Counter Poised (24 page)

The radio, which had been quiet, now came to life. “Oil platform…uh, four-one-three, I believe. This is the
Dorothy
out of Corpus Christi. Do you copy?”

Dwight picked up the handset, “This is GenCon rig four-one-three. We copy. Go ahead,
Dorothy
.”

“Hi, my name is Bill Tuohy. We are on our way back to Corpus, and we are running a little low on fuel. We were hoping you could spare about one hundred gallons.”

“George?” Dwight said as he held his hand over the mike.

“Can we direct him to another rig?”

“Yeah, but we’re by far the farthest out. The nearest rig is about twenty miles north. If he needs fuel, we don’t want him calling the coast guard to come rescue his ass, and then telling them the assholes on four-one-three wouldn’t give him any gas. But it’s your call.”

George thought about it. “Let ’em in. But, we’re going to have to keep them off your deck.”

“Okay.” Dwight keyed the mike, “Bill, you can tie up at the northeast leg of the rig. But you have to be very careful. The rig was hit during Hurricane Alonzo and it’s somewhat unstable. We’re doing repairs now trying to make it safe.”

“Copy that, rig four-one-three. We’re trying to get home, so as soon as you can load us up we will be on our way.”

On the
Dorothy
, Bill turned from the radio and addressed a powerfully built man standing at the helm. “Tommy, I’m not so sure about taking on the rig. We don’t know how many men they have.”

“You heard him, they’re working on repairs. That means they’ll only have a fraction of their normal crew onboard. And they aren’t expecting us.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. But—”

“But nothin’,” interrupted Ronnie. Ronnie was Tommy’s executive assistant in his business. She worked as his Assistant Manager for Foreign Operations in his Houston office of Harrier International, a company ostensibly importing oil tools from China. Ronnie was a skilled horsewoman and a marksman with multiple weapons including the Glock 40 she had strapped to her inner left thigh. Most men who messed with Ronnie only did it once.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re right. I guess I’m just jumpy now that we’re actually here.”

“Dwight?” George’s voice was calm. Dressed in coveralls with a GenCon patch on the back, he looked just like a deck hand.

“Yeah?”

“I’m going out to brief Ramirez and Williams. I would like to be with you when you meet with the
Dorothy
and her captain.”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Rig four-one-three,” the radio came to life again.

Dwight keyed the mike, “This is rig four-one-three.”

“This is Bill again. I really hope you guys have a medic on board!”

“Bill, this is Dwight. What’s the problem?” he asked suspiciously.

“My boss’s assistant is throwing up something awful, and she’s complaining of some serious pain in her right side. I think we’re about ten minutes out. Repeat. Do you have a medic?”

Dwight looked at George and raised his eyebrows. George nodded and said, “Send him down to their boat.”

“Sure. You will be tying up to the northeast leg where we have a ladder and a landing. I’ll send the medic down when you get here.”

“Great.
Dorothy
out.”

“Who’s your medic?” asked George. “We need to brief him on the need to keep our presence secret.”

“His name’s Fred Wiland. We call him Freddy. He was a medic in the army. He got out about three months ago and was livin’ in Houston. He wanted to get away from all that big-city hustle and bustle, so he applied to GenCon to fill a position we had for a medic willin’ to spend extended periods on oil rigs.”

“He’s a good guy?”

“The best. Totally trustworthy.”

“Let me go down to the boat with Freddy,” said Leona. “We shouldn’t send someone down alone.”

“That’s true, but I don’t have a good explanation for why we’re sendin’ two people down,” said Dwight.

“Sure you do—company policy: whenever the medic examines a woman or someone from off the rig, you need a witness. You know, insurance, lawyers, and all that.”

“We don’t know anything about these people or what they’re up to. It might be dangerous,” said George.

Leona laughed. “Listen to who’s talking, Mister Save-the-World. If I’m going to be on one of your teams for the rest of my life, hiding out from authorities and avoiding capture, I better get some training at handling difficult situations. Besides, my woman’s intuition is pretty good. I’m good at quickly sizing up people. That might come in handy down there.”

“All right,” George conceded. Turning to Dwight, he said, “Let’s get Freddy up here.”

Dwight got on the rig PA, “Freddy, get your med kit and meet me at the northeast ladder.”

Dwight turned to Leona. “Let’s roll!”

The
Dorothy
tied up to the northeast leg of Platform Alpha. She was a large oceangoing yacht. Dwight watched her pull up to the platform. “That’s at least a five million dollar yacht. Pretty strange they would run out of gas. Freddy, you and Leona go on down and check it out.”

Tommy and Bill were waiting on the deck of the
Dorothy
as Freddy and Leona climbed down the ladder.

Tommy was a good ol’ boy from Houston, Texas. Like his Mafia cousins in the Northeast, nobody in his Lakewood neighborhood in Houston suspected a thing. He went to church regularly; he gave to the right charities; and nobody was turned down for anything if they asked. Tommy liked being respected, but he liked the adrenaline-pumping danger and the income of the drug business even more. As the DEA, FBI, and CIA knew, but were unable prove in court yet, Tommy ran drugs from Mexico and South America in a five hundred million dollar a year operation.

Tommy greeted them, “
Two
medics?”

“No,” said Leona. “Freddy here’s the medic. I’m the witness required by company policy. Who’s your patient?”

“It’s Ronnie. She’s in the cabin.”

Freddy and Leona entered the cabin, where Ronnie was lying on a bed. Freddy sat down on the edge of the bed and began asking her where it hurt.

“I feel a monster pain in my stomach,” she said, as she indicated her lower right abdomen. “It’s really bad, and I’m throwin’ up a lot.”

“Could be appendicitis,” said Freddy. “Let me take a look.”

Leona stood by the doorway with Tommy.

“This must have come on all of a sudden,” said Leona.

“Yeah, she was perfectly fine this morning, and now she’s in so much pain she can’t stand up.”

“Where are you guys coming from?”

“We’ve been over to Biloxi to do a little gambling, and now we’re headed back to Houston.”

“Houston?”

“Oh, I mean Corpus. Sorry, we…uh…hit Houston on the way over, but we’re taking a direct shot back. I thought we would have enough fuel to make it nonstop, but with this westerly wind, my latest calculations showed we wouldn’t make it.”

“Yeah, funny thing about the weather.”

Bill interrupted them and indicated to Leona that Dwight wanted to talk to her. Leona stepped back on the deck and looked up at the platform. Dwight indicated for her to come up.

“Hell,” she said to Bill. “Up-down-up-down. I’ll be right back.”

In her absence, Tommy turned to Bill. “Even if they’re armed, I think we can get the jump on ‘em while Ronnie does her act. This rig will be perfect for the shipment from Hugo.” The shipment was twenty tons of cocaine coming in from Venezuela on a fishing trawler with Costa Rican registry.

“But, what if we can’t take over the rig? And what if all the distributors don’t get here in time to make the transfer? The timing just seems too close.”

The plan was to break up the shipment on the rig into five smaller shipments for moving into the U.S.

“Bill, look, everybody knows when to be here. With Ronnie and Paulie’s help, we’ll easily be able to take this rig. We have the element of surprise and the beauty of Ronnie to make them hesitate. You know that works!”

As Leona finished her climb back to the deck of Platform Alpha, Dwight asked her, “What do you think?”

“They’re lying,” she said matter-of-factly. “I don’t know what they’re up to, but it isn’t good.”

George said, “Okay. Go tell Sergeant Ramirez and Corporal Williams to move into position. They’re waiting over on the west side of the control room.”

Back on the
Dorothy
, Ronnie suddenly sat up on her sickbed and smiled. “Freddy, I would like to come up and see your rig. Is that okay with you?”

Freddy was taken aback and a bit nonplussed. “Uh, I thought you couldn’t—”

“Yes. Well, I lied. And now I want to see where you work, Freddy.”

“I can’t take you up there.”

Tommy interrupted “I think you will, Freddy.” Turning to the doorway, he said, “Bill, time to get Dwight down here.”

Bill waved up at Dwight and motioned for him to come down.

Dwight turned to George and said, “I’ll be back, but just in case, are you armed?”

“Always.”

“It’s probably nothing, but this is getting weirder by the minute. As a signal, if I call you Newt, like I did when we were kids, somethin’s wrong.” Dwight started down the ladder.

As Dwight stepped onto the deck of the
Dorothy
, assisted by Bill, Tommy emerged from the cabin. Dwight gave Bill a puzzled look. “This is my boss, Tommy. You know, his assistant is the one who was sick.”

“
Was
sick?”

Tommy smiled, but his eyes were not smiling. He momentarily exposed the butt of a pistol in his jacket pocket just enough for Dwight to see.

“Oh, yeah. That’s right, Freddy is in the cabin, and Ronnie, my assistant, is keeping him company. We don’t have a lot of time so it would be good if you would escort Bill and me to your deck. Ronnie will follow and escort Freddy.” Tommy indicated to Dwight to lead the way. “Bill, tell Paulie to keep the engines idling while we take on the fuel. If something goes wrong, take off and intercept the
Angelina
. Paulie knows where it will be.”

Tommy put his hand in Dwight’s back, “Dwight, if you please.”

“What about Freddy?”

“He will follow with Bill and Ronnie once I’m on the deck and signal that everything is okay. Now, let’s go.”

Dwight looked up to the deck above where George stood at the edge. “We’re comin’ up, Newt!”

Tommy shoved something hard into Dwight’s back. “Just climb. No need for chatter!”

George, with his beard, coveralls, and hardhat, looked just like any other roughneck on the rig, but the minute he heard “Newt,” he moved into action and stepped back a few paces from the edge of the deck so that he was out of sight of the men climbing up. He turned and signaled to Sergeant Ramirez and Corporal Williams to get ready, and then stood waiting for Dwight and Tommy to climb the last couple of rungs and step onto the deck. George had his hand inside the big pocket on his coveralls tightly gripping the handle of his pistol. It was then that he noticed Tommy had a weapon. Looked like a 38-caliber Smith and Wesson, and it was pointed directly at Dwight’s back. George saw that he didn’t have a chance to pick the guy off without putting Dwight in jeopardy. At least, not yet.

George looked at Dwight. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked in a put-on accent. “Where are Freddy and the sick lady? I was just fixin’ to go down and help out.” George was playing dumb. No sense giving away anything yet.

“It’s okay, Newt. Tommy here is interested in touring our rig.” Dwight’s sarcasm was evident.

Tommy waved the gun at Dwight ordering him to move over next to George. “Yeah, and if I like the tour, you and the rest of the crew will be able to vacation in Mexico real soon.” Tommy leaned over the side of the platform and waved down at the
Dorothy
.

George and Dwight both looked down at the boat and watched as a man and a woman emerged from the cabin and started to climb the ladder.

“Is that the sick lady? She looks all right to me. Say, where’s Freddy?” George was edging toward the stairs and at the same time getting closer to Tommy.

Tommy turned the gun on George. “Move back, asshole. I can kill you now, or I can kill you later.”

George retreated to Dwight’s side. All the time, Tommy was taking stock of the number of crewmen that were on the rig. He figured about fifteen or twenty including some that were probably not visible. With Dwight standing right here, they were probably without a leader and without any plan for resistance.

Tommy looked at Dwight, and with faked sincerity continued, “Please understand, if we are able to come to an agreement, there needs to be no bloodshed. You see—”

“Hey, Tommy, I see everything is under control,” said Ronnie as she stepped onto the deck with Bill directly behind her.

“Yeah.”

Dwight turned to George, “This is your sick lady, Newt. She’s not sick at all—just a decoy.” He turned to Ronnie. “Why isn’t Freddy with you?”

Ronnie looked at Dwight with a steady gaze, “We won’t be needing his miserable services.” She laughed shrilly as if she had made a hilarious joke. “Besides, he made a pass at me, and I had to defend my honor.” She shrilly laughed again, brandishing her Glock proudly. Then, changing the subject with as little emotion as changing the channel on a TV, Ronnie continued, “Tommy, it’s cold; let’s go in where it’s warm.”