Dante squinted at the oil rig just before he pulled his mask on. “Do we need to watch out for moving parts down there, like getting sucked into a pipe or something like that?”
Behind him one of the guards laughed softly.
Jasmijn shook her head. “I’ve dived on this rig before. This one has been slated for decommissioning and so there’s no active drilling anymore. I’m not even sure if there are any people on it,” she said, giving his foot a subtle stamp with her own as she looked over at the rig. “Active ones have a lot of boat traffic and as you can see, there’s none of that.”
“Enough talk!” The leader shouted from the wheel. “Get on with it!”
Jasmijn turned to Dante. She could see in his eyes that he was a little nervous. “We’ll swim on the surface closer to the pillar to conserve air, then we drop down next to it. Ready?”
Dante nodded as he gazed out over the surface of the ocean. At least it was calm, by North Sea standards. Three-to-four foot swells.
Jasmijn nodded in return and the two of them splashed into the water.
TWENTY-NINE
Dante and Jasmijn dropped down into the ocean next to the oil rig’s concrete column. They could see some thirty to forty feet in any direction, the water being clouded by floating microscopic plants and animals called plankton. Dante gripped Jasmijn’s arm to halt their descent.
She opened her eyes wide. What?
He took the underwater slate clipped to the dive vest and wrote on it with the attached pencil.
DO U REALLY NEED ANEMS TO MAKE ANTIDOTE? He’d been wondering this since she brought it up in the lab, but this was the first opportunity he’d had to communicate with her alone.
Jasmijn gave an exaggerated nod that would not be hidden by the gear she wore.
Dante scribbled on the slate again.
SAW LADDER UP TO RIG DURING SWIM OVER. SIDE FACING AWAY FROM BOAT. WE COULD TRY TO HIDE ON RIG, LET THEM THINK WE HAD DIVE ACCIDENT.
They hung suspended in the water while Jasmijn comprehended what he proposed. Then she nodded again. What did they have to lose? There was no doubt that once Hofstad had the working antidote, she would no longer hold any value to them. She harbored no illusions that they would kill her. She took her own slate and wrote on it: OK BUT GET ANEMS FIRST. NOT FAR BELOW.
Dante gave her the diver’s OKAY signal, thumb and forefinger in a circle, and then the pair descended further along the oil rig’s support structures. When they reached a brace system at a depth of sixty feet where multiple struts branched off in various directions, Jasmijn tapped Dante on the shoulder and pointed to one of the flat metal surfaces.
It was covered with white sea anemones, outwardly resembling a bed of flowers. Thick schools of silvery fish swarmed in broad circles around the oil rig pillars.
Jasmijn approached the anemones and deftly pulled one off and dropped it into her bag. She repeated the process a few more times, the uprooted animals dropping to the bottom of her bag in a tangle of silky tentacles.
She signaled to Dante that she was ready to ascend. Their air supply would last longer at shallower depths, although they also needed to avoid detection. The water was not so clear they had to worry about being seen from the boat while they were underwater, but she recalled the Hofstad leader’s words with a chilclass="underline" We will be following your air bubbles to see where you come up.
She halted Dante and wrote on her slate: OUR BUBBLES?
Dante glanced at it and nodded. He pointed to her air gauge. 2,200 psi. Glanced at his own. 1,800. Figures she has better air consumption, Dante thought, shrugging out of his tank. Women usually do, and she was a much more experienced diver. He wished they could have Liam here, but things were what they were and he would deal with it.
He carefully inflated his buoyancy compensator device (BCD) until it was neutrally buoyant. Then he took a small reel of safety line and used it to tie the vest in place around a steel girder. He loosened the regulator’s purge valve until a steady stream of air bubbles trickled from it and rose toward the surface.
They had to act fast now. It might not take long for the men on the boat to realize that there were two bubble streams far apart, the real one not as constant. But they weren’t experienced divers, so it just might work. Even if they did spot the two streams, they would probably assume they had split up and would hopefully pursue the wrong one first.
Dante breathed from Jasmijn’s “octopus,” or spare regulator mouthpiece, designed with a longer hose to be an emergency regulator in an out-of-air situation. Thus tethered to her side, they swam upward at an angle toward the ladder Dante had spotted on the far side of the rig. They kicked through a maze of steel support beams encrusted with marine growth, the water growing lighter around them and more turbulent as they rose. They were extra vigilant to avoid becoming entangled in the myriad snags of monofilament fishing line, since Hofstad had seen to it that they not be allowed to carry dive knives, normally be worn for that purpose.
After a few minutes they could see the large pillars marking the far edge of the oil platform. Dante checked their remaining air: 1,000 psi. Enough to get to the ladder, but there wouldn’t be much in reserve should something go wrong. He also worried that the ladder might not extend all the way to the waterline. If it was designed for boarding by boats only, it might be too high above the water for them to reach.
But it was time to find out. They passed between two massive support pillars at a depth of about ten feet, and looked up. They could see the watery, distorted shape of the oil platform above, beckoning. If they could get up there, they might be able to hide, to summon help.
Swimming to the far side of one of the pillars so that it would hide them from the boat, Dante and Jasmijn surfaced at the oil rig.
THIRTY
Stephen Shah eased up on the throttle of the small fishing boat he had paid an exorbitant fee to borrow. He was sure that the handful of gold Krugerrands he’d given to the old man at the dock were worth more than the boat if he didn’t bring it back. But it seemed seaworthy and it had gotten him this far. The pair of binoculars tucked under the steering console were also a huge bonus.
He lifted the optics to his eyes and peered at the Hofstad boat from perhaps a quarter-mile away. One of the terrorists sat at the boat’s wheel while a second was reloading what Shah recognized as a sub-machine gun. That man stood over Naomi, who sat on the stern deck, back to the rail. Her arms were by her sides but he couldn’t tell whether they had been bound. The other three of the terrorists stood on the boat’s rail, watching the water intently.
Shah felt a surge of blind panic. Had Dante and Jasmijn been killed and tossed over the side? Or had they been thrown overboard while tied together? But then he scoped the scuba tanks on deck and forced himself to stay calm. They must be diving. Why, he hadn’t the foggiest notion. To retrieve something for Hofstad? They were close to the oil rig.
Perhaps Hofstad was forcing them to sabotage the rig somehow — plant explosives on it?
He scanned the water in the direction the men were looking but couldn’t see anything. He supposed they might be looking for or watching their air bubbles. He searched the surrounding water through the binoculars but still saw nothing. He didn’t ‘like the situation. Jasmijn seemed to be the safest of the three of them, since she had the specialized knowledge to create the antidote. But Nay and Dante, although they were posing as scientific colleagues, were basically assistants— temp help — and Shah wondered if, after whatever objective they had for this dive was achieved, Hofstad wouldn’t kill them off out here.