Unholy Code

Chapter 21

Jimmy was shivering by the time he towed Sexy Streak under the Blue Ring oil platform and hauled himself up onto a floating dock, tie line hanging from his hips.

Happy Daze, the forty-two-foot cabin cruiser that ISIS had hijacked to launch its assault on the rig, rested in a slip some twenty feet away. Jimmy had no intentions of leaving it afloat so ISIS could escape. That boat was getting a stick of dynamite on his way out.

If you get that far.

The oil rig was similar to BP’s ill-fated Horizon, which blew, burned, and killed eleven oil workers in 2010 before spilling five million barrels of crude into the Gulf. But Blue Ring’s potential for catastrophe was even greater — all ISIS had to do was sabotage the rig’s automatic shut-off valves, called BOPs, or “blowout preventers,” before destroying the oil pipe proper and subsea wellhead.

Jimmy figured if he knew that much from working just three weeks on a rig, then ISIS would likely know even more because the execution of the group’s plans — and most of the rig’s employees — had so far been both grisly and flawless. And the terrorists had made clear their desire to turn the Gulf into petroleum goo. But if Jimmy could blow the oil pipe running up to the platform before ISIS disabled the BOPs, the sudden change in pipe pressure should trigger the fail-safe mechanisms, if the oil companies had actually upgraded them after Horizon.

A big “if, ” he thought. But another “if” came to mind: If there had ever been a time to bank on hope, it had arrived this morning in all its shaky glory.

To get started, he tied up Sexy Streak and threw on his clothes, grateful for the warmth. Then he headed toward the nearest door, stilled by the sound of someone trying to key the lock.

Jimmy dug into his pocket and pulled out the Saturday night special the cantankerous Burr had loaned him, trusting the cheap .38 wouldn’t jam or backfire and blow off his face. No choice about using it, though: Anyone stepping through that door would see the race boat at a glance.

But they don’t need to see you.

He dashed to the side of the door that would open in front of him and give Jimmy cover for precious seconds. The person on the other side seemed to be trying a second key.

Must be ISIS. A Blue Ring employee wouldn’t have been fiddling around.

Now a third key. Jimmy was sweating now instead of shivering.

The lock opened and the steel door swung toward him. He caught a glimpse of a lone man with black hair and beard stepping out to the boarding area holding a Kalashnikov by his side. As the door slowly closed behind the fighter, Jimmy watched him turn toward Sexy Streak.

“Don’t move,” Jimmy said.

The man froze. The door swung back slowly. Too slowly. Jimmy wanted it closed to block the sound of gunfire.

“Drop the gun and turn toward me.”

The Kalashnikov clattered on the deck.

Jimmy aimed right between the man’s eyes, but another pair greeted his gaze: The fighter had a head hanging by his side, middle and ring fingers plunged into each socket and his thumb hooked into the mouth. Could have been a bowling ball.

A beat later the door did click shut.

Jimmy fired exactly where he’d aimed, and one of ISIS’s finest crumpled to the deck. The head he’d been holding started rolling toward the water.

Jimmy swore and lunged for it. The last thing he wanted was to fish it out. Right before it would have fallen off, he grabbed a shock of hair and rested the head upright on the deck so it wouldn’t take off on him again, though it now gave the distinct appearance of bearing witness to the macabre goings-on in the immediate vicinity. Only then did Jimmy recognize the victim from television as one of the two oil workers who’d been taken prisoner with the rig’s chief engineer.

Jimmy commandeered the Kalashnikov and a beauty of a Browning 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, then tore open the dead killer’s shirt hoping to find body armor. None. But he spotted a long knife sheathed in black leather and pulled the blade out, wondering how many heads it had severed. The knife was clean. He slipped it back in the sheath and hung it from his belt.

With a wary eye on the door, he climbed back on Sexy Streak, put in one ear bud, and scanned news channels to try to find out the extent of the violence up above. Had all three been killed?

An AP report on a New Orleans radio station said an oil worker had been beheaded because the chief engineer had claimed he couldn’t shut down the BOPs.

Just as Jimmy wondered why they hadn’t dropped the head into the Gulf, as they had the others, the reporter quoted from a terrorist communiqué: “We will use the heads of the last three men on this rig as soccer balls on the White House lawn as soon as we take Washington.”

“You’re not getting anywhere near the White House, you sons-of-bitches,” Jimmy said to the dead man. “And neither are you,” he added in more soothing tones to the roughneck’s head a few feet away.

He checked out the Kalashnikov. He’d never handled one but knew their reputation for reliability, as well as a lack of accuracy.

Are you really going to use that?

Jimmy had no choice, not in any world in which he wanted to live. They’d started killing the innocent again. He couldn’t in good conscience merely blow the oil pipe and leave. He’d have to go up to that platform and do whatever he could to save the last two men and the Gulf of Mexico, which he loved as much as the Louisiana land on which he’d been born.

He grabbed the keys from the dead man and headed back toward the door.

Emma had stuffed the essentials into her book backpack: change of clothes, phone, makeup, toiletries, and an extra pair of shoes. After silencing the security alarm to give her thirty seconds to slip out of the house, she’d eased out the back door, held her breath, and stood in the darkness, hoping her mother and father were still asleep.

Cairo, thankfully, hadn’t barked as she left. He simply watched her. That was when she realized he’d been making sure she was okay. She wished she could have taken him with her. She felt safer with him around, and she needed to get to Planned Parenthood in Baltimore. Em figured if she tried any of the agency’s clinics in DC, Sufyan would find her and try to stop her from ending the pregnancy. He’d been adamant that she should have the baby.

“I’m seventeen,” she’d pleaded. “I have my whole life ahead of me. I can’t have a baby.”

He’d glowered at her for the first time. “Our baby has her whole life ahead of her, too.”

Why’d he think it was a girl? It was a collection of cells. Still, aborting was a horribly hard decision, but also heartrending because she loved Sufyan and wanted to have a family with him someday. Not now, though, not in high school.

That’s crazy.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered to the night as she headed down the street to where she’d left the car. Her mother’s mobility was limited, and Emma had correctly foreseen that Lana wouldn’t drag herself to the garage to check on the Fusion. Or her father, for that matter. They trusted her, which made her feel even guiltier.

Earlier, Emma had parked two blocks away, then came in through the garage, as she did every time she came home. She’d known better than to think she could raise the garage door in the middle of the night without setting off alarms and Cairo.

The engine started smoothly. She drove away with her pack beside her, tears blurring her vision. She wiped them away, not so much scared as sad. She didn’t know Baltimore well, and now that she was on the interstate, every minute was taking her a mile closer. In an hour she’d be there. The sky was graying. She’d have to hide out till the clinic opened.

And then what?

Would she have to wait a day or two? She didn’t want to make her parents insane with worry. Maybe she’d just call them from a pay phone, if she could find one, and leave a message that she was all right and would be home soon. She didn’t want them coming after her, either. She’d already shut off her “find my phone” app.

When it was all over, and her mom recovered fully from the grenade attack, she’d tell her about the pregnancy. But right now Em needed to be alone.

And she thought she was.