Monster: Tale Loch Ness (27 page)

"The Lord condones the struggle against the beast," MacPherson cried, struggling.

"Father MacPherson," Mary MacKenzie pleaded, moving to the priest's side. "Please. For me. For God Almighty. This must stop!"

"You do not understand, my child!"

"I do, father. We will talk. But by disrupting this hearing, resorting to violence, you only serve the cause of the beast."

Father MacPherson stopped resisting and looked around. The cacophony of sounds died. Motion ceased. Everyone waited.

MacPherson walked to the door, turning, pointing at the panel. "I destroyed the drill ship. If any other manifestation of the son of the beast enters the loch, I shall send it to the bottom, too. This is the command of the Lord. This I shall do as his servant."

MacPherson defiantly walked out. Silence enveloped the room. Farquharson asked Mary MacKenzie if the priest was dangerous. She assured the panel he was not. If anything, he was merely a crazed, overzealous cleric, harmless. However, seated in the back of the room, William Whittenfeld did not seem to share the opinion. Discomforted, expression blank, anger barely concealed, his eyes focused on nothing, his stare frozen.

The day after the commission had adjourned, Whittenfeld called another meeting of the senior staff and announced he would be spending the following two weeks—while they were waiting for the tribunal report—at company headquarters in New York, planning for the expected resumption of operations. He briefly reviewed responsibilities and duties to be undertaken by the staff in the interim, and, satisfied his operating orders were understood, left Scotty Bruce in command while investing Pierre Lefebre with veto power over most nontechnical decisions.

After the meeting, Whittenfeld explained the rationale behind his orders to Scotty in private—there were enemies everywhere, and it was essential that Lefebre be left with significant latitude and control. Scotty objected, but when Whittenfeld refused to budge, Scotty decided not to press Whittenfeld into an explosive response. He also decided not to confront the man, who was still visibly on edge, about the control hose section. Christ, only a lunatic would think that Whittenfeld would admit to subterfuge and murder, assuming those acts had actually been committed.

Frustrated, he almost quit his job but stopped himself. Hell, he'd quit the NFL only to leave others behind to wage the battle. And he'd vowed after that experience never to quit a difficult situation again, a decision that had propelled him into countless entanglements and had kept him involved long enough in each to have tasted success or pink-slip failure.

No, he would stick this out, especially with the specter of the
Phoenix
incident staring him right in the eye, reminding him that Max Furst might well have been wrong about the hose and that Furst's death might have been an accident, after all.

The
Phoenix
incident had been the final straw, the fatal crusade that had gotten him booted out of his last job and into private consultancy. The
Phoenix
was a drill ship. At the time of the incident, it was stationed off the coast of northern California in a highly controversial lease territory. Shortly after he took command, a senior company manager, who was involved in the
Phoenix
program, died in a suspicious car accident. A short time later, Scotty was approached by a group of environmentalists who claimed the executive had been murdered after discovering falsifications in the company's original environmental impact reports. The environmentalists claimed the company had hidden information that not only projected the possibility of a major environmental catastrophe but also the inevitability of a dangerous accident aboard the drill ship due to unstable underlying gaseous formations. Convinced of the plot's authenticity by intracompany memos obtained by the environmentalists, he led a rebellion. The drill ship was shut down, and the state of California began an investigation, which ended in disaster. The memos were discredited, discovered to have been forged. The death of the executive was conclusively shown to have been an accident. And he was shown to have once again followed his wild instincts, thereby causing the loss of millions of dollars.

That Geminii had hired him after the
Phoenix
incident had never ceased to amaze him. He could not let the current affair become another
Phoenix
. No, if he was going to make noise, it would have to be with a gun loaded with bullets, not blanks.

Whittenfeld left Inverness. He remained behind, determined to avoid a fruitless, meaningless confrontation with the Frenchman while preparing for subsequent operations at Black Isle and Highland B.

Three days after Whittenfeld's departure, however, Highland B turned up dry and was plugged and abandoned. He ordered a new hole spudded a short distance away from the first, concluding they had missed the prime producing interval due to a freak twist of geological chance. The Black Isle hole, on the other hand, hit pay dirt several days later—some good news for a change—and he immediately authorized a program of delineation.

Apart from the actual business, though, he attempted to find ammunition for the gun. Furst and Blasingame were the point of departure. A week after Whittenfeld had left Inverness, he drove to the dive base at Lossiemouth where the fatal accident had occurred. Department of Energy investigators had already arrived, joining the interrogation team, he spoke to the diving rig's senior staff and to its diver tenders, pinpointing the cause of the disaster. Someone had placed a welding machine near the divers' air compressors. Unfortunately, before anyone had noticed there was trouble below, the two divers had absorbed a fatal amount of carbon monoxide.

Along with the Energy staff, he then questioned the welders and work crew. The effort was fruitless. In fact, based on these interrogations, the absence of strangers on board the barge, and any apparent motive, he was convinced there might never be any actual proof that the deaths had been effected intentionally. He was also convinced the Energy interrogators would make a finding of accidental death.

On the other hand, there might very well have been a motive, though he was the only one who suspected its existence. If a phony hose had been substituted for the real one, there would have been good reason to eliminate the divers, one of whom could positively identify a forgery.

The possible disappearance of the original blowout preventer control hose remained the key.

He couldn't ask Lefebre to provide particulars, and he doubted whether any of Lefebre's employees would prove to be loose tongued.

He realized he would have to follow the trail himself.

By questioning Aberdeen base guards and other peripheral personnel, he discovered the original hose segment had been placed in a guarded storage area in the company's Aberdeen compound. He was also able to determine that Whittenfeld and Lefebre had visited the spot on numerous occasions alone or together. But he could find no one who had seen the original control hose section removed, nor the new hose brought to the site. And inquiries into the reputation and background of the London-based company that had inspected the phony hose bundle had been unproductive; their reputation was immaculate, their honesty unquestioned.

Two conclusions were unavoidable. First, if a hose switch had taken place, it had taken place in secret and had been carried out in Aberdeen by Whittenfeld or Lefebre or men working under their supervision. Second, he had absolutely no proof of anything.

The two-week interim period drew to a close without any additional discoveries or insights. Tony Spinelli called him Monday night and informed him that Whittenfeld had returned to Inverness. He accepted the news stoically. Based on the evidence presented, he expected a favorable decision by the tribunal. He was sure he knew exactly how Whittenfeld would react.

He also suspected how he would proceed as well.

Scotty sipped from a cup of coffee, feet up on the desk, an unlit cigar in his mouth. His office was stone-cold silent.

According to Jerry Foster, who had called earlier, the
Columbus
inquiry report was to be delivered precisely at noon. Until then, he had nothing to do but prepare for his first contact with Whittenfeld since Whittenfeld's departure for New York.

The buzz of the intercom interrupted his thoughts, Jerry Foster was outside. He shouted an invite, and Foster entered.

"Whittenfeld here?" Scotty asked.

"Yes. He just arrived. As did a representative of the tribunal.

"What's the word?"

"Don't know."

"What if they stop operations?"

"We'll appeal."

"To whom?"

"You're asking the wrong guy. Legal procedures aren't my specialty."

"Then what is?"

"Drilling holes."

"True. But I also hear you've become an amateur detective."

"Now who told you that?"

"Hey, Scotty. The investigation is over."

"I'm aware of that."

"Then the Q and A sessions should be over, too."

"Sometimes I wonder about you, Foster. Are you the company protocol adviser? The guidance officer for the work force?"

"No. I'm your friend."

"Maybe."

"I also know what sets Whittenfeld off. Snooping and questions drive him up a wall."

"Is that so? Well, then. Maybe it's time someone started to do a little driving around here."

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said." Scotty knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he needed to explode. "Whittenfeld isn't God. Nor is he the president and chairman of the company. He's just the project manager. When he's wrong, he should be questioned. When he adamantly rejects correct advice, he should be fought. When he's out of control, acting against the company's best interests, he should be stopped."

"Has he been doing any of those things?"

"Maybe."

"Barrett had similar ideas about fighting. He clashed with Whittenfeld over Lefebre. Look what happened to him."

"Barrett had a heart attack."

"And it looks like you're working your way to one your. self." He paused, staring. "Scotty, what are you looking for? Why the questions?"

"That's my business."

The intercom buzzed, and Scotty flipped the intercom switch. The secretary notified him Whittenfeld's secretary had called, asking Scotty to proceed to Whittenfeld's office at once.

"I appreciate your advice," Scotty said, moving to the door. "I'm sure it's been offered honestly. But, Foster, I can take care of myself."

Foster stared. "I hope so," he said.

William Whittenfeld walked ebulliently around the jammed conference table, waving the investigation commission's report, then turned the pages to Part II, FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS, and read the final section aloud:

Foreword. In accordance with enabling legislation and the recommendation of the prime minister, an Interdepartmental Committee of Inquiry was established to investigate the loss of the drill ship
Columbus
and the sonar tug
Excalibur
. The following are the findings and recommendations relevant to facts presented in Part I, said facts established during public inquiry. The initial investigations were

1. FINDINGS

1.1 The catastrophic events aboard the
Columbus
occurred after a kick and the completion of a subsequent kill operation.

2. RECOMMENDATIONS

2.1 Upon compliance with existing regulations, Geminii Petroleum International shall be allowed to introduce a new drill ship to Loch Ness.

The men around the conference table clapped enthusiastically; Scotty's participation, however, was restrained.

Whittenfeld dropped the report on the table. "Scotty?" he asked, singling out the district supervisor, "is anything wrong?"

"No," Scotty protested as diplomatically as possible. "I think the results are excellent."

Whittenfeld clapped his hands. "Better than excellent. And there's more. Just prior to your entering the room, I spoke to New York. The
Columbus
's sister drill ship, the
Magellan
, is on its way. We' re back in business."

Whittenfeld seemed legitimately convinced of it. His expression exuded life. His eyes danced with excited expectation. A seductive smile lay on his lips. His entire manner had returned to normal—his look, voice, temperament. There'd been a rebirth. And "Mr. Bruce" was now "Scotty" once more.