“Oh boy! MREs — Meals Ready to Eat. I don’t think I’ve had one of those since I went to survival school as a midshipman!”
“With your crew cut back to twenty-five people, you’re not going to have the luxury of having someone cook meals from scratch. Everyone is going to have to be able to grab a quick meal whenever they can.”
“Good thinking, Dwight. I knew I could count on you.”
George and Leona stood on the north side of Platform Alpha looking out in the direction of the Texas Gulf coast. Even in September, it could be sweltering hot on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Today was nice, though. A steady breeze kept it quite pleasant in the shadow of the platform’s superstructure.
The time was drawing nigh, and there would be no turning back. George turned to Leona. “You could still get out of this, you know. They probably haven’t even missed you yet. I wish…”
George’s sentence was interrupted by Dwight yelling from the control shack, “George! Get up here now!”
Hearing the urgency and stress in Dwight’s voice, George took the stairs three at a time with Leona close on his heels. They rushed into the control room.
“What’s the problem?” George asked.
“We got visitors.” Dwight’s voice was tight.
“Visitors? Where?”
“Check the screen. That blip is about six miles out and making a beeline straight for Platform Alpha.”
George ran to the top of the ladder and yelled down to the XO who was on the deck of the Louisiana. “XO, we’ve got company coming. Take her down to a hundred feet! Leona and I will stay here with Dwight and maintain radio contact.”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
George returned to the control room and studied the radarscope. “Any ideas?”
“During the time I’ve been out here, I’ve had Mexican Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard, drug runners, pleasure boats… you name it, they have all stopped by for one reason or another. This one is going too slow for drug runners; it’s too small for Coast Guard, so my guess is it’s a pleasure boat or fisherman.”
“I hope you’re right.” George felt, rather than heard, the Louisiana taking on ballast as it began to submerge underneath the platform. “With these GenCon coveralls and this gray beard I’ve been growing, they’ll never know who I am even though my picture has been plastered on the TV and newspapers for weeks. Leona’s still an unknown. So far, she’s just a petty officer who’s on emergency leave, although that status will soon change to UA when they discover her father is not dying and she’s not in Kansas!”
“UA?” asked Dwight.
“Unauthorized Absence. It’s the navy’s version of AWOL — Absent Without Official Leave.”
The radio, which had been quiet, now came to life. “Oil platform… uh, four-one-three, I believe. This is the Dorothy out of Corpus Christi. Do you copy?”
Dwight picked up the handset, “This is GenCon rig four-one-three. We copy. Go ahead, Dorothy.”
“Hi, my name is Bill Tuohy. We are on our way back to Corpus, and we are running a little low on fuel. We were hoping you could spare about one hundred gallons.”
“George?” Dwight said as he held his hand over the mike.
“Can we direct him to another rig?”
“Yeah, but we’re by far the farthest out. The nearest rig is about twenty miles north. If he needs fuel, we don’t want him calling the coast guard to come rescue his ass, and then telling them the assholes on four-one-three wouldn’t give him any gas. But it’s your call.”
George thought about it. “Let ’em in. But, we’re going to have to keep them off your deck.”
“Okay.” Dwight keyed the mike, “Bill, you can tie up at the northeast leg of the rig. But you have to be very careful. The rig was hit during Hurricane Alonzo and it’s somewhat unstable. We’re doing repairs now trying to make it safe.”
“Copy that, rig four-one-three. We’re trying to get home, so as soon as you can load us up we will be on our way.”
On the Dorothy, Bill turned from the radio and addressed a powerfully built man standing at the helm. “Tommy, I’m not so sure about taking on the rig. We don’t know how many men they have.”
“You heard him, they’re working on repairs. That means they’ll only have a fraction of their normal crew onboard. And they aren’t expecting us.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. But—”
“But nothin’,” interrupted Ronnie. Ronnie was Tommy’s executive assistant in his business. She worked as his Assistant Manager for Foreign Operations in his Houston office of Harrier International, a company ostensibly importing oil tools from China. Ronnie was a skilled horsewoman and a marksman with multiple weapons including the Glock 40 she had strapped to her inner left thigh. Most men who messed with Ronnie only did it once.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. I guess I’m just jumpy now that we’re actually here.”
“Dwight?” George’s voice was calm. Dressed in coveralls with a GenCon patch on the back, he looked just like a deck hand.
“Yeah?”
“I’m going out to brief Ramirez and Williams. I would like to be with you when you meet with the Dorothy and her captain.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Rig four-one-three,” the radio came to life again.
Dwight keyed the mike, “This is rig four-one-three.”
“This is Bill again. I really hope you guys have a medic on board!”
“Bill, this is Dwight. What’s the problem?” he asked suspiciously.
“My boss’s assistant is throwing up something awful, and she’s complaining of some serious pain in her right side. I think we’re about ten minutes out. Repeat. Do you have a medic?”
Dwight looked at George and raised his eyebrows. George nodded and said, “Send him down to their boat.”
“Sure. You will be tying up to the northeast leg where we have a ladder and a landing. I’ll send the medic down when you get here.”
“Great. Dorothy out.”
“Who’s your medic?” asked George. “We need to brief him on the need to keep our presence secret.”
“His name’s Fred Wiland. We call him Freddy. He was a medic in the army. He got out about three months ago and was livin’ in Houston. He wanted to get away from all that big-city hustle and bustle, so he applied to GenCon to fill a position we had for a medic willin’ to spend extended periods on oil rigs.”
“He’s a good guy?”
“The best. Totally trustworthy.”
“Let me go down to the boat with Freddy,” said Leona. “We shouldn’t send someone down alone.”
“That’s true, but I don’t have a good explanation for why we’re sendin’ two people down,” said Dwight.
“Sure you do — company policy: whenever the medic examines a woman or someone from off the rig, you need a witness. You know, insurance, lawyers, and all that.”
“We don’t know anything about these people or what they’re up to. It might be dangerous,” said George.
Leona laughed. “Listen to who’s talking, Mister Save-the-World. If I’m going to be on one of your teams for the rest of my life, hiding out from authorities and avoiding capture, I better get some training at handling difficult situations. Besides, my woman’s intuition is pretty good. I’m good at quickly sizing up people. That might come in handy down there.”
“All right,” George conceded. Turning to Dwight, he said, “Let’s get Freddy up here.”
Dwight got on the rig PA, “Freddy, get your med kit and meet me at the northeast ladder.”
Dwight turned to Leona. “Let’s roll!”