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The big ball of fire had subsided, but a steady gout of flame eight or ten feet long was shooting across the walkway. The sun had set now, and so the fire threw a weird, shifting light across the rig that barely managed to pierce the driving rain. Nobody was going to be crossing there for a while. Eventually the terrorists would figure out how to shut off the valve, or—if enough time passed—the holding tank would run out. Either way the jihadis would cross over and come after her.
The good news was that until that time, she was free.
The jihadis had stopped firing. But right now she was stuck behind a steel I beam, her hands still cuffed together with plastic flex cuffs. If she stood there until the gas leak burned out, they’d eventually nail her. There was no knowing how much gas was in the holding tank. Total capacity was around twenty thousand cubic feet, but generally they just pumped it directly to the A reservoir on the BLP. So it might have no more than a few hundred cubic feet. The flame was probably burning a hundred cubic feet a minute. At best, she had thirty minutes before the jet of flame petered out.
Over on the other side she heard voices speaking English. She couldn’t make out everything they were saying. But she heard the words transfer valve. Apparently the jihadis had brought somebody who had experience on a rig. They were obviously going to track down the valve and shut it off.
She looked to her left. The doorway into the BLP’s main stairs was about four yards away. She knew the jihadis would be waiting for her to make a move so they could pick her off. For a moment she froze, her entire body gripped by a straitjacket of fear. She really didn’t want to die.
But she had to do something. Her people were over there, and right now she was the only person who had a chance of helping them. But she couldn’t do them any good if she was dead. She had to seek cover so she could rally and come up with a plan.
Could they see her in the deepening darkness? She wasn’t sure. As she dove for the door, her question was answered: gunshots erupted from th Fopenine drilling platform, spanging off the bulkhead. It sounded like somebody was throwing wrenches at her.
And then she was through the bulkhead, falling, rolling painfully into a heap.
The shooting stopped.
She charged down the stairs to D Deck, then pushed open the green door with the giant D stenciled on it. All the walls on D Deck were painted green. Pipes snaked everywhere. Unlike the other decks, D had no solid floor. Instead the “floor” was a tight grid of welded steel through which you could see straight down into the water.
Kate had spent much of her adult life on oil rigs, so big seas didn’t generally bother her. But these waves were like nothing she’d ever seen. From her view, she couldn’t see the horizon, couldn’t see the water with normal perspective. Looking straight down, you couldn’t really make out the waves as such. Instead, it was like some vast, dark elevator made of water, rising and falling below her.
Normal distance between rig bottom and sea level was fifty-eight feet. So she knew that she was well out of range of the waves. And yet each time the water began rising toward her, she felt as though it would just keep coming, rising and rising until it came boiling through the floor.
As she looked up something in the corner of her view caught her attention. For a moment she wasn’t sure what it was. A dark flash in the white foam.
By the time she looked at it, it was gone. She sca
It was the man from the boat, the one who’d jumped over the side— Gideon Davis.
The concrete pier was about fifteen feet in circumference. Way too big around to encircle with your arms. How he was holding on, she couldn’t imagine. He must have literally been holding on with his fingernails. The wave continued to sink farther and farther from the man’s feet. If he fell now, he’d surely be washed away on the next wave.
A flicker of light from the burning gas on the bridge illuminated him briefly. The muscles in his shoulders were corded with effort as he struggled to maintain his grip. He was a powerfully built man, obviously in good shape. Still, she could see he wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.
The waves must have been ru
The water started rising again. Where was he?
Just as she was about to give up hope, his head broke water. If she had been in his situation, she would have been thrashing wildly. But Gideon Davis showed no sign of desperation or fear. He moved carefully, almost methodically—bracing himself, letting the current press him against the concrete, and push him slowly upward. It was then that she realized his dilemma.
In his current position, he was invisible to the jihadis on the other platform. But once he came around to the other side of the F strut, they could shoot him. Plus, w sh‘€†ith nothing to hold on to, he’d be in danger of being swept away by the current. He’d have to time things perfectly, make it all the way around while the wave was in the trough, if he was to have any hope of reaching the ladder. And even then, he’d be in serious danger of being shot.
“Hey!” she called—hoping that the jihadis on the other platform wouldn’t be able to hear her voice over the howl of the wind and the thunder of the waves.
The man looked up, when a small cross-wave hit him, bounced him off the barnacled concrete. She knew from her experience as a diver that those barnacles were like a pile of razor blades. He grimaced.
“Hold on!” she shouted.
She ran back to the bulkhead near the stairs, where an emergency kit hung from the wall. Fire extinguisher, axe, pry bar . . . and a life ring with a couple hundred feet of nylon rope. She quickly severed her flex cuffs on the axe, then grabbed the life ring and turned back to look for the man. Only his head was visible now. Kate flung open one of the hatches under her feet. Now there was nothing between her and the water. The wave was still rising. In moments his head would go under.
She hoped he would stay on the back side of the pier so that the jihadis on the other side of the rig couldn’t see him—or shoot at him.
Then his head disappeared beneath the cross-chop on the waves.
She dropped the life ring and waited to see if he would resurface.
The wind caught the life ring and carried it past where the man had been. It was getting darker by the minute, harder for her to see him. Suddenly his head resurfaced out of the foam.
The life ring, pushed by the wind, was just out of reach. He stretched for it, his fingertips nearly grazing the ring. Stretching for the ring had stolen his concentration on maintaining his position on the big concrete strut, though, and the current caught him. He grabbed wildly for the pier, but now the current had him. It was the first time he had demonstrated anything close to fear.
Kate’s heart pounded. The wind whipped at the life ring, throwing it up into the air. She lowered another loop of rope, then yanked it sharply, trying to pull the ring closer to the man. He was now scrabbling at the edge of the pier, the rising face of the wave trying to force him past the big slab of concrete. The life ring flopped wildly in the wind.
Just when Kate thought it was hopeless, the wind slackened for the briefest of moments, dropping pressure on the life ring. It plummeted, falling with an audible plastic thump on the man’s head.