OUTCAST Ops: The Poseidon Initiative

THIRTY-THREE

Dante Alvarez topped over the metal ladder onto the oil rig’s upper deck. He examined the superstructure before him while he waited for Jasmijn to clamor over. Already two stories above the first level, this edifice rose two more. He moved to a steel door set into the bottom of the structure in front of them. Tried the knob.

Locked.

He felt in his pants pocket and removed a lock pick tool that had not been uncovered in the frisking Hofstad had given him. He applied it to the lock, which was of higher quality than most. Still, he heard it click into place after about a minute. He opened the door.

Inside, it was shadowy, lights off. He felt along the wall for a switch and found it, thinking they had probably left the power off and it wouldn’t work, but a bank of overhead fluorescents flickered on. A battered metal desk occupied one wall, a corkboard above that covered in occupational safety warnings and tattered shift schedules. A computer occupied the desk but its screen was dark, no LEDs on anywhere. Dante tried turning it on but nothing happened. There was no phone that he could see. Jasmijn rifled through drawers and filing cabinets, finding nothing useful.

There was another door at the rear of the office and they took it into a narrow hallway lit by a single caged bulb into a larger work area. This space was enclosed but filled with machinery of some kind — pipework, metal ducts, various gauges and dials. A workbench occupied the left wall of the roughly rectangular room, backed by a pegboard containing a full assortment of tools. Dante grabbed a small hammer off its peg and handed it to Jasmijn along with a screwdriver.

“Here, carry one, put the other in your pocket.”

She cast a doubtful stare at the implements. “I don’t know if I…”

“Just do it. If nothing else I might be able to use them. I’ll be carrying these.” He hefted a pipe wrench from the wall and slapped it into a palm. Then he selected a Phillips head screwdriver as a serviceable shank and put that in his back pocket. He scanned around the rest of the area but saw no communications equipment.

“Let’s keep going. There’s got to be an electronics room somewhere.”

They moved on through the work room until they reached a door on its far end. It opened into a stairwell leading up only. They took it up two flights, traversing back and forth in a tight space to make the short vertical distance. At the top of the stairs they emerged on an open-air metal landing platform.

Dante pointed skyward. “Look at all those antennas. There’s got to be a radio room somewhere.”

Jasmijn walked across the landing and looked down. “Ladder goes down here.”

“Let’s go.” Dante looked out over the water while he waited for Jasmijn to start climbing down. The Hofstad boat was still there, as was the boat Shah was in, although now a Zodiac was pulled up next to it.

When Jasmijn was down a few rungs, Dante followed down the ladder. It ended in a metal enclosure with a five-foot drop to a metal deck. Jasmijn hung from the bottom of the ladder until she could step off. Dante let himself drop from a few feet.

They were situated on a square metal balcony of sorts with no other ladders leading down, and only one door set into the wall. He tried the door handle. To his surprise, it opened into a small, dimly lit room. There was no one inside. Racks of radio equipment lined workbenches on either side of the room. Much of the equipment was unfamiliar to Dante, although some he recognized as HAM radio gear — shortwave radio sets capable of transmitting over long distances. But right now they just needed to talk to the boat. His eyes scanned the shelves with the aid of his dive light until he found what he was looking for: a VHF marine radio.

He walked up to the unit and turned it on, breathing a sigh of relief when its backlit display lit up orange.

“Whatcha got?” Jasmijn watched Dante start to press buttons and turn knobs.

“Should be able to monitor the boat communications with this. See if we can reach Stephen…”

A burst of static emanated from the speaker and he adjusted the squelch. Still nothing intelligible. He wasn’t sure which one was designated as the emergency channel in this part of the world, so he set the radio to auto-scan through the stations until a strong signal came though. After a few seconds, he was rewarded with a clear voice on one of the channels.

It belonged to Stephen Shah, with a background of engine noise. And one who didn’t know him well wouldn’t be able to tell, but Dante could detect the stress in his words.

“…could make an exchange. Our woman for your man. Then we go our separate ways.”

Dante held up a hand, knowing Jasmijn had questions, but he needed to hear what came next. He could already tell that a serious situation had developed. Our woman must be Naomi, and your man must mean that Shah had somehow taken one of the Hofstad men hostage.

A Dutch-accented voice, different background sounds. “We sent two men to help you, not one.”

There was a pause before Shah’s voice came back. “One has been eliminated. The other will be, too, if anything happens to the woman. But we can end the killing here. Your man for our woman. It’s up to you.”

“What about your other two people — the two scuba divers — you don’t want them?”

Dante and Jasmijn exchanged a glance.

“Where are they?”

Dante eyed the radio transmitter. Should he break in on the channel to let Shah know they were on the oil rig? But that would be letting Hofstad know, too.

“I don’t know where they are. They were with you, what happened?”

“Forget it. Let us do this exchange.”

Shah’s voice barked over the radio channel. “I’m on my way to your boat.”