Monster: Tale Loch Ness (17 page)

Shivering, he headed toward home.

Eyes closed, Bob Reddington listened to the soft music emanating from the cassette deck. It was dark. Quiet, too. He'd been lying on ks back in the cabin the last two hours half asleep. It had been a long day.

The door to the stateroom suddenly flashed open. A shaft of antiseptic light invaded the room. A derrick man followed.

"We've got problems," the derrick man said.

Reddington opened his eyes. "Like what?"

"Possible kick!"

Reddington jumped to his feet. "The indicators?"

"A drilling break and stroke increase."

"Has there been a change in the drill-pipe weight?"

"Yes."

Reddington put on his clothes; something less buoyant than the drilling mud had entered the well bore, providing less support for the drill pipe and thereby increasing its observable weight.

"Did Grabowski and Nunn return to the ship?" he asked, bursting into the hallway ahead of the derrick man.

"No. They stayed on shore in the lab. The chopper returned, though, bringing out a new security guard."

"That's just what we need right now. Goddamn bastards!" They emerged from the cabin. Rain was pounding against the catwalks. The sky was darker than hell, the wind as fierce as legend.

Reddington climbed on to the drilling floor. Even through the fog and rain, he could see tense faces, trauma.

"Any primary indicators yet?" he asked.

"Not yet," the driller replied, nervously scanning his instruments.

Reddington looked downship. A helicopter was tied to the forward helipad. The crew seemed to be moving in slow motion. Off the ship, whitecaps were churning.

"Let's do a flow check," he ordered, moving between the tool pusher and the driller.

A roughneck appeared on deck, settling the issue. "We've got a volume increase in the mud pits," he screamed, trying to be heard over the howl of the wind. "And gas in the cuttings."

"It's a gas kick," the driller cried.

Reddington rushed to his side. "Shut the goddamn well and prepare to kill it!"

The shut in and kill procedure was dangerously complex. They had to close the blowout preventers, record bore pressures, calculate new mud weight, circulate heavier mud into the bore to kill the kick, then open the preventers again and proceed with normal operation.

The driller manipulated his controls, sealing the blowout preventer's rams.

"Close down the electrical," Reddington ordered, turning to a rotary helper. "You! Tell the radio operator to inform base we've taken a gas kick and we're now employing shut in and kill procedures."

The rotary helper raced to the radio room as Reddington ordered the drill-floor guard to leave the area.

"I'm under orders to remain at this post," the guard declared, confused.

"I'm in charge of this vessel," Reddington cried. "And I want you off!"

"Mr. Whittenfeld and Mr. Lefebre ordered—"

"I don't care what they ordered. We have an emergency. I don't want us blown away because of some fool mistake made by someone who had no reason to be here. Now get off."

The guard didn't move.

"I said off," Reddington screamed, grabbing the guard by the collar and hurling him down the steps. "And off means off!"

The guard reached for his gun. A tremendous wave swell hit the ship, upending him. Looking up at Reddington, he rose to his feet, then wobbled toward the cabins and disappeared.

Reddington returned to the drill floor. The driller had completed his procedures. Reddington recorded bore pressures, calculated the additional weight of mud required to kill the kick, entered the mud room, ordered the derrick men to add a required volume of solids, then set new pump rates and returned to the teeth of the storm.

Captain Olafsen leaned close to the cabin's window, staring at the beads of rain.

"Can't see a damn thing," he said, coughing. "What a night to be without a radio."

"I'm trying my best," the radio man said, his head obscured within an open console.

Olafsen lit a cigarette, coughed again—smoker's cough—then turned to the first officer. "You'd think we were out in the North Sea. The loch don't know how to treat visitors with respect."

The first officer laughed. The captain poured a cup of coffee, then roamed into the surveillance area where the sonar engineer was perched over the sensing equipment and sidescan displays.

"I'd like to. be back on shore with a good woman in a warm bed," the engineer said.

"Yah," Olafsen remarked as he sat down. "But then again, things could be worse. You could be on board the
Columbus
, fiddling with ice-cold pipe. Yah, think about that for a while and you'll be thankful you're at least in a dry cabin."

Laughing, Olafsen opened a magazine, scanned the pages, glanced up at the deck clock—eleven P.M.—then yawned.

"I can't fix her," the radio man announced a short time later.

"Keep trying," Olafsen called back, his worn, scarred features shifting slowly, experience called to thought. "We have plenty of time!"

The patter of rain grew heavier, almost hypnotic.

"We've got something!" the engineer yelled a short time later.

"Like what?" Olafsen asked.

"My God!"

Olafsen examined the side-scan printouts, then ordered a realignment of the mechanical fish.

"It looks like the same object we had last time."

"It
is
the same object!"

They examined the succeeding traces. The radio man joined them. Huge rebound images continued to plot out.

"It's starboard," the engineer said, examining the blips. "And it's turning toward us."

"A submersible?" the radio man asked.

Olafsen pointed at the other instruments. "No heat. No noise." He searched the side scan. "It's the same thing we had before! No mistaking it. The damn thing is alivet" He pushed the radio man back toward the cabin. "Get that radio fixed. I don't care what you have to do and what instruments you have to cannibalize but get it fixed."

The radio man disappeared. Olafsen leaned over the instruments. "It's diving," the engineer said, puzzled. "And twisting crazily."

Olafsen looked away, then shook his head. "Damn!"

Totally drenched, Scotty Bruce sloshed up the path to Travis House and knocked on the door, shielding himself under the eave of the building.

Mrs. Munro appeared moments later. "Mr. Bruce," she cried.

He slipped past her, dropping his bags in the foyer.

"I need to talk to you," she said.

"Not now," he said, removing his jacket. The last thing he wanted was a lecture from Mrs. Munro. "Let me clean up first."

"This is right urgent."

"What's the matter?"

She pulled a note from her pocket. "The people at Geminii just missed you at the airport. They called here and left a message. It says: 'Gas kick on
Columbus
. Shutting in and attempting to kill.' "

Startled, he suddenly put on his jacket once more. "When did it come in?"

"Five minutes ago."

He pointed to the phone. "Call the night operator at Geminii. Ask for helicopter operations. Tell them I'm on my way. Have them prepare a chopper. Immediately!"

Mrs. Munro hurried to the phone. However, by the time she had picked up the receiver, Scotty was gone.

Informed the mud weight had been increased as ordered, Reddington instructed the driller to begin kill procedure by pumping the mud down narrow tubes attached to the marine riser, tubes intersecting the bore below the blowout preventers.

Within minutes, the kick had been killed, and the gas in the marine riser had been evacuated. The well was dead.

Reddington rechecked pressures and inspected equipment. There was no damage. According to his readings, the downward weight of the new mud was now more than sufficient to overburden the upward flow of gas. Although they were still drilling through a section of very high pressures, the pressures were under control.

He ordered normal operations to resume.

The sonar engineer wiped away an accumulation of sweat.

"I've never seen anything like it," he said, mesmerized. "It's incredible."

"I know," Olafsen observed.

Reams of printouts lay on the floor, displaying unaccountable motion. First, the target object had dived, then ascended. Then it had seemed confused, even angered, moving in ever-narrowing circles.

"The radio?" Olafsen called, trying to be heard over the howl of the storm.

"Still out!" the radio engineer called back.

"Any progress?"

"No."

"Son of a bitch."

"It's gone under us," the sonar engineer cried.

"Where's it headed?"

"To the
Columbus!
"

Olafsen raced forward to the wheel. "Full speed," he ordered, ignoring the weather danger.

The first officer pushed the throttle forward; the tug's engine roared.

"Take us in," Olafsen added.

"To base?" the first officer asked.

"No," the captain replied. "To the drill ship!"

Scotty emerged on to the roof of the Geminii office building. He'd just left the radio room. The radio operator had not been able to raise the
Columbus
.

The director of helicopter operations walked briskly out of his bunker.

"We set?" Scotty asked.

The director waved his arms. "You can't fly out in this."

"Don't tell me I can't!"

"The pilots have refused."

"Screw them!"

"Without them, you can't get out!"

"Give me the keys."

"What?"

"I'll fly her myself."

"Mr. Bruce—"

"I can handle a bird as well as any of your pilots!"

"It's suicide."

"My suicide."

"But my responsibility!"

Scotty entered the control bunker and grabbed a key off the call board.

"You can't do this!" the director cried, following him.

"You bet your ass I can. I'll take the responsibility. They're taking a kick out there. I'm going. Understand?"

The director stared, then nodded.

Scotty climbed into the chopper.

As the tug raced toward the
Columbus
, the sonar engineer called for the captain again.

"What is it?" Olafsen asked, approaching.

"Look!" the engineer cried, white as a ghost.

Olafsen examined the side-scan tracings. The drill ship's riser was clearly visible, descending from the ship to the well head. But there was something else, the target object, moving several hundred feet below the surface, heading directly for the ship at incredible velocity.

"Thank goddamn God!" Reddington cried, ignoring the stinging rain. He was thrilled. The kick had been killed.

The crew was elated, too; he could hear it in their voices!

He poured himself some coffee from a thermos. Hot coffee tasted good on a bitter night.

He returned to the bridge deck.

Chewing a dead cigar, switching its position from side to side in his mouth, Scotty quickly scanned the instruments, highlighted by a red console light, then looked out the windows, searching the horizon through the glare of the chopper's floods. The rain was dropping diagonally, a sheer wall of water. The air was misty black. The loading docks were barely visible, the Dores shore a melange of merging lines, shifting relentlessly as the helicopter rocked askew from the violent blasts of wind.

He held tighter to the stick as the chopper's wipers surged across the windshield. Rising to five hundred feet, he tilted the chopper northward and steered away from the Geminii complex. Maintaining visual contact with the loch surface, he crossed the Lochend finger, aligned the chopper with the loch's north shore, then descended to three hundred feet, pushed his controls forward once more, and began to negotiate the intervening distance to Urquhart Bay.

It was the most incredible sight Captain Olafsen had ever seen, and though he doubted his senses, it lay right in front of him, captured on paper. As before, the marine riser was prominent on the sonar record. But so was the target object, though its position had changed. The target object had the marine riser in tow at three hundred feet, and it was pulling the riser out of whack, trying to tear it in half.

"Full speed ahead," Olafsen cried, realizing the
Columbus
was probably unaware of the peril.

A roustabout was the first man aboard to notice impending disaster. Standing near a control hose reel, which held the upper end of one of the blowout control hoses, he saw the hose go slack. Checking the equipment, he realized the hose must have broken below the water line. Alarmed, he informed the driller, who affirmed the conclusion and then checked the riser azimuth indicator. The riser was visibly way out of line again.

"Get Red!" the driller screamed.

The roustabout summoned Reddington.

"What the hell?" Reddington cried after returning and glancing at the screen.

The roustabout told him one of the control hoses had broken.

"Close the preventers," Reddington ordered as the sound of the bending drill pipe exploded against their ears.

The driller manipulated the blowout preventer controls. No closure lights. Frantic, Reddington pushed the driller aside and repeated the procedure. Again nothing.

The drill pipe clanked more fiercely; the Kelly bushing flew out of the rotary table.

Reddington ran to the other control-hose spool. Its hose was limp, too, broken below the surface. There was no way to close the blowout preventer.

Captain Olafsen ripped off a segment of the sonar tracing and studied the hideous trace of what had been one long, straight integral marine riser, now bowed terribly.

"The thing has bent the riser," he cried, suddenly panicking.

The sonar engineer took the tracing. "What can we do?"

Olafsen fell against the console, the tug shifting heavily against the swells. "I don't know."

"We've got to do something!" the sonar engineer screamed, looking through the cabin windows in the direction of the
Columbus
's night lights.