Unholy Code

Chapter 23

Jimmy pushed through the door that had delivered the ISIS fighter to his death, entering a short, wide hallway. He immediately scanned the ceiling and corners for surveillance cameras. Didn’t see any but that didn’t mean there weren’t fiber optics embedded in openings no larger than the head of a finishing nail.

Better move faster, then.

He headed to the only interior door, finding a digital pad for the lock. Jimmy tried the handle — a non-starter, as expected — but didn’t dare touch the pad. A false code could alert the security system.

He retreated back to the deck, resigning himself to climbing the rig. His best bet appeared to be a massive chain near the end of the dock, one of four that anchored the facility to the seabed. They ran all the way to each corner of the upper platform, where he’d seen the chief engineer and the roughnecks displayed like human trophies.

Each steel link was half his height and thick as his thighs. But the openings were ample enough for solid footholds. Keeping his pistol in hand, knife belted, and the Kalashnikov strapped across his back, he started up slowly. Nothing like those Greenpeace maniacs who’d climbed a Shell rig like they were spiders. Then again, they hadn’t just survived a boat crash and a nasty case of smallpox. Nor had they been facing armed ISIS terrorists on the platform above them.

Jimmy climbed up the anchor chain methodically, but the steel was slippery from an early morning mist that shrouded him. Good cover, bad for climbing. He paused with every advance, hearing nothing till he’d moved thirty feet above the water — Arab gibberish drifting down through the thin fog, which would burn off soon enough. It already appeared to be vanishing to a frightening degree.

Speak English. He shook his head, but otherwise remained as still as the steel that held him — except for his stomach, which felt queasy. He tried to clear his belly with a big breath, and it might have worked. Feeling better, he looked upward, listening intently for a chopper. There had been a number of them keeping watch on the platform, including some news crews that could give him away in the time it took to hit a camera switch.

Would they do that? he wondered.

Hell, yeah, they would, he answered himself a beat later. It’d be a scoop: Smallpox McMasters climbing the towers geared up like a Gameboy commando? Are you kidding? ’Course they would.

Move.

He had to get up there before the mist disappeared completely and someone spotted him. He had no allies in the sky, and the only ones on the platform probably had knives at their necks.

He moved up several more links, passing girders and metal handrails and mesh walkways beside him. Corrosion everywhere he looked. The salt air was an omnivore, eating everything it touched.

An agonizing groan froze Jimmy. It arose about ten feet above him. Then more gibberish violated his ears. Definitely not from the groaning guy.

Jimmy hated the sound of Arabic. He didn’t feel that way about Spanish or French, the two languages other than English that were spoken in the Gulf. But Arabic made his ears curl. Yeah, he knew there were millions of right-thinking Arabs who were great people, and had met a few who spoke English, but unfortunately he wasn’t dealing with the great mass of nice ones. He figured he’d be coming face to face with the most blood-thirsty killers he’d ever heard of, and the sound of their voices made him want to start shooting.

The groaner grew silent. Jimmy had little doubt about the language that man had been speaking: agony.

What the hell are they doing to him?

Jimmy looked up to see if he could get any kind of visual. Nothing. He took little solace in having his gun ready; firing it would be an act of desperation, for it would alert everyone. It wasn’t like that Saturday night special, which had sounded like a cap gun, and he was drawing ever closer to the ISIS brigade that could hear it.

He did spy overhanging walkways and ledges that would make murdering him a challenge. Unless they also come at you from below.

But he moved as quietly as he could on his bare feet — heavily callused from beach life — and hoisted himself up onto the next link. It was right below a recessed area that was painted red, which he realized must be where the groaner was feeling so much pain. He had no idea what purpose that area usually served. A lookout, maybe?

Should have paid a little more attention. And partied a whole lot less on his three-week stint.

A damn seagull landed on the link above him and squawked. Christ, they were loud. He saw others gliding around the rig, guessing the roughnecks fed them when they got bored.

The gull squawked again. The Arabic speaker shouted at it and lunged toward its perch right above Jimmy. He caught a glimpse of another bearded man long enough to know the guy hadn’t looked down, which saved Jimmy’s life — for the time being.

The gull flew off, leaving a fresh deposit that dripped down the link. Jimmy moved up, careful where he held on, stopping when he was just below the overhanging ledge; the chain continued straight up to the left of it.

He peered over the four-foot section of red-painted steel. A hulking man was facing the lone surviving oil worker, other than the chief engineer, whom Jimmy could only hope remained alive. The roughneck had a grease stain on his face, and was gagged so hard his cheeks had whitened from loss of blood. His eyes betrayed his pain and terror. So did the muffled groans still rising from him. Then Jimmy saw why: ISIS’s finest was cutting off a six-inch strip of skin from the man’s knee. It looked like he was peeling him alive: The roughneck’s entire calf and shin had been stripped and glowed bright red with fresh blood.

Jimmy wanted to shoot the torturer, but couldn’t. Not if he wanted to live long enough to actually get off the platform.

Instead, Jimmy slipped the gun into his belt and drew the long knife. He’d have to rise up slowly, scurry across the four feet of steel ledge, and drive the blade into the bastard’s back. First, he looked at the pale sun to make sure it wouldn’t throw telltale shadows from him.

Not a problem, thanks to the dim light.

Then Jimmy checked his footing, glad that he did: His left foot was half an inch from the gull’s greasy waste, which could have given him a noisy slip.

He drew a long steady breath, which was interrupted by the whup-whup-whup of a helicopter.

Using the noise for cover, he lifted himself up as the knife-wielding man gazed at the sky. Jimmy hurled himself across the ledge as the man glanced back and spotted him. But Jimmy drove the blade into his back, shocked at the sudden resistance to such a sharp steel point. A bone. He twisted the blade in the next instant, plunging it past whatever hard matter had brought it to a halt — maybe spine — leaving the knife buried to the haft.

Not a scream or moan of protest from the bearded man, who pitched forward onto his victim. The roughneck’s eyes looked right at Jimmy.

“Shush,” Jimmy whispered, though the gagged man could scarcely speak.

Jimmy dragged the dying man off the oil worker and grabbed the knife that had been used to peel the roughneck’s skin. Then he cut off the prisoner’s gag and sliced through plastic cuffs binding his ankles and wrists.

“Man, you saved my life,” the roughneck said softly. “He was skinning me alive. Who are you?”

Jimmy was about to say “A boat racer,” when the man recognized him.

“I saw you on TV, and in a great video. I can’t believe it. Tit Fucker just saved me. That’s so cool. But, hey, don’t get too close, okay?”

The heat woke Emma up, sun streaming through the windows of her Fusion. Last night she’d locked the doors and reclined the front seat after parking near the Planned Parenthood clinic. She’d recognized it from news reports about the protests at the facility.

She sat up as a woman unlocked the clinic’s front door. Adjusting the rear-view mirror, Em put on lipstick and brushed out her hair. Still unhappy with her rumpled appearance, she surrendered to urgency and climbed out of the car, knowing she looked half-baked, like some of her stoner friends at school.

Emma hurried across the street, glad nobody was outside the clinic wielding those graphic posters.

A nurse greeted her from behind a counter. Emma told her why she was there. The woman handed her a clipboard with a two-page form. “You understand that we’ll need to confirm the pregnancy first, but for now it would be good to answer those questions.”

After complying, Em looked up, realizing she was still the only person in the reception area.

The nurse returned, took the paperwork, and led her to a room with a small table and four chairs. Not an examining room, as Em had expected. Neither had she been asked to provide a urine sample. The nurse looked up from the form.

“I see that you’re seventeen. Is that correct?”

Emma nodded, taking a seat. The nurse stood in the doorway.

“In Maryland, we like to have at least one parent who’s aware of a minor’s decision before we perform the procedure. They don’t have to approve, but we like to know that one of them knows what you’re doing.”

“You said Maryland likes that. You didn’t say it was required.”

The nurse nodded. “That’s correct. There are exceptions. If the physician believes that you’re mature enough you may have the procedure without parental notification.”

“I’m really mature,” Emma said. “I don’t want to bother my mother with this. She’s recovering from a wound from a hand grenade last week.”

The nurse’s eyes widened with recognition. “Was that your mom who almost got killed in Bethesda?”

“Yes,” Emma replied, eyes flooding at once. She tried to stem her tears — not very mature to start bawling — but couldn’t stop. “She doesn’t need to be dealing with this right now. She’s in a lot of pain.” Which was true, damn it.

“What about the person who got you pregnant? Does he know?”

“Yes, but he’s Mus… ” Emma checked herself. The nurse smiled. “He doesn’t want me to end the pregnancy. Look, I’m not going to have a baby. I’m still in high school.”

“What about your father? Does he live with you?”

“He does,” Em allowed, wiping away her tears, “but that’s kind of recent. My mom basically brought me up alone till he came back.”

“Are you saying he’d have objections to your terminating your pregnancy?”

“No, I don’t think so. I mean, it may sound weird to say this, him being gone most of my life, but he’s a pretty good dad.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Emma, please call him. Let him know what you intend to do. Then we can confirm that you have a parent onboard, okay?”

“I really don’t want them to know.”

The nurse eyed her closely. “I’ll have the doctor talk to you. But at least think about your father. It’s just a call. We have a simple approach to this. He sounds like a decent guy.”

He is. But Em had never felt a greater need for personal privacy.

The woman started to leave, then turned back to her. “The doctor will listen to whatever you have to say. Just tell the truth. It goes a long way around here.”

“Thank you.”

“Here.” She handed Emma a pamphlet. “That has answers to a lot of the questions that patients have.”

“What’s the doctor’s name?”

“Dr. Mohammed Abbas.”

Mohammed? Abbas?

Emma watched the nurse walk away — and felt an instant urge to rush out of the clinic.

The roughneck’s name was Cal. Strips of his skin had been laid aside carefully by the ISIS fighter. Jimmy stared at them, one at least ten inches long.

What a son-of-a-bitch. Jimmy had never killed anyone. Seeing the peeled skin left him with no regrets.

“He was working his way up my body,” Cal said. “The only reason he left my foot alone was when he was all done he wanted to march me around up there for the news choppers. This hurts so fuckin’ bad.”

“We should wrap it up,” Jimmy said, stripping off his T-shirt. “You don’t want to be bleeding all over the chain. You’ll slip and fall and we’ve got work to do.”

“Don’t put that shirt near me. Man, you got smallpox, right?”

“Sorry, sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” Jimmy said. “Come on, let’s just head up.”

“Head up? We gotta get the hell out of here.”

Jimmy shook his head. “The chief engineer’s still alive, right?”

“Maybe. They’ve got him trying to disarm the blowout preventers.”

“Is he doing that?”

“He’s trying. They’re threatening him with all kinds of shit. They want to turn this place into a tar pit.”

“I heard that. Look, they’re going to kill him no matter what he does,” Jimmy said. “We’ve got to save him.”

“Listen to me. No way we’re gonna do that. They got him on the computers in the operations center, and it’s surrounded by these murdering assholes. Be easier to break into Fort Knox.”

“Why are you down here?”

“Because that dead shithead won me for cutting off the most heads the fastest when they took over this thing. I shit you not. It was a contest and I was the prize.”

“There’s really no way to save him up there?”

Cal shook his head. “I ain’t lying. You want to commit suicide, you go right ahead.”

Jimmy looked up at the platform. Saving the chief engineer did sound impossible. “Do you think you can climb down this chain?” Blood now covered Cal’s foot.

“To get off this hellhole I’d climb down razor wire.”

“I’ll lead the way, but we got one thing to do before we take off down there.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“We’re blowing the oil pipe so the BOPs kick in before they get disabled.”

“That’s going to really piss ’em off. We better be ready to tear ass out of here.”

“Pissing them off is the plan, and tearing ass out of here is a big part of it.”

Jimmy helped Cal to his feet.

When they looked up, a pair of eyes were staring down.