Fisher pressed the dash's power button, and the digital gauges lit up, amber on black. A thumb-size screen in the middle of the dash flashed the words SELF-DIAGNOSIS RUNNING. Sixty seconds later the screen flashed again: SELF-DIAGNOSIS COMPLETE. NO ERRORS FOUND.
"Sled checks out," Fisher told Sandy and Bird. "Prepping."
"Roger."
Fisher slipped a one-piece dry diving suit over his tac suit, made sure all the cuffs were sealed tight, then took off his headset, pulled on his hood and face mask, which he tightened for fit, then knelt beside the sled and hooked the loose end of his mask hose into the air-port. He pressed the dash button labeled AIRFLOW ON. Cool, metallic air gushed into his mask. He punched AIRFLOW OFF, then pushed the mask back onto his forehead and put the headset back on.
"Two miles," Bird called. "Three minutes."
"Sea state?"
"Running between five and six," Sandy replied. "Crests to sixteen feet."
"Give me half ramp," Fisher called.
"Half ramp."
"Switching to SVT." He took off his headset and hooked it on the bulkhead, then keyed the SVT. "Read me?"
"Loud and clear," replied Bird.
With a hum, the ramp's hydraulics engaged. The ramp parted from the fuselage's curved upper rim, revealing a crescent of black sky. Sea spray burst through the opening and misted Fisher's face. The rain sounded like shrapnel striking the Osprey's aluminum skin.
"Hold ramp," Fisher ordered. The ramp stopped. "Lovely evening out there."
"I love your sunny disposition," Bird said.
"Everyone does."
"One mile out. Coming to hover." The Osprey's engines changed pitch, and Fisher felt their forward momentum begin to slow, then stop altogether. "Hovering. Stand by . . . Couplers engaged."
Sandy said, "We're at thirty feet, Sam. Sorry. Any lower, and we might net some water."
"No problem."
Fisher knelt behind the sled. From the left calf pouch on his dry suit, he pulled a D-ring knotted to some blaze-orange 4mm parachute cord. In his pouch was another 100 feet of it. The sled was buoyant, and in these seas, Fisher wanted to be able to reel it to him--or vice versa--should they get separated during the drop.
"Ready," Fisher called. "On my mark."
"Roger," Bird replied. "We'll be nearby. Call when you're done playing."
"Will do. Give me full ramp."
The ramp groaned downward until it locked fully open with a dull clunk. Rain whipped through the opening. Fisher could see the sea below heaving and breaking, the wave crests serrated edges of white water.
He popped the sled's release toggle, watched it slide into the darkness, then counted five seconds and followed after it.
25
FISHERpushed the throttle bar downward. The bow planes responded, tilting forward and driving the sled deeper. The sled's twin headlights arced through the darkness, illuminating drifting plankton and the occasional curious fish.
When his depth gauge read thirty feet, he evened out, then checked his compass: on course. Above his head the surface of the ocean boiled, a ceiling of undulating white water, but here, a mere ten yards below the surface, the water was calm, with only a slight east-to-west current. Fisher could feel the press of the water against his dry suit, a bone-chilling cold that would have killed him long ago if not for the protective layers.
He saw something--a hazy vertical shape--appear in the headlights, then fade away. Seconds later it reappeared and slowly took shape until Fisher could make it out: one of the platform's pilings.
Each of the platform's four main pilings, as big around as a tanker truck, were connected by a series of smaller, horizontal cross-pilings, and diagonal I-beam steel girders. Descending vertically between this maze of steel all the way to the ocean floor would be the platform's producing wells, which could number as many as twenty. This platform, long ago decommissioned, would have withdrawn its well pipes and drilling sleeves, leaving only the remnants dangling from the underside of the platform like a massive wind chime.
Fisher kept the sled steady until the rest of the support structure came into view. He curved around the piling, then turned parallel to the cross-piling until his headlights illuminated the next piling. This one, though identical to the first, was on the platform's west side, which put it in the lee of the current. He pushed the throttle bar up and ascended alongside the piling until the headlights illuminated a vertical steel ladder. This was the lower access ladder, used by divers to inspect the platform's submerged structures. He reached out and gave the lowermost rung a firm tug; it held.
He unhooked his face mask's hose from the sled's tanks and hooked into his chest rebreather, then lifted a thumb-size plastic cover on the dash and pressed a red button. On either side of the sled's nose cone, the buoyancy chambers opened. Seconds later the sled tipped over nose first and slid into the depths.
Fisher grabbed the ladder and started climbing.
The ladder rose thirty feet, the last ten out of the water, and ended at a square catwalk bordered by safety rails. Another ladder, this one enclosed by a cage, continued up the piling to another catwalk, encircling the piling. He paused here to strip off his dry suit and toss it over the side, then followed the catwalk to the back side of the piling where he found a set of grated steps that continued up the piling, switchbacking until it ended at a door-size horizontal hatch.
He climbed to the second to last step and tried the lever. It swiveled to the open position with a dull thunk. Fisher switched his goggles to NV, drew his pistol, put his back against the hatch, tightened his legs, then stood up a few inches. The hatch squeaked open. The room beyond was a changing area; tiled floors, shower cubicles, and lockers on one side, sinks and toilet stalls on the other. Fisher stood up, careful to keep his right arm on the hatch's edge so it didn't bang open. He climbed the last step into the room, then closed the hatch behind him.
At the far end of the room was a door with a porthole window set at chin height. To his left, a line of four porthole windows; he walked to one of them and looked out over the platform's open deck.
Like most exploration and drilling platforms, this one was built around the drilling and well head equipment, all of which descended through a square, hundred-foot-by-hundred-foot opening in the center of the platform. On either side of this opening were stacked three levels of work shacks joined together by enclosed walkways. Rising from each shack at opposite ends from one another were rotatable cranes. On the far north side of the platform was a raised helicopter pad encircled by a railing. Sitting on the pad was a helicopter. Fisher tried to make out the model, but the horizontal rain made it impossible.
Fisher called up his OPSAT blueprint of the platform and oriented himself on it. This changing room was on the lowermost level of the western-side shack. He checked for Stewart's beacon; it was still active, somewhere above him and to the east.