The Evil That Men Do (9 page)

The fingers kept clawing at the man while he tried to concentrate on this call.

“I’ll let my associate know and arrange a meeting immediately, so we can set things up.”

“Thank you, Mr. Smith. Just get back to me when you have everything set up.”

“I will, Mr. Abbasi. Take care now.”

He hung up and smiled. He bent down to kiss the woman in his bed and then reached for the phone on the nightstand next to the hotel bed, brushing aside some white powder in the process.

“Champagne?”

Chapter Three

Joy Harper looked up at Wes Canfield as she sat beside him in one of the locks in Pillar 4.

Both marine biologists had their wet suits on and were preparing their gear for their first dive of the day. She looked and longed for him. She longed for the embrace of his muscular arms. She wanted to run her fingers through his dark blond hair and kiss his lips. They had worked together for years now, first meeting as interns working in a lab in Pago Pago and though they had not chosen to make it so, it seemed their career and research paths kept converging. With each time they worked together, she felt more and more attracted to him, but she knew she could never tell him that. Somehow, she just kept hoping he would notice, but she was sure he would not.

“Come on Joy. Let’s get going,” Wes said cheerfully. “Chop chop. We can’t be out in the water when they start drilling in an hour.”

Joy adjusted some last things on her kit and strapped the bottles to her back.

“Done.”

“Good!” Wes heaved his own gear onto his shoulders and put his mask on. “Dave, can you hear us?”

“Loud and clear, Wes,” Dave said from the control room above them. “Dr. Joy? Are you good to go too?”

Joy put the mask on her face as well.

“Yep. All ready, Dave.”

Dave clicked on the button that let the water stream into the lock. Slowly the water flowed into the room and began rising. Joy always felt uncomfortable with this. She preferred the traditional diving from the surface; the lock always made her feel claustrophobic, but it was a lot quicker than lowering a boat from the platform and diving from that.

As soon as the room was flooded, Wes pulled a handle and a door slid open in the round outer wall of the room. The two divers swam out into the open sea and were immediately pulled at by the current. They held on to the outside of the rig’s pillar and slowly climbed down. Another twenty yards down, the water was slack and they were able to let go of the rungs. They dropped, circling down, making their way to the seabed. In silence they began collecting samples of the soil there.

“I’m bored,” Dave broke the silence.

Dave was their technical support guy. He was a bulky man, with shoulders, chest, arms and legs that were honed from years of weight lifting. He was covered in tattoos and sported a crew cut. Even if he did not look like it, he was a bit nerdy. But both Wes and Joy liked his upbeat character and the fact that he always had a joke ready.

“Go play with yourself, Dave,” Joy snapped at him. “Meanwhile, stop fooling around on this channel.”

“Okily dokily,” Dave said, in an uncanny Ned Flanders impression that made them both snort with laughter. “You’ve got twenty minutes before they start the drill.”

“Cool,” Wes answered. “We’re all filled up, Dave. Can you send the drone down to pick up the samples?”

“Sure can. Just a sec.”

Dave groaned ostentatiously as he got up and walked to the other side of the control room to the computer that controlled the drones. There were underwater drones circling around the platform as security, but there were always a few he could deploy for fetch-and-carry missions like this. He looked at the screen and located the one nearest the divers. Taking control of that drone, he grabbed the joystick next to the computer and sent it to the divers. The camera in the nose of the small machine gave him as clear a sight of the seabed and the sea around there as the divers would have. It made him wonder why they even bothered going down. After all, a well-equipped drone could do the work much quicker and would be much safer, but the scientists insisted on diving.

The drone came up to Wes and Dave made it move slowly forward as Wes tried to open the storage compartment in the drone’s back.

“Fuck you, Dave,” Wes mumbled into the microphone.

Dave sniggered and then held the drone still so Wes could load his samples into it. That done, he sent the drone to Joy. When she had loaded her samples onto the drone, he nudged it gently against her shoulder.

“Eh, Joy, want to have dinner with me tonight? Maybe go to a movie after?”

“We’ll see, Dave,” Joy said.

She was looking at her watch.

“Ah, with you that means no. Known you long enough now for that.”

“Take the man up on his offer, Joy,” Wes chimed in. “He’s pining for you.”

“Yes, pining. Like I’m a Norwegian Blue and you’re the fjord.”

Joy laughed and she could see Wes looking at her from a distance. At least that was one thing Dave and she shared that Wes did not. They both loved Monty Python.

“Well, just make sure you’re not pushing up the daisies anytime soon.”

An alarm went off in the control room.

“Hey you guys, you’ve got about ten minutes to get back into the lock before they begin drilling. Would hate to tell the boss they have to delay because of you.”

“Roger that, Dave,” Wes replied and he gestured to Joy. “Last samples? Another day tomorrow.”

“If they don’t strike oil.”

“Yeah well, that’s what ‘The City’ is for.”

Joy gave him the thumbs up and loaded the last few samples onto the drone, giving Dave the all clear to jet the thing off to the lock. She looked back at Wes and saw him coming towards her.

Together they swam to the leg of the platform and began to work their way up the rungs, through the current and back into the lock.

***

“Joy?”

Wes knocked on the door of Joy’s small flat.

“You’ll have to wait! I’m in the shower!”

“I’ll just wait in your living room then.”

Wes used his key to enter and went into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Joy stopped what she was doing in the shower the moment she heard the key in the lock. There were some things she just could not do with Wes in the next room. Instead, she got on with washing herself. She was proud of her lean body and soft skin and took care to wash the sea water from her skin and hair after every dive. It played havoc with her and it was the only thing about the diving she did not like. She loved swimming and would be working out in the swimming pool when she could. But the sea water was a menace.

“What’s so urgent you can’t wait until I’m out of the shower?”

Wes groaned as he sat down on the sofa.

“I decided waiting for you to finish showering was boring, so I began analyzing those water and soil samples.”

“And?” Joy sputtered, as she put her head under the hot water to begin washing her hair.

“Well, you know we were looking at the levels of nitrogen in the water?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it’s risen again. There’s more of that plankton too.”

“Right.”

“All suggestions that the water is warming.”

It took Joy a second to think about that one. She was a marine biologist after all, and not a meteorologist. “El Niño?”

“Would look like it.”

“Think there’re storms coming then?”

Wes drank some of the hot coffee and swore as he burned his tongue.

“Perhaps. We’ll have to let them keep an eye on it.”

Joy rinsed her dark hair and turned off the shower. She rubbed herself off with a towel and then wrapped that around her so she could step out of her bathroom. She looked at Wes, who was sitting there and walked to the kitchen to make herself some coffee too.

“Maybe we should bring an expert in? Our meteorologist is...”

She lifted an imaginary bottle to her lips.

“Yeah. I’ll make a call tonight. I have someone in mind.”

Joy looked over at Wes and shook her head with a frown on her face.

“Not Sheila?”

“Why not?”

Wes sat up straight and frowned at Joy in return.

“You’ve been obsessed with her since that tornado. There must be someone who doesn’t have a fucking groupie here.”

The Rig

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About the Author:

Steve Rollins
enjoys hiking and snorkeling and beer, but not necessarily in that order. He loves to travel and spends most of his free time doing just that. Presently, he lives in Las Vegas, Nevada because he likes to gamble, too. Please find him at:

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