Like a crippled fledgling that doesn’t know it can’t fly, the aerodynamics of the Cessna kept trying to loft Mercer and Aggie Johnston skyward as they skimmed along the surface of Valdez Bay. Aggie struggled to keep the Cessna level, forcing nearly all of her weight against the starboard rudder pedal to compensate for the destroyed port wing. As it was, she could only manage to crab the plane sideways across the bay, the nose pointed almost thirty degrees away from their direction of travel.
Mercer now knew enough about planes to know he didn’t know enough about planes to help her. He kept his hands and feet clear of the controls. He focused instead on the tiny mirror placed high on the dash and watched the Hope shrink in their wake. No matter how fast they traveled, it seemed they were still too close to the research ship. If it had been rigged with enough explosives to panic Kerikov into his suicidal jump, he and Aggie were in for a rough ride. With nothing better to do, Mercer grabbed the bottle of whiskey still in the cockpit and dosed himself with a little liquid courage.
The MV Hope, formally a Hecla class research vessel in the British navy, vanished just as the bottle came away from his lips.
One second the ship was centered in the mirror and the next it was gone in a blooming explosion of red, yellow, and black, huge slabs of the hull splitting apart, chunks of metal, wood, and flesh arcing through the air. The devastation was total. Even before the shock wave hit the fleeing Cessna, the main part of the ship had sunk beneath the rippling bay, nothing to mark its existence except a greasy fire raging on the surface and the human misery wallowing near its grave.
The overpressure wave blew out every storefront window in Valdez, killing four people, and overturned all but the largest boats lying at anchor in the public harbor, claiming a further eight victims. Had the explosion been delayed by a few more minutes, the civilian death toll would have been much higher, as onlookers were just converging at the shore to see what had caused the alarm at the tanker facility that shared their waters and gave many of them their livelihoods. Of the PEAL environmentalists, Mercer’s shouted warning had saved all but twelve. Eight died immediately and four later in the hospital.
Two potential victims the blast did not claim were Aggie Johnston and Philip Mercer, but it was a close call all the way.
“Brace yourself,” Mercer shouted as soon as he recognized what had happened, dropping the bottle to the floor.
The concussion of the explosion grabbed the Cessna, tipping it so high that the prop ripped at the water, slicing it into a plume that obliterated their view. Aggie pulled back on the yoke immediately, releasing the rudder at the same time. The plane tried to lift, and for a precious moment it was back on an even keel, the pontoons barely keeping purchase, the forces of the wings and that of the concussion wave holding the aircraft steady.
Then the concentric swells radiating from the explosion caught up to the plane, lifting it higher and, like a bodysurfer caught on a perfect crest, bore it even faster along the Bay of Valdez. The water raced from the explosion’s epicenter at nearly one hundred fifty miles per hour, piling up a mountain of water thirty feet high, and at its very crest, Aggie maintained an unsteady control of the Cessna, not sure if her adjustments to yoke and rudder were effective in keeping them in place or if the aircraft was at the whimsy of the raging onslaught.
As her ears stopped ringing and she became aware of the sounds of the torrent around her, she also heard Mercer laughing. “What’s so goddamned funny?” she shrieked.
“Half hour ago, you were complaining about my flying. I don’t see this as an improvement.”
Before Aggie could come back with an obscenity-laden rejoinder, the wave smashed into the breakwater protecting the Alyeska facility, the top of it battering the seawall built specifically for just such a tsunami, although the designers expected waves generated from earth tremors, not catastrophic explosions. The pontoons were ripped from the Cessna by the concrete wall, and much of the force of the wave was beaten down by the massive cement structure, leaving the plane to sail clear for an instant before it plowed into the rocky ground, its belly scraping off their speed brutally, the prop blades folding back around the engine cowling like the tentacles of some sea creature.
The threat of fire was real, and both Aggie and Mercer launched themselves from their seats as the plane finally ground to a stop.
“Remember, this flight counts double for your frequent flier miles. We want to thank you for flying Mercer Airlines. Have a nice day.” He was out the cargo door of the Cessna as the last words rolled from his lips, with Aggie right behind.
The sprint to the Operations Building took forever, both of them hampered by their injuries and by the countless vehicles they had to dodge as technicians and employees raced to evaluate the situation. Mercer pounded through the door, tossing a hapless employee back about ten feet as the edge of the door caught her square in the chest. He raced for the control room, ignoring the dazed woman completely. The room was packed. Voices clashed angrily over the wail of countless alarms, the normally calm professionals driven to the point of panic by the scope of the catastrophe facing them. Andy Lindstrom was in the center of it, his face red and his shouts muted to angry growls from hoarseness. He scanned the multiple panels and video display units, assessing the damage to his precious pipeline. Twenty or so engineers were gathered around him, ranked by seniority so the most experienced was at his shoulder and the juniormost stood in the back of the room. The windowless room was filled with cigarette smoke and the smell of fear’s sweat.
“Andy!” Mercer shouted over the arguing voices, but the noise drowned him out.
To gain attention, he pulled out Kerikov’s pistol and fired into the floor, silence echoing after the shot.
“Andy, how bad?” Mercer asked calmly. If he was bothered by the stunned crowd around him, it didn’t show on his stony face.
“Jesus Christ, Mercer, what the hell are you doing?” The shock on Lindstrom’s face was a combination of seeing Mercer with a pistol, seeing Mercer even alive, and the stress of the nitrogen packs freezing his pipeline as solid as a Popsicle. “Great to see you again, but I don’t have time for this — your friend the Russian has destroyed my pipe.”
“I know.” Mercer couldn’t afford the delay caused by emotional answers. “I need to know if the pumps are running right now.”
Before Andy could answer, an engineer seated at the console spoke up. “No, the computer logs show they shut down about a minute before the nitrogen packs went off. Right now they’re off-line. And it looks like they’ll never run again. Preliminary reports indicate at least forty spots where oil flow has stopped completely and a couple more with minimal flow. It looks as if there are at least two ruptures, one at the center of the Tanana River suspension bridge.”
“The bridge collapsed?” Mercer asked fearfully.
“Yeah. Oil is flowing toward it through open check valves like a spigot.”