The Ark: A Novel (4 page)

Locke made a beeline for Finn. He heard the urgency in his own voice. "We can't sit tight."

Finn nodded at the clock on the wall. "Coast Guard is going to get a rescue chopper into the air in five minutes. At top speed, they'll be here in another ninety. So we wait until then."

"The fog is rolling in," Locke said, shaking his head. "By the time the Coast Guard chopper gets here, visibility will be zero. In those kinds of conditions, the helicopter could fly right over them and never see them."

"If you have any suggestions," Finn said with undisguised annoyance, "I'll be glad to hear them, but I don't know what else we can do."

Locke rested his chin on his fist as he thought. He knew that few survivors were found more than an hour after a crash at sea.

"How about the standby ship?" he said.

Finn snorted. "Don't you think I thought of that? It'll take over six hours for it to get back from Scotia Two. It's our only ship."

Locke thought back to when he was leaning on the landing pad railing. He snapped his fingers. "When I was up on deck, I saw a yacht about five miles away. They should be able to mount a rescue."

Finn shot an angry look at one of the men. "Why didn't I know that?"

The man shrugged meekly, and Finn spat into a wastebasket in response. "Send out the distress call," he said.

The SOS went out on the radio. Seconds passed. Locke listened intently for a voice to respond on the control room speakers, but all he heard was dead air. No reply from the yacht.

"Try again," Finn said after few more ticks of the wall clock. Still nothing.

"They must have seen the helicopter go down," Locke said, frustrated by the silence. The yacht was the survivors' best chance. "Why aren't they answering?"

Finn threw his hands up in disgust and sat. "Their radio might be out. Doesn't matter. They aren't answering. We'll have to wait for the Coast Guard chopper and hope it can find them in the fog."

Locke remembered wearing the same survival suit on his flight to the platform. They were Mark VII suits. Capable safety gear, but not the newest. Not good enough.

Locke shook his head again. "The beacons on those suits are only accurate to within a mile," he said. "That's not precise enough in pea soup fog. What's the water temp today?"

"About 43 degrees Fahrenheit," Finn said. "The suits are rated for up to six hours in the water at that temperature."

"The suit ratings are for ideal conditions in calm weather," Locke said, losing his patience. "Those people are probably injured, and they're being battered by waves out there. If we wait, that chopper won't find anything but dead bodies."

Finn raised his eyebrows and gave Locke a look that said,
And what do you want me to do about it?

Locke paused while his mind went into overdrive. He mentally checked off Scotia One's facilities and capabilities one by one, his head nodding imperceptibly as he thought. He churned through the multiple possibilities but returned over and over to the only choice. He fixed his eyes on Finn.

"You have an idea," Finn said.

Locke nodded. "You're not going to like it."

"Why?"

"We have to go get them ourselves."

"How? We don't have any boats."

"Yes, we do. The freefall lifeboats."

For a moment, Finn was speechless at the suggestion. Then he shook his head. "No. It's too risky. They're only a last resort if we have to abandon the rig. I can't authorize them to be used that way."

Scotia One was equipped with six 50-person lifeboats suspended 75 feet above the water. Locke had consulted on their installation on another oil rig and had even seen one launched.

The unique feature of the lifeboats was that they were aimed at a thirty-degree angle facing toward the water. There were no rope davits to lower the lifeboats slowly to the surface of the water. When the lifeboat was full and watertight, the operators pulled two levers, and the lifeboat slid down a ramp and into space, falling all the way to the water below. It was the only way to evacuate a burning oil platform quickly.

Locke bent down and gripped the arms of Finn's chair, looming over the rig manager. Locke's build was the product of good genes and a regular regimen of pushups, sit ups, and running, which he could do anywhere in the world he was working. He knew he couldn't intimidate a hardened guy like Finn, no matter how small the man was compared to him, but he could use his size for emphasis.

With a low growl, Locke said, "Come on, Finn. You know it's their only shot. If we wait, those people are going to die."

Finn stood and got in Locke's face as much as a man six inches shorter could. "I know what's at stake, damn it!" Finn yelled. "But no one on board has ever launched one of those lifeboats before."

This argument is taking way too long
, Locke thought. It was time the crash survivors didn't have. Finn wasn't going to approve this without someone pushing him. Locke couldn't stand here and wait for seven people to drown, so he lied.

"I've made a drop in one," Locke said steadily. "That's what made me think of it."

Finn looked dubious. "You have? Where?"

"Gordian tested one two years ago. They needed volunteers to try it out." It was true Gordian had done an open-water evaluation, which Locke had supervised, but he hadn't actually ridden in the lifeboat. It had been deemed too dangerous at the time.

Finn raised an eyebrow. "Are you volunteering?"

Locke didn't blink, but his heart was racing. "If that's what it takes. I signed the waiver just like everyone else, and I saw where they went down."

Finn looked around the control room at the three operators who stared back at him, then out the window toward the rapidly approaching fog. Finally, he turned back to Locke.

"Okay, you've convinced me," Finn said, putting his hands up in defeat. "We'll use a lifeboat. How many men do you need?"

Locke fought to keep his heart rate down as he thought about the mission and remembered the saying about the duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like hell underneath.

"Three men total," Locke said. "One to pilot the boat and two to pull people out of the water. Grant should be one of them. He'd never forgive me if I left him behind."

Grant Westfield was not only the best electrical engineer Locke had ever worked with, he was also an adrenaline junkie--rock climbing, sky diving, wreck diving, spelunking, anything that got the blood pumping. Locke enjoyed joining him sometimes, but Grant was fanatical. He'd jump at the chance to launch a freefall lifeboat, something few others have ever done. And if Locke was going to do this, he wanted the person on this rig he trusted most going along with him.

"All right, Grant goes," Finn said. "I'll send Jimmy Markson with you. We can't pull the boat back up again, you know. Not in this weather. Our crane might snap."

This is getting better by the minute,
Locke thought. "We'll use the personnel basket," he said. The basket was a six-person rig used to lift people from ships to the platform.

"I'll tell the other two to meet you down at the lifeboats. Get a survival suit along the way, just in case. I don't want to lose anyone if one of you guys goes in the water."

That sounded like a fine idea to Locke. "I know where the locker is."

Finn snatched up a phone, but Locke didn't stay to hear the call. After grabbing a survival suit from an emergency station, he followed the lifeboat evacuation signs, bounding down the stairs two at a time.

On the lowest deck, where the lifeboats were perched, Locke dropped his bomber jacket onto the grating and donned his suit while he waited for Grant and Markson. Each of the five boats was painted a bright orange so they could be spotted easily at sea. They were streamlined like bullets, and the only windows were rectangular portholes in a cupola at the rear where the helmsman sat. The portholes were made of super-strong polycarbonate--the same material used to make bulletproof windows--instead of glass so that they would withstand the impact of the fall. The sole opening was an aluminum hatch at the aft end.

The boats pointed down at the ocean and rested on rails that would guide them when released. At the end of the rails, it was a 75-foot plunge to the water where the boat would dive under and then surface 300 feet away, propelled to 10 knots by the momentum from the fall. A powerful diesel could drive the boat at up to 20 knots once it resurfaced.

With his suit secured, Locke flung open the hatch of the first lifeboat and peered inside. Instead of a flat aisle down the center of the boat, stairs led down past seats that faced backward. The only seat facing forward was for the helmsman, and that wouldn't be occupied until after the drop was complete. Two levers on either side of the boat's interior had to be pulled simultaneously to initiate the drop, so that a panicked crewman couldn't single-handedly launch the boat before it was filled with evacuees. Safety devices ensured that the rear hatch was closed before it could drop. If the hatch were left open, when the lifeboat went under after the initial drop, water would flood in, and the boat might never resurface.

Locke heard a clatter behind him. Two men hurried down the stairs. Both were black, but that's where the similarities ended. The one in the lead had an ebony complexion and was a couple of inches taller than Locke, but he was lanky and the survival suit hung from him like a coat hanger. That must have been Markson. He was in his forties, and his face was smudged with oil that did nothing to cover his apprehension.

The second man, who had a shaved head and mocha skin, struggled with the zipper on his survival suit. Grant Westfield was four inches shorter and 15 years younger than Markson, but he still had the muscular 240-pound frame of the wrestler he used to be. He must have picked a size too small. Locke smiled in spite of himself.

"Need some help there, tiger?" Locke said, not bothering to hide his amusement. "Maybe you need to lose a few."

Grant zipped the suit to the top and scoffed. "These things weren't built for someone with my impressive physique."

"Just don't flex too hard and rip it. Wouldn't make a great fashion statement."

Grant pursed his lips. "I'll have you know that torn survival suits are the latest rage in Milan."

Locke heard Markson chuckle uneasily. The joking probably sounded out of place to him, but Locke liked it. It had been the way he and Grant lightened the mood in hairy situations ever since their Army days.

"Glad you could join the party," Locke said.

"Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss one of your crazy stunts. They tell me you're raring to launch one of these babies." Grant seemed a lot more enthusiastic about this than Locke was.

"'Raring' may be too strong a word, but somebody's got to do it. Might as well be us."

"You got that right," Grant said, eagerly eyeing the massive lifeboats. "I haven't ridden a rollercoaster in months."

Locke turned to the other man and held out his hand. "And you're Markson?"

"That's right, Dr. Locke."

"Call me Tyler."

They shook hands. "I'm a diver and welder. I'm fully qualified on the lifeboats." He was a tough guy, but there was a slight quaver in his voice.

"Glad to have you along," Locke said. He gestured at the open hatch. "Shall we?"

Grant got in first and belted himself into one of the seats. The four-point seat belts barely stretched over his huge frame. Locke followed him in, and then Markson closed and dogged the hatch behind him. Locke chose the seat next to the port release lever and cinched his own belts tight.

"We're set for launch," Markson said. "Are you guys ready?"

"Ready," Locke said.

"Oh yeah!" Grant shouted, pumping himself up just like he did in his wrestling days. "Let's see what this baby can do!"

Markson gripped the lever in his hand and Locke did the same. Then he yelled, "Three...two...one...launch!" Locke yanked his lever down. A red light glowed, indicating that the release mechanism had been activated, and he felt a clunk as the hydraulic clamps sprang open. There was no turning back now, so Locke forced himself into mission mode, just like when he was in the Army. Precision, decisiveness, and calm were his watchwords from now on.

The boat began its slide down the rails. The movement was anticlimactic. It was as if the boat was being lowered at a lakeside boat ramp off its trailer. Then the lifeboat bow dipped downward, and Locke's stomach leapt into his mouth.

With some goading from Grant, Locke had gone bungee-jumping one time, so the feeling was familiar. His entire body floated out of the contoured seat. The weightlessness seemed to last forever. Then the impact came.

The crash of fiberglass splashing into the water boomed from all directions. It felt like the lifeboat hit concrete. Locke's head slammed backward against the cushioned headrest. The sense of weightlessness was replaced by the crush of deceleration. The angle of his seat changed drastically as he saw water wash over the helmsman's portholes.

Locke was thrown against his seatbelt and rocked side to side as the lifeboat made for the surface. Water streamed down the cupola window, and he could see the gray sky out of the window. The lifeboat leveled out. Grant whooped in delight from behind him, but Locke was just glad they had made it down in one piece.

"Woohoo!" Grant yelled, laughing. "Can we do that again?"

"Not with me, you're not," Locke said, unbuckling himself.

"Oh, you know you loved it."

"Tell that to my stomach. It's still back on the oil rig."

Markson took the helmsman's seat. Although the waves pummeled them, the lifeboat was as seaworthy as a cork. But anyone swimming in that would be fighting for their lives. Locke flashed again to the memory of Dilara's photo and pictured her struggling to stay afloat. Markson fired up the diesel, and Locke pointed him in the direction of the crash. With the fog getting thicker by the minute, they had to hurry. Their chances of rescuing the survivors were quickly dropping toward zero.

Dilara Kenner struggled to keep the unconscious helicopter pilot's head completely out of the water, but the waves crashing over them made that impossible. At least the survival suits were buoyant. The best she could hope to do was make sure that he didn't float away. The copilot, a baby-faced blond named Logan, tried to help, but his arm was broken, so it was all he could do to keep from inhaling seawater.