Trusting Viktor (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) (5 page)

“All the sensors are installed and working. I’ve checked all the electrical cables from the van and made sure they’re grounded to the rig. Video feeds are connected and functioning too,” he said, pronouncing each word carefully.

I looked around his office, noticing the hydrogen sulfide moni
tors and remote video displays of other pertinent drill data.
“Sounds like you’re getting things done right on schedule. As I recall, Phil said your last job was on the North Slope of Alaska.”

“Yes,” Elton said. “That would be correct.”

“You know where your lifeboat station is?”

Elton shot out of his chair, a look of panic flashing across his face as he looked out the window, past the derrick to the far horizon. “Yes ma’am. That’s the first thing I checked out, ’cause there’s a whole lotta water out there,” he said, slipping out of his precise diction.

“I know this is your first offshore rig, but is this your first time at sea?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Uh-oh. “Have you ever seen the ocean before, ever been to the beach?”

“No ma’am.”

Good grief. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, looked him straight in the glasses, and asked softly, “You going to be all right out here, Elton?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said with grim determination. “I have to be. I have a wife and a new baby girl. I have to be all right and I will.”

“I believe you,” I said, standing. “You can give me copies of your daily reports tomorrow, but right now I want to see the logging lab. If I remember correctly, Global hired TravelTech, right?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“They’re a great company, I’ve worked with them before. Lead the way, Elton.”

Like many of the scientific personnel required to drill an exploratory well, the mudloggers are hired from outside the company. In this case, Global had hired TravelTech. Elton was hired from yet
another
private firm, the goal here being objectivity. As wellsite geologist, Elton would oversee a crew of men who likely had degrees in earth sciences. A good working relationship with them was essential. Having myself been both—mudlogger and wellsite geologist—I can say firsthand that neither is counted as very important by the operator or the rig crew. This always amazes me, since without them, no information on the well would exist.

Aside from all the other data the mudloggers accumulate, they most critically monitor gas readings that would indicate an imminent blowout like the one that took out the
Deepwater Horizon
back in April of 2010 in the Gulf. In that instance, BP was the operator or owner of the well and they’d contracted Transocean to drill it for them.

Buffeted by high winds and driving rain, Elton and I ran for
TravelTech’s van. As soon as a drillship arrives on site, the company hired to log the well has its own van delivered, a small travel trailer containing all its scientific equipment. This is usually done by helicopter. They’re most often referred to as logging labs and are always located in an area at least one flight up from the rig floor, to avoid contamination by poisonous gases.

Upon our entrance, a skinny pressure engineer from Louisiana named Tom greeted us with a big toothy smile. He was a little confused at first about my being on board since Elton was the wellsite geologist, but after I explained my somewhat unorthodox role to him, he seemed relieved to have me there. As crew chief, he would convey it to the others.

I spent a couple of hours of inspecting the lab and looking at the most recent samples—chips of rock brought up in the drilling mud. Elton, who’d gone to take his mud inventory, then reappeared. Tom left and another mudlogger took his place as loudspeakers chimed a shift change. Like Tom and the other mudloggers, this new man wore a light blue jumpsuit. I spoke with him only briefly, as I was becoming anxious to go find Bud. The hours I’d just spent in such stressful conditions had taken their toll and I longed for the quiet snugness of the tiny soundproof room.

But Bud wasn’t in our bunk when I returned. Since I preferred to eat dinner with him instead of by my lonesome, I lay back on the narrow bed to wait. Next thing I knew I heard country music softly playing and sat up so abruptly that I cracked my head on the overhead bunk. After a few off-color words, I realized I’d fallen asleep and the sound was coming from a radio, obviously set for the seven-thirty evening shift. My first coherent thought was that these living quarters must have been wired with antenna outlets, because normally radios won’t play on a rig. The metal walls inhibit radio waves. My second thought: Bud still wasn’t back.

Snagging my hard hat, I opened the door to my quarters, trotted down a hall and down a flight of stairs, and headed for the working deck. Regardless of the type of rig you are on, crew quarters are always placed as far away from the drilling operation as possible. They’re also designed with blast walls, which cut out the noises associated with living on a giant drilling machine.

I pushed open the heavy blastproof door and lowered my shoulder to push through wind and rain. As if accompanying the storm, the air vibrated with the humming of generators, the clanging of metal on metal, and the roar of the diesels powering the drill. Men in jumpsuits of various colors to denote their job stations were in movement all around me. They shared a common goal—getting their job done in spite of the deplorable weather.

Darkness was already settling in, and the ship’s automatic lights twinkled about me. I tried to think where Bud might be. In weather like this, it would have to be somewhere inside.

I checked the galley, a small Internet room, the gym, and lastly, a lounge area for off-duty crew. There I found several people engaged in watching one of my favorite movies,
Master and Commander
with Russell Crowe, on a large plasma TV. I sat down and enjoyed the last hour with two tool pushers—one from Norway, one from Belgium—and an electronic technician from New Orleans. About nine o’clock, I went to the galley, scarfed down a burger and fries, and returned to our room.

I found a note slipped under the door that said the helicopter was scheduled to pick us up at 8:00 a.m. sharp. Cheered by this, I watched the news on the small television mounted in the corner of the room. Around eleven, I unlaced my field boots, folded my jeans and T-shirt neatly, and went to sleep.

At 4:00 a.m. on the dot, I awoke from a restless sleep. “Bud?” I called softly to the bunk above me.

No answer.

I didn’t want to disturb him if he was sleeping, so I got up in the pitch darkness of the room and tentatively reached toward the center of his bunk. Still empty. I had a feeling he was off somewhere with his new BFF, Braxton Roberts, whom I knew he’d gotten friendly with during investment meetings. Still, I’d feel better if I was sure he knew what time we were supposed to meet the chopper in a few hours.

Slipping back into my clothes and boots, I went down to the deck. The level of noise and activity at 4:00 a.m. was unchanged from what it had been at 4:00 p.m. Which isn’t surprising since every minute of operation on a drillship like the
Magellan
costs in excess of $400. One thing was different, though: the air was still. The storm had blown out to sea.

Basically retracing my steps of earlier this evening, I checked all the logical places without success. Considering the vessel’s immense size, I knew I couldn’t look everywhere for my errant ex, so I took the only option left for me and texted him:

be at the helipad at 8 a.m.

Then, not feeling the least bit sleepy, I decided to take the opportunity to poke around this marvel of modern technology, sans an official company tour guide. I especially wanted to see the ROV—remotely operated vehicle—since we had made only a cursory pass by it the day before.

Making my way along the main deck, I came to several flights of metal stairs beside the brightly lit 228-foot-tall derrick. I climbed them, looking up at it as I went—
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
came to mind—then turned down a catwalk and walked to about mid-ship. This was so I could look down into the moon pool, the opening in the center of the ship through which the drilling equipment passes on its way to the seafloor 2,000 feet below. Amazing. The level of water rose and fell 10 feet or more with each passing swell, yet the ship itself hardly moved. It was held in place by six electric thrusters guided by GPS.

Each of the three engines on either end of the ship was powered by its own 5-megawatt generator, run on diesel fuel. There were over a million gallons of it on board, with the next fill-up probably in about six months.

From my perch, I could easily view the different activities on the drilling deck. Inside the DC—the driller’s cabin, a large three-sided, glassed-in room raised above the drill floor—a drill tech sat back in his ergonomic chair and removed 40-foot sections of drill pipe, three at a time, from a rack inside the derrick so a team of four roughnecks out on the drilling deck could connect them and send them down the borehole. Watching all the activity and hoping the drill was chewing its way to the first of many large natural gas deposits and thinking of what that would mean for North Carolina raised goosebumps on my arms.

After indulging my imagination a few more minutes, I turned left and made my way back down the catwalk, then up another short set of stairs to a working landing from which the ROV was lowered into the sea. Behind it was the van where the crew and pilot worked the robot’s controls and monitors. I had the area all to myself. As I stepped up on the landing, I breathed a sigh of admiration. They had a Voyager Maximus! And a brand-spanking-new one at that.

I walked around the bright chartreuse Mini Cooper–sized machine. “
Arrh, arrh, arrh
,” I said, doing a good imitation of Tim the Tool Man Taylor and wishing Bud was here. Where was he anyway? He loved techy toys even more than I did, and here was one of the all-time ultimates. This 9,000-pound baby could tie shoelaces in 13,000 feet of water barely above freezing
and
send you pictures of it in 3D.

I rubbed my hand over the shiny blue metal of the TMS—the Tether Management System. Basically it was a cage that housed the underwater robot and brought it to the seafloor. What a marvelous creation it was, too, with its own cameras and lights. I stood on tiptoe and noted it had 4,000 feet of tether cable.

Turning my attention back to the ROV, I stooped to look at its dual manipulating arms and cool little propellers. That’s when I noticed something caught between it and the bottom support rails of its cage. It caught my eye because unlike the shiny, new metal of the robot, it looked old and beat up. I extended my hand and touched the object. It felt like a little metal wheel, maybe 3 inches across with five spokes, like a starfish. Being the terminally curious person I am, I
had
to have it for further inspection.

As I wriggled the artifact back and forth, trying to work it loose, I realized I’d seen an object similar to this one, I just couldn’t place where. Grabbing the object should have been easy, but for some reason the crusty round of metal was defying me.

At that moment, for reasons unknown to me, the entire section of lights illuminating the ROV landing and several sections on either side went out, leaving me completely in the dark. I wasn’t worried. Someone had probably thrown a breaker for this small section of the third floor to correct an electrical problem. I could see that all the other areas of the ship were still ablaze. I told myself I’d just have to be careful where I stepped on my way back to the light, which I planned on doing as soon as I had my mystery prize.

I doubled down on my determination, and got on my knees so I could use both hands. Furiously I pried and pulled, trying to free the little wheel. Suddenly it popped free and shot from my fingers with an accompanying clang as the ROV settled in the track of the cage.

Damn it. I squished myself against the cage, reaching as far as I could into the darkness, but I couldn’t feel where it had landed. Backing away, I sat on my heels and was feeling around the platform outside the cage when someone slammed into me with the force of a runaway mule, shoving me sideways into the railing.

Oh shit, I’m going overboard!

Flailing wildly behind me, I grabbed a handful of greasy hair and felt a heavy growth of coarse stubble and massive furred arms, which were grabbing me everywhere at once. It felt like I was being attacked by a giant ape. My head smacked into the middle bar of the handrail so hard I saw stars, then I dropped chest first onto the landing. I blearily wondered why this guy was running around ramming into people helter skelter—then a work boot to the middle of my back forced every last molecule of oxygen out of me. This was no accident.

I tried to push up, hoping to turn over and maybe grab this creep’s leg, but King Kong sat hard on me, a hand as big as my whole head holding the side of my face onto the metal floor. One finger was over my eyes, another mashed my nose flat to the metal grating. Then he leaned forward and wrapped a tongue wide as a cow’s practically around my neck.

Fighting the impulse to vomit, I decided to lay still, like a possum, hoping he’d think I was dead and run away. But I couldn’t, my lungs burned and I was gasping for air. It was about then I felt King Kong grab the back waist of my jeans with his other hand and start to pull my pants down.

No! Hell, no!
This was not going to happen as long as I had so much as a spark of life in me. Adrenalin rushed through my veins. I pushed myself upward with a strength I never knew I possessed, curled my body enough so that I could get my teeth into his knee. I bit down for all I was worth. Kong shifted his weight just enough for me to squish out from under him and let fly with a mule kick to the chest, then an elbow to his nose. Both connected, but he barely grunted, just grabbed me again with the speed of a striking snake, jerked me to my feet, and ripped my T-shirt like it was tissue paper, grabbing my breasts and squeezing so hard, I cried out.