Monster: Tale Loch Ness

by Jeffrey Konvitz

  Receiving a note from counsel, Farquharson stood. "We seem to have a witness," he said, "who claims he personally helped destroy the Columbus." He looked to the rear of the room. "Would the clerk please usher Father James MacPherson into the room?"

  The clerk opened the rear door. Father MacPherson moved to the witness docket. Scotty, who had spent the night lying in bed unable to sleep, going over the revelations and their implications, stared, dumbfounded. So did Mary MacKenzie and most of the other committee members and spectators.

  "What is this about, father?" Farquharson asked, perplexed.

  MacPherson raised hits hands. "The manifestation of the false prophet has been destroyed," he cried. "Sent down to hell from whence it came."

  "What do you mean?" Droon asked.

  "Mean?" the priest screamed, his mane flowing. "What do you think I mean? The drill ship was a manifestation of the son of Satan. And I, a soldier in God's army, did battle to destroy it!"

  There was laughter. Confusion. Whispering.

  "Could you be more specific?" Farquharson asked, caught up in the levity.

  "Heathens!" MacPherson cried. "You all shall incur the wrath of the Lord."

  "How did you destroy the ship?" Droon asked.

  "By invoking the power of the Almighty!" MacPherson replied. "The Word of God came to me, entering my heart and mind. It said the vessel must be destroyed, for it carries the seed of Satan. And you are to lead the flock, my son. You are to gather the flock and pray for the ship's destruction. And I, the Lord, shall infuse thy prayer with my power, and thy prayer shall smite the wicked."

  "Were you near the loch, father?" Mary MacKenzie asked, distraught.

  "No," MacPherson replied, standing straight, eyes blazing. "But the Word of the Almighty empowered my prayers. It was His will that sent the ship to the bottom. Thank the Lord for it. The world will be the better. Now only the beast itself need next be destroyed."

  Droon was furious. "Father. With all due respect to your position and the power of the Almighty. The sinking of the Columbus was a worldly disaster, either an accident or the intentional work of man. You cannot seriously claim your prayers destroyed it. Such declarations are appropriate for a Sunday school session, not a governmental inquiry."

  Blood red, MacPherson stood on the chair, pointing at the panel. "You are the followers of the beast and the false prophet. You are the legion of the damned. You shall be destroyed, as was the drill ship, cast down into eternal hell to burn in sulfurous fires. How dare you deny the power of the Almighty. How dare you question His ascendancy." He contorted his face. "You have chosen to follow the devil, and you shall suffer the consequences. I destroyed the ship by invoking the Word of God. I shall destroy any other ship brought into the loch, any other manifestations of the false prophet. I shall destroy the beast's followers who work for Geminii. And I shall destroy you. I carry the sword, the power of the Lord, and I ride behind the Rider, Faithful and True."

  MacPherson's parishioners began to bang their chairs, screaming. MacPherson cried his defiance. Farquharson rapped his gavel, asking the orderlies to remove the priest from the room. MacPherson resisted.

  "How dare you defy the Word of the Lord!" MacPherson bellowed, racing up and down the aisles, arms raised, eyes flared. "How dare you defile the truth! God Almighty has sent me here to lead you to salvation. Follow me. Forsake Satan. Applaud the destruction of the drill ship. Stand with me. Stand with Christ."

  "Remove him, please," Farquharson ordered.

  The orderlies grabbed the priest. The priest's followers attacked, crying the name of the Lord. The hearing room was reduced to chaos. Chairs were overturned; observers were pummeled to the floor; exhibits were damaged. And MacPherson stood amid it all, screaming defiance, invoking God's power.

  Scotty watched in disbelief as MacPherson and his followers were finally subdued by MacGregor, MacKintosh, and several court officers.

  "My God," Farquharson said after order had been restored. "Father. You cannot tell me the Lord would condone this behavior."

  "The Lord condones the struggle against the beast," MacPherson cried, struggling.

  "Father MacPherson," Mary MacKenzie pleaded, moving to the priest's side. "Please. For me. For God Almighty. This must stop!"

  "You do not understand, my child!"

  "I do, father. We will talk. But by disrupting this hearing, resorting to violence, you only serve the cause of the beast."

  Father MacPherson stopped resisting and looked around. The cacophony of sounds died. Motion ceased. Everyone waited.

  MacPherson walked to the door, turning, pointing at the panel. "I destroyed the drill ship. If any other manifestation of the son of the beast enters the loch, I shall send it to the bottom, too. This is the command of the Lord. This I shall do as his servant."

  MacPherson defiantly walked out. Silence enveloped the room. Farquharson asked Mary MacKenzie if the priest was dangerous. She assured the panel he was not. If anything, he was merely a crazed, overzealous cleric, harmless. However, seated in the back of the room, William Whittenfeld did not seem to share the opinion. Discomforted, expression blank, anger barely concealed, his eyes focused on nothing, his stare frozen.

  Chapter 20

  The day after the commission had adjourned, Whittenfeld called another meeting of the senior staff and announced he would be spending the following two weeks—while they were waiting for the tribunal report—at company headquarters in New York, planning for the expected resumption of operations. He briefly reviewed responsibilities and duties to be undertaken by the staff in the interim, and, satisfied his operating orders were understood, left Scotty Bruce in command while investing Pierre Lefebre with veto power over most nontechnical decisions.

  After the meeting, Whittenfeld explained the rationale behind his orders to Scotty in private—there were enemies everywhere, and it was essential that Lefebre be left with significant latitude and control. Scotty objected, but when Whittenfeld refused to budge, Scotty decided not to press Whittenfeld into an explosive response. He also decided not to confront the man, who was still visibly on edge, about the control hose section. Christ, only a lunatic would think that Whittenfeld would admit to subterfuge and murder, assuming those acts had actually been committed.

  Frustrated, he almost quit his job but stopped himself. Hell, he'd quit the NFL only to leave others behind to wage the battle. And he'd vowed after that experience never to quit a difficult situation again, a decision that had propelled him into countless entanglements and had kept him involved long enough in each to have tasted success or pink-slip failure.

  No, he would stick this out, especially with the specter of the Phoenix incident staring him right in the eye, reminding him that Max Furst might well have been wrong about the hose and that Furst's death might have been an accident, after all.

  The Phoenix incident had been the final straw, the fatal crusade that had gotten him booted out of his last job and into private consultancy. The Phoenix was a drill ship. At the time of the incident, it was stationed off the coast of northern California in a highly controversial lease territory. Shortly after he took command, a senior company manager, who was involved in the Phoenix program, died in a suspicious car accident. A short time later, Scotty was approached by a group of environmentalists who claimed the executive had been murdered after discovering falsifications in the company's original environmental impact reports. The environmentalists claimed the company had hidden information that not only projected the possibility of a major environmental catastrophe but also the inevitability of a dangerous accident aboard the drill ship due to unstable underlying gaseous formations. Convinced of the plot's authenticity by intracompany memos obtained by the environmentalists, he led a rebellion. The drill ship was shut down, and the state of California began an investigation, which ended in disaster. The memos were discredited, discovered to have been forged. The death of the executive was conclusively shown to have been an accident. And he was shown to h
ave once again followed his wild instincts, thereby causing the loss of millions of dollars.

  That Geminii had hired him after the Phoenix incident had never ceased to amaze him. He could not let the current affair become another Phoenix. No, if he was going to make noise, it would have to be with a gun loaded with bullets, not blanks.

  Whittenfeld left Inverness. He remained behind, determined to avoid a fruitless, meaningless confrontation with the Frenchman while preparing for subsequent operations at Black Isle and Highland B.

  Three days after Whittenfeld's departure, however, Highland B turned up dry and was plugged and abandoned. He ordered a new hole spudded a short distance away from the first, concluding they had missed the prime producing interval due to a freak twist of geological chance. The Black Isle hole, on the other hand, hit pay dirt several days later—some good news for a change—and he immediately authorized a program of delineation.

  Apart from the actual business, though, he attempted to find ammunition for the gun. Furst and Blasingame were the point of departure. A week after Whittenfeld had left Inverness, he drove to the dive base at Lossiemouth where the fatal accident had occurred. Department of Energy investigators had already arrived, joining the interrogation team, he spoke to the diving rig's senior staff and to its diver tenders, pinpointing the cause of the disaster. Someone had placed a welding machine near the divers' air compressors. Unfortunately, before anyone had noticed there was trouble below, the two divers had absorbed a fatal amount of carbon monoxide.

  Along with the Energy staff, he then questioned the welders and work crew. The effort was fruitless. In fact, based on these interrogations, the absence of strangers on board the barge, and any apparent motive, he was convinced there might never be any actual proof that the deaths had been effected intentionally. He was also convinced the Energy interrogators would make a finding of accidental death.

  On the other hand, there might very well have been a motive, though he was the only one who suspected its existence. If a phony hose had been substituted for the real one, there would have been good reason to eliminate the divers, one of whom could positively identify a forgery.

  The possible disappearance of the original blowout preventer control hose remained the key.

  He couldn't ask Lefebre to provide particulars, and he doubted whether any of Lefebre's employees would prove to be loose tongued.

  He realized he would have to follow the trail himself.

  By questioning Aberdeen base guards and other peripheral personnel, he discovered the original hose segment had been placed in a guarded storage area in the company's Aberdeen compound. He was also able to determine that Whittenfeld and Lefebre had visited the spot on numerous occasions alone or together. But he could find no one who had seen the original control hose section removed, nor the new hose brought to the site. And inquiries into the reputation and background of the London-based company that had inspected the phony hose bundle had been unproductive; their reputation was immaculate, their honesty unquestioned.

  Two conclusions were unavoidable. First, if a hose switch had taken place, it had taken place in secret and had been carried out in Aberdeen by Whittenfeld or Lefebre or men working under their supervision. Second, he had absolutely no proof of anything.

  The two-week interim period drew to a close without any additional discoveries or insights. Tony Spinelli called him Monday night and informed him that Whittenfeld had returned to Inverness. He accepted the news stoically. Based on the evidence presented, he expected a favorable decision by the tribunal. He was sure he knew exactly how Whittenfeld would react.

  He also suspected how he would proceed as well.

  Scotty sipped from a cup of coffee, feet up on the desk, an unlit cigar in his mouth. His office was stone-cold silent.

  According to Jerry Foster, who had called earlier, the Columbus inquiry report was to be delivered precisely at noon. Until then, he had nothing to do but prepare for his first contact with Whittenfeld since Whittenfeld's departure for New York.

  The buzz of the intercom interrupted his thoughts, Jerry Foster was outside. He shouted an invite, and Foster entered.

  "Whittenfeld here?" Scotty asked.

  "Yes. He just arrived. As did a representative of the tribunal.

  "What's the word?"

  "Don't know."

  "What if they stop operations?"

  "We'll appeal."

  "To whom?"

  "You're asking the wrong guy. Legal procedures aren't my specialty."

  "Then what is?"

  "Drilling holes."

  "True. But I also hear you've become an amateur detective."

  "Now who told you that?"

  "Hey, Scotty. The investigation is over."

  "I'm aware of that."

  "Then the Q and A sessions should be over, too."

  "Sometimes I wonder about you, Foster. Are you the company protocol adviser? The guidance officer for the work force?"

  "No. I'm your friend."

  "Maybe."

  "I also know what sets Whittenfeld off. Snooping and questions drive him up a wall."

  "Is that so? Well, then. Maybe it's time someone started to do a little driving around here."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Just what I said." Scotty knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he needed to explode. "Whittenfeld isn't God. Nor is he the president and chairman of the company. He's just the project manager. When he's wrong, he should be questioned. When he adamantly rejects correct advice, he should be fought. When he's out of control, acting against the company's best interests, he should be stopped."

  "Has he been doing any of those things?"

  "Maybe."

  "Barrett had similar ideas about fighting. He clashed with Whittenfeld over Lefebre. Look what happened to him."

  "Barrett had a heart attack."

  "And it looks like you're working your way to one your. self." He paused, staring. "Scotty, what are you looking for? Why the questions?"

  "That's my business."

  The intercom buzzed, and Scotty flipped the intercom switch. The secretary notified him Whittenfeld's secretary had called, asking Scotty to proceed to Whittenfeld's office at once.

  "I appreciate your advice," Scotty said, moving to the door. "I'm sure it's been offered honestly. But, Foster, I can take care of myself."

  Foster stared. "I hope so," he said.

  William Whittenfeld walked ebulliently around the jammed conference table, waving the investigation commission's report, then turned the pages to Part II, FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS, and read the final section aloud:

  Foreword. In accordance with enabling legislation and the recommendation of the prime minister, an Interdepartmental Committee of Inquiry was established to investigate the loss of the drill ship Columbus and the sonar tug Excalibur. The following are the findings and recommendations relevant to facts presented in Part I, said facts established during public inquiry. The initial investigations were

  overseen by Geminii Petroleum International and the Petroleum Inspectorate of the Department of Energy.

  1. FINDINGS

  1.1 The catastrophic events aboard the Columbus occurred after a kick and the completion of a subsequent kill operation.

  1.2 The immediate cause of the disaster was a gas bIowout, the gas aerating the water beneath the drill ship, causing loss of stability and buoyancy, the vessel eventually sinking.

  1.3 The tug Excalibur was captured by the gas blowout funnel and sunk as well.

  1.4 The blowout was eventuated by the bending of the Columbus's drill pipe, the cessation of mud circulation, and the loss of overburden pressure.

  1.5 The blowout preventer was rendered inoperative by the severance of the subsurface control hoses.

  1.6 The available control hose was severed by an oxy-arc cutting device, manipulated by and subject to human control.

  1.7 A finding of sabotage is unanimously supported.

  1.8 The committee accumulated
no findings relevant to the assignment of felonious culpability.

  2. RECOMMENDATIONS

  2.1 Upon compliance with existing regulations, Geminii Petroleum International shall be allowed to introduce a new drill ship to Loch Ness.

  2.2 Said drill ship shall be allowed to reattach to the existing wellhead and to proceed with drilling operations.

  2.3 Geminii Petroleum shall be required to institute strict security procedures to protect her floating installations, procedural guidelines to be established by Geminii Petroleum under the guidance of the Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom.

  2.4 The committee recommends the immediate inception of criminal investigations by local police authorities and any and all national police organizations who possess jurisdiction pursuant to relevant parliamentary statutes.

  The men around the conference table clapped enthusiastically; Scotty's participation, however, was restrained.

  Whittenfeld dropped the report on the table. "Scotty?" he asked, singling out the district supervisor, "is anything wrong?"

  "No," Scotty protested as diplomatically as possible. "I think the results are excellent."

  Whittenfeld clapped his hands. "Better than excellent. And there's more. Just prior to your entering the room, I spoke to New York. The Columbus's sister drill ship, the Magellan, is on its way. We' re back in business."

  Whittenfeld seemed legitimately convinced of it. His expression exuded life. His eyes danced with excited expectation. A seductive smile lay on his lips. His entire manner had returned to normal—his look, voice, temperament. There'd been a rebirth. And "Mr. Bruce" was now "Scotty" once more.

  "How soon will it arrive?" Scotty asked, aware of the transformation.

  "Soon enough," Whittenfeld said. "You're to begin preparations immediately!" He glanced down the table. "Spinelli!"

  Spinelli looked up. "You're out on the Magellan. We'll find someone to take over your duties on shore. The Magellan comes first, and I want my best men on it." He looked to Lefebre, seated away from the table. "Mr. Lefebre. You are immediately to contact the Ministry of Defence and establish and coordinate new security procedures. You are also to liaison with the local police, and you are to attend every one of our management meetings. Security is now top priority!" Lefebre didn't respond, remaining silent. "And Foster. I want press releases issued over my signature congratulating the tribunal, thanking everyone involved, predicting future successes, and noting our new security awareness. I want this goddamn place back in gear."