The Jungle (Oregon Files 8)

“You’re fine,” Cabrillo grinned, and grasped the man’s outstretched hand. “And if you’re not, well, it’s your own damned fault.” He turned serious. “How in the hell did you see that? And how did you move so fast?”

“Um, luck.” MacD allowed Juan to pull him to his feet. He smiled back. “And fear.”

“You okay?”

“Ah’m good,” Lawless replied. “Sorry, but grabbing the wheel was all Ah could think of.”

“It was the right call,” Juan assured him. “Insane but right.”

Lawless said, “Marion.”

“What?”

“My first name. You saved my life, Ah saved yours. In my book that makes us tight enough to tell you that my first name is Marion. Marion MacDougal Lawless III.”

Cabrillo considered this for a moment. “You’re right. MacD is better.” They shook hands formally. Juan turned back to Eddie. “Is there anything left in this poor girl?”

Seng replied by reconnecting the wires and revving the engine. “They don’t make ’em like they used to.”

A rear axle was bent, giving the bus a wobbling sway like a lame horse, but Eddie assured them it would get them to Islamabad by sunup.

4

BRUNEI

THEY ROSE FROM THE SEA LIKE MODERN-DAY CASTLES, protected by the largest moat in the world. Slab-sided and immense, oil rigs mounted atop massive pilings dotted the ocean, with tall flare stacks belching tongues of greasy flame. One sweep of the horizon revealed two dozen of the monstrosities, while hundreds more were just over the earth’s curve.

The huge oil fields made this tiny sultanate on the north coast of the island of Borneo one of the richest countries in the world and its ruler one of the wealthiest individuals.

Above the rigs, choppers ferried men and material to production and drilling platforms while sturdy workboats plied the seas between them. One such chopper, a little Robinson R22, belonged to the Oil Ministry and was carrying an inspector out to one of the larger rigs for its annual going-over. His name was Abdullah. As was common in this part of the world, he had no last name.

Slight, and just twenty-six years old, he was new to the job, this being only his third such inspection. In truth, he wouldn’t be performing the main search. Another team would be following in a couple of hours. His job was to gather and collate the mountains of paperwork required by the Ministry for each of the rigs in their territorial waters. It was scut work that befitted his rookie status. But he knew he’d be amply rewarded once he’d put in his years—senior inspectors made six-figure salaries and lived in mansions with servants and a driver.

He wore heavy-duty coveralls, despite the fact that he wouldn’t see anything much beyond the rig’s administrative office, and he held a plastic hard hat on his lap. As required, his boots had steel-reinforced toes. Wouldn’t want them crushed in a paper avalanche.

The pilot hadn’t said more than ten words to Abdullah since taking off, so when he heard a sound coming through his radio earmuffs he turned to see if the man was speaking to him.

To his horror he saw the pilot clutching at the side of his head. With no one holding the controls, the two-seat chopper started moving violently downward. For a fleeting instant Abdullah thought the pilot, a veteran by the look of him, was having fun at the expense of a newbie inspector, but then the man simply slumped over against his door, his body held somewhat erect by his safety belts.

The Robinson started to rotate on its axis.

Abdullah surprised himself by remembering the rudimentary training he’d received. He grabbed the stick and the collective control down by his side and placed his feet on the pedals. He gently applied opposite pressure on the foot bar to correct the spin and gave the aircraft more power to gain altitude. After about fifteen seconds he had the helicopter somewhat steadier, but by no means was it flying as well as it had under a real pilot’s control.

He glanced at the pilot. The man remained slumped over, and while he had yet to start losing color Abdullah knew that he was dead. The way he’d grabbed at his head made Abdullah think the older man had suffered a massive stroke.

Sweat trickled down Abdullah’s forehead as a lump swelled in his stomach. The rig they were heading for was still thirty miles away, while their base was twenty-five miles behind him. He had no illusions that he could keep the aircraft flying for that long. His only option was to attempt to land on one of the nearby platforms.

“Um, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday,” he called out, not knowing if the radios were set on the right frequency, not even knowing if his headset could access the radio. There was no reply.

When he scanned the instrument panel to see what he could do, he lost concentration momentarily, and the helicopter began to rotate again. Panicked, he overcompensated, losing altitude the whole time. The altimeter showed he was at five hundred feet, but the ocean seemed to surge just below the landing skids. He eased his grip on the controls, remembering that flying helicopters was all about finesse. The light touch, the instructor had said over and over during his two-day tutorial. Though he wasn’t allowed to solo, Abdullah had landed an identical helo exactly twice, and both times the instructor’s hands had never been more than a millimeter from the controls.

Once he had stabilized the chopper, he looked out across the sea for the nearest oil rig. Uniformly, they all had landing pads either on top of the accommodations block or, more commonly, cantilevered over the ocean. To his dismay, he was in one of the few regions of the oil and gas field that wasn’t currently being worked. He saw only one rig, about three miles away. He recognized it as an older semisubmersible. Below its four stout legs, and under the water, were two enormous pontoons that could be filled or emptied via computer control. Such a rig could be towed to any location in the world. Once there, the ballast tanks could be filled to stabilize it, and anchors set on the seafloor to keep it in place. The platform was quite possibly abandoned. He saw no telltale plume of fire spewing from the vent stack, and as he got closer he noted the rust and peeling paint.

It wouldn’t matter, he realized. Once he was down he could devote his full attention to the radio and call for help.

Amid the monochromatic gray paint scheme was a faded yellow circle enclosing a yellow letter H. This was the rig’s landing pad, a steel platform hanging a hundred feet over the water. The pad wasn’t solid but rather was a grille that allowed the chopper’s downdraft to pass through, thus making it easier to land.

Abdullah coaxed the little Robinson closer and closer. There was no movement on the deck, no roughnecks working on the drilling floor, no one coming out of the accommodations block to see who was approaching. It was a ghost rig.