25
Fisher pushed the throttle bar downward. The bow planes responded, tilting forward and driving the sled deeper. The sled’s twin headlights arced through the darkness, illuminating drifting plankton and the occasional curious fish.
When his depth gauge read thirty feet, he evened out, then checked his compass: on course. Above his head the surface of the ocean boiled, a ceiling of undulating white water, but here, a mere ten yards below the surface, the water was calm, with only a slight east-to-west current. Fisher could feel the press of the water against his dry suit, a bone-chilling cold that would have killed him long ago if not for the protective layers.
He saw something — a hazy vertical shape — appear in the headlights, then fade away. Seconds later it reappeared and slowly took shape until Fisher could make it out: one of the platform’s pilings.
Each of the platform’s four main pilings, as big around as a tanker truck, were connected by a series of smaller, horizontal cross-pilings, and diagonal I-beam steel girders. Descending vertically between this maze of steel all the way to the ocean floor would be the platform’s producing wells, which could number as many as twenty. This platform, long ago decommissioned, would have withdrawn its well pipes and drilling sleeves, leaving only the remnants dangling from the underside of the platform like a massive wind chime.
Fisher kept the sled steady until the rest of the support structure came into view. He curved around the piling, then turned parallel to the cross-piling until his headlights illuminated the next piling. This one, though identical to the first, was on the platform’s west side, which put it in the lee of the current. He pushed the throttle bar up and ascended alongside the piling until the headlights illuminated a vertical steel ladder. This was the lower access ladder, used by divers to inspect the platform’s submerged structures. He reached out and gave the lowermost rung a firm tug; it held.
He unhooked his face mask’s hose from the sled’s tanks and hooked into his chest rebreather, then lifted a thumb-size plastic cover on the dash and pressed a red button. On either side of the sled’s nose cone, the buoyancy chambers opened. Seconds later the sled tipped over nose first and slid into the depths.
Fisher grabbed the ladder and started climbing.
The ladder rose thirty feet, the last ten out of the water, and ended at a square catwalk bordered by safety rails. Another ladder, this one enclosed by a cage, continued up the piling to another catwalk, encircling the piling. He paused here to strip off his dry suit and toss it over the side, then followed the catwalk to the back side of the piling where he found a set of grated steps that continued up the piling, switchbacking until it ended at a door-size horizontal hatch.
He climbed to the second to last step and tried the lever. It swiveled to the open position with a dull thunk. Fisher switched his goggles to NV, drew his pistol, put his back against the hatch, tightened his legs, then stood up a few inches. The hatch squeaked open. The room beyond was a changing area; tiled floors, shower cubicles, and lockers on one side, sinks and toilet stalls on the other. Fisher stood up, careful to keep his right arm on the hatch’s edge so it didn’t bang open. He climbed the last step into the room, then closed the hatch behind him.
At the far end of the room was a door with a porthole window set at chin height. To his left, a line of four porthole windows; he walked to one of them and looked out over the platform’s open deck.
Like most exploration and drilling platforms, this one was built around the drilling and well head equipment, all of which descended through a square, hundred-foot-by-hundred-foot opening in the center of the platform. On either side of this opening were stacked three levels of work shacks joined together by enclosed walkways. Rising from each shack at opposite ends from one another were rotatable cranes. On the far north side of the platform was a raised helicopter pad encircled by a railing. Sitting on the pad was a helicopter. Fisher tried to make out the model, but the horizontal rain made it impossible.
Fisher called up his OPSAT blueprint of the platform and oriented himself on it. This changing room was on the lowermost level of the western-side shack. He checked for Stewart’s beacon; it was still active, somewhere above him and to the east.
He walked to the door and peeked through the window. Beyond was a short, unlit hallway that ended at a stairwell. Out of habit, he scanned the hall in both IR and EM and saw nothing unusual. He opened the door and climbed the stairs to the next level. This floor was mostly open, with a solid wall to his left and a half wall to his right through which he could see hanging drilling pipes and cables. He walked to the wall and looked down. Eighty feet below, the sea churned around the pilings. He continued to the third and top level, which was similar to the one below, save one feature. At the far end he found an enclosed walkway to the eastern-side shacks.
He started across the walkway. As he neared the opposite end, he stopped, listened. Nothing. He was about to keep going, when the sound came again, more distinct this time. Voices. He crept to the end of the walkway, pressed himself flat against the wall, and peered around the corner.
The space he was seeing was only half as long — about thirty feet — and the layout was that of a makeshift laboratory, with a rectangular, laminate-topped worktable running down each wall and three tables spaced perpendicularly down the center. Fluorescent shop lights hung from the ceiling at ten-foot intervals, casting the space in cold gray light.
Beyond the tables Fisher could see what looked like a mobile hyperbaric chamber running lengthwise to the opposite wall; sitting before the chamber on a table was a device. It was approximately ten feet long and comprised of parallel conduits of various diameters, from a quarter inch to four inches, and intertwined electrical cables, all of which came together in a steel ring that seemed to have been welded into the chamber’s door just below the porthole window through which Fisher could see dim light. He’d seen pictures of a similar device. It was a crude LINAC, a linear particle accelerator.
Three men were sitting in chairs before the LINAC having an animated discussion. A fourth man in a thigh-length black leather coat stood behind the group, arms folded across his chest. Fisher zoomed in. It was Chin-Hwa Pak.
Stewart was sitting in the middle chair, flanked on both sides by Koreans. The man to Stewart’s left was holding a clipboard, which he was tapping with a pen and waving in front of Stewart, who pushed it away.
Behind him, Pak pulled out a pistol and put it to Stewart’s head. He leaned over and whispered something in Stewart’s ear.
Stewart reluctantly took the clipboard and started leafing through pages.
Fisher took pictures, getting all the men’s faces, the LINAC, and the hyperbaric chamber. He scanned the room for a place to plant a Sticky Ear, but it was too confined. Pak would hear the placement.
Stewart had stopped leafing through the clipboard’s pages and seemed to be studying something intently. He gestured to one of the men, who pulled a calculator from a briefcase on the floor and handed it over. Stewart started punching numbers, writing notations, and leafing back and forth through the pages.
He handed the clipboard back to the first man and tapped something on the page with his pen, then started gesturing to various parts of the LINAC. The men listened closely until Stewart finished, then began talking to one another across him.
A fourth Korean entered the room through the door beside the chamber. He whispered something to Pak, then handed him what looked like a thin remote control. Pak nodded and pocketed the device.
Suddenly, behind Fisher in the walkway, he heard a creaking. He spun around, gun coming up. A Korean was standing in the walkway. Obviously startled and uncertain, the man squinted, trying to make out the figure half hidden in the shadows. The man’s hand shot into his coat and came out with a pistol. Fisher fired. The man stumbled backward, the hand holding the gun still coming up. The barrel flashed, and the shot boomed through the walkway.