There had been some level of water seepage all along the tunnel, especially in its last mile. But here in the cramped five-foot-wide final stretch of the tunnel, and especially in the unimaginably tight thirty-inch-wide off-take pipes, even modest water buildup could become a big problem. Accordingly, the divers had to be smart in how they got around it. They would use battery-operated pumps to dewater the pipes, but even before they turned the pumps on, they needed to build a barrier of sandbags outside the pipe to prevent the exiting water from flowing right back in. So they made the slippery, football-field-length walk back to riser number 4, where Mars stood running the manifold. They grabbed sandbags and pumps from the boat and then lugged them all the way back to number 1, clambering with their heads bowed over.
The fact that Riggs was only five foot eight gave him an advantage in making his journey into the narrow horizontal pipe. Because he knew there would be both water and slimy algae inside it, he had chosen to put on a dry suit, a more advanced, thermally insulated version of the wet suits worn by scuba divers. Unlike the coveralls the other guys were wearing, Riggs’s specially fabricated rubber outfit would keep him from getting drenched no matter how much water he encountered.
Based on the agreement that Tap had worked out with Norwesco, Riggs would be getting penetration pay, the small stipend for every foot he crawled into the pipe. But that hardly compensated for the unnerving conditions he would face. He decided to approach the assignment as though he were going for a swim in an ice-cold pool or eating a raw oyster for the first time. No toe dipping, no sipping around the edge—just bold, decisive action. When he crawled in, the array of tasks he needed to accomplish required so much coordination and concentration that it allowed him to avoid focusing on how ridiculously confined he was. He had to bring with him a special oversize hydraulic tool to remove the circular metal fastener—called a circlip—that held the sixty-five-pound giant-salad-bowl-shaped safety plug in place. So Riggs pushed that tool in ahead of him, holding it above his head as he wormed his way along the horizontal pipe. He lay on his belly, using his elbows and knees to push himself forward. When he reached the plug, he first needed to open a valve in the center of the salad bowl to release any water that might have collected behind it. Then he was supposed to loosen a pair of bolts and give a few pumps of the hydraulic tool to relieve the inward pressure of the circlip. But those bolts188 turned out to be extremely tight, requiring much more effort and ingenuity to pry them open than expected. Once he managed to remove the bolts, he dislodged an O-ring and a gasket, which finally allowed him to pull the plug out. All along, his only communication consisted of the occasional comment shouted at Billy, who was crouched over just outside the pipe. And his only relief from the complete blackness of his captivity was the narrow beam from the lamp on his miner’s helmet.
Then, of course, Riggs needed to crawl backward thirty-five feet out of the thirty-inch-wide pipe, dragging the plug and its components with him. He decided to slide the circlip and gasket down beside his body so he could push them out with his feet. He placed his tool and the O-ring inside the salad bowl dome, holding it above his head as he began crawling out of the horizontal pipe. He had to do all this while being extremely careful not to dislodge his facemask or umbilical so the air that was keeping him alive could continue to flow.
More than an hour after he had first crawled into the pipe, Riggs was once again outside it, crouched over with his hands on his knees, this time with the first safety plug successfully removed189. It rested at his feet like the scalp of an enemy from some savage war. Only fifty-four more to go.
It was just past four o’clock. After using the repaired video camera to document their work in riser 1, he and Billy moved on to riser 2. About forty-five minutes later, they succeeded in yanking out the second plug.
Then Mars, who was still standing by the boat outside riser number 4, began having serious problems with his regulator. His mask started free-flowing190, meaning too much air from his umbilical was rushing to his mouth and nose, regardless of his demand for it. Although it seemed like the exact opposite of the facemask-sucking problem that Hoss had endured a day earlier, it appeared to spring from the same defect—the flow was not being properly regulated. Mars and Billy conferred. Then Billy came over to where Riggs was standing outside riser 2. “We need to move, Riggs,” he said. Rather than drag the two yanked-out safety plugs and the pumps back to the boat, as they had planned, he told Riggs they should leave them right where they were. They would worry about retrieving them tomorrow.
With that, the three men began trudging, boat in tow, back to the Humvees.
It wouldn’t start. The gray Hummer wagon was positioned correctly to get the crew back to the shaft, but the goddamn engine wouldn’t turn over.
It was six o’clock, and Tim and Billy took the lead in trying to get it going. Tim stepped forward because he’d been the Humvee driver two days in a row, and Billy because he’d been Tim’s partner on the Humvee crew the day before and because, well, he was Billy and he could MacGyver anything. As confident as Billy was in his mechanical abilities, and as much as he’d always welcomed the toughest man-versus-machine challenges, even he had to admit how unwelcome this one was. After all, they weren’t tinkering in the Black Dog shop behind Tap’s house, or topside on Deer Island, or even at the base of the shaft, where there was still plenty of light and decent air. They were standing nine miles into a pitch-black tunnel buried under the ocean. The dive crew had aborted that day’s plug-pulling operation because of concerns with their increasingly problematic breathing system, and now they had an even bigger problem on their hands. They did have a second Humvee, the pickup, of course, but it was of no use to them since it was facing in the wrong direction and blocked by the Hummer wagon. With the Jersey barriers coming out from its side walls, the tunnel was so narrow that they could barely open the vehicle doors all the way, never mind try to maneuver the two Hummers around each other to switch their positions.
Billy and Tim quickly concluded that there had to be something wrong with the oxygen-injector control. This was the key component allowing the retrofitted diesel Humvee to use its liquid oxygen supply and operate in the oxygen-depleted tunnel. They tried everything they could think of. Knowing there were already enough mechanics involved, Riggs tried to stay out of the way. But from his perch in the front seat, he watched everything closely.
After some tinkering by Billy, Tim cranked the engine, and it chugged a bit, ejecting some black smoke from the exhaust. But then the engine sputtered out. More tinkering, and the same result. They just couldn’t keep it running. Billy knew from his days working as a diesel mechanic for his dad’s trucking business that they had to find a way to manipulate the setup into getting more oxygen to the engine. He tried putting an independent power supply on the oxygen controller, but still no luck. He was frustrated that none of his usual go-to moves were working.
189 (Chapter 9, note 12)
first safety plug successfully removed: Humvee log, July 20, 1999, 4:05 p.m.
190 (Chapter 9, note 13)
His mask started free-flowing: Humvee log, July 20, 1999, 5:40 p.m.