The Rig 2: Storm Warning Page 3

  He had joined up when his mother died in a car accident and his father had turned to drink. When he returned from his first tour in Iraq, he found his father had drunk himself to death. Once again, he had nothing. Dave had then gone to the local community college to take some IT courses, but when his money ran out, as did the funding he received from the army for studies, he had volunteered for a tour of Afghanistan where he worked as an intelligence analyst.

  Several times he had been out on patrol when IED’s had blown cars and men to bits and pieces. He had been lucky. Some men in his own unit had been hurt, but by and large, they had escaped unscathed. It was probably because of that he could now keep his calm. There was no reason to panic. He had seen worse, so he’d learnt to accept the inevitable.

  When he came back from Afghanistan, he worked the odd job for a while before he was able to become a system administrator with a university; working there for a year and a half before he was asked to join this project. He jumped at the opportunity and he had always been happy that he did. Today only marred that slightly; he had still met some people he would not have met otherwise.

  Joy stirred and lifted her hand. She groped around and eventually found Dave’s free hand. She mumbled something which Dave could not make out. But the squeeze of his hand said enough to him. He smiled and sat down more comfortably. He petted Joy’s hand.

  “We’ll be alright, Joy. We’ll get out. We’ll survive this.”

  Chapter Seven

  Akhmed reached the office deck without running into anyone. The corridors and stairs were strangely deserted. He remembered the announcement to ‘shelter in place’, but he hadn’t thought anyone would be doing that. He had reckoned on everyone trying to make their way to the helipad to see if there was an escape. But he had been wrong.

  He walked slowly through the corridor. He was on his qui vive now. He could not be sure of the whereabouts of Smith and Garcia, nor the intentions of anyone who might be out there. Anyone could be out to get him now. Anyone could be persuaded to help him too, of course. But until he knew who those persons might be, he had to assume the worst. And it frightened him. He had never had to assume the worst about anyone before.

  Most of the offices were empty. He peeked into a few and saw no one, then saw another office with two people crouching below their desks. He did not understand why they would do that. If they thought he was armed and dangerous, surely they realized he could shoot them under their desks as well if he wanted to.

  Eventually he came across a huge office. There was a single man in there, frantically calling on his phone. The door and the front of the office were glass. Akhmed retreated to the side of the door. He drew the gun and took the safety off, just to be safe. He opened the door of the office with a single touch. He could hear the man on the phone now.

  “Yeah, it’s Reg. Can’t find Stryker. He’s fucked off somewhere... No, I don’t know where he is! I just know this fucking place is on fire! You need to get us out of here! What do you mean there’s no choppers?” The man became more and more animated. It seemed he wasn’t getting what he wanted. Eventually he shouted an expletive and hung up. He buried his head in his hands before throwing his head back and screaming at the top of his lungs.

  Akhmed put the gun away and stepped into the room. The man looked him up and down and snapped at him.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Akhmed.”

  Instinctively the man reached for the phone on the desk.

  “You’re the alleged terrorist.”

  “I had nothing to do with that bomb.”

  “I know.”

  Akhmed’s eyes opened wide. He had not expected that.

  “You know?” he asked, hesitantly.

  “Yes. Stryker, the manager, has been missing since lunch. His chopper is not here. He’s fucked off outside his schedule, so he’s got something to do with it. Meaning either you’re hired by him, or you’re being framed. I believe the latter.”

  Akhmed walked further into the office, quite stunned. He did not really know what to make of this sudden development.

  “I was set up...” he muttered.

  “Yes.” The man kept looking at him. “What do you want?”

  Akhmed stopped. He pulled his phone out of his pocket but found it still had no signal bars. He nodded to the phone that the other man held.

  “I’d like to borrow your phone.”

  The man snorted.

  “Why? You think you can call someone to get you out of this?”

  Akhmed shook his head and felt tears beginning to well up in his eyes.

  “If I’m going to die here, then I’d like to have spoken to my girlfriend one last time.”

  A smile crossed the man’s face.

  “I’m Reg.” He introduced himself and threw the phone at Akhmed, who fumbled it but held onto it.

  Akhmed looked up Helen’s number and dialed.

  “Hello?” a curious voice asked on the other end of the line. She had not recognized the number.

  “It’s me,” Akhmed said, his voice overflowing with emotion.

  “Akhmed? Where are you? I heard your name on the radio. They say you’re a terrorist. What happened?”

  Helen shot all the questions at him at once, just wanting to find out what was going on with him.

  “I’m okay, for now. I’m on ‘The City’.”

  “How did you get there?”

  “I... I wanted to protest this place, but everything I did was always being shut down. So then some people approached me about a small sabotage project to disrupt it. Nobody was ever meant to get hurt.”

  “Did you do something wrong then? How come they’ve accused you of being a terrorist?”

  “I did nothing wrong. They set me up. Instead of a system using sound waves to disrupt this place, they gave me a bomb.”

  Akhmed was now crying. He felt desperate. He loved Helen and wanted to be back with her. He never wanted to leave her alone ever again.

  “They’re trying to kill me, Helen.”

  Helen was quiet for a moment.

  “Helen. I love you. I love you so much.”

  “I love you, Akh.” There was another pause. “I’m pregnant.”

  Akhmed could not say anything. His voice became uncontrollable through his outpouring of emotion. He felt so happy with the news, but it made him feel even more desperate.

  “I found out today.” Helen began, but then the connection broke. All he heard was the beep. There were signal bars on the phone, so it was Helen’s phone that had cut off. And he knew something was happening to her as well; the love of his life, who was now carrying his child.

  Chapter Nine

  A small boat pulled up alongside the USCG Hurricane. One sailor used a boat hook to pull the small vessel close to the side. Someone threw a rope up from the dinghy and it was secured to the side of the ship. A fat, gray-haired man with a dry suit walked over and tried to clamber on board. The men on board the USCG Hurricane sniggered as the man struggled to find his grip and eventually crawled on board. He was not at all dignified in his manner.

  Commander Lovell came out onto the deck and looked down. He already had an idea of what this might mean. He extended his hand to the man, but it was refused. The sailors around him saw it happen and were unimpressed. They too now saw what was coming.

  When the man straightened, he gave Commander Lovell a stern look.

  “I’m with FEMA. We’re taking over this operation.”

  “What operation?” Lovell asked.

  “Exactly,” the man sneered. “What’s your name?”

  Lovell looked him up and down. He did not answer. The man glared at the commander.

  “Well?”

  “I know the names of everyone on board my vessel,” Lovell answered tentatively.

  He turned to the sailor who was tying up the dinghy.

  “Please escort this man over the side again.”

  The man huffed as the sailor approached him
.

  “It’s Smith. John Smith.”

  Commander Lovell’s anger showed in his face.

  “Fuck you.”

  He gestured to the sailor and to another man on the deck and they began ushering the man back into the dinghy.

  “You’ll hear about this!” he shouted angrily.

  But Lovell did not bother to reply; instead, he just smiled and waved the man goodbye.

  The dinghy sped off toward San Clemente and Lovell returned to the bridge. His first mate looked at him.

  “Were you supposed to do that, sir?” he asked.

  Commander Lovell growled.

  “Probably not. Fucking FEMA, though. Something is going on with this. Why send a guy on board who refuses to give his name?”

  The first mate frowned.

  “Sir?”

  Commander Lovell shook his head.

  “Why not use the radio as usual? Why all the secrecy? It stinks; it fucking stinks.”

  ***

  Elly Boukhari was back on the ground. She was impatiently waiting for the pilot and the ground crew to be done refueling the helicopter. The FBI agent stood nearby smoking cigarettes when she walked up to the van and pulled the cameraman away from his conversation with the editor.

  “Why is that guy here?” she asked.

  The cameraman looked puzzled.

  “The FBI guy?”

  “Yeah!” She looked over to the man again. “I mean, I’m like, just starting out as a journalist. But I don’t think it’s usual to have FBI agents monitoring the report, is it?”

  The cameraman shook his head.

  “Don’t know about that. Maybe for these big things, but I’ve never had that happen before.”

  “I just feel uncomfortable trying to report with this guy looking over my shoulder.” She shuddered. “It just creeps me out.”

  Suddenly she heard a cough behind her and she felt and smelled some smoke blowing over her shoulder. She turned around and stared at the FBI guy standing close behind her. He smiled at her.

  “It’s a big thing,” he said. “Terrorist attack and then a possible massive environmental crisis? We have to make sure people don’t get the wrong idea.”

  “The wrong idea?” Elly quipped. “What would be the wrong idea?”

  “I’m just there to make sure you report the facts properly.”

  With that, he threw his cigarette butt down and walked away.

  Another half hour passed before they were airborne again. Elly tried to stop herself from looking at the FBI agent. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the fire in the distance. She did not want to give away her suspicions that the man knew more than he was letting on. It was just too obvious that he knew something about what was happening. But she could not ask him, or else he would immediately shut down the report. So she kept quiet.

  Chapter Ten

  Averting his eyes, Dave took his T-shirt off and gave it to Sheila. Wes was bent over Joy.

  “We should go and look for the doctor,” he said.

  Joy had just opened her eyes, but she kept blinking rapidly and her eyes were unfocused. Dave nodded and looked across, catching Sheila slipping on the T-shirt.

  “Do you think the doctor is still alive?”

  Wes thought for a moment.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should go and find him?”

  “I’ll stay here to look after her,” Sheila said, picking up the ice bag.

  Wes laid his arms on her shoulder.

  “Are you sure?”

  Sheila nodded.

  “Someone needs to stay here, and you and Dave will move a lot quicker and easier.”

  Wes and Dave were silent as they walked down the stairs. There was no movement in the bar or in the Plaza now. It was just a mess of mangled flesh, bone and blood. Nothing moved and it was eerily silent. Wes looked at Dave. He felt he needed to say something just to stop himself from crying at the scene that surrounded them.

  “Dave...” he began. “What happened with Joy?”

  Dave looked behind them, seeing Sheila’s blonde hair through the window as she knelt by the bed.

  “A shelf came loose and it hit her in the head.”

  He pointed to the door on the other side of the Plaza, behind the stage, signaling they would have to go there.

  “At least, I think that’s what happened. We were sheltered by the bar, but I got thrown down anyway. The plank must have come this way and hit her. It had blood on it and was beside her.”

  They made their way up to the sports fields, which was where the hospital was located. The corridors there were empty. The sliding doors still worked, but the lobby of the hospital was empty and quiet. There was a sort of ominous feel inside. Dave rang the bell at the desk, even though he knew it would be a waste of time.

  They walked on and Wes opened the first door he came across. This was where they could normally find one of the two GPs that serviced ‘The City’. On the whole rig, there were 5 doctors; two GPs, a gynecologist, a trauma specialist and a surgeon. For anything major you were supposed to go to the mainland, but this little hospital had been set up to be prepared for all eventualities.

  The GP was not there. Wes figured he was on the Plaza. He tried the next room. Nobody there either. Dave looked into the room over his shoulder and went for the door across the hallway. He opened it and stepped in. For a moment he was shocked, but then he burst out in laughter.

  The office belonged to the gynecologist and he had been examining a patient when part of his ceiling collapsed. He could see that both the man and the patient were dead, based on the large amount of blood and the angle of the woman’s head beneath the plaster. Wes came to see why Dave was laughing and could not help himself chuckling when he saw them.

  “I always knew he was a dirty bastard,” he said.

  The doctor had his pants down around his ankles and the woman was completely naked. His head was almost literally buried in the woman’s chest and she had her arms around his torso.

  “Very close examination,” Dave remarked drily.

  Wes laughed and pulled Dave away.

  “Let’s find someone else. They’re quite happy the way they left this world.”

  Wes suddenly wondered how they could be laughing at that. It was something awful they had just seen, yet it was incredibly funny. Somehow it was funny. He felt awful for laughing at that scene, but he could not help himself. It was funny somehow and despite everything, he was able to laugh in the face of the misery of it. He looked over at Dave and saw him grinning still.

  At the end of the hall was the surgery, and for the first time they saw people. A nurse and both the trauma doctor and the surgeon were treating someone in there. The man’s chest was opened up and they worked furiously on him. Another man lay on a table in the corner of the room and, in the washroom, a woman with a broken leg was passed out on a bed, waiting to be helped. They could not interrupt them.

  They could not find anyone else, so they left and made their way back to the lobby. There, Dave saw a nurse run from one of the offices. He ran off after her. Wes waited for him in the lobby, looking around. The damage here was minimal, but there were signs of damage everywhere else. He looked out through the glass doors and saw someone run past. The man looked to be Middle Eastern and in a flash, he saw the pistol tucked into his belt. Almost instinctively, he ran after him.

  Chapter Eleven

  Akhmed had sunk to the ground after the call with Helen ended. He felt desperate and elated at the same time. The emotional cocktail was too much for him, so he sank to the ground, slumped against the wall and allowed his tears to flow.

  It took a long time for Akhmed to recover from the news he had heard. Reg brought him a glass of water and sat with him for a moment. When Akhmed finally looked up and calmed himself, Reg smiled at him. “What are you going to do now?”

  Akhmed drank a sip of water and shrugged then.

  “I can’t just let them kill me.” He sighed and pulled the gun from his
belt. “I guess I have to escape from this place.”

  “Why not shoot the people who are trying to frame you?”

  Akhmed shook his head.

  “If they are FBI, I’ll be hunted down forever. I need to find a way out.”

  Reg thought for a moment. He wanted to help this man. But how could he do that? He laid a hand on Akhmed’s shoulder as he thought. Then he knew.

  “There’s bound to be one of the small research subs in the docks. If you can make your way down there, you could escape in one of those. They should be able to take you to Mexico. You can send for your young lady from there.”

  Akhmed looked at him.

  “Why would you tell me this?”

  “Because I don’t believe you are a killer. And since Stryker has fucked off and left us, I have to assume he knew this was going to happen.” Reg looked him in the eye. “And if you’re going to be a father, you need to get out of here instead of dying in ignominy.”

  He got up and gave Akhmed his hand, pulling him to his feet too.

  “The elevators will be out, but you can’t take the stairs; they’ll find you. There’s a service elevator leading directly to the docks from behind the football field. It’s right behind the changing rooms.”

  Akhmed took Reg’s hand in both of his and shook it heartily.

  “I don’t know how I can thank you.”

  “Just get out of here.”

  Akhmed nodded and shook Reg’s hand once more, then he carefully went out into the corridor and made for the stairs.

  He stepped slowly down those stairs, walking down to the level below. He checked around the corner and retreated quickly. He had not seen anybody move anywhere until he met Reg, but there were people around. He saw two men enter some rooms through a pair of glass sliding doors. He felt his nerves again. He could not be sure these two men would not call Smith and Garcia. Not everybody could be as kind as Reg.

  He waited until he felt his heart rate go down and then checked the corner again. He shrunk back, with his heart beating in his throat. This time, a woman in a nurse’s uniform had come from another door and moved through the sliding doors.