The race boat responded with a bolt, racing up to 80 mph in seconds. It felt like the Lamborghini one of his rich clients had loaned him for a weekend.
The onrush of speed thrilled Jimmy, as it always had, but it also brought alive a deep fear of the industrial refuse floating in the Gulf. Hard enough to avoid at times in daylight. In darkness it could prove deadly.
Without looking away from the water, Jimmy put in ear buds and switched to CNN on the boat’s communications console. The network was reporting that widespread inoculations of Americans with smallpox vaccine had been scuttled after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a line in Rockville Center, New York. ISIS then pumped up the terror exponentially by announcing that infected Muslims were in lines across the U.S. “They will infect everyone who tries to defy Allah’s will.”
That announcement, according to the news network, was leading to widespread panic and fighting, with attacks on anyone perceived as Middle Eastern or Muslim. The CDC had advised health authorities in all fifty states to suspend the vaccination program, “pending the full restoration of civil order.”
“Good luck with that,” Jimmy said to himself.
He feared he’d done nothing but help those ISIS terrorists from the time he’d forced them ashore from these very waters.
All you can do now is what you’re doing.
Jimmy felt like he was in the middle of a war movie in which a soldier goes off on a solo mission to save the day. But he heard no stirring music in the background, only the powerful rumble of those twin outboards pushing him ever closer to the oil platform.
To destiny, he thought.
Or to die.
Or to save someone worth saving. Maybe a whole lot of someones called Americans.
Lana finally dozed on the couch, waking ninety minutes later to Cairo’s nails clicking on the hardwood floor. His dark eyes stared at her from above his white muzzle, as if to say, “You okay?”
She nodded at him, just to see his reaction. He turned away and continued his umpteenth tour of her house. She realized she admired his ingrained sense of purpose — protection — and shared it fully.
Aware once more of her throbbing leg wound, she went back online, shocked to find video of an attack on Long Island that had targeted people who’d been waiting half the night to get their families vaccinated. She saw shredded children’s clothing and shoes and copious quantities of blood.
That grim account was followed by a report of an assault on Ed Holmes’s kennel near Hagerstown by two self-styled, homegrown ISIS terrorists, one of whom had posted on Facebook a minute before the attack took place that they were going to kill the dog that had gone after bin Laden.
And claim the reward, she thought.
When they didn’t find Cairo — saved by the call of duty down in Bethesda — they killed a ten-week-old Malinois puppy. Two retired Army Rottweilers ambushed the pair, killing the one who’d left the Facebook message.
Reuters reported paramedics on the scene had balked at treating the Islamist radical who’d survived. Despite severe wounds, the man was vociferously taking credit for the attack on the puppy.
Police officers forced the EMTs to offer him emergency medical measures and take him to a nearby hospital.
Lana heard Cairo heading up the stairs slowly.
It’s come to that? Killing a puppy?
She checked on Deputy Director Bob Holmes, who was still in the ICU and still seeing only family, which in his case included Donna Warnes.
Lana then received an email from park ranger Harry Riggs, who said Jojo remained immobilized. The dog’s spine had been almost severed during the knife attack. No word on whether he’d ever walk again. Riggs said Jojo would be kept sedated until he’d healed enough to safely assess his mobility.
Lana thanked Harry and checked the time, 4:42 p.m., before turning her thoughts to what she’d say to the President, if she ever got the chance for an Oval Office meeting.
Jimmy drew within ten miles of the rig. He spied the sky turning from starlit black to the darkest shade of gray. He had to risk racing closer without lights. He needed to reach that platform before they could see him. Otherwise, his mission would fail.
And they’ll have a boatload of fun killing you.
He gunned Sexy Streak up to 140 mph, racing blind until he shut down the engines one mile out. He let momentum and current take over from there. Normal security would have alerted those on the platform to an incoming vessel, but he hoped ISIS would be ill equipped to take over the more technical aspects of perimeter security, after killing almost everyone up there. Even more likely was that a specialist had activated a self-destruct program before ISIS could take full control of the facility.
Jimmy thought the odds might favor him so far.
A little more than a half-mile from the installation, Sexy Streak slowed almost to a stop. He stripped to his briefs, tied a line around his waist and the end to the bow, and slipped into the water.
The Gulf felt cold, which he attributed to his low-grade fever more than the water, which had been warmed by unseasonable highs all summer.
With the current still running with him, he started swimming and towing the boat toward the pontoons that supported the BP operation looming before him. If all went well, he’d have Sexy Streak tied up under them before dawn made visibility his greatest enemy.
And if things go to shit, Jimmy boy?
Then nothing’s gonna matter, he answered himself. Least of all you.
Chapter 21
Jimmy was shivering by the time he towed Sexy Streak under the Blue Ring oil platform and hauled himself up onto a floating dock, tie line hanging from his hips.
Happy Daze, the forty-two-foot cabin cruiser that ISIS had hijacked to launch its assault on the rig, rested in a slip some twenty feet away. Jimmy had no intentions of leaving it afloat so ISIS could escape. That boat was getting a stick of dynamite on his way out.
If you get that far.
The oil rig was similar to BP’s ill-fated Horizon, which blew, burned, and killed eleven oil workers in 2010 before spilling five million barrels of crude into the Gulf. But Blue Ring’s potential for catastrophe was even greater — all ISIS had to do was sabotage the rig’s automatic shut-off valves, called BOPs, or “blowout preventers,” before destroying the oil pipe proper and subsea wellhead.
Jimmy figured if he knew that much from working just three weeks on a rig, then ISIS would likely know even more because the execution of the group’s plans — and most of the rig’s employees — had so far been both grisly and flawless. And the terrorists had made clear their desire to turn the Gulf into petroleum goo. But if Jimmy could blow the oil pipe running up to the platform before ISIS disabled the BOPs, the sudden change in pipe pressure should trigger the fail-safe mechanisms, if the oil companies had actually upgraded them after Horizon.
A big “if, ” he thought. But another “if” came to mind: If there had ever been a time to bank on hope, it had arrived this morning in all its shaky glory.
To get started, he tied up Sexy Streak and threw on his clothes, grateful for the warmth. Then he headed toward the nearest door, stilled by the sound of someone trying to key the lock.
Jimmy dug into his pocket and pulled out the Saturday night special the cantankerous Burr had loaned him, trusting the cheap .38 wouldn’t jam or backfire and blow off his face. No choice about using it, though: Anyone stepping through that door would see the race boat at a glance.