Black Gold (4 page)

The sun went down and the Fathoms Dive Centre bar at last looked out over a deserted beach.

Below the surface the water was a deep black, sprinkled with green glitter. Passing fish left bioluminescent trails and the divers could see their companions' fins moving in arcs of sparkling light. Some fish were asleep and hidden, and the reef was alive with starry, spiky invertebrates. Brittlestars held out arms like tinsel, looking for plankton, puffing out yellow-green flashes of light at the intruders. Parrotfish hid in the crevices, cocooned inside bags made of their own mucus. The corals waved their polyps, looking for food. But some were already lifeless.

They swam past a giant anchor, seven metres high, left over from the days when pirates roamed the Caribbean. It was crusted with sponges and corals.

As Li swept the area with her torch she could see bubbles – but not just the air bubbles they were breathing out. These bubbles were golden brown and drifted in the currents like blobs in a lava lamp. Oil.

The divers wore full-length suits with neoprene dive boots under their fins and barrier cream on the exposed parts of their faces. They carried two tanks of air each. On their buoyancy control devices or BCDs – the black lifejackets that acted as a harness for the tanks – they also carried lanyards with spare torches and fluorescent light sticks. Most important was a 'slate' – a piece of plastic like a miniature whiteboard with an attached graphite pencil so that they could communicate underwater.

It took ten minutes to reach the wreck. It was huge, the living quarters like an entire sunken block of flats with the deck stretching away for what seemed like miles. Its straight metal walls were harsh beside the grotto-like surfaces around them.

They split into three groups of two: Paulo went with Li, Amber with Hex and Alex with Mara. Each pair had designated areas to investigate, based on plans of the ship that Hex had downloaded before they set out.

Mara and Alex were assigned the outside, to find the hole where the oil had leaked out.

The hull was nearly as deep as the four-storey structure that sat on top. They swam down to the bottom of it, looking for the hole with their torches. Reaching the stern and swimming around the corner, they saw the propeller. Alex stopped. It was awesome, hanging like a giant fan in the centre of a big metal hole. He could have swum between its blades like a minnow.

The next place they had to look at was the underside. Mara led the way, playing her torch up and down. As they reached the bottom, the water erupted in a cloud of green plankton and Alex felt the tip of a tail lash close to his face. He whipped his torch around. A brawny body swished away – a moray eel out hunting. He took deep breaths, letting his heart rate come back to normal. It was a timely reminder – night was the time for hunting and creatures that were docile by day were alert and hungry. Even if they couldn't eat you, they could give you a nasty bite.

The heel of the stern rested on the rocky bottom. Scattered around were several broken crowns of coral. Mara signalled to Alex that she had found oil – a floating blob on the coral reef, reflecting her torchlight like an iridescent amoeba.

She had previously given each of them a kit for taking samples – a Ziploc bag on a lanyard, containing bottles and a chinagraph pencil – and Alex now took out one of the bottles, held it out and the blob swam into it as though it were a living creature. He put the lid on and labelled it with a note of the location to show where it had been collected, then zipped up the bag. They'd got their first sample.

They moved to where the hull touched the coral floor, paddling gently along it with their hands so that they stayed close to it. Somewhere there must be a hole where the oil was leaking. They collected more stray blobs – no different from the first – then turned the corner and went to investigate the other side.

That's where they found it. A black void, resting on a jagged spear of rock. Blobs of shiny oil were slipping out like fish streaming out of a cave.

Alex looked round at Mara. She had her sample bottle ready.

Paulo and Li were in the engine rooms. Li was not impressed. It was only an engine, for heaven's sake, although she had to admit it was quite a big one. But just how long was he going to float there looking at it?

Paulo was in a blissful dream. The engine loomed out of the foggy black water, pea-green coloured and as big as a two-storey house. Each part was breathtaking. The pistons were so big they could not be circled by five people holding hands. The fuel valves were the girth of a fat man. On the floor beside the engine was a giant metal lever nearly as tall as Li.

Li swam up close to him, pulled herself upright in the water, cocked her head on one side, folded her arms and mimed tapping her foot. She had forgotten she had a fin on the end and the movement sent her shooting upwards. But as she pushed herself off the roof with her hands and floated back down to Paulo he came out of his dream and beckoned her to move on.

Now they were in a chamber above the rear oil reservoirs. There were three of these chambers in all, running all the way along the tanker like hangars with low ceilings. At various intervals in the floor there were hatches, each closed with a wheel.

They swam up to one. In its door was a gauge that registered empty. Paulo turned the wheel and lifted the hatch. He'd expected a large opening but it was only just big enough for a person to pass through, with a valve and another smaller wheel in the corner. According to Hex's plans, this wheel would lift the inner lid and expose the inside of the tank. But he had no need to look in this one as it was empty and he could risk letting out more contamination in the form of gases or oily residue. What they really needed to do was to establish if one still had something in it or was any different from the others.

Paulo reached for his slate and wrote a note on it which he then showed to Li.
Look at all gauges.

Making sure they were never more than five metres apart, they investigated the other hatches, floating through the hangar and pausing at each one like fireflies visiting flowers.

Li found a tank whose gauge was in a warning area:
PRESSURE LOSS
. Could this be the one with the hole? She flashed the torch over the cavernous ceiling to beckon Paulo over.

He turned the wheel to release the inner lid, then opened the hatch. A cluster of oil bubbles rose and Li captured them in a bottle, labelling them clearly.

Paulo shone his torch down into the hole. The oil container was like a cave. He lifted his head out. There was no need to say anything. Li simply zipped up her sample and nodded at him. There might be vital clues inside.

Paulo upended himself and swam in. Li followed.

Hex and Amber floated up a staircase like a pair of ghosts. The living quarters were kitted out for voyages of months at a time. Through an open door they glimpsed a squash court and, in a tiny room above a hallway, a cinema with a pair of film projectors pointing at a small glass window. Amber pointed her torch through the glass, watching the plankton swirl in the beam like particles of dust. Cabins came next, the sheets and blankets and pillows still on the beds, cupboards left open and possessions spilled on the floor – an electric razor; a baseball cap. It all looked so normal, thought Hex – not as if they were under all this water.

They floated through a doorway and found a big, hangar-like room. They swam slowly along the ceiling while below them their torches found a rectangle of turquoise: a swimming pool. Amber suddenly took off at speed, miming front crawl. Hex gave chase, his powerful fins making up the distance easily. They raced to the end of the room, reaching the far side at the same time.

Finally they came to the bridge, its window now looking out into black water. Set into the floor was a giant lever that reminded Amber of a massive version of a car's automatic gearshift. On this, however, the positions were:
DEAD SLOW, SLOW, HALF
and
FULL AHEAD
. It was pushed all the way forward, to
FULL AHEAD
. Amber looked at it, puzzled. Why would anyone have been doing a speed like that so near to the coast?

Li and Paulo had found a hole in the container wall. The ragged gash and bent metal told the story – it had been ripped open by a sharp rock. No sabotage there.

There was nothing more to see. Time to go back. Paulo gestured towards the hole:
After you.

He watched Li put her head through. Her air hose bent on the sharp metal. He tapped her urgently on the leg and pointed. She reversed carefully and pointed to the hatch. They'd have to go out the long way – back the way they came in and through the ship.

Li led the way up and put her head through.

And got the shock of her life. A shark loomed above her, a big white blunt-headed torpedo. Its jaw came down like a gangplank and the empty-looking eye looked at her coldly.

She scooted back down to Paulo and mimed snapping jaws with her hand. They both hurriedly turned their torches so that they pointed downwards. They both knew that sharks were attracted by brightly coloured and shiny objects. Li put her finger to her lips in front of her regulator:
Keep quiet.
Gently, they moved away.

The shark was up in the main chamber. If they went up, it might go for them. It was night and in the shallows – prime hunting territory.

Paulo looked at the hatch. Could they close it from the inside? No. There was no handle.

Li pointed towards the ragged hole.

Paulo didn't like the idea. He looked up. The shark passed overhead again, like a patrolling plane. It was stalking them.

He followed Li to the ragged hole.

They ran their torches over it. It was narrow and the edges were like passing between a pair of blades.

Paulo wrote on his slate:
U 1
^st
. I'll guide.

Li lined herself up with the opening and started to pull herself through. Paulo gently folded the air hoses away from the sharp edges. He nearly caught his fingers and pulled them out of the way just in time. With a shark nearby, the last thing they needed was blood in the water.

Li got through and swivelled around in the water to look at Paulo. He was much bigger than her. There was no way he could get through with his tanks on.

Paulo watched her. She mimed taking off her tanks. He went cold. Take off his air supply?

Li nodded at him emphatically. He knew she was right. At least it wasn't complicated: just undo the BCD and it all came off as one unit. That meant it was easy to put on again, he told himself.

He looked behind to make sure he didn't damage his regulator hoses.

A big pale blunt head loomed at him out of the dark water. The shark had swum through the hatchway. And was coming for him.

Paulo wriggled free of the BCD, took a giant breath and let the regulator go.

Li saw the shark surge up behind Paulo, attracted by her torch and his beating fins. She grabbed him and hauled him through the opening, as the tanks dropped down inside the tanker with a loud clang.

Alex and Mara heard a repeated clanging, like a laser-shot through the water. It was coming from the hole. They wasted no time. A diver signalled they were in trouble by banging on their tanks. Whatever had happened? It carried on –
bang, bang
again and again.

Alex powered towards the noise and found Li and Paulo by the hole, sharing Li's air supply. Paulo's entire BCD and tanks were gone; the only part of his dive kit that remained was his mask.

Paulo saw Alex and mimed 'shark', then passed the regulator back to Li. She took long, slow breaths while Paulo kept his mouth tightly closed.

Alex could see Paulo's kit through the hole. The shark was headbutting the tanks against the hull. One moment there was a dull thud, the next a piercing clang as metal drummed on metal. Alex flinched, his ears ringing. Why did it want the tanks? Paulo's torch swung on the end of its lanyard as the shark attacked again.

The torch. Was that what it wanted?

Alex whipped the light stick off his kit and broke the seal to activate it. It glowed bright green in his hand, like a much stronger version of the fluorescent fish. Alex shot it in through the opening.

The shark saw the light and lunged, getting its jaws around it and chewing, the light flashing on and off. Alex concealed his torch in case the shark came after him too. For a moment the inside of the tanker was dark, then he saw the green glow again, surrounded by serrated rows of teeth. The shark's mouth looked smaller now, chewing on the light stick as it swam away. It vanished and appeared again moments later, even further away.

Alex turned to see Hex and Amber powering up to them, heads turning from one to the other as they searched their friends' faces for an explanation.

Paulo scribbled on his slate. If anyone could have penetrated his mask they would have seen an expression of utmost innocence as he turned the slate towards the frantic Hex and Amber.

Knock knock.

Carl held two test tubes up to the light. One contained a viscous dark brown liquid. The other contained a lighter brown liquid.

While Danny and Lynn had helped the divers rinse down their gear, Carl had got to work on the samples in the lab in Mara's clinic, next door to the dive centre. Now they were all gathered in the lab, sitting around the workbench waiting for the results. In the background some reggae played softly on a late-night radio programme.

'This,' said Carl, shaking the lighter brown liquid, 'is the oil you collected from the tanker. And this' – he held up the other tube – 'is from samples I took from the dead birds while you were out. These are not the same types of oil. You took samples from all over the tanker, right?'

Mara nodded. 'We went over it with a fine-tooth comb.' She nodded at her dive-buddy, Alex, and at the others. 'These guys were great, really thorough.'

'And nothing was leaking from the engines,' said Paulo. 'I looked at them thoroughly.'

'Very thoroughly,' remarked Li.

'It was research,' protested Paulo.

Mara took the dark tube and sniffed it. 'This isn't engine oil anyway. It's really sludgy. You'd clog up an engine if you tried to put that in it.'

'So something else is leaking out there,' said Amber. 'What?'

'Or something dumping its load?' Mara got up and went to the bench where Carl had been working. She put the test tube in a holder, took a pipette and put a small blob of the oil on a sheet of filter paper.

The five members of Alpha Force looked at her in horror. 'Someone
dumping
oil?' repeated Amber.

Mara lifted the filter paper and held it up to the light to look at the stain. 'Some oil companies do that. They dump a load of oil and pay the fine. It's cheaper than transporting it or repairing a leaky boat to bring it up to standard.'

'That's outrageous,' said Li.

Mara was still looking at her filter paper. 'You know what this looks like to me? A mudslick. It's not like crude oil that's transported in a tanker, it's the sludge you get from exploratory drilling.' She put the piece of filter paper down on the bench. 'I think someone is drilling and the hole is leaking.'

'That's illegal,' said Li firmly. 'Isn't it?'

'Too right it is,' Mara agreed bitterly. 'The government has to give permission for drilling. You need to do environmental checks, consult with the locals—'

Amber interrupted. 'What happens if a company doesn't?'

'They're fined,' said Danny, 'by the Clean Caribbean Consortium.'

'Whatever they're fined,' said Amber darkly, 'I bet it isn't as much as they could make if they just started drilling at once. How long would it take to get approval through the proper channels?'

'A few years,' said Danny, 'wouldn't it, Mara? They have to go through all sorts of committees and public consultation. It's not just about the environment, it's about people's livelihoods.'

Hex stretched. His back and neck were still aching from digging in the sand. 'Well you can see why they'd just rather get on with making money.'

Carl spluttered, 'You can bet your boots they make money. Even a small field brings in a profit of more than half a million dollars a day.'

Mara frowned. 'I wonder who could be doing this? It can't be ArBonCo. They always seemed to be one of the better oil companies. They always went through the proper channels, consulted properly, listened to the locals. They haven't put the environment in danger before. ABC Guardians have never had any problems with them.'

Amber shrugged. 'I suppose some corporations are just in it for the money.'

Alex brought them back to focus on the task. 'OK, well it seems someone has been trying to drill in secret, and the hole has leaked and given them away.'

'It will be very interesting when they analyse the black box,' said Mara. 'I'll ask about it next time they put me on TV.' She scribbled a note and stuck it to her computer.

'You don't have to,' said Hex. 'Amber and I found the ship was set to full speed when it crashed.'

'And we saw it,' added Li. 'It was going straight for the cliffs. It didn't try to take any evasive action. I think they must have crashed the tanker deliberately to cover up what they're doing with the drilling.'

The room went silent.

Lynn began to talk very fast. 'We've got them. Mara, you can take this to the Clean Caribbean Consortium and maybe they can stop this before it goes any further. I'll get the other dive schools, the restaurants, the hotels and we'll go to the local chamber of commerce—'

'Yes, once they look at the black box—' began Mara.

'Whoa, whoa.' Paulo put up his hands. 'They could still claim it was an accident. They already said on the news that the captain was ill. They'll just say he went loco. We've only got one piece of evidence and that's the two types of oil.'

'Well, we'll take that to them,' said Danny. 'They'll have to take notice if enough of us go—' He stopped.

Amber was shaking her head. 'They can say that's nothing to do with them. Coincidence. We have to
prove
where it came from. And we have to get it soon, before they realize we're on to them.'

Mara spread her hands in exasperation. 'How? It could be anywhere.' She sighed. 'I'll call the Clean Caribbean Consortium in the morning and tell them what we've got.'

The five members of Alpha Force glanced at each other. If Mara presented the evidence too soon the oil company might explain it away and then they'd have lost any chance of making a difference.

Alex took a deep breath. 'Carl, you're from Canada. Do you remember Usher Mining Corp?'

Carl frowned. 'Usher Mining Corporation . . . Yes! Something about dumping cyanide in the north.'

'I remember that,' said Mara darkly.

Alex said quietly, 'They'd wriggled through every loophole . . . but we got them.'

Mara was looking at Alex with new respect. She nodded quietly. 'Good catch. Daniel Usher was running for governor too, wasn't he?'

Alex returned her gaze enigmatically.

She decided to change the subject. 'If we're really going for it,' she said, 'the best evidence of all would be filmed evidence, and the location of the drill site.'

Amber yawned and stretched. 'Better get some sleep then. We've got a lot of thinking to do tomorrow.'

Hex looked at his watch. 'Today. It's well past midnight.'

Amber gave up the struggle to sleep and opened her eyes. Moonlight streamed into the room. For a moment she expected to be able to float up off the bed around to the wardrobe and then the bathroom. It was like being back exploring the tanker.

'Li,' she hissed, 'are you awake?'

'Yes.' Li's voice didn't sound at all sleepy. Maybe she'd been lying awake too.

'I've been thinking about how we find the drill site. Can we get any clues from the kind of seabirds that have been washed up? Where their feeding grounds are; where they might have picked up the mudslick?'

Li sat up. 'Hmm. Let me think. Quite a lot of the birds nest and feed on the coast, but some build their nests on the coast and feed in the open water. And some spend the whole time at sea once they're mature . . .'

'Hmm. It was sounding promising until you said that last bit. I just thought that if we found a kind of bird that would never go more than a certain distance from its nest, we might know how far out the slick was.'

Despite Amber's reservations, Li's voice became excited. 'Let's get Carl to check what breeds we've found. That's brilliant, Amber.'

'No, it's not, it's rubbish. Forget it.' Amber turned over and tried to get comfortable. At least she'd got the idea off her chest. Maybe now she could get some sleep.

'Hex, are you awake?'

'No, he's not, but
I
am,' replied Alex's voice.

'Yes, I'm awake,' said Hex crossly.

'If you were going to drill for oil,' said Paulo, 'you wouldn't just start drilling, would you? I mean, it would be expensive. You'd have to have an idea that you were going to find something.'

'I see what you mean,' said Alex. 'There might have been some sort of survey programme. Which could have been noticed.'

There was a sound of fumbling near Hex's bed. Then his face was lit up by the glow of his palmtop. His fingers rattled over the keys.

'What are you looking up?'

'Oil exploration for complete beginners,' replied Hex. He speed-read off the screen, mumbling odd words. '"Oil forms in certain geological . . . blah blah blah . . ."' He was mumbling faster now. '"Shallow parts of oceans . . . blah blah."'

'How do you do a survey underwater?' Paulo queried. 'Submarine?'

'Aha,' said Hex. 'Listen. "Locations are assessed from a boat by seismic survey. Blah blah blah . . ." Basically they sail up and down and fire soundwaves at the sea bed.'

'We should get Danny to ask Greg if anything like that's been going on,' said Paulo. 'As coastguard, he'd probably know all about who comes and goes in these waters.'

Hex powered down the palmtop and the room was dark once more.

The sound of his mobile playing
Tubular Bells
interrupted Neil Hearst's first latte of the morning. He frowned at the display and answered quickly.

'Simon, I told you not to phone me at work.'

'I've seen the results from the labs. I've had to sit on them. You idiot, you got the wrong kind of oil.'

Hearst took a deep breath and swivelled his chair so that he faced out of the window. His office at the ArBonCo headquarters gave a splendid view of Curaçao's capital, Willemstad. The houses decorated in blue, pink, yellow and green, topped with red tiled roofs and rococo gables like iced gingerbread houses, looked like they had been transplanted from fairytale Amsterdam. He liked them. They were quaint and that made him feel in control. 'Yes, I know. I didn't have much time to set it up.'

'You were paying them. What was the problem?'

'I had to find a captain who wanted to retire. It wasn't just a case of crashing the tanker, I had to find a captain with health problems who wanted to be invalided out. There aren't many of those.'

'You'd better do something about it or the deal's off. That tanker's a mine of evidence.'

There was a click and the connection was cut.

Neil Hearst put the phone in his lap and let out a long, thoughtful sigh.