Offshore

OFFSHORE

by

Lucy
Pepperdine

A Wild Wolf
Publication

Published by
Wild Wolf Publishing in 2015

Copyright
Jillian Ward / Lucy Pepperdine 2012

All rights
reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
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except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be
printed by a newspaper, magazine or journal.

All characters
and locations appearing in this work are fictitious. Any
resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.

www.wildwolfpublishing.com

Edited by
Poppet, cover designed by Poppet

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respecting the law.

Massive
thanks to the boys and girls over at the Drilling Club; to Bob at
Schlumberger, and to Colin and Graeme roughing it out there in the
Beryl Field in the North Sea.

You’ve
all been brilliant. Stay safe.

For
Derrick ♥

Chapter 1

LONGDRIFT INC

WELCOMES YOU TO

FALCON BRAVO

ENJOY YOUR STAY

The
enamel rectangle had once been a pristine white, the letters bright
blue. Now the edges were nibbled by rust, the letters
peeling.

Falcon
Bravo’s official notice of welcome shuddered against its fixings as
it suffered a severe beating from the helicopter’s downdraft.
Beneath the greeting some wag had taken a permanent marker and
added;

May God have mercy on your soul!

Under
which someone else scrawled;

If you’re here, he obviously didn’t.

Both
sentiments were now barely legible, eroded by saline
spray.

Project
Leader Eddie Capstan was having trouble standing upright, one
second taking a blast to his front from the gale whipped up by the
chopper’s blades, the next being struck from behind by a wind
blowing straight from the arse of the Arctic circle; sharp enough
to bite to the bone.

Not
unusual at this time of the year when it was known to rain, hail,
snow and fog, often all at the same time; while simultaneously
being knocked sideways by katabatic winds blustering in three
directions at once. At least the flat slabs of sleet were not
horizontal … yet.

Those
same disordered winds took it in turns to stir the encompassing
iron-grey mass of the North Sea to a roiling maelstrom, heaving and
thrusting against Bravo with the mighty threat of ripping her from
her moorings to toss her to the Fates. Eddie could already feel the
structure moving disquietingly beneath his feet.

The anchors would hold
he told himself, looking around for wood
to touch in the traditional gesture of wishing for good
luck.

He
waited at the sign while the rest of his crew disembarked from the
transport, encumbered by their thick orange survival suits and life
jackets, descending the steps carefully, bowed by the downdraft,
weighed with drop bags.

In
single file they slipped and skidded across the helipad, each
keeping their eyes on their feet lest they vanish from beneath
them, avoiding looking at the sea beyond the safety rail, none of
them smiling, more than one of them swallowing down motion
sickness.

Including himself there would be nine souls in all, eight men
and one woman - not so much a skeleton crew as an accident waiting
to happen - and until two and a half hours ago at the pre-flight
check-in, breathalyser test and safety briefing, Eddie had never
before laid eyes on any of them, even though they all worked for
the same company.

Their
introductions were short and snappy to say the least. No more than
name, rank, and serial number. No time for niceties or a
get-to-know-you session before they were ushered onto the chopper
and on their way, the noise in the cabin rendering conversation on
board impossible.

He would
have to rely on what he’d read from his brief glimpses into their
personnel files. Now as they approached him with grim expressions
he mentally ran through the sketchy details he could
remember.

John
‘Jock’ McAllister led the way. Subsurface surveyor and diver, mid
forties, single, quiet-spoken, stockily built, and by all accounts
a fairly dependable worker. Distinguishing feature - under his hood
he had the reddest hair Eddie had witnessed on a living man, a
colour so intense it gave him the look of an unstruck match. The
giant lumbering frame of general roughneck Lonny Dick followed. He
looked older than his twenty eight years, with coarse rubbery
features, close cropped blond hair, and at six foot five and twenty
stone, built like a brick shithouse.

Almost
as broad as he was tall, he was there to be handy, to provide
muscle power and little else. Not so much the house mouse as the
house moose.

Not well blessed in the brains department, and taciturn
with it, he had accrued the unfortunate epithet
Lummox
. Not that anyone would be careless
enough to say the name out loud within his earshot; not unless they
fancied being punched in the mouth with a fist the size of a lump
hammer.

Eddie
nodded acknowledgement to the next crew member, Lawrence Brewer,
PhD, MSc (Hons), and noted the paleness of the middle aged man’s
cheeks and chin, a blatant indicator he had recently shaved off a
full beard and whiskers to comply with the company’s strict
clean-shave regulations.

He
mouthed something to Eddie, possibly a greeting, but with the
deafening racket from the helicopter drowning his words, Eddie
tapped his ear, shook his head, and sent him on his way.

Matthew
Shaw pootled on behind. With his tall lat-thin frame and sharp
angular face topped with a shock of dark spiky hair, he had earned
his nickname - Dipstick. Also in his late twenties, this one had a
mind like a razor. He was clever but unstructured, and Eddie felt
sure that with the right guidance he had the potential to do well
in the business, possibly attaining a senior supervisory role
before his mid thirties. He already had plans to start working on
him. Eddie waved a gloved hand at the rest of them to get a move
on.

Craig
McDougal picked up his step. A tousle-haired man in his thirties
with a deeply tanned complexion, quick dark eyes and an even
quicker darker temper, he too carried a nickname. Spanner; so
called because no piece of machinery yet existed that he couldn’t
fix. A good worker when sober enough to put his mind to it, Eddie
did not anticipate too much of a problem with him out here on Bravo
where sobriety was mandatory.

And then
came Duncan Cameron, who answered to either Cam or Camshaft. Mid
thirties, muscular, ruggedly handsome in an unconventional way,
designated a general purpose roughneck, but he too had a reputation
as a mechanical genius.

He
picked his way across the helideck alongside swarthy, foul mouthed
troublemaker and master electrician, Desmond ‘Daz’
Reynolds.

Eddie
remembered his file well enough; not least because it had been the
bulkiest he’d seen for a long while, and not in a good way, stuffed
to bursting with disciplinary reports about his timekeeping,
general conduct and all round hostile attitude towards anyone in
authority. Short fused and hot tempered, this assignment was his
last chance to prove his worth or be fired. His file recommended
close supervision. And they had given him to Eddie? Thanks very
much.

Last,
but by no means least, Lydia Ellis, thirty-five year old paramedic.
A tiny woman, she made barely five feet in high heels and ninety
pounds dripping wet, her small frame swamped by a suit at least two
sizes too large, her drop bag almost as big as her. She might have
ten years skill and experience at onshore facilities, but this was
her first time on a platform and it showed.

She
smiled wanly at Eddie from under her snug fitting beanie and he
could not help but notice she looked especially green around the
gills. No surprise there. It wasn’t the smoothest passage out here
at 150 miles an hour, barely skimming the waves whilst
simultaneously being tossed to and fro by near gale force winds; it
was enough to turn even the most experienced of
stomachs.

He
watched her waddle toward the stairs like she had been stuffed into
a sleeping bag zipped up to her throat, clinging onto the safety
rail for grim death as she descended out of view.

A woman!
Hell fire, what were they thinking sending her out here with this
set of reprobates? Eddie could already smell rampant pheromones in
the air, some of them his own. The scent of trouble brewing.
Someone was going to have to keep an eye on her. Him maybe? He was
in charge after all, and as such did have a duty of
care.

Pot.
Kettle. Black.

As soon
as Lydia’s head bobbed out of view Eddie waved his all clear and
farewell to the pilots, descending the steps from the helipad to
the main work deck.

Behind
him the helicopter’s power and noise increased, rotor blades revved
to maximum speed for lift off, whipping the sleet into aerosol mist
and assaulting the sign further. It rose gracefully into the air,
hovered, pirouetted, and moved off back towards shore. It would not
return again until the end of their stint, or unless some kind of
adverse situation arose which demanded speedy
evacuation.

At its
departure Eddie's heart sank into his rubber soled
boots.

Chapter 2

A squat
blue monster, with a snarling radiator grille and heat stained
exhaust pipe curling from its diesel engine like an upturned
elephant’s trunk, the gargantuan mud pump offered Eddie’s pinch
faced crew some protection from the driving sleet.

He urged
them to leave their shelter and follow him past the concrete
panelled welding enclosure to a weatherproof bulkhead door set into
a blank steel-plated wall, gave the handle a jerk and pulled the
door open on stygian blackness.

“
Mind your heads and mind the step,” he warned.

Everyone
ducked and stepped accordingly. Once they were safely indoors he
slammed the door behind them, shutting out the howling tempest. Not
much better inside; just as cold, just as damp, as dark as a
lawyer’s soul, but least they were out of the wind.

The
batteries providing power for a string of back-up lights were
running low and the team could barely see their own
feet.

“
If you’re carrying a torch, now’s the time to use it,”
Eddie said, digging in the side pocket of his drop bag for his
Maglite, its harsh white beam lighting the way ahead while
deepening the already menacing shadows. Two other weaker beams
joined it.