The Black Read online

  THE BLACK

  Paul E Cooley

  Copyright 2014 Paul E Cooley

  Part One: The Deep

  Chapter One

  The waves rocked against the support ship. Thomas Calhoun stood at the aft lookout and watched the slate colored water. The occasional fin appeared and then turned over. Porpoises or sharks, didn’t matter to him. He was more interested in the huge storm-front they had left in their wake.

  Breaking through the pounding rain and ten-foot swells had left him exhausted and weak kneed. If he’d stayed in his cabin for the entire trip, it would have been filled with vomit. As it was, he’d only managed to miss the toilet once. After that, however, he’d decided to lose his lunch topside. Better to feed the fish than stink up his cabin.

  If he’d known the support ship was going to bounce around so much, he would have tried to find another way to the rig. A helicopter couldn’t make it out in a single trip; the aircraft had to refuel at sea. That would have cost PPE a lot of coin. He should have forced them to pay for it anyway.

  So now he was only half a day away from the rig, the storm was behind them, and the air was fresh, except for the smell of diesel. Calhoun was used to it, but that didn’t mean he liked it. He was about to spend months on a rig that was going to smell a lot worse.

  The constant grinding of the engines was nearly soothing. The captain, a horrid little Portuguese man all of five foot four, had expressed displeasure at his being on the deck. Calhoun had argued with the man’s broken English over and over again. They finally came to an agreement that he’d stay aft and away from the damned pilothouse.

  At least he didn’t have to worry about Standlee’s gear; the prototype AUVs and ROVs had been delivered last week. According to the last email the tech had sent, he’d already broken them in and checked their programming. That was at least something.

  When Petro-Pem Exploration hired his team, they’d been more than willing to pony up the cash to use Standlee’s new designs as well as Calhoun’s new drilling equipment. That had been part of the deal. Calhoun’s team kept the patents and IP, and PPE got a jump on the rest of the industry. A fair deal as far as Calhoun was concerned.

  Craig “Catfish” Standlee was his partner in the design and programming of the robots. While other companies were catching up, he and Catfish’s designs, control systems, and sensors were the best in the world. Catfish was a whiz kid. Between Calhoun’s engineering expertise and the robot technology, the company bought their services at a premium.

  PPE was trying something new with Leaguer. Instead of bringing in contracting firms to handle mud logging, tool-pushing, and the actual drilling, they’d decided to purchase specialists and all the technology they could. The idea was for PPE to become the world’s foremost offshore exploration company. If Leaguer was successful, then PPE could sell their services to all the major oil companies. Less expense, less personnel turnover, and a single integrated safety regimen could theoretically save production companies billions in finding oil.

  Calhoun wasn’t sure their strategy would work. He knew the rest of the offshore industry was watching Leaguer and PPE with great interest. If M2 turned out to be the largest offshore find in history, PPE would be set for decades to come.

  In less than a few hours, the ship would cross over the undersea field. The best guess from the seismic team was that it was larger than Saudi Arabia in terms of oil. If, of course, you sank the Arab country in thirty-thousand feet of water.

  The trench, known as M2 to the PPE project, hadn’t been mapped and had barely been discovered. In two years, PPE hadn’t managed to do shit as far as exploration. They’d wasted two years getting their shit together with a possible goldmine sitting in their licensed area. Just based on the possible reserves, their share prices had skyrocketed. But not a single drop of oil had been drilled. Not even for analysis.

  Catfish’s original seismic/magnetic equipment had found the area quite by accident. While Calhoun and his team had been in Nigeria handling a heavy oil recovery project, Catfish had signed up with NOAA for a less than well-funded effort to explore M2. Calhoun had allowed him to join the mission because of the tax incentives. Well, that and the chance to try out some new drones.

  But Catfish’s gear did more than simply perform a survey. His autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) had scoured the area performing their tasks. When they surfaced to burp back information via satellite, Catfish had seen something more important than the shelf topography. The magnetic sensors picked up something he hadn’t counted on—oil sitting beneath the trench’s surface.

  Since NOAA wasn’t interested in the possible oil find, he hadn’t bothered to tell them about it. He had, however, sent Calhoun a PGP encrypted message with the reports. In a sweltering hotel in Abuja, Calhoun had received the email and checked Standlee’s figures. After a little study, he’d been ready to leave Nigeria and never come back.

  Calhoun pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket, clipped the end, and lit it with a gold-plated torch. His long-sleeved tropical shirt flapped in the breeze as smoke curled from his nostrils. He brushed a sheen of sweat from his forehead and went over the day’s plan in his head.

  First order? Making sure the idiots who loaded the gear didn’t fracture any of the new drill bits. Second? Get the rig staff to perform a full inventory before the support ship left. Once it did, it would be impossible for them to resupply for several days, if not weeks.

  Lightning forked across the billowing black cloud bank. Calhoun shivered. He hoped the storm wouldn’t follow them to the site. If so, this was going to be one hell of a start to the week.

  “Thomas?” a voice said from behind.

  He turned and blinked at the short, wiry, pale woman dressed in Bermuda shorts and a white t-shirt. Thomas smiled and blew a plume of smoke into the air. “Shawna. What’s up?”

  She looked up at him and nodded. “Just got off the radio with Catfish. Sounds like they’re going to be ready for us. He’s chomping at the bit to get the rest of the gear down.”

  Thomas nodded. “You’ve been over the survey maps and they parked the rig where you told ‘em,” he drawled. “I think we’re all ready to find out what’s down there.”

  The geologist rubbed her hands together. “If this damned tub will get us there already.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Calhoun said. He stared back out at the ocean. Another fin turned over in the distance. “Hope you brought your fishing tackle.”

  “Oh, hell yes,” she said. Her voice struggled to be heard against the wind and the pounding waves. “I talked to JP too. He brought his spear-fishing gear.”

  Calhoun rolled his eyes. “Vraebel is going to freak,” he chuckled. “That asshole already hates us. And you guys are going to drive him nuts.”

  She tapped her foot. The little woman swayed easily as the ship lurched. “Not our fault he’s a killjoy. Besides, JP has been there as long as Catfish has. And Vraebel hasn’t thrown them overboard. Yet.”

  Calhoun grimaced. Vraebel, the rig chief, may not have tossed Catfish or JP into the water, but he’d certainly sent Calhoun plenty of emails threatening to do just that. The humorless redneck was in touch with the PPE VP of Operations nearly every day. Complaints about unprofessional behavior, unsafe work practices, and etc. had streamed forth in a projectile vomit of displeasure. And what had Calhoun done? Defend his people. As per usual.

  He glared at Shawna. “When we get to the rig, I want a full inventory of our gear. The drill tech, your tech, Catfish’s stuff, everything.” He ashed the cigar. “And this time, it would be nice if you didn’t leave your laptop aboard the support ship.”

  Shawna opened her mouth to say something and then closed it. Her angular ears burned red. “Yes, boss. I’ll make sure I get
all my gear this time.”

  Calhoun nodded. “Good. Otherwise,” he said and pointed the cigar at the geologist, “I’ll make you swim for it.”

  The short woman looked thoughtful. “So long as I have a wet-suit and fins, I should be fine.”

  Thomas smiled. Shawna had been with him for nearly a decade. Despite her annoying personality traits, she was reliable. “Uh-huh,” he said. “You planning on going fishing with JP?”

  “Of course,” Shawna said. “Assuming you give us some time off.”

  Calhoun shrugged. “There’s always time for time off. Tomorrow we’re going to have to check the fittings and get the drill string set up. Once all that is done, y’all can fuck off as much as you like while Vraebel’s people connect all the equipment. But two days from now,” he grinned, “I want mud coming through the sluice.”

  “I think we can make that happen,” Shawna said. “It’s going to be just like last time.”

  Calhoun laughed and clenched the cigar between his teeth. “Let’s hope not.”

  #

  Even with his hair in pony tail, Catfish’s mane swung in the wind. He stood on the observation tower, high above the rig’s equipment and the scurrying roustabouts. Vraebel had made it clear that smoking was only allowed up top on his rig. What a prick.

  He puffed on his cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then blew the smoke into the breeze. The overcast sky had turned the ocean into a gun-metal gray, shifting, and rippling creature. Fish turned over in the water. He smiled. JP was already in his cabin, sharpening his spears. The diver and undersea tech specialist had been grinning maniacally for days. Every time he came back from retrieving one of the AUVs, JP babbled at length about the fish in this area of the ocean. The diver’s deep-sea gear was aboard the support ship. Catfish hoped JP wouldn’t need it.

  There’d been a couple of hiccups with the new AUVs he and Calhoun had designed. Especially number 5. It passed all the diagnostic tests he could throw at it, but the damned thing kept missing its surface targets. The radio bursts hadn’t exactly been free of static either. It wasn’t enough to keep the computers from translating the information, but number 5 was definitely making things difficult.

  Catfish hoped Calhoun could figure out the problem, because after focusing on the issues for a week, he had no clue what else to try. He and the engineer had spent more than a year designing the goddamned torpedoes and stuffing all the electronic gear and sensors they possibly could into their three-meter long bodies. Even after nine months of testing in the Gulf of Mexico, they were still having problems.

  He sighed, crushed out the cigarette on the railing, and tossed it into the heavy waste barrel. Its bottom was already covered in butts. Vraebel may hate smoking, but plenty of his crew were smokers. Among the rough-necks, cigarettes, booze, and fast women (usually topless dancers) were the stereotypical pleasures. And the stereotypes were spot on.

  Catfish took one last look at the ocean and then walked down the stairs and into the crew quarters. He walked through the narrow hallway past rooms with steel bunks. The rig had a precious amount of space. Most of the roughnecks were two to a room and in some cases, four. Calhoun’s team, on the other hand, had been given three staterooms. Catfish and JP bunked together while Calhoun and Shawna each had their own. He peeked in on Calhoun’s empty room. Without Thomas’ gear, the room looked barren and too damned big. Catfish grinned. It wouldn’t be that way for long.

  The last time they’d been on a deep sea exploration rig, Calhoun’s stateroom had been covered wall to wall with maps and diagrams. The man couldn’t help but draw on everything he could get his hands on. And he never stopped thinking. No wonder he’d been divorced twice. Who could put up with someone who’d give you the high hard one and then go right back to thinking about chemistry, mechanical designs, and the ever-present quest for the purest black?

  He sighed and continued toward his room. A thin Hispanic man walked past him, face set in a scowl. Catfish smiled at him and tipped an imaginary hat. The roughneck sneered and moved past him without saying a word.

  Typical. Whenever Calhoun’s team descended on a rig, they were treated like royalty. In other words, like shit. The grunts hated them because they got all the privileges and broke all the rules. Also, as far as the roughnecks were concerned, they didn’t do any real work.

  He could tell them what it was like soldering circuit boards together or debugging assembly code until four in the morning before a demo. He could also tell them about putting a two million dollar prototype in the ocean and having it implode at two-thousand feet below the ocean surface. Talk about pressure—fucking roughnecks had no idea what it was like.

  Nor would they. Their jobs were dangerous. They were paid well, no doubt, but not enough to risk their lives on a daily basis. He understood why they hated the so-called “white-collar” folk. But they needed to get the fuck over it. He and JP had been on the rig for over a week now, running checks, and breaking in the equipment. They got just as hot and sweaty as everyone else in the stifling compartments.

  For the next several weeks, the only time Catfish would see natural light or feel the breeze on his face would be the six hours of off time. Once they started drilling, it was going to be hell. And he would be just as miserable as the rest of the fuckers on the rig. He may not get oil on his face or the rest of his body, but he would be covered in grease, grime, and salt. Every time one of the AUVs or ROVs came in, he’d have to work on them, maintain them, and repair them. All that without a lab or any kind of convenient work area. Fuck the roughnecks—they didn’t know what stress was.

  He shook out his pony-tail as he neared the stateroom he shared with JP. He took a deep breath, and then knocked on the closed hatch. “Yo, JP? You jacking it in there?”

  Muted laughter erupted behind the door. “Get in here, Catfish.”

  He smiled and opened the door. JP, all five-foot-eight of him, stood near the porthole. The floor was covered with gear. Boots, fins, rebreathers, masks… JP had more or less dumped three sea-bags worth of crap all over the floor.

  “The fuck, JP?”

  The man ran a hand through his graying high-and-tight. “I, um, needed to do a check.”

  Catfish shook his head. “What? You couldn’t do that on the deck?”

  A sheepish grin appeared on the older man’s face. “Um, well, I figured since you were out…”

  “Dude, there’s out and then there’s out.” Catfish stared down at the mess. “Well, you got everything?”

  JP reached his hands to the lower bunk and brought up two long guns. The spears weren’t attached, but Catfish knew from experience that JP had at least five for each gun lying around somewhere.

  “I think so,” he said and tossed one of them to Catfish.

  The tech caught the weapon with one hand. He stared down at it. “So… we going spear-fishing?”

  JP’s weathered face split into a wide smile. “That’s the plan. Although Thomas told me we had to behave ourselves until he got here.”

  Catfish rolled his eyes. “Let me guess, Vraebel’s bitching?”

  “Of course he is,” JP said. “He may be management, so to speak, but he’s a roughneck. He hates us as much as anyone.”

  “Fuck that guy,” Catfish said.

  JP held out a fist and they bumped. “Right. But we need to behave for the rest of the afternoon.” He carefully placed the spear gun on the top bunk. “That said, we really should go for a swim.”

  “Yeah,” Catfish said, “because Vraebel won’t bitch about that.”

  JP shrugged. “Well, we do need to take number five out for a spin, don’t we?”

  Catfish smiled. “As a matter of fact, we kind of do.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?” JP said and tossed a pair of flippers to his friend.

  #

  The platform was hot as hell. Metal stairs and railings led down to the corrugated steel sheet. It was the safest place for divers to enter the water. It was also the loading
/unloading dock for the AUVs and ROVs. The robots hung suspended over the grate connected by thick, steel cables.

  JP wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow. He waited for Standlee to come down the gangway in his wet suit. As usual, the man known as Catfish was taking his sweet time. The long-haired computer and engineering tech had never been in the military and apparently had never learned to tell time. JP stared at his diver’s watch and sighed. Well, he thought, might as well get the boat in the water.

  AUV number 5, nicknamed “bitch” because of all its problems, was still in the ocean. Catfish had sent it an order to surface and return. To the bitch, “return” meant surface and sit on the waves several hundred yards from the rig.

  JP lowered the Zodiac into the water and secured the tow ropes. The three meter long torpedo would force them to go slow on the way back, but that was okay; he and Catfish were going to take a swim. Vraebel be damned.

  “You guys just don’t know how to follow procedure,” a voice yelled from the stairs.

  JP looked over his shoulder. Speaking of Vraebel, he thought. The barrel-chested, sun-tanned man leaned against the railing. Like his cheeks, his close-cropped red hair seemed to be on fire. His white teeth were set in an angry grimace.

  “What procedure would that be?”

  “Filing a dive plan, for one,” Vraebel said. “And making sure the emergency divers know you’re going out. And number three, who told you to get in the water anyway?”

  JP pointed to the AUVs hanging above him. “See those? There’s only four there. Number five is out in the water. Didn’t you get Standlee’s report?”

  Vraebel opened his mouth and then closed it. JP could see the wheels turning in the man’s head. “Yeah, I read it.”

  “Then you know we have to go retrieve it.”

  The rig chief tapped his heavy work boots against the steps. “Well, that’s still no excuse for not filing a damned dive plan. Much less keeping our divers out of the loop.”

  JP sighed. “Sorry, Mr. Vraebel. I guess we forgot about that.”