The Rig 2: Storm Warning (3 page)

“This is a message from the FBI. Remain calm and shelter in place. There has been a terrorist attack. We have agents on board to apprehend the suspect. The man who carried out this attack is a Middle Eastern man called Akhmed Hussain Abbasi and he is armed and dangerous. Do not try to apprehend him. If you see something, say something. Inform us using the intercom system. We have an agent at Central Security.”

Smith turned the microphone off and looked out the shattered window. “And now, we wait.”

Chapter Five

Akhmed heard the announcement on the PA system and his eyes opened wide. He had not expected to hear that voice. Or maybe he did expect to hear it, but not in connection with the term ‘FBI’. Suddenly he knew what was happening.

He had been in the open space of the Plaza, but now he just ran. He did not know where he was going, but he jumped over the piles of gore and rivers of blood to get out of sight. He wanted to run into the bakery, but he saw people stirring inside and he knew he would not be safe from Smith and Garcia there. Those people would certainly turn him over. He took off in another direction and jetted down a corridor. He had no idea where it led, but he knew he had to hide.

Akhmed ran up a flight of stairs and found himself on a walkway above the Plaza. There were a number of doors there and he found one that had been blasted open. He drew Fatima’s gun from his belt. He was not certain what he would do with it, but he wanted to be sure that he could at least defend himself. If Smith and Garcia were there, he would certainly want to get a shot off before they put a bullet through his head.

Behind the door was a small hallway which had a bathroom leading off from it. At the end was a studio. It was a small, but cozy, flat and there was a small bedroom on the left. He sat down on the sofa and buried his head in his hands.

He had always thought the theory he had heard was bogus, but now it seemed that it was not. He still couldn’t believe it, but the evidence was paramount; he had to believe it now. Akhmed tried to remember what the whole thing was about, but he couldn’t think clearly about what Helen had told him. They had discussed it over dinner once, but all he remembered about most of that evening was the fact that she had not done up quite enough buttons on her blouse.

Helen. He might never see her again. The thought made his hopes sink even lower as he slumped on the sofa. He took his phone out of his pocket and looked at it. There were no bars. He couldn’t even call her. The fire was probably interfering with the signal everywhere on the rig. He sighed. The one thing he wanted to do now was talk to her. He realized that he would probably never leave ‘The City’ alive and there was something he needed to tell her. It was stupid that he thought of that now, he figured. It was a stupid thing that he wanted to call her about, but he had to do it.

If it was the fire that interfered with the signal, he might have better chances of connecting the call if he headed further up into the structure. Maybe on the floor below the helipad, he would be able to get a signal. He got up and stepped out through the door again.

Chapter Six

Wes was surprised by the announcement that had come over the address system. He wondered why the FBI was on board in the first place, but he would have helped them if he could. If a terrorist attack caused this, then that man had to be held accountable. He had no intention of following the other part of the announcement though.

Shelter in place
, he thought.
Cower in a corner, more like.

It was not something he could do. He looked at Sheila, whose face had gone pale after hearing the announcement.

“Was it a terrorist attack?” she asked him, looking shocked. “And he’s still out there?”

Wes nodded.

“It seems so.”

Sheila instinctively crouched and covered her head with her hands. Wes just sat there, looking at her naked body. Her bum was beautiful in that position, he mused. Then he shook it off. He pulled Sheila to her feet and went to the railing of the walkway. He looked down. Nobody moved. They were in a part of ‘The City’ further away from Central Plaza, but everything was quiet none the less. A lot of people must have gone to the Plaza, but Wes figured those left in their apartments were doing exactly what Sheila had been doing at that moment. Exactly what the announcement said: sheltering in place. It was a response mechanism that had been well-drilled into most people, Wes thought.

He never got how that happened. He had not been in the country long when this change came about. Sure, since 9/11, things had been altered from what he knew as a schoolboy, but in the last few years, it had gone from bad to worse. Maybe he had missed the metamorphosis because he had spent two years in Samoa, and then travelled to Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and Malaysia with Joy before returning to the US. There was something going on with the people now. It was as if they were living in a constant state of fear.

It was so evident in what he saw Sheila do at that moment. There had just been an explosion and the rig they were on was on fire. But just the mention of a terrorist attack and the voice of authority telling her to shelter in place had her frozen.

“Sheila.” He looked at her sternly. “We’re going to the Central Plaza. I need to know how Joy and Dave are. Then we will look for a way out.”

She looked at him, slightly bewildered.

“But we have to stay where we are.”

Wes shook his head.

“No, we can’t. We need to go down there. And then we’ll see whether anyone else needs help; then we’ll get out of this place.”

“But there’s a terrorist walking around down there!”

Sheila was almost in tears. She was panicking. Wes did not understand it. Earlier, she had been so calm and composed; so strong. Now that she had heard there was a terrorist, she was terrified.

“There might be. We don’t know,” he said calmly.

“Yes, we do. They said so!”

Wes shrugged.

“And what? Do you believe everything they tell you?”

Sheila was confused now. She could not understand Wes’ attitude.

“But the bomb! The explosion!”

Wes frowned.

“Yes, there was an explosion. Perhaps a bomb, but who knows, maybe Stryker set the thing off.”

Stryker,
he thought.

Dave and Joy had found out something about Stryker. Something had been wrong. But what?

He took Sheila by the hand and set off toward the Plaza, pulling her along.

“We can’t go to the Plaza!” she protested.

“We can and we will. I have to talk to Joy and Dave.”

***

Dave was looking through the fridges in the storeroom. He needed something cold for Joy’s head. That was the one thing he knew he could do. He could not dim the light for her, he could not bandage anything, but he could cool her bruised head. Finally, he found what he was looking for. In the back of the storeroom, he found one of the fridges had an ice maker. It still worked. He picked up a garbage bag from one of the shelves and began gathering ice cubes in it. When he had enough, he closed the bag and went back to the office.

Joy still lay on the bed. She had not moved. Her breathing was still shallow, but when Dave checked, he found her pulse was strong. He kneeled down beside her and gently placed the bag of ice on her head, where the plank had hit her, hoping it would help a little. He did not want to lose her.

Dave had lost too many people he cared about already, and he cared about Joy more than most people. Most of the people that he had lost had been in the army.

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’.”