Treasure of Khan

"Coming up on Dhahran, sir," said the exec, a soft-spoken African American from Houston named Jensen. "Ras Tanura is twenty-five miles ahead. Shall I disengage the auto pilot?"

"Yes, let's go to manual controls and reduce speed at the ten-mile mark. Notify the berthing master that we'll be ready to take tugs in approximately two hours."

Everything about sailing the supertanker had to be done with foresight, especially when it came to stopping the mammoth vessel. With its oil tanks empty and riding high on the water, the tanker was somewhat more nimble, but, to the men on the bridge, it was still like moving a mountain.

Along the western shoreline, the dusty brown desert gave way to the city of Dhahran, a company town, home to the oil conglomerate Saudi Aramco. Steering past the city and its neighboring port of Dammam, the tanker edged toward a thin peninsula that stretched into the gulf from the north. Sprawled across the peninsula was the huge oil facility of Ras Tanura.

Ras Tanura is the Grand Central Station of the Saudi oil industry. More than half of Saudi Arabia's total crude oil exports flow through the government-owned complex, which is linked by a maze of pipelines to the rich oil fields of the interior desert. At the tip of the peninsula, dozens of huge storage tanks stockpile the valuable black liquid next to liquid natural gas tanks and other refined petroleum products awaiting shipment to Asia and the West. Farther up the coast, the largest refinery in the world processes the raw crude oil into a slew of petroleum offshoots. But perhaps the most impressive feature of Ras Tanura is barely visible at all.

On the bridge of the Marjan, Howard ignored the tanks and pipelines ashore and focused on a half dozen supertankers lined up in pairs off the peninsula. The ships were moored to a fixed terminal called Sea Island, which stretched beamlike across the water for more than a mile. Like an oasis nourishing a heard of thirsty camels, the Sea Island terminal quenched the empty supertankers with a high-powered flow of crude oil pumped from the storage tanks ashore. Unseen beneath the waves, a network of thirty-inch supply pipes fed the black liquid two miles across the floor of the gulf to the deepwater filling station.

As the Marjan crept closer, Howard watched a trio of tugboats align a Greek tanker against the Sea Island before turning toward his own vessel. The Marjan's pilot took control of the supertanker and eased the vessel broadside to an empty berth at the end of the loading terminal, just opposite of the Greek tanker. As they waited for the tugs to push them in, Howard admired the sight of the other seven supertankers parked nearby. All over a thousand feet long, easily exceeding the length of the Titanic, they were truly marvels of ship construction. Though he had seen hundreds of tankers in his day and served on several supertankers before the Marjan, the sight of a VLCC still filled him with awe.

The dirty white sail of an Arab dhow caught his eye in the distance and he turned toward the peninsula to admire the local sailing vessel. The small boat skirted the coastline, sailing north past the black drill ship that had tailed the Marjan earlier and was now positioned near the shoreline.

"Tugs are in position portside, sir," interrupted the voice of the pilot.

Howard simply nodded, and soon the massive ship was pushed into its slot on the Sea Island terminal. A series of large transfer lines began pumping black crude into the ship's empty storage tanks, little by little settling the tanker lower in the water. Secured at the terminal, Howard allowed himself to relax slightly, knowing that his responsibilities were through for at least the next several hours.

***

It was nearly midnight when Howard awoke from a short nap and stretched his legs with a stroll about the forward deck of the tanker. The crude oil loading was nearly complete, and the Marjan would easily meet its three a.m. departure schedule, allowing the next empty supertanker in line to take its turn at the filling depot. The distant blast from a tug's horn told him that a tanker further down the quay had completed its fill-up and was preparing to be pulled away from Sea Island.

Gazing at the lights twinkling along the Saudi Arabian shoreline, Howard was jolted by a sudden banging of the "dolphins" against the tanker's hull. Large cushioned supports mounted along the Sea Island berths, the breasting dolphins supported the lateral force of the ships while being loaded at the terminal. The clanging blows from the dolphins weren't just coming from below, he realized, but echoed all along the terminal. Stepping to the side rail, he leaned his head over and looked down along the loading quay.

Sea Island at night, like the supertankers themselves, was lit up like a Christmas tree. Under the battery of overhead lights, Howard could see that it was the terminal itself that was pulsing back and forth against the sides of the tankers. It didn't make sense, he thought. The terminal was grounded into the seabed.

Any movement ought to come from the ships drifting against the berths. Yet peering down the distant length of the terminal, he could see it waver like a serpent, striking one side of tankers and then the other.

The banging of the bumpers grew louder and louder until they hammered against the ships like thunder.

Howard gripped the rail until his knuckles turned white, not comprehending what was happening. Staring in shock, he watched as one after another of the four twenty-four-inch loading arms broke free of the ship, spewing a river of crude oil in all directions. A nearby shout creased the air as Howard spotted a platform engineer clinging for life aboard the swaying terminal.

As far as the eye could see, the steel terminal rocked and swayed like a giant snake, battering itself against the huge ships. Alarm bells rang out as the oil transfer lines were torn away from the other tankers by the rippling force, bathing the sides of the ships in a flowing sea of black. Farther down the quay, a chorus of unseen voices cried for help. Howard peered down to see a pair of men in yellow hard hats sprinting down the terminal, shouting as they ran. Behind them, the lights of the terminal began disappearing in a slow succession. Howard stood unblinking for a second before realizing with horror that the entire Sea Island terminal was sinking beneath their feet.

The clanging of the terminal against the Marjan intensified, the mooring dolphins physically mashing the side of the tanker. For the first time, Howard noticed a deep rumble that seemed to emanate from far beneath his feet. The rumble grew in intensity, roaring for several seconds before silencing just as quickly.

In its place came the desperate cries of men, ru

A tumbling house of cards came to Howard's mind as the footings of the terminal gave way in succession and the mile-long island vanished under the waves in an orderly progression. When he heard the cries of the men in the water, his horror was replaced by a newfound fear for the safety of his ship. Tearing off across the deck, he pulled a handheld radio from his belt and shouted orders to the bridge as he ran.

"Cut the mooring lines! For God's sake, cut the mooring lines," he gasped. A rush of adrenaline surged through his body, the fear pushing him to race across the deck at breakneck speed. He was still a hundred meters from the bridge house when his legs began to throb, but his pace never slowed, even as he hurtled past a river of slippery crude oil that had splashed across the deck.

"Tell ... the chief ... engineer ... we need ... full power ... immediately," he rasped over the radio, his lungs burning for oxygen.