The Rig 3: Eye of the Hurricane (2 page)

The director nodded. “Yes, it is. Got a situation report on ‘The City’?”

“Still on fire, but it's probably going to be gone soon.”

“Good.” The Director smirked. “You were going to have your guys go over our new system as well, right?”

“Yeah, I'm going to send Ben over to address your system problems.”

“Excellent.”

The conversation with the Director was dull. He never liked the man and they hardly ever had a thing to talk about. So he was happy to see Senator Jacobs show up at the table. He rose to his feet and noticed his balance was not great. He had had more champagne than he thought he’d had.

“How are you, Senator Jacobs?”

He offered his hand.

The Senator took his hand. His handshake was weak. Portis thought that was one bad thing about the man. Jacobs was weak. He was also an incorrigible letch, but he was a lot more fun to talk to than the dull crowd of bureaucrats.

“Good to see you Portis,” the Senator began. “You know my favorite scientist was on your damned rig?”

“Was she?” Portis asked him. “Which one is that?”

“The blonde meteorologist with the hot tits, sexy ass and great legs.”

Portis blinked. That was crude, even for the Senator.

“Who is that again?”

“Sheila Briggs. The tornado chick.”

The Senator sat down and Portis noticed he touched his crotch under the table.

“She is hot,” Portis sat down again. His wife coughed. “Not as hot as you, honey,” he said on auto pilot. “How did she get on board?”

“By helicopter,” the Senator answered.

Portis smiled. “I mean, why is she there?”

“They expected a big storm system of sorts. They needed her to help analyze it.”

Portis frowned, trying to work out what the hell Jacobs was talking about.

“Listen Portis. I'll be needing your help. Why I sent her over in the first place.”

“What do you need me for?”

“Elections are coming up next year and I need another five million dollars for my campaign. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Portis sighed and looked around the room. He saw his golf partner speaking to the president. It was a heated discussion there. He laid his hand on his wife's knee and slowly moved it up her thigh. She slapped his hand away. He sighed again. What was it the French said again? Wives are for making families, mistresses are for making love? He would have to do something about that.

His drunk mind was wandering. He could not think of something sensible to demand from Jacobs.

“Come on Portis. Give me the five million and I'll set about your business; you know how that works.”

“Yeah sure,” Portis answered. “Look, if this thing with ‘The City’ is sorted, we can have a word about my Education Reform Program. You know the one where we get more kids involved in tech?”

“You mean the one where you don't teach them anything else and just get them ready for a job at one of your factories or labs?” Senator Jacobs said it very drily. He knew the program and had argued against it for a long time now. “I can change my opinion, but then you have to make sure there is a bit of PR goodness for me to work with as well.”

“Like what?”

“Like getting me involved in dealing with ‘The City’. Could be some extra work created there and if there is an environmental disaster now, I want a part in the solution.”

Portis blinked. It was an idiotic proposal, he thought, but then again, it was politics, not business. He understood programming and marketing, but he never did get what drove men like Jacobs, or the president for that matter. Quest for power, he supposed. Lately he had wanted to change the world. His wife had started him on that course and he was glad he could do something for the world now that he had the money to do it.

But he shook all that off and thought about Jacobs’ proposal again. He needed the senator on his side for the educational program to go national.

“Sure. You can come in and claim the limelight on every good thing that happens with ‘The City’ now. But remember, it's to go down.”

Jacobs nodded and winked.

“We have a deal then.”

The rest of the evening was long and dull and Portis was glad when he was home. He turned on the news, poured himself a whisky and sat down in front of the screen. He watched CNN report on the terrorist attack. He changed the channel. CBS was showing the girlfriend again. Canadian CBC had something on the possible oil spill and the environmental consequences. It did not seem too important to him. He laughed when the reporter overlaid a prognosis from the disaster area in Vancouver. It was a new trick the media used and he found it immensely funny. Finally, he changed to the Spanish channel. The Mexicans did not seem to be too concerned with the disaster; instead they had the weather report on. His Spanish was not great, so it took him all the power of his befuddled mind to understand, but he managed to do it. And his eyes opened wide as he suddenly understood what was coming. The weather girl was talking about El Niño and a massive tropical storm about to hit the Pacific coast, rolling up from Baja California. He realized that same storm would soon be battering ‘The City’. And in that moment, he had his doubts about what had transpired. This could turn into something much worse than he had ever dared to plan.

Chapter One

When Commander Lovell came back from the head onto the bridge of the USCGC Hurricane, he saw the FEMA officer give an order to his first mate. He growled at that. The FEMA man had no authority on board his cutter. Officially, the United States Coast Guard had to listen to FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, but the orders had been clear. Let this man on board as an advisor.

The man had refused to identify himself, only flashing a FEMA badge, but Charles Palermo, the Secretary of Homeland Security had ordered him over the HAM radio to let him come aboard. Lovell had refused, and rightly so, due to standing orders, but he had been told to let this man advise him. Now, here the man was, ordering his officers around.

“Lieutenant James! Why have we altered course?”

Lieutenant James jumped to attention and pointed at the FEMA guy.

“He ordered me to, sir,” he stammered.

James was a young lad, only just out of the Navy Academy and then he opted to join the United States Coast Guard. He was stunned by the violent reaction of his commander. It was completely out of sorts. But then, Lieutenant James had not heard the FEMA officer's statement that he did not intend for anyone to survive the situation at ‘The City’.

“You will steer us back where we were and you will keep us posted there. Understood?”

“Aye aye, sir.” The young man looked shocked, but still, he followed the orders. 

“Sir?” another man asked. “Sir, we just got a notice from the weather station on San Clemente. There's a storm coming.”

“Is there?”

“Yes, sir. Seems it is a tropical storm that will make Super Storm Sandy pale in comparison.”

“You mean Hurricane Sandy?”

“Sir, I think it was classified as a Super Storm.”

“Sure....” Commander Lovell shook his head, but he made his way to the starboard side of his cutter. He looked outside and far in the distance; the skies did look ominous. He swore. It did look like a massive storm was on its way.

***

William Portis went to bed a happy man. He had heard the Mexican weather report announcing the storm caused by a new El Niño complex. The American media were still focusing on the terrorist attack, but the Mexicans were not in the least bothered with that. The news they brought to his screen was a lot more to his liking than anything else he had heard all day. That storm was exactly what he needed.

‘The City’ was his creation, but it had been a big failure. When the FBI approached him about an event there, he had been only too happy to agree. The insurance would cover his losses and his face would be saved. The man who had made billions developing software and used his billions to improve the world could not be seen to fail.

But the bomb that had gone off had not taken the place out completely. It had caused an oil spill and a fire, which would eventually make things right, but there was a chance people would escape from ‘The City’. This storm made any rescue mission impossible. Nobody would survive to tell anyone what had really happened.

His wife was already in bed, wearing her big flannel pajamas and a night mask. He growled. He was in a good mood and wanted her now, but he did not dare upset her. She was the guiding light behind most of his projects and he loved her.

Instead of waking her up, he turned the television back on. He looked up the CBS San Diego channel again and watched the cute multicultural reporter make a fuss. He undid the button of his trousers and let himself go, watching the woman. She really was a good find, he thought.

***

Elly Boukhari had given up her reporting on the situation of the pregnant girlfriend since her Uncle Dan had called. He had told her there might be more to the whole situation than met the eye and that FEMA did not intend to mount any rescues.

Information began flooding in about the man who had set off the bomb in ‘The City’. CNN reported on the manifesto he had published, but she was not interested anymore. Neither was she interested in the picture she had just received. The picture that showed Akhmed Hussain Abbasi with a woman in a burka. There was more going on, and she was going to find out what.

The first person she wanted to talk to was Helen, the girlfriend. And Helen would not come out to talk to the cameras after she had previously accosted her outside her door. She needed to find a way to persuade the woman to talk to her. How, she did not know. Yet.

***

Helen looked over the last posts on Akhmed's Facebook page. She shook her head. She did not believe her boyfriend could have ever posted those things. The note that contained his “manifesto” made no sense. And the privacy setting on it was public, too. He never did that.

The manifesto spoke of how the Americans raped the Middle East and North Africa, and how the Faithful should strike back against the Infidels. It made no sense. Akhmed was an agnostic. He had not even been raised as a Muslim. His father was a Muslim, his mother a Coptic Christian. With the tensions between those two faiths in their native Egypt, they had decided not to raise their child with religion. He could figure it out for himself when he was older.

Instinctively, she felt her stomach. When she had told him she was pregnant over the phone, he had been so happy. But even then, his happiness was marred by the possibility of him being framed for the bombing on ‘The City’. He had been so scared.

He said they had been after him, trying to kill him and then make it look like he had committed suicide. And she believed him when he had said it.

She looked out the window and frowned. It was very distant, but it seemed there was a storm drifting in. Her father had been a fisherman, so she had been raised with a sort of sixth sense ability to predict a storm. There was definitely a storm coming. A big one. And fear struck her heart. If that storm hit the already damaged and burning rig, Akhmed would never come back to her. He would never be able to see their baby, nor would the baby ever know his or her father.

Chapter Two

Dave heard a noise behind him. Someone was coming down. He remembered there was another agent at work there and he felt panic grip him.

“Goodbye....” Dave heard Smith say. He was behind the man. He saw the shoulder rise as he pointed the gun at Wes' heart. Acting on impulse, he threw himself forward. He slammed his shoulder into Smith's thighs, wrapped his arms around his legs and brought him down. The gun went off, but the bullet flew well wide. Dave was on his feet and hit Smith in the head. He took the gun and looked over at a stunned Wes and Sheila. “We need to go. The other one is coming.”

Sheila kneeled down next to Akhmed and looked at the wound in his chest. She knew it was fatal. The blood flowed freely from the wound and with each second she watched him, his breathing grew more shallow. She took his hand in hers and held it. His fingers tensed around her hand. Finally, his breath stopped and his grip grew limp. He was gone.

Wes grabbed her shoulder.

“We have to go.”

Dave checked Smith's motionless body for ammunition and other weapons. He found two more magazines, a small Remington in an ankle holster and a penknife. He put it all in his pocket and went over to his colleagues and the dead man.

“Poor bastard.”

“Yeah,” Wes said. “He did not deserve this.”

Dave looked around as he heard a noise in the staircase. Another suited man showed up there, gun drawn. When he saw Smith on the deck and Dave with gun in hand, he fired. The bang reverberated around the docks. Dave dropped to a knee and fired at the man. The man took cover behind the opened door. Dave rolled behind a crate. His military training was serving him well for a change.