Wormholes (7 page)

“T
HIS JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN! THIS JUST BLOODY GODDAMNED WELL DOESN’T HAPPEN!
” Gordon Haggerty bellowed into his headset microphone over the helicopter engine’s roar. The red-haired, bull-necked Vice President for Transportation Operations glared in the direction of his fellow passenger Philippe Togani, a wiry dark-haired Frenchman, who agreed with a solemn nod of his head. Togani, the company’s best structural engineer, knew that it didn’t happen, too. Haggerty peered once more out the helicopter window at the tragic scene passing slowly below. Scattered on the choppy gray-green ocean, periodically brightened by shafts of traveling sunlight peeking between thick puffy clouds, were the pitiably meager remnants of what had once been a 350,000-ton supertanker. A few scattered bodies in orange lifejackets bobbed among oil-stained boxes, chunks of plastic, unidentifiable clumps of debris, empty lifejackets and life rafts, one fully inflated. All of the remains were surrounded by a black layer of oil that lay in great dark amoeboid patches on the ocean, riding the gentle waves up and down.

The gleaming white Seahawk helicopter with the Shell Oil logo on its side hovered over the stricken area like some grieving angel offering last rites on the tragedy. Haggerty was bone-tired from the overnight flight from London to Tenerife, and the run out to the site in the helicopter. But for the moment the anger had banished all traces of fatigue.

“Am I right, Philippe?” he asked in his rolling Scottish brogue. “We’ve got a young ship … maybe five years old. We’ve got a fine captain, an experienced crew, a good sea …” he paused. Below them, the crew of the rust-stained Argentinean freighter that was first on the scene was pulling an orange-lifejacketed body from the sea. He continued “… deep water, full load. This just damned well doesn’t happen!”

“Well, it did, Gordon. Something went very wrong,” came a voice in his headset. He twisted around to glare at Brendan Cooper, a sandy-haired young man, who looked back at him with his characteristic straightforward gaze. Cooper was a man of medium height, medium build. At first glance, people didn’t take him for one of the world’s leading oceanographers. But he was animated by a breezy confidence, even brashness.

At this particular moment, Haggerty hated the disrespectful little son-of-a-bitch, but he knew that Cooper’s disrespect was what made him valuable as an independent consultant in these matters. The insurance companies, the media and his superiors would trust whatever the Woods Hole oceanographer concluded about this disaster.

“Well, it’s your goddamned business to figure out why,” said Haggerty. “This is no Gulf of Mexico. We were doing everything right, as far as we know. You know that. It was terrorism! Had to be!”

“We’ll see,” said Cooper simply and went back to surveying the wreckage out the back window. With the practiced air of one used to scanning the ocean for insight, he searched the debris-strewn ocean for clues. He made notes in a battered notebook with the insignia of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He was making decisions as he watched the tragedy slide by below, watching the freighter gathering bodies. He was figuring out what help he would need on this one. He knew he could do whatever he wanted. That was always the deal when an oil company brought him in as a consultant.

“What about the slick?” shouted Haggerty. Cooper turned his attention to the huge shimmering dark stains on the ocean below. He tapped his pen on the notebook, calling up in his mind what he knew of wind, currents and geography in the area.

“Just my first estimate, mind you,” he said. “You’ll have to consult with your containment group. But I don’t think the Canaries are in danger. I think maybe in a week it will end up in Morocco. And I think it’ll be well-weathered by then. Maybe thick tar. They’ve got time to get the equipment out there, to develop a cleanup plan.”

Togani’s voice in the headphones: “You know, Gordon, there’s still the question of whether the gas-inerting system failed.”

The structural engineer was right. That was a vexing question. Like any modern supertanker, the Castile had a system to pump cooled engine exhaust gases into the oil tanks. The gases displaced air, preventing explosions that had ripped supertankers apart in the past. But Haggerty had a good answer.

“True, but even if the inerting system did fail, explosions like that are really only a problem with empty tanks, right?” Togani nodded in agreement. Haggerty twisted around to Cooper. “Say that, Cooper. Make sure you say that to the press when they ask.”

“Gordon, I’m not saying anything till I’m ready. Turn your high-paid flacks loose on it for now. Better still, have your president be a stand-up guy for a change.”

Cooper could tell he’d gotten to Haggerty from the knot of tensed muscles that rose in the back of Haggerty’s neck. He grinned, showing white teeth amidst the tanned, thin face. Some people avoided Cooper because of his tart tongue. Other people enjoyed the spice of his personality, appreciated the fact that Cooper was always up front with his opinions. Cooper always believed in the virtue of the fresh breeze of honesty. He also believed that just the right amount of needling yielded useful information in most situations.

But enough bear-baiting. He had work to do. He issued an instruction to the pilot and the co-pilot over his headset. “Ready the winch. I’m going down to the deck.”

Haggerty shook his head vigorously. “Well, only if I go,” shouted Haggerty over the noise. “I damned well want to see what happened.”

“No,” said Cooper. “I don’t want it said that I had any company people looking over my shoulder. And you’d be a distraction.”

“I’m not a fucking distraction! I’m your fucking employer!”

“Then fire me, Gordon. Look, Lloyd’s is going to be all over me with questions tomorrow, and I’d better be ready with answers that I can vouch for as untainted.”

Haggerty’s gathering anger evaporated. He could picture the row of stiff, formal Lloyd’s of London agents sitting across from him in their richly appointed conference room, looking for the slightest opportunity to avoid paying the insurance claim. He could put up a much better argument if Cooper could say he did his investigation without any participation from the oil company.

Haggerty muttered instructions to the pilot and co-pilot to go ahead with the drop.

“Video the whole area,” Cooper told the co-pilot. “I’ll call you with further instructions.” He picked up a hand-held radio and clipped it snugly to his belt. He was already dressed for a drop, in khaki work shirt and pants, an inflatable life vest and rubber-soled work shoes.

He donned sunglasses and waited impatiently until the co-pilot slid open the helicopter’s large door and readied the sling. He grabbed the cable, slipped into the sling and swung fearlessly out the door, as the co-pilot flicked the switch activating the electric winch to let out the steel cable. The punishing wash from the helicopter blades whipped at Cooper’s clothes, and he squinted his eyes and peered down. The pilot had brought the helicopter in to hover over the freighter’s bow deck. When the freighter crew saw what was happening, several took up stations below to receive him. He twisted slowly as he descended, using the opportunity to scan the area around the ship from a new angle. The deck pitched up with a swell, making him land with a thump. He quickly extricated himself from the sling and strode down the deck to meet the captain.

After exchanging greetings in Spanish, the short, round-faced captain showed Cooper through the maze of battered crates and deck equipment to the ladder leading to the large wooden lifeboat from which rescue operations were taking place. Cooper lowered himself nimbly down the ladder and found himself standing amidst a scene he never ever wished to have witnessed. In the bobbing boat were two bodies that had just been brought in. He steeled himself to keep from vomiting at the overwhelmingly putrid odor of rotting, burned flesh mixed with the suffocating stench of oil that would stay with him the rest of his life. He stood for a moment recovering his composure, reminding himself of his mission. Even he was not ready for this grisly business. The shirtless, sweating crewmen wore bandannas over their mouths, and one of them held up a cloth to Cooper, who gratefully took it and tied it tightly on. It reduced the smell only slightly. The men were preparing to load the bodies into a cargo net to be hoisted aboard, but Cooper waved for them to stop. He turned one over. It was but a charred remnant of a human being, the life vest burned away, the flesh black. Cooper stood up and willed himself once again to keep from vomiting. God, but it was hot! Unnaturally hot. He filed away the piece of information, even as he recovered from the shocking sight. The other body was burned as badly. He waved the crewmen to take the bodies away and spent some time staring out at the sea to recover.

The crewmen finished unloading the bodies and cast off. Cooper pointed toward the life raft he’d seen bobbing several hundred yards from the ship. The flat crack of rifle fire sounded from the ship. Cooper peered toward the sound’s source, and saw the captain standing beside a crewman with a rifle and pointing seaward. He peered in the direction indicated and saw a shark thrashing in a pink spreading cloud of its own blood. Another fin swerved and headed for the wounded creature slamming into it, creating a boiling foam of tearing flesh. They had to hurry with their gruesome harvest.

Cooper fought to avoid being overcome by the oil fumes as the lifeboat approached the rubber raft, in which lay a lifejacketed body, slumped on the bottom. A crewman grabbed the handhold on the raft and secured it to the stern. Keeping an eye on the nearest shark fin, Cooper made his way down the pitching boat to the stern and leaned down, hauling on the line until the raft was fast against the side of the boat. He leaned over and grabbed the body by the shoulder of the life vest, rolling it on its back. The face was the dead white color of a fish belly and bloated. There was no charring. He picked up the hand. It, too, was white and grossly swollen, with some fingernails torn off. The man had not burned to death. He appeared to have boiled to death! Cooper braced his hand against the slick gunwales of the boat, preparing to stand, but he slipped and almost fell into the water, his hand plunging into the oil-covered ocean up to his elbow. He felt a crewman grab his shirt to haul him up. But he waved with his free hand to be let go. He left his arm hanging in the heaving ocean. The ocean was warm! No, by God, it was as hot as a bloody bath!

He stood up and stared at the ocean in disbelief. The Gulf Stream wasn’t anywhere near here, and even if it were, the warm tropical water it carried was nowhere near this hot. The heat became a highly significant piece of data.

He queried the seamen in Spanish and they answered that they had smelled the heated water and the oil for an hour before they sighted the debris and the bodies. He peered at the helicopter, which was making a low video-recording run over the ocean. The video file would be transmitted via satellite to the company headquarters that night. He took out the radio and clicked it on, pulling the bandanna down from his mouth.

“Cooper here. Gordon, you copy?” There was a click, and Haggerty’s voice came back clearly in the affirmative.

“What’s the situation with your data-gathering?” asked Cooper.

“The
HMS
Greeley will arrive in a couple of hours to take over the investigation. Our team is on board, and we’ll have a survey report on the slick within three hours.”

“Fine. Now, Gordon, we’ve got something here that I’ve never seen before. Some bodies were burned, but one that should be alive in a raft looks to have been scalded, boiled.”

“My God, really?”

“Yes. And the water is incredibly warm here. I’m going to stay and take temperature measurements and chemical samples. I’ll want infrared satellite data from the National Weather Service. I know they monitor ocean temperatures. We’ll want to know the extent of this anomaly. And get me seismic records.” Cooper stared down at the body, which was awash in a shallow pool of seawater in the bottom of the raft. He thought a moment. “Oh, and tell him that I know the Navy still runs its
SOSUS
hydrophone system in this area. Even if they deny it, tell them I damned well want the records from the last twenty-four hours. Your Los Angeles organization can put pressure on, if necessary.” He added, “Gordon, I want to see that wreck when Philippe does.”

“Aye, of course. I’ve called Bradley in the exploration division. I’ve told him to cut loose that new ship of his from the North Sea … the Acorn. I want an
ROV
down on the wreck within a week.”

“And I’ll want a manned unit. Get me Deep Flight. And I want you to locate and fetch another guy I know. An astrophysicist.”

“What the hell do I need an astrophysicist for?”

“Gordon, this is really screwy. A lot of things don’t fit. I want somebody who has no preconceived notions … who understands a lot of physics. Y’know, like when they got that Nobelist Richard Feynman to be on the committee for the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion.”

“I suppose I’ll have to pay for this astrophysicist.”