Shattered Trident - Страница 61

Intrigued, Joanna took a sip and scrolled down to the most recent article. The title grabbed her attention immediately.

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The Great Pacific War of 2016

Posted By: Mac

Subj: New—The Environmental Consequences of War

Some of my readers may remember BRIT48, a frequent contributor. He has been working as third mate on a Panamanian-flagged bulk freighter, which was one of dozens of ships in the South China Sea that went to ground (pardon the pun) in the closest port they could find. His ship (name withheld) is now anchored out at Kuala Belait, Brunei. As you might know from his previous posts, Nate doesn’t like staying in one place for more than a few days.

While Kuala Belait is a pretty town, after two days anchored out, and with no answers from the owners on when they would get under way again, Nate went in search of other diversions. I’ll let BRIT48 tell the story from here:

Mac, I’m back at sea, although I’ve never had a billet like this. Three nights ago, I went with a mate to a private house in an upscale suburb of Kuala Belait, very hush-hush. The place looked as dark as a tomb, but my friend whispered a word into his mobile phone and the front door was opened by a sturdy-looking chap, who gave us a careful look-over before allowing us inside.

It was nothing more than a dimmed entryway, bare except for a few beat-up chairs. I noticed a TV camera in one corner of the ceiling. We each paid $20BD (Brunei dollars, about the same as your Canadian dollar, Mac) to gain entrance to the inner sanctum. With the front door firmly closed and barred, Mr. Big opened another door, and immediately we were awash in light, deafening rock music, tobacco smoke, and the wonderful smell of stale beer. It was amazingly un-Islamic.

Brunei being a dry country, I was suffering from terrible thirst, and did my best to make up for my enforced abstinence. My mate introduced me around, and I met a mix of longtime expatriates, with a few trusted locals, also non-Muslims.

One of the many people I met was a fellow Brit, from Portsmouth, and we hit it off splendidly. He was looking for experienced sailors in need of work, and since I fit his rather loose requirements, he made me an offer. The pay was good, and when could I start?

Some undefined time later, in what was either the very late evening or very early morning, the two of us staggered to one of the commercial piers at the south end of the city. I’d brought my kit ashore, and I actually remembered to retrieve it from the badly overpaid taxi driver.

It wasn’t a big ship, maybe forty meters, with a hull that had been painted black and white some time in the past, but not recently. Her stern bristled with electronics, and a van, covered with tarps, had been lashed to her deck aft. She had a high freeboard, and looked seaworthy enough. Did I forget to mention I hadn’t asked what I’d be doing?

“You’ll be our first mate, and our navigator, and take orders from me,” my employer explained as we struggled up the brow. I won’t give his real name, and I won’t tell you the name of the ship, either. It wasn’t the same one she’d owned before this trip, and it would change every time she came back to port.

The next morning I woke up, at sea, and found that my captain, “Adam,” was a petroleum engineer from Greenpeace! The helmsman, “Karl,” gave me a hard look from top to bottom as I staggered onto the bridge.

Andy was all business. “There’s our GPS, and the chart table, and,” tapping the chart, “our first destination.” It was in open water, a few hundred miles northwest of Brunei. I saw a zigzag line leading from one point to the next, heading generally north.

“Get us there as quickly as possible,” he ordered, and I nodded automatically.

“What’s our speed?” I asked out loud, looking for the pitlog. Karl pointed to a panel over the bridge windows, and I spotted a digital readout: seventeen knots.

“That’s best we can do,” he said in accented English. Scandinavian, I guessed. “We stay at full speed all the time, unless we’re surveying.”

“Surveying what?” I asked.

He just smiled. “You’ll see.”

We were still a good hour from “Point Alpha” when the sea changed. Mac, I’ve been at sea long enough to see plenty of oil slicks, but this was another world. As soon as the lookouts spotted it, we slowed and approached at ten, then five knots, while “Adam” and other scientists took samples and other readings.

We entered the slick at bare steerageway, and what started out as a thin oily sheen quickly became a thick yellow-brown foam, dotted with seaweed, and the occasional fouled seabird or fish. The fumes became so thick we had to wear respirators. The layer increased in thickness quickly, rising from a few centimeters to what Adam measured as fifteen centimeters. As this point, I was worried for the engines, and said as much to Andy. He agreed, and we turned back and increased speed until we were in open water.

After that, Andy had us follow the edge of the slick while he gauged its size. On one of his stops on the bridge, he explained, “That was most likely Tai Chuan, thirteen thousand tons deadweight, over eighty-five thousand barrels of crude oil. A relatively small slick.” It took us half a day to circle part way around it, Mac, as well as getting thankfully upwind.

We found one more that day, and we’re headed for another one as I write this, although it may be from two separate tankers.

Mac, I’m not a big fan of Greenpeace. They get in my face while I’m trying to do my job, and they have kittens every time a pipe sprouts a leak, but I don’t need a diagram to recognize a catastrophe when it’s in front of me.

Think of the last tanker accident near shore, and all the things that were done to contain the spill and reduce the amount of oil that reached the water. None of that’s been done for any of the two dozen-odd tankers that have been sunk. Huge oil slicks are endangering some of the most fertile fishing grounds on the planet, one of the things everyone’s fighting over. The oil’s going to reach the shores of hundreds of islands and poison anything that lives there.

I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done about this, Mac, but tell everyone on your blog that a cease-fire, while a fine start, certainly won’t solve all our problems.

Joanna finished reading just as Hardy brought out a tray with her food. Looking up at her husband, there were tears in her eyes. “My God, Lowell, I hadn’t even stopped to think about the oil slicks! How could I have missed that?”

“Gives a whole new definition to the term collateral damage now, doesn’t it?”

“We’ve got to do something!” she cried.

“Yes, we do. And the first step is to stop the fighting.”

18. EXPANSION

8 September 2016

0800 Local Time

The White House

Washington, D.C.

Milt Alvarez had to pull the president out of a meeting with his economic advisors, so everyone knew it had to be important. Myles trusted his chief of staff, who refused to explain, except to say that he had a special visitor, and Secretary Lloyd was also en route.

That was useful information. The secretary of state’s presence meant foreign relations, and Myles felt a little bit of the tension leave. His private nightmare was a surprise meeting with a television reporter, armed with an exposé and a cameraman recording every moment.

Several people were waiting in his secretary’s office, but Evangeline quickly shooed them off when Myles appeared with Alvarez in trail. Both were moving quickly, and just nodded in passing to Myles’s faithful gatekeeper.

The Oval Office was empty, and as Alvarez closed the door behind them, he explained, “Ambassador Leong is in your private study. We brought him in through the west entrance. Only half a dozen people know he’s in the building, and I’ve sworn them to secrecy. We had five minutes’ notice of his arrival on what he described as a ‘secret and vital matter.’ Alison’s in with him right now.” Alison Gray was deputy chief of staff.

“Where’s Andy?” the president asked.

“At least ten minutes away,” Alvarez sighed. “He had that speech at Georgetown this morning.”

“That’s too long,” Myles decided. “Let’s not keep the ambassador waiting.”

The presidential study was not small, but it was much more private than the Oval Office. It had a desk, where Myles actually did a lot of his work, and several overstuffed chairs.

Ambassador Kenneth Leong was chatting with Alison Gray as Myles opened the door. He immediately put down his teacup and stood, while Gray faded back and made a quiet exit. Myles knew she’d be right outside, in case either of her bosses needed anything.

“Mr. President.” Leong bowed deeply. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, with so little warning, but this was necessary for security reasons.”

“Mr. Ambassador, you are always welcome here.” Myles didn’t bother wheeling out his Mandarin skills. Leong had started the conversation in his flawless English, and they continued that way.

With Leong’s mention of security, Alvarez turned to leave the two men alone, but Leong stopped him. “There is no need for Mr. Alvarez to leave, if he can keep a secret for another fifty-three minutes.” The ambassador smiled, but it was strained.

Myles motioned for them to take seats, and Leong gratefully sat down again, with the president close by on his right. Alvarez stood near the door, as if to guard against eavesdroppers.