legs and brought the craft to a halt mere feet from a third column, one they’d identified from the UAV overflight as having a ladder that went up to the top of the platform.
“Houston, the Nomad has landed.”
“Roger that, Nomad,” Hali replied. “Give us one minute so Tiny can double-check that you don’t have company down there and you’re free to surface and pop the hatches.”
Juan connected his headset back to his personal radio, levered himself out of the padded seat, and stepped carefully to the hatch, his MP-5 slung over his shoulder. Mafana and his men undid their lap belts.
“Juan,” Linda called down the length of the vessel. “Hali says we’re clear. There isn’t anyone down here, but Tiny estimates there are at least thirty terrorists milling around the platform.”
“Not for long,” he muttered, then ordered Linda to gently blow the ballast tanks.
Like a creature from a horror movie, the Nomad’s broad back slowly emerged through the reeking mat of crude pooled under the oil platform. It oozed off the hull as more of the sub broached the surface, but was sticky enough to cling to anything protruding off the craft. Clots of oil stuck to the hatch coaming and rudder.
“Masks,” Juan said and fitted a surgical mask over his nose and mouth. Julia had researched the toxic crude and its effects on the human body, and as long as they kept their exposure down to a couple of hours and remained in well-ventilated areas there was no need to wear more cumbersome gas masks.
He hit the button to open the hatch and recoiled at the harsh chemical smell that assaulted his senses. Being this close to the slick made his eyes water.
He climbed out of the minisub and clipped a line to the eyehole welded to the hull. There was a barnacle-encrusted platform ringing the nearby support leg and he leapt over to it, tying off the line to the integrated ladder. Set equidistant between the four towering legs, the riser pipe dropped down off the platform and into the ocean. Inside it would be the drill string for when the rig was exploring for oil and pipes to allow oil to flow back up to be pumped to shore. Unlike some other fields, the crude was under enough pressure that it didn’t need to be coaxed out of the earth. It gushed freely. And now that the terrorists had either destroyed pipeworks on the platform or opened some valves, it came tumbling back down in a waterfall of shimmering obsidian that twisted and scintillated in the clear morning sunlight. The sound of it striking the slick was like thunder.
Juan tore his eyes away from the mesmerizing sight and glanced out to sea as the men started emerging from the Nomad. The Oregon was driving toward the coastline. Though she was an ugly industrial ship, more function than form, with a deck resembling a denuded forest of cranes and her hull a patchwork of mismatched paint, she had never looked better to him. Max was headed for the third platform, where Petromax employees were still holding off the terrorists but were reporting that they were getting ready to abandon the rig in her lifeboats. The men defending the fourth platform were calling over the airwaves that they would never give up.
After sealing the minisub’s hatch, Linda was the last to jump from the Nomad to the platform. “Let’s go,” she shouted over the tumbling oil. “The air down here is going to play havoc with my skin. I can already feel oil clogging my pores.” She then added with a saucy grin, “You can best believe the Corporation is going to pay for whatever spa I go to.”
27
WHEN the Oregon emerged over the horizon none of the rebels in the swift outboard boats dancing around the legs of the third platform paid it any attention. Their sole focus was clambering up the ladder to take over the rig. So far their efforts had been thwarted by the workers above training water cannons down the column and blowing the terrorists back into the sea. But it wasn’t so one-sided. The men in the boats poured a constant stream of fire up the forty-foot leg; occasionally they hit their marks and a Petromax employee would go down. Sometimes they merely fell to the deck but occasionally one would tumble off the platform and slam into the water. The attackers would cheer. It was a war of attrition between squirt guns and automatic rifles with an outcome that was inevitable.
Seated at the weapons station in the op center, Mark Murphy simultaneously watched a half dozen camera feeds as well as the status boards for the Oregon’s integrated arsenal. Eric Stone sat in the next station over, one hand on the joystick that controlled the rudder and directional pump jets, the other resting lightly on the throttles.
“Mr. Stone, lay us in five hundred yards off the platform,” Max said from the master’s chair. “And clear the bow to bring the Gatling to bear. Wepps, open the hull plates covering the Gatling’s redoubt and prepare to fire on my order.”
Tiny Gunderson flew the UAV in a loose circle around the rig so Mark could pick his targets. Murph designated the four boats swarming under the rig as Tangos One through Four and once they were entered into the computer the ship’s electronic brain kept them under constant surveillance. High in the bow, the six-barreled GE M61A1 spun up, its rotating barrels dipping and turning as the computer compensated for the Oregon’s motion through the water, the waves that gently shook her hull, and the speed of the distant outboard.
“Nomad to Oregon, we’ve reached the platform.” Juan’s voice filled the room from hidden speakers.
“About time, Nomad,” Max teased. “Discovery’s been waiting for two minutes.”
“We stopped for coffee and Danish on the way up. Are you in position?”
“Just waiting for your word and we’ll launch the lifeboat. Then it’s go time.”
“We’re ready.”
Max changed channels on his communication console. “Op center to lifeboat. Mike, you there?”
“We’re ready,” Trono replied. His voice had the emotionless timbre of total concentration.
“Lifeboat away and good luck.”
Out on deck and hidden from the oil platform by the ship’s hull, the lifeboat carrying sixty freedom fighters practically sitting on one another’s laps was lifted off its cradle and swung over the rail. The davits slowly lowered the boat to the sea and as soon as it had settled Mike had the lines released and the engine spooled up.
When Trono had left the Air Force after six years as a para-rescue jumper, with five successful downed pilot rescues to his credit, he’d done a stint as a professional power boat racer. The thrill of flying across the water at more than a hundred miles an hour had tempered some of his adrenaline addiction, but he had jumped at the chance to join the Corporation, bringing with him the experience of being one of the elite boat drivers in the world.
Skeleton Coast Page 34
