Radclyffe - Wild Shores

A cone of light raced across the rig and focused on her. She made a go back motion with her arm, but the helicopter continued to hover. Shaking her head, she joined Tatum and Reddy at the top of the lift.

“Who the hell is that?” Reddy asked.

“That would be the news,” Austin said.

Tatum muttered, “Well, fuck me.”

“Yeah.” Austin had to agree—an audience was not what they needed right now. Eloise was so not going to be happy.

Ignoring the hovering craft, Austin climbed into the lift bucket and held on as the cage descended to the platform. The thirty-foot launch was moored to the side, and Reddy took the wheel while she and Tatum cast off.

“Hold on,” he shouted, “it’s gonna be a rough ride.”

The launch arrowed across the chop toward one of the big containment ships, and Austin sheltered behind the cockpit as much as she could. Icy water whipped across the deck, drenching her all the same. The news copter followed them, undoubtedly filming all the way. Two ships circled slowly several hundred yards apart, the booms strung between them, enclosing the area Claudia had mapped out as the locus of the surface oil accumulation. Once they started the burn, the ships would close the loop and slowly drag the confined puddle of burning oil away from the rig. All that remained was for Austin to give the final word to start the burn.

When they reached the ship, an elevator descended along with lines to secure the launch. The captain and Phil Renuto, the burn chief, were waiting for them on deck.

Austin shook hands with the captain and Phil. “All set?”

“Ready to go. You want to take a look?”

“Yeah,” Austin said.

Renuto glanced overhead. “I guess we’ll have company for the whole thing.”

“It looks that way.”

He grunted. “I wonder if they know they’ll be breathing smoke up there in a few minutes.”

“Somehow, I doubt it.” When she’d finished reviewing the protocol with Renuto and was satisfied with the boom placement and the direction the ships would drag the burning oil, she climbed back down to the launch. As Reddy steered them toward the spill, she gave Phil the go-ahead.

Austin braced both arms on the rail, the helicopter trailing them, as they set the sea afire.

❖

Gem poured coffee, her tenth cup of the endless evening. At just after midnight, her body felt as if she’d been shoveling for a year. Her arms ached, her back ached, even her ass ached, but she reminded herself she ought to be grateful. They still had another twelve hours to reinforce their barricades, at least if the present predictions held. She closed her eyes, leaned against the counter, and sipped, not even caring about the taste. Hot was good enough. She hadn’t heard from Austin, and even though she hadn’t really expected to in the midst of everything going on, the silence was unsettling. The disconnection, not knowing where she was, set her adrift and an uneasy tension simmered in her middle.

Emily and Joe came in, trailing a few FEMA guys, comparing notes as to what was done and what needed to be done, and Gem opened her eyes. Austin was a pro, she’d be fine. Too bad her stomach didn’t quite believe it.

“Hey,” Emily said, heading straight for the hot chocolate.

“Hi,” Gem said.

Joe flicked on the news on the small television.

As he walked over to get coffee, Gem glanced at the screen. Her heart jumped. “Wait! Can you turn that up? Hurry.”

Joe spun around, grabbed the remote, and jacked up the volume.

Linda Kane’s image, a still photo, appeared beside video of two ships and a column of blazing orange against a midnight sky. Kane’s voice-over exclaimed with a trill of excitement, “This is Linda Kane, reporting live from over the Atlantic. GOP, one of the world’s largest oil companies, has just commenced an open ocean burn to contain an oil spill from Rig 86, an offshore drilling platform just miles off the coast of Maryland. As you can see, we are presently circling above the containment ships, and the oil leaking from the drill shaft continues to explode to the surface.”

Gem stared at the two ships that seemed to be steaming ahead directly in the ring of fire. She knew that couldn’t be the case, but her stomach tightened all the same. A group of smaller craft circled around the edges of the burn. Austin was out there.

“God, that looks insane,” she murmured.

Emily rested her hand on Gem’s shoulder. “They know what they’re doing. They planned for this, you know.”

Gem’s throat was dry and she swallowed. “I know.”

“It’s a good thing, right? If it never gets to shore, we’ll be fine.”

Gem laughed shortly. “Oh, sure, assuming the hurricane doesn’t flatten everything and flood the sanctuary.”

“Well, yeah, assuming that.”

“I don’t see why she has to be out there in the middle of it.”

“Probably for the same reason you’re here. Because no one does it as well and you wouldn’t be happy unless you were doing it yourself.”

“Not the same thing. It’s not like she had to light the match herself.”

“Uh-huh. And you probably don’t need to be shoveling sand, either.”

Gem cut her a look, appreciating her friendship now more than ever. “I really don’t like it when you’re right all the time.”

Emily grinned. “How’s it going? Still being mature?”

“Not exactly.” Gem hadn’t been able to get the dark, desirous look in Austin’s eyes out of her mind, or the feeling of being touched just from being seen. Softly, almost as if saying it would change things, she said, “She told me she was falling in love with me.”

“Well, points for her for being smart enough to see what a great catch you are,” Emily said with obvious approval. “I knew I liked her.”

“You do?”

“Hey, she had me sold when she started filling sandbags. Those oil rigs are a fact of life, and you know what? We need them. I’m no economist, but I’m pretty sure oil independence is a real plus in today’s world. So we need people like her to deal with things like this. Because sometimes, shit happens.”

Gem nodded, searching the tiny images of the ships as if she could actually see Austin somewhere. Plumes of thick gray smoke rose against the midnight sky, illuminated from beneath by orange tongues of burning oil. “I just want her to get off that damn boat and get back here.”

Joe walked over with a sandwich in one hand. “Hell of a fire. Better it happens out there than in the marsh.”

“Yes,” Gem murmured, knowing Austin was their best hope for sparing the sanctuary, at least until Norma arrived.

Chapter Twenty-five

The gray light of dawn was barely recognizable beyond the orange flames and black smudges of roiling clouds coating the sky above the launch. Austin flexed her fingers and toes, trying to keep the circulation flowing, and directed Reddy to circle out beyond the containment ships. They’d kept the burn going all night and she wanted to check for new accumulations of oil and to gauge the efficiency of the burn. She braced her legs and gripped the rails as the launch bumped over the waves.

Tatum edged up beside her and shouted above the wind. “It’s coming in fast.”

“I know. The captain just relayed a weather update from Claudia. We’ll have to call it off pretty quick.”

“If she comes in hard,” Tatum said, “maybe she’ll wear herself out fast and we can get back out to the rig and stop this fucking leak for good.”

“I’m for that.” Austin grinned, squinting into the icy blow. The NBC News copter had been joined by another, probably local news, and the pair trailed after them, swaying and bouncing like a pair of dragonflies. They hadn’t quit following them all night except for a brief interval when the NBC bird disappeared, likely to refuel and change pilots. If Linda Kane was still up there, Austin had to give her points for toughness. With the way the birds dipped and rocked in the heavy winds, everybody aboard must have a cast-iron stomach. At least they were dry up there, so she didn’t feel too sorry for them.