His heart was beating faster than usual.
Bahnsteig Acht went by on the right, identified by the pilot over the headset, and Eisenach used binoculars to examine it. Though it was difficult to see much from the erratically moving helicopter, he thought that the repairs to the dome had been completed.
It had been a difficult few days for the men on the platform, exposed to the weather while replacement panels were installed.
“Platform Eleven will come up on our right, Herr General,” the pilot said.
He never saw it. The visibility had drawn down so tightly that even the roiling surface of the water disappeared from time to time.
When they reached Bahnsteig Eine, the wind was blowing fiercely. In midday, it was dark enough to require landing lights on both the pad and the helicopter. The radio operator on the platform reported gusts to forty kilometers per hour, and ten men in parkas emerged from the dome to steady the helicopter as the pilot fought it to a landing. The rain was almost horizontal on the platform, and as the turbines died, he could hear it slapping the windshield like gunshots.
Eisenach was immensely relieved to be on something solid again, but hoped that his relief was not evident in his face. He pushed open his door, slid out of the helicopter, and leaned into the wind, holding his hat with his gloved left hand. The raindrops pelted his face like sand. He left his luggage for someone else to bring.
Oberst Hans Diederman was waiting just inside the doorway for him. His fatigue uniform appeared tighter on him. His demeanor was just as bubbly as ever. “Herr General Eisenach! How good to see you!”
The same greeting as ever, also. Eisenach firmly doubted the man’s sincerity.
“Good afternoon, Hans.”
“This is not a day to be flying, General.”
“It was not too difficult,” Eisenach insisted as he stripped off his dripping topcoat.
It was warm inside the dome. Despite the insulation between the living spaces and the wellhead, it often became overly heated. The Russians would love it, Eisenach thought. They had a fanatic devotion to overheated buildings.
“I want to see the wellhead, Hans.”
“Right this way.”
They walked down the wide corridor to the fiberglass wall, and Diederman opened a thick door, then stepped over a raised coaming. Eisenach followed.
This third of the dome was not subpartitioned in any way. There were lights at deck level, but the upper reaches of the dome were almost black. It seemed a great deal of wasted space, and indeed, the domes were larger than necessary for living and operating needs, but the high empty spaces were necessary to accommodate the drilling rigs. Though the rig was no longer in place here, it was anticipated that it would have to be reinstalled occasionally in order to clean the injection well. On his left was another door, leading to the control room, and a triple-paned glass window which allowed the operators to view the wellhead and turbine generators.
There were three turbines, and the high-pitched whine of them threatened the eardrums. Eisenach knew the schematics well. Two of the turbines were driven off of the steam and hot water rising from the well, the third was driven by the residue of steam still available from the first two. Exhaust vapors then went through the succession of tanks attached to the back side of the dome, one of which contained a small turbine generator that produced more than enough electricity for the platform’s own operations.
Huge condensers collected the spent steam and vapor, reduced it to water, and sent it to the massive pump that injected the water back into the earth.
Walking the deck was an adventure in itself. Piping of a dozen diameters, the largest a meter across, created a maze. They were painted white and yellow and red. One had to step over, duck under, and slip around the conduits in order to cross the decking.
A light gray haze seemed to float in the space, and the walls dripped constantly with moisture.
It was hot, over a hundred degrees. Heating the domes had never been a problem. Rather, after this, the first platform, had been constructed and the drilling completed, they had had to install air conditioning. Maintaining the sensitive electronics at steady temperatures had been a necessity.
Diederman handed him a pair of cushioned ear protectors, and once he had them in place, the scream of the turbine generators was bearable. The engineer led the way through the pipe maze, large yellow signs were attached to most of the pipes. Steam. Hot water. Valves were everywhere, most of them remote-controlled, serving no discernible purpose, but required for safety, if steam pressures became too high to contain and had to be vented, and for diversion so that one or all of the turbines could be shut down for servicing.
Thickly insulated cables, strung on ceramic insulators, emerged from the generators, were routed above the piping, and directed into the space beneath Diederman’s control center. There, the electricity was filtered, transformed, and channeled in ways that Eisenach did not understand. He knew only that the electricity drawn from the other operating platforms was collected there, then distributed into one of the two undersea cables. The undersea cables, he had been told, carried 220,000 volts.
Diederman drew him to a stop outside a guardrail that circled the wellhead. The railing protected a space that was four meters in diameter. The well cap, of some cast alloy, was head-height above the deck and was almost two meters in diameter. Several large pipes emerged horizontally from it, leading toward the turbines. The well casing, a meter in diameter, rose through an oversized hole in the decking. Exterior air was allowed to flow in around the casing, helping to cool it. Still, the casing and wellhead were tinged a yellowish-brown from the heat.
Diederman leaned toward him and yelled. Eisenach had to pull his ear protector away from his ear to hear. “Three hundred and eighty degrees Fahrenheit! Now, we could boil your tea instantly.”
Eisenach nodded, shifted the ear protector back in place, and peered down through the gap between the well casing and the deck. He could see the wave tops five meters below. Depressed wave tops, coated with the icy sludge.
The perspiration was running down his face, and his armpits were damp. He wiped his face, tapped Diederman on the shoulder, and they threaded their way back through the maze to the corridor and the elevator.
He had missed lunch, but Diederman was happy to have a second lunch, and the director ordered thick ham-and-rye sandwiches and coffee delivered to his office.
They sat at the big table, Diederman’s console close to his hand.
“So, now, Herr General,” Diederman said, talking with a stuffed mouth, “you have come triumphantly through a summer storm, only to look at a wellhead?”
“Yes, Hans, I have.”
“To what purpose?”
“To make alterations to the platforms. A fail-safe mechanism, as it were.”
Diederman frowned.
“Below the deck, a meter above the sea surface, we are going to attach plastic explosive to the well casings. I imagine that it will probably have to be insulated from the casing in some manner.”
Diederman’s eyes flew wide open, a feat of some magnitude with all of the fat around them.
“We will also place explosives on each of the anchor cables.”
“This is fail-safe, Herr General? Pardon me, but it is asinine!”
“It is fail-safe in that it will deter further attacks by the Americans.”
“You are to publicize this foolish act, now?”
“A leak or two through the intelligence networks should accomplish what I want, Hans.”
“You want to endanger all of the men aboard these platforms, do you?” Diederman’s face was beet red with his anger.