by Mims, Lee
“Is he cute? You want me to go around the block?”
“What? No! That’s not why I’m interested in him. It’s just that he’s … out of place. I think I’ve seen him somewhere in my travels of late.”
“Your conference in New Orleans?”
“Yes! No. Maybe,” I said.
“Which one?”
“I’m thinking … I met him on my trip, but not at the conference. He’s not a geologist.” Suddenly, I remembered and before I thought, blurted out, “Oh, now I remember, he used to be Viktor’s boss!”
“Who’s Veek-tor?” Henri asked, emphasizing my Russian pro-
nunciation.
Oops. “Just someone I used to know,” I said, giving a dismissive wave of my hand.
“Used to know? You apparently still do. Is there some reason you’re keeping him a secret? Is this Veek-tor tall, dark, and handsome?” she teased. It seems a child’s antennae are as good as a parent’s.
“Don’t be sassy,” I said. Then, using my time-tested, surefire diversion when it comes to my children, I added, “Let’s go someplace special for dinner. My treat.”
ELEVEN
As I arrived at the port parking lot just before 3:00 a.m. Monday morning, wondering whether it was time to give up my stubborn determination to stay off helicopters, I was surprised to see three protesters leaning against the chain-link fence in front of the office. Frankly, I considered their presence at such an hour insane. The only reason I was here was because I’d gotten a call from the site manager, Duncan Powell, just as Henri and I finished eating dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Windandsea. He’d phoned to let me know drilling had resumed. I flashed my pass to the guard and drove through the gate.
I’d been dreading going aboard the Magellan for fear the detectives hadn’t kept their word and instead told the crew I’d been attacked onboard by the same fellow who’d mysteriously fallen overboard.
I felt transported back to high school, when a friend would call you one night and tell you someone was spreading a lie about you and the next day, whenever you approached a group in the hallway, you knew right off who’d heard the rumor just by the look on their face. I was afraid going aboard the Magellan on the heels of the CSI show, starring Pierce and Myers, would be like that, only way worse.
First, of course, they’d have had to present themselves to Captain Powell. All the employees aboard the Magellan, regardless of which of the myriad contractors actually signed their paycheck, had to answer to him. Powell wasn’t in his office off the helm station, but his assistant was. He told me the captain was on the drilling deck, four stories below.
The roar of the drill was deafening, but the din was muted inside the DC, the driller’s cabin, where I knew I’d find Powell. He stood behind the chair of the head driller, David Grant. Both men were staring at the wall of monitors, gauges, and dials. Grant lightly moved the lever controlling the drill bit as it spun clockwise, grinding away at ancient layers of rock thousands of feet below us.
Neither man acknowledged me until I asked, “Are we about to have a gumbo attack?” This was the term used in the Gulf when a drill got stuck in a sticky layer of shale.
Grant looked up at me, gave a friendly nod, then returned his gaze to the monitors. He pulled the control lever back slightly, saying with a slight British accent, “Maybe I can keep from getting hung up, but you’re right, miss, this shale’s sticky as a good bowl of gumbo.”
Powell looked me square in the eye and warmly shook my hand. “Glad to have you aboard today, Ms. Cooper.” If he thought he was staring into the eyes of a possible murderess, his face didn’t show it.
“Glad to be here,” I said as we all directed our attention back to the pressure gages. Five minutes—and $2,000 in costs later—the numbers began to decline, indicating lessening torque on the bit.
“Whacha think?” Powell asked Grant. “Time to return to the bottom?”
Grant moved the lever back and forth a few times, watching the monitor of the pipe on the seafloor. Finally he said, “I believe we’re good to go … for a few more feet anyway.” I checked the indicator: 7,583 feet.
“I’m not worried, Grant,” Powell now said, “you’ve got magic feelers in your fingers.”
His head driller gave a little grunt at the praise. “I tell you, these rapid shifts from one bed to another, from shale to sandstone and back to shale, can cause some wild pressure differences. About the time things start going smooth, like we’re zipping through a nice squishy sandstone, then we hit a real hard shale layer and zip, the drill skids off course. It’s not like drilling in the Gulf, where we have lots of experience and know what to expect.”
Grant stopped the drill again. I looked through the three-sided glass window to the ship’s drill floor below. I could see Braxton Roberts, the company man, standing unobtrusively to one side, watching the roughnecks maneuvering the massive equipment. The top section of drill pipe paused a few feet above the drill floor, and an enormous machine called an iron roughneck—basically, a giant wrench—disconnected the pipe from the overhead drive.
Then another machine, the pipe racker, grabbed a new section of pipe and slung it into place so the human roughnecks could position it before mechanically tightening it down. It was just at that moment that Roberts stepped forward and yelled something to the roughnecks. This caused Powell to shoot out of the cabin like a racehorse out of the gate. He made it the drill floor literally in seconds.
“Oh, crap,” said Grant, only with his British accent, it sounded more like, “Oh, crop.”
I knew better than to say anything. I just watched as neck veins bulged and spittle flew. The roughnecks backed away. Grant held everything in place with his levers until, a minute later, Roberts backed up under the shade of an overhanging catwalk. Powell returned to the DC muttering something that sounded like, “micromanaging nincompoop,” and resumed his place behind the head driller’s chair. Grant once again began operating the levers to repeat the process that would happen hundreds of times before this well was completed.
I was getting ready to leave when Powell, as though the last few minutes hadn’t happened, turned to me and said in a cheery voice, “This reminds me, I’ve been meaning to thank you for holding Phil’s hand during the junk basket episode. It was very helpful to have you between us.”
“No problem,” I said.
“I’d be jumpy, too, if I worked for a company that had fired as many people as Global has lately,” Grant chimed in.
“Global’s got a long history of taking the big risks and doing what it takes to follow through. They’re convinced Manteo One’s gonna make the Independence Hub in the Gulf look like a bean burrito fart, and we’re here to make sure that if it is, we put them right in it.” Powell sounded confident, which, given my personal financial interest, was welcome. Definitely.
“For my part, I’m starting to wonder about this well being jinxed, what with that ROV operator falling overboard, those police detectives nosing around here Thursday freaking everyone out, then the junk basket getting stuck … it’s enough to make a guy nervous.”
Naturally, I didn’t like Grant’s take as much. I waited anxiously for the captain’s response.
“Nonsense,” Powell asserted. “There’s no such thing as being jinxed and you, the leader of your drill team, need to make sure a bunch of horseshit like that doesn’t get spread around on this ship. I won’t tolerate it. Some say that’s the way the crew of the Deepwater Horizon felt about the Macondo Prospect. You see what happened there. I’m telling you, it can cause a lack of concentration.”
“Yes sir,” Grant said. All along he’d been keeping his attention primarily on the drill monitors.
“Did you accompany the police while they conducted the investigation?” I asked Powell.
“I offered, but they told me they wanted everyone to stay clear of the ar
ea until they were finished. Since we didn’t need the ROV at the time, that was fine with me. They weren’t here very long. Coast Guard brought them and waited until they were done, then flew them back.”
I nodded.
Powell said, “We’re just getting ready to do an examination of the seafloor equipment with the ROV. Want to watch?”
“Sure,” I said. What I didn’t say was that exchanging the tension here for that of being around Viktor wasn’t much of an improvement.
Powell and I stepped into the ROV van, where three strange faces looked up at me. Then I remembered that Viktor had said he’d be rotating out on Monday. Relieved, I shook hands with Team Two, the trio of ROV drivers, as Powell introduced them. They’d already lowered the robot over the side. It had reached the seafloor without incident and been deployed from its cage. The lights and camera on the cage were focused on the ROV, which now looked small in comparison to the four-story blowout preventer it was inspecting with its own cameras and lights.
“Great visibility,” Powell said as we all watched in fascination. The robot motored slowly upward, casting a bright light in the eerie blackness of the alien environment over 2,000 feet below us. Falling plankton swept by in the rush of the current. It looked the way heavy snowfall does in car headlights on a black night.
When the ROV reached the top of the giant pressure valve, Powell turned to the pilot, a guy named Ray who looked to be older than the other two techs, and said, “I want to double-check every one of those connections, especially those on the riser, and I want photos.” The pilot and his two assistants began doing his bidding.
As I watched, a mackerel swam into the eerie blue light cast by the ROV.
“Good grief,” said the tech whose name tag on his orange jumpsuit read Ricky. “That dumb fish is back again.”
“How do you know it’s the same fish?” Powell asked.
“Because his tail’s scratched up where Ray had to use the pinchers to pull him out of the BOP yesterday.”
Just then a ghostly image passed at the edges of the light. “What was that?” I asked.
“Probably a big ray,” Ricky said.
“Okay, I’m out of here. I’ll be in my office on the bridge if you need me, Cleo,” Powell said.
“We’ll send those photos right up, sir,” Ray said as the captain exited.
I stayed for a while longer, watching the monitor over the pilot’s shoulder as he maneuvered the ROV around the connection to the marine riser, hoping to see the giant ray again. Most folks don’t think there is much sea life on the deep sea floor, but they’d be surprised. Ricky, in the chair next to the pilot, was going over some log sheets. “Hey, Ray,” he said. “These don’t quite jibe.”
“How so?” Ray asked, a joystick in one hand, a sensor glove on the other, and his eyes glued to the monitor in front of him.
“Well, those boys on the other team logged one hell of a lot of time during their two rotations, but I can’t see why. I mean, I realize they were here from the start, spudding the well, installing the BOP, and all that, but still …” Ricky scratched his head. “I don’t know, man, just seems like a lot of hours even for all they did. Did you hear of any problems they might’ve encountered that would explain all this time?”
“No,” Ray said distractedly. “No one said anything to me. Let them worry about that; you just make sure our team’s log sheets for the Magellan match up with Scooter’s internal log.”
“Scooter?” I said.
“Okay,” Ricky said to Ray, though he didn’t sound happy. Then to me he explained, “Scooter’s our name for the robot.”
“Dammit to hell! Oh, sorry, ma’am,” Ray looked at me contritely. “This current is a bitch.”
“Well, don’t get so close to stuff,” said the third team member, Barry, who had been quiet so far.
“Well, duh!” snapped the pilot. “Damned if I don’t think you’re dumb as that stupid Eskimo who fell overboard.”
“Nobody’s that dumb,” Barry quipped.
“So you guys knew him?” I asked.
“I don’t think anyone really knew him,” Ray said. “He worked for Voyager for a couple of years, but he was kind of a loner.”
“He stunk, man,” Barry said. Then looked guilty and added, “I’m just sayin’.”
“You would too if you didn’t bathe,” Ray said. “’That’s what his roommate reports about him anyway. Plus, he had a mean streak in him a mile wide.”
“The man’s dead, guys. We shouldn’t talk junk about him no matter how much we thought he sucked at everything he did,” Ricky reminded them.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Ray said. “But we all know he’d never have gotten his job if it wasn’t for Davy.”
“Well, no matter who got it for him, he’s made a for-sure mess of these,” Ricky said, shuffling through the log sheets.
Silence descended as the team resumed paying attention to their respective jobs. Mentally I was adding their unflattering appraisals of Nuvuk Hunter to a seemingly never-ending list. Jeez, did anyone like the guy?
“Well,” I said. “This isn’t getting my work done. Thanks for letting me watch, guys. I’m off to the logging lab.”
“Anytime,” said Ricky.
The afternoon wore away as I sat at the small desk space built into the back corner of the mudlogger’s van. I was studying a sample of the first sidewall core and going over their last log while one of the loggers from Texas had his hands full retrieving samples from the shale shaker two decks below, keeping a constant vigil on the viscosity of the synthetic mud being pumped down the well, and—most importantly—watching out for an increase in the gas pressure in the well and aboard ship.
“Penetration rate has increased so much I can barely analyze the number of samples per foot the contract calls for,” the logger commented. “This sandstone we’re in is soft, drill’s cutting through it like a hot knife through butter.”
“I’ll call in another logger,” I said just as Elton came in and offered to help. As I continued to study the samples, I listened to their conversation. The death of Voyager’s previous pilot remained a topic of interest; again, I was relieved they displayed no discomfort at discussing it in front of me.
During a coffee run to the galley, I heard more idle conversation about the accident and noticed two things. One, which I’d already registered subliminally, was that there were a lot of Cajuns aboard—not surprising, since TransWorld was headquartered in Louisiana. Two, most everyone was impressed at how fast Voyager had replaced the pilot. Frankly, I was too. In fact, the speed with which Viktor had come aboard was … unsettling. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it gave me something to think about.
Around one thirty, I caught the crew boat back to Morehead. On the way, I had an idea that might help shed light on questions I had regarding the dead man, how he’d gotten his job, and how he’d been replaced by Viktor so fast. What I needed to do, I realized, was find out more about Davy Duchamp, the man in charge of hiring both the dead man and Viktor. In order to do that, though, I’d have to risk seeming too nosy, which would be unprofessional. But off the Magellan there was a possible source of information to hand: Wanda. Unfortunately, it was past five thirty when we reached the dock and she’d left.
No problem. She’d given me her number on my list of contacts.
Staring into the depths of one of the channels cutting through the salt marsh on the far side of the channel behind my house, I was mesmerized by a massive school of menhaden as they moved in lazy patterns below me. Watching them from her position on the front of my Hobie paddleboard, Tulip started to get excited. “Hey, dummy,” I said, getting her attention. “No shifting positions. Remember last time? We both went overboard.”
Tulip made a noise that sounded a lot like Scooby-Doo and craned her neck to keep the fish in sight without moving her feet. I dutifully
followed the school for a while until she lost interest. We were enjoying the last of the afternoon together, but I needed to get back. Wanda and I were meeting for a glass of wine around nine.
Since Tulip takes off when the fun’s over, Henri, being the good child she is, came to help me drag the big Hobie into the yard. Leaning the paddle against the back porch railing, she said in a matter-of-fact manner, “By the way, your friend, Viktor—the one you used to know—came by to see you today.”
I tried to keep my expression neutral to mask my surprise. Apparently I didn’t succeed because Henri pursed her lips and said, “He’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”
That did it! My face screwed up in a tight scowl and those little blood vessels that cause you to turn beet red went into overdrive. At least I didn’t sputter when I slowly said, “No, I don’t think he’s too young. He’s not too old either. His age is irrelevant since I barely know him.” Well, the last part was sort of true. I’d only spent one day with him … and one night. But we were passed out part of that time.
Then I remembered I’d had already had this conversation with myself. I didn’t owe anyone an explanation. I lifted my chin, turned on my heel, and beat a dignified retreat to my room.
TWELVE
Wanda and I arrived at the same time at the Channel Marker Restaurant and Bar just over the bridge to Atlantic Beach. Amazingly, we found seats outside on the deck overlooking the entrance to the Sea Water Marina. At this time on a summer evening, the younger crowd is just starting to make its way to favorite haunts on the beach, and this was one of them. The last light of the glorious summer day was fading from the horizon as a big round moon, only a few days from being full, began its nightly trek. Our waiter, an eager-to-please college student, poured us a very nice Pinot.
As we sipped our wine, an elegant 80-foot sport fisherman rumbled past only a few feet from us. Its dual diesel exhaust pipes, each as wide as a man’s body, sputtered out cooling seawater, leaving a thin veil of fumes in its wake. Wanda and I breathed in, looked at each other, and smiled. “Smells like payday to me,” she said softly and chuckled.
