Trusting Viktor (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) (13 page)

THIRTEEN

Mild weather conditions made
for gentle swells, and in a little under four hours, I was back aboard the
Magellan
. As was now my custom, after a visit to the radio room on the bridge, I went straight to the helm to inform Captain Powell I was aboard.

He and some of his crew were standing at the windows, each with a pair of binoculars trained on SunCo’s giant drillship about six miles from us.

“We’ve got company,” Powell said.

“I noticed. You should see the mob in town.”

“What mob?”

“Demonstrators. Several hundred, I’d say. Although it’s hard to be sure since they’re scattered through the streets leading to the port. Most of them were jammed up by the gates.”

“Shut up! No way!” said a wide-eyed young crew member from Powell’s staff.

“Way!” I said, laughing.

“Glad we get to dodge all that crap,” Powell said. “You might think about staying out here until it dies down. It’d probably be safer.”

“Thanks. That’s nice to know, but I’ll be fine,” I said. “Mind if I take a look?”

He handed me the binoculars.

I scanned the massive hull for the vessel’s name and watched as thrusters on each end of ship kicked in, swinging the bow away from us. As the ship came broadside, I saw it:
Able Leader
, emblazoned in shiny red letters under the bow rail. Noticing the behemoth literally sparkled in the sun, I wondered if it was new.

As though reading my mind, Powell said, “She just came off the rails, one of SunCo’s new generation of ultra-deepwater drillships. They have a wholly owned subsidiary, SunCo America, that builds them to their exact specifications. Notice anything different about that ship that this one doesn’t have?”

I studied its structure. “Uh-oh,” I said. “Would those be dual drills in one derrick?”

“Yep, sure would,” Powell said. “Instead of doing each operation involved in drilling a well sequentially, they have a main advancing station
and
an auxiliary advancing station. Both stations can assemble strings of pipe and have them ready to drill or rack them back as they come up. Lower cost, less time.”

“Impressive. I’ve read about them, just haven’t seen one yet, though they’ve been in use for several years now.”

“Well, we’ve got a good head start. But in the end, it doesn’t matter who gets to their target first, right?”

I set down the nocks. All eyes on the bridge trained on me. “That’s right,” I said confidently. “In the end, it all comes down to who chose the
right
target. Who cares if your team is the first if you hit a duster?”

“But that won’t happen to us, will it?” a trim young man in a blue jumpsuit, part of the bridge crew, asked.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Well,” he said, “I heard that twenty years ago Global and SunCo both owned this spot.”

As employees of TransWorld, Powell and his crew were engaged in the business of operating the drillship and all the drilling equipment efficiently. Geologic decisions made by the operator who contracted them—in this case, Global—were out of their purview.

“Yes,” I said. “That was right about the time the two companies split and Global bought the lease on this block. Keep in mind, seismic surveys weren’t as advanced twenty years ago as they are today. Technology has marched on and now we can see what’s happening below ground in 3D. And more than that, with 4D we can get a feel for what’s happened over time. Plus both companies have drilled countless wells since then and each one has its own lessons to teach.”

I lifted the binocs for another quick peek at the magnificent ship. “I can’t say for certain, but I believe that based on what happened to SunCo on a certain well in the eastern Gulf, their geologic exploration team won’t necessarily try to drill the thickest part of a reef anymore.”

“But isn’t that our plan, to drill into the thickest part?” Powell asked me.

“Well, it’s a little more complicated than simply drilling the thickest part. I’m just saying that, based on that experience and newer seismic surveys, they’ve chosen to go a different route. But here’s the thing, you can make all the projections you want, slice and dice your 3D diagrams all you want, in the end, it’s impossible to know until you drill a hole.”

Captain Powell and his bridge crew looked a little dubious. “Don’t worry,” I said. “When it comes to the geologic part of this operation, Phil and I have lots of rabbits up our sleeve. Right now, I need to get down to the shaker shack and check in with the guys to see where we are in the hole.”

As I headed off, I remembered I’d felt my iPhone vibrate several times while I was on the bridge. The last two missed calls were from Detective Pierce. His probing blue-gray eyes and gaunt face came to mind. I’d call him back when I got to a quieter place, maybe on my return ride on the
Responder
. Before I did so, however, there was something more I needed to learn. From Duncan Powell.

I stayed in the logging lab until lunchtime. Elton was in and out but remembered to bring me his daily reports. I put them in my pack to go over later. After I’d looked at dozens of chips of sandstone, shale, and boundstones, I was satisfied that we were very close to penetrating the reservoir rock. Hopefully, our targeted bright spot, located within the 1,400-foot thickness of the ancient carbonate reef, would prove to be dry natural gas. Grabbing my hard hat, I left the lab and went to the galley to find something to eat … and Captain Powell. In the short time I’d known him, I’d come to think of him as a creature of habit, at least as far as his meal times were concerned.

Confirming my belief, Powell was just entering the galley at one thirty and, as luck would have it, he was alone. I waved a greeting.

“Care to join me?” he asked.

Sometimes a plan just falls into place. As I set down my tuna salad and tea on the table, he said, “I hope Bud’s going to be able to keep Manteo One from suffering the same fate as the Destin Dome.”

“Ah.” I wasn’t surprised. “So you know the whole story of SunCo and the Destin Dome.”

In 1987 the Destin Dome was a proven trap for trillions of cubic feet of dry natural gas, but production there was still blocked by the state of Florida in much the same way as exploration of the Manteo Prospect had been held up by the state of North Carolina. Only in the last two years had the overall will of the country now coalesced to demand a robust energy plan after witnessing firsthand the damage done to the economy—not to mention national security—without one. With two years of frustrating experience behind him, Bud had emerged as a virtuoso at coalition-building to make the project a reality. It was a skill I’d failed to master myself when it came to the small quarry operation I’d hoped to launch.

“If history doesn’t teach us, what does?” Powell observed.

I gave him a confident look and said, “Still, you must not know Bud very well.”

Powell smiled. “Actually, as the rig super on the
Magellan
, I’ve gotten to know him pretty well over this last year. He did the coordinating for our team at TransWorld with the operators at Global and the state and federal people to get our permits. Everyone had to be on the same page regarding the drilling plan for Manteo One, the chemicals we planned to use in our drilling mud, our recycling process … and you’re right, I shouldn’t worry. Bud’s one very determined guy.”

Then he stopped eating, gave me a penetrating stare, and said, “I learned something else about him when you guys got stranded out here the night those heavy-duty thunderstorms rolled over us.”

My chest tightened a little. “What was that?”

“He’s very savvy at poker! He cleaned out me and Phil and a couple of tool pushers.” Powell laughed as he speared the last of his fried shrimp and popped it in his mouth.

“Right,” I said, relieved. “He told me you guys had gotten in a few hands.”

“You could say that,” he grinned. “But you could also say we didn’t break up until about six o’clock in the morning. I was a zombie the next day. Mostly we sat right there, him making money, us losing it. Except for bathroom breaks, we didn’t move.”

“Sounds like honor demands a rematch,” I said, finishing my salad. “But, I should get back to work. The boat’s scheduled to go back at two thirty and I’ll be on it.”

Once aboard the
Responder
, I settled back in one of the comfortable reclining passenger chairs in its relative quiet—quiet, that is, compared to a drillship—and prepared to make my long overdue call to Detective Pierce. I wondered if he’d spoken to Bud yet. Now that I knew Bud had a solid alibi, I felt marginally better and more at ease about talking to the cops. Why only marginally? Well, there was the matter of those bathroom breaks …

With two approaches to the bridge of the
Magellan
(an interior stairwell and exterior stairs with a landing off the bridge), it was still possible that Bud had walked out on the landing for a breath of fresh air after going to the bathroom. Even though the ROV area was cloaked in darkness, he would have been close enough to hear the scuffle. While I couldn’t remember if I’d screamed, there had to have been other distress noises. Say he arrived just as I fainted, with King Kong/Nuvuk Hunter overstimulated and unaware … Bud could have easily pushed him overboard.

Detective Pierce’s phone rang several times, then went to voicemail. “Detective Pierce, Cleo Cooper returning your call,” I said crisply, then clicked off. I settled deeper in the recliner, planning to use the quite ride back to go over Elton’s daily report. But Captain Eddie opened the cabin door, spotted me, and came over.

“Have a seat,” I said, putting away my report.

“Thanks,” he said, standing above me, “but I only have a sec. I turned the com over to the first mate. Don’t want to push my luck, but I did want to ask you about the well. How’s it going? We’re going to beat SunCo to the punch, aren’t we?”

It’s funny how there seems to be a collective conscious that connects all parties involved in a wildcat well, no matter how removed they are from the actual drilling. When the fat lady is about to sing, everyone knows it and the excitement and tension levels ratchet up.

“I don’t know about SunCo, but our well’s coming along nicely. Minus any hiccups, we should be getting some show very soon.” He gave me a thumbs up and went back to the bridge.

Maybe Captain Eddie was just starting to get into the spirit, but I’d been feeling the excitement all along. To think I was involved with the first well drilled on what promised to be a new frontier of energy for America! This was what it must have been like in the Gulf in the early days. Well, the tools used today were well advanced of those back then, and we were starting in over 2,000 feet of water, whereas back in the late thirties and early forties in the Gulf, they started in shallow water. Actually the first wells were drilled right on land in the town of Golden Meadow, Louisiana. The story goes that there was so much oil right under the ground that local residents were confronted with an excess seeping out of the ground, ruining the hems of women’s dresses. Imagine!

I hadn’t really slept so, after a bit of daydreaming about a wildcat strike, I nodded off for the rest of the return trip. Back at the port, colorful boats full of vacationers wove in an out among the support vessels. Jet skiers were clearly ecstatic about having SunCo’s 200-footers around because of the enormous wakes they created. With engines whining, they swarmed behind the ships like pilot fish
follow sharks, jumping the wakes in the most creative ways.
Sometimes they were successful and sometimes they weren’t, getting dunked in the waterway in the latter case. Thank goodness for kill switches.

I heard a throaty rumble beside me and knew it would be one of those go-fast boats, the kind often painted in garish colors and sporting bikini-clad babes on the bow. I turned to watch it go by. I was right about the garish colors; however, the only babe on the boat was behind the wheel.

It was Viktor Kozlov.

FOURTEEN

Viktor waved from the
open cockpit of a 42-foot Fountain, definitely an eye-catcher. So was Viktor, with his dark brown curls, flashing smile, and ripped body. I was just reminding myself of his tender age and managing to drag my eyes from the twin clefts on either side of his flat belly when I noticed he was signaling something. He’d point inshore, then back and forth between us.
Meet me at the port?

I was still trying to decipher his meaning when he gave me another merry wave and pushed the throttle forward. Engines bellowed. The boat leaped forward, practically becoming airborne, and Viktor was gone, spewing a 50-foot rooster tail behind him.

Ten minutes later, with me still at the bow rail, the
Iron Responder
bumped gently into her slip. Only a blind man could have missed the Fountain tied up at the commercial marina next door. I slipped back through the cabin, gathered my things, and hopped off. Viktor was waiting for me on the dock.

“I told you I had a special place for us to be alone,” he said, pointing at the Fountain, bursting with pride.

“Whose is that?” I asked. Such a big-boy toy wasn’t something a doctoral candidate, even one attending Duke, would likely be able to afford.

“It belongs to Davy, my old boss. He came up here to buy it so he could tour the factory and meet the designers and engineers. The factory is in a little town not far from here called Washington. In a few days, he and the twins are going to take the boat back to Louisiana. They have a lot to do in preparation, and so until they leave, I’m free to use it.”

So that’s why Duchamp was in town the other day. “That was nice of them. But back up just a sec here. Did you tell them about us?”

“Never! I’d never do that. Remember, I told you that you can trust me with your privacy. That’s why this boat is so perfect for us …”

“Oh yeah, it just fades right into the scenery. No one would ever notice it.”

Viktor thought a moment chewing on his bottom lip. “I see your point, and I will fix this problem immediately. But, for now,
mya morkovka,”
he said, pulling me close. “Hop in. Let me take you home by water. The crowds outside the port get rougher as the evening approaches.”

Mya morkovka
? “Thank you,” I said, stepping politely from his embrace. “That’s very kind of you, but my Jeep is parked down the street. I don’t want to leave it. Like you said, things could get nastier with the protestors once it’s dark.” Hitching my pack a little higher on my shoulder, I started to leave, but he was so crestfallen, I couldn’t just walk off.

I said, “Seriously, Viktor, thank you for your concern. You’re very sweet.” I started to give him a little peck on the check, then remembered the last time I tried that and refrained.

I made it back to the house without incident. I was looking forward to a little downtime with Tulip and Henri—at least, I hoped Henri was home. She owned her own photography business and though it wasn’t limited to brides, they made up the bulk of her client base. She’d told me earlier she had an upcoming photo shoot and needed to scout out some interesting locations.

I wished Will were there too. My heart squeezed at the thought of him, wondering what was bothering him and if he’d talked to Bud about it. I was headed for the back porch when I heard Tulip bark from the sea wall where she was patrolling for wharf fiddlers.

Apparently she’d cornered one because she hesitated, looking back and forth between me and the small, black spider-like crab. Love conquers all and I won out over the crunchy crustacean and she bounded across the yard. Whimpering, she leaned into my legs and stuck her head between my knees. I gave her sides a vigorous rub and noticed something odd about her collar.

Upon further inspection, I realized something was taped to it. I easily broke the paper, revealing a note inside a plastic sandwich baggie. I unfolded it. Scrawled in red crayon were the words YOUR DOG WON’T LIKE GAS EITHER. Mid-page was a childish drawing of a dog in a big barrel—presumably filled with gasoline—a lighted match pointed at it. At the bottom of the page, the word KABOOM! with shock waves darting from it.

My mouth went dry. Where was Henri?

I ran into the house, calling her name.

“Yo!” She bounded into the room.

Relief rushed over me, but you wouldn’t have known it. “What’s Tulip doing outside unattended?” I snapped.

“I just put her out a minute ago. What’s wrong? You look like you just ran into Freddy Krueger.”

“What does ‘just put her out’ mean? I’m serious. How long?”

“Minutes, I don’t know, maybe five or less …”

Dropping the note on the table, I said, “Read it—but don’t touch it!”

As quickly as my two feet would carry me, I was back in the Jeep retrieving my Beretta .380, a baby nine, still in its nylon field holster. Buckling it on, I ran to the seawall and scanned up and down its length. It was low tide, but no one was hiding down there and no footprints were evident in the muddy sand, either.

A thick hedgerow of ancient azaleas served as a divider between my yard and my neighbor’s. The inevitable grapevine and greenbriers grew thickly among them, making a tangle that could easily hide an intruder. Bending to see under them, I traveled their length, looking for someone crouched there. I found no one, so I moved to the back of the house.

When I reached the front yard, I found another calling card of sorts: a clear 40-ounce beer bottle, half filled with kerosene, if my sense of smell served me right, and finished off with wick made from a scrap of T-shirt. This Molotov cocktail sat unlit right in the middle of the porch. Henri had been watching me from the windows. Now she opened the door and looked at it. “God, Mom, what are you going to do?”

“Well, for starters, I’m calling the cops. Next, you’re packing up and moving to Dad’s. Now.”

“But what about you? Are you crazy? You can’t stay here by yourself with some maniac running around leaving bombs!”

“
And
you’re taking Tulip with you,” I said, ignoring her. “Now hurry!”

“But—”

“No buts, Henri. Besides, I won’t be here. I’ll go stay on the drillship until we finish Manteo One. You can tell Dad that so he won’t worry.” I closed and locked the front door behind us and started for the kitchen, pulling out my phone and dialing Detective Pierce. Henri gave me one last pleading look just as he answered. I gave her my sternest scowl and pointed up the stairs, then relayed my recent troubles to him.

“Don’t touch anything! We’ll be right over,” he said.

I jogged out to my Jeep and deposited the Beretta back in the console just as Henri came out with her overnight bag and Tulip.

“I’ve decided to go to my house in Raleigh,” she said. “I postponed my photo shoot. The girl is okay with it … for now, but you know how these brides can be. I hope this gets straightened out before too long or we’ll have something more dangerous than a bomb-toting activist to worry about; we’ll have a bridezilla!” She opened the door to her Chevy Tahoe so Tulip could get in. Tulip looked at me.

“Go on,” I said. “It’s all right.”

“I need to check on a few things at my place anyway,” she said. “I’ll go by your house too, make sure everything’s copacetic there, maybe have lunch with some of the girls.
Then
I’ll go to Dad’s.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

I gave her a hug. “Don’t worry. All this craziness will be over as soon as the well comes in and the world doesn’t come to a fiery, polluted end, but gets better instead. You’ll see. Go on now, scoot!”

She pulled out of the driveway about two minutes before my favorite detectives pulled in, followed by two Morehead City patrol cars, a CSI van, and a SWAT team. In less than fifteen minutes, the SWAT team—all eight of them in full body armor, carrying assault weapons, and wearing helmets with blast shields pulled down over their faces—had swarmed over the house and yard, reloaded into their armored van, and left. I stood nearly motionless that entire time, not wanting to disrupt the bizarre goings-on at my temporary home.

After collecting the note and the Molotov cocktail and dusting for prints, the CSI team left too. Apparently domestic terrorism didn’t fall within the scope of Pierce’s and Myers’s talents, so they stood to the side while I went over the details of what I’d found with the police officers. After about an hour, they gave me their assurances that they would put extra patrols on my house and left to canvass the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the wiry Pierce and not-so-wiry Myers had taken their now-usual seats at my kitchen table.

“My goodness, Ms. Cooper,” Pierce said. “When you come to town, things certainly get lively.”

“Are you suggesting I somehow caused this crap?” I said, incredulously, then added, “And a SWAT team? Don’t you think that was a little over the top?”

“Not at all,” Pierce said. “Puts the fear of God in the bad guys. Trust me, they were somewhere watching to see your reaction. That’s partly why they did it.”

“And,” Myers jumped in, “it worked out real smooth, timing-wise. Morehead City SWAT was running drills, in case things get out of hand with the protestors at the port, so it was good practice for them. By the way, where’s your daughter?”

“I sent her away for a few days. She took my dog with her.”

“Smart move,” Myers said.

“It’d be even smarter if you went too,” Pierce added.

“I’ll be fine. I’m not letting a bunch of domestic terrorists and political activists run me off.”

Pierce cocked an eye at Myers, then said, “Let’s move on to another topic, shall we? The murder of the ROV pilot seems a little less volatile.”

“Sorry,” I said. “Finding a bomb on your front porch might make you touchy too. By the way, I did return your call.”

“I wanted to know if you’d learned when Mr. Cooper might be returning to the country. Do you know?”

“He’s back. Is that all you wanted?”

“Yes, unless you’d be interested in knowing that we are very near to
actually
making a death ruling in the case of the ROV pilot and that we’re still going with accidental death. Well … probably.”

Now there was a surprise. Like a picador teasing a dangerous bull, I asked, “What about the fact that his skull was crushed?” I couldn’t help it. I wanted to know.

“Impressions made of the back of his skull match perfectly with an impression taken of the railing on the ROV platform. And there were trace amounts of blood on the railing and on the platform itself that match the vic’s.”

“Why does that make it an accident?”

“He said
probably
,” Myers stated.

“Yes. Like women, homicide detectives are free to change their minds whenever they feel like it,” Pierce said.

That’s when my frustration about the entire situation boiled over. “Look, I just want to know what happened on the
Magellan
that night. I’ve always felt safe on an offshore rig. Safer than anywhere else, really. And now I don’t anymore. What’s worse, some creep is trying to frighten me away from here too. Meanwhile, you two knuckleheads are making dumb female jokes.”

I felt my chin start to tremble and that made me even angrier. “You guys might try putting yourselves in my place. I was beaten up and nearly raped, and for a while there I thought I was about to be thrown overboard by someone I don’t know, for some reason I don’t understand. Then, somehow, I ended up back in my bunk. If you were me, wouldn’t you want to know what the hell really happened? Jesus, guys.”

The refrigerator hummed. The distant cries of seagulls floated on the stillness of the hot afternoon. Myers checked his loafers for scuffs. Pierce inspected a hangnail. I felt deflated now that my tirade was finished.

“You want some tea?” I asked.

“Sounds like another good idea to me,” Myers said with a sigh.

I pulled open the refrigerator door, then checked Mickey on my wrist. He said it was beer-thirty. “Aren’t you guys off duty now?”

“Technically, yes,” said Pierce.

“Would you rather have a Blue Moon?”

“Okay by me,” Myers said. “It’s a pussy beer, but I like it.”

“That pretty much sums you up, Myers,” Pierce told his partner.

“Eff you,” Myers replied good naturedly.

I set three chilled mugs and three cans of Blue Moon on the table, emptied some orange wedges from a baggie into a small saucer, and set it down too.

“Why do you think the matching impressions suggest an accident rather than a murder?” I said.

“Because you’re the only person who had a reason to kill him—self-defense, of course—and you’re too small to get the upper hand in a fight with someone of his size, much less slam his head into the railing and pitch him overboard.”

Myers squeezed an orange wedge into his beer and said, “Couple that with the tox report—which just came back and said he’d
way
over-served himself—and an accident seems more plausible.”

Pierce took a huge gulp of beer, sans orange wedge, then set the mug down. I could see the tendons in his jaw working. He was one intense guy. “Also we’ve talked to the other people on the tour and with the possible exception of your husband—who might have defended you if he’d known you were in trouble—there are no other suspects. Which brings us back to him and the word
probably
. We’ll talk to Mr. Cooper before making a definite ruling.”

Now that talk of murder and mayhem was out of the way, the three of us spent an enjoyable hour discussing the wildcat and what its coming in would mean to eastern North Carolina. But as soon as the two detectives left, I pulled out my phone to call Bud and warn him.

But I thought better of it and put the phone away. One question would lead to another, and I’d have to tell him I’d been attacked, which I still didn’t want to do. And wouldn’t he get the impression that I thought he was capable of murder? I didn’t want to go there either. What I wanted was for the whole mess to go away instead. So I did what I usually do and shoved it out of my mind. Then I called the helicopter service in Beaufort to see if I could catch a flight out to the relative safety of the
Magellan
tonight.