Out of Control (2 page)

“Yeah, you did. I’m trying to be friendly, but you’ve got a bug up your ass about
me, so maybe I should give up and go sit somewhere else.”

A bit surprised he was so open about things, I decided I may as well take the opportunity
to clear the air. “Your crude analogy notwithstanding, I admit you’re a different
kind of guy than I’m used to working with.”

“Why? Because I don’t prostrate myself at your genius, amazingly feminine even if
you do work in an all male business, feet?”

“No, it’s because you’re more willing than they are to buy into preconceived ideas
and prejudice. You’re also a conceited jackass. A little humble goes a long way in
life.”

Apparently unbothered by what I said, he jerked his head toward the other guys. “They
like and respect you, and not just because you’re their supervisor. You’ve got an
edge because you’re a girl. Everything you do is considered incredible, but not necessarily
on merit.”

“How would you know? We’ve only worked one job together. Maybe I really am incredible.”

“Maybe. I guess this fire will prove it, one way or another. Have you looked at the
specs?”

I turned my irritation into sarcasm. “Does a five pound sack of flour make a big biscuit?”

“We’re gonna have to blow it out.”

I agreed, but I’d eat the big biscuit before I admitted it to Mr. God’s Gift. “Trick
thinks we can sting it. So does Sweet.”

“Do you always go with their advice?”

“Only when they’re right.” Leaning back in my seat, I closed my eyes. “Let’s get some
sleep, Robichaud. About four hours from now, life is gonna be a bitch.”

I supposed he was okay with that. He didn’t say anything else.

I’ve got several talents and one of them is the ability to go to sleep without any
trouble. I close my eyes, blank my mind, and I’m asleep. Anytime, anywhere. I rarely
dream, which I’ve been told is because I don’t sleep long enough, that I wake up during
the cycle of sleep when no one remembers dreams.

The only exception is when a dream wakes me up.

While I slept on the plane, I dreamed about the Maresco platform. I saw the blond
man, and James, and all the other men, dressed in their orange jumpsuits, wearing
hardhats. I saw the well blow, watched in fascinated horror as the flames consumed
the platform. And I heard the men screaming. All but the blond guy. In my dream, he
floated above the platform, untouched by the fire, smiling. I pointed at him and yelled
he was a murderer, that I’d kill him with my bare hands, but he only laughed at me
and drifted away. I tried to follow but couldn’t because I was stuck in space. I shouted
at him again, told him he was a dead man.

That’s when I woke up. Sitting up straight I looked around and saw Deke, Cash, and
Harley stretched across the front of the plane, their long legs hanging out into the
aisle between the seats. They were snoring so loud they almost drowned out the sound
of the plane’s engines.

I looked at Robichaud. His eyes were closed, his dark lashes making a shadow across
his cheeks. Good God, he was good looking.

“Did somebody on that platform scare you?” he asked, his eyes still closed.

I relaxed against the seat and sighed. “He was a blond guy that followed me and the
foreman around the whole time I did my inspection. Kept staring at me. It was unnerving.
After the well blew, all I could think about was the men, and our equipment, and how
I could have missed something that wrong. It wasn’t until I got back to shore and
Trick told me it was most likely set off on purpose that I thought about the blond
guy again. I wonder if he went into the water and had some way of getting away from
the platform before he ignited the charge?”

Robichaud opened his eyes and looked at me in the half light of the cabin. “That platform
is miles from shore. There isn’t a tank that would hold enough oxygen to get him back.”

I stared out the window, into the darkness. “There was a shrimp boat. Maybe he had
it lined up to come and get him.”

“Could be, but that’d make it pretty obvious he was involved. The shrimp boat captain
could finger him as the one who blew the platform. I don’t think the man would go
to that much trouble, then make it easy for someone to identify him.”

I turned to look at him. “The boat appeared to be unmanned. A drifter.”

“Did you tell the guy from Homeland Security who was at the office this afternoon?”

“I told him about the blond guy. Doug, the copter pilot, told him about the shrimp
boat. I feel it in my gut—that blond guy blew the platform. But I’m certain they’ll
never find him. He’s smart. Very smart. He’d have to be, to figure out how to blow
an offshore well. Hell, Robichaud, those wells are earthquake proof.”

“Whoever did it is an insider. Someone in the oil business who knows how offshores
work.”

The thought made me sick. It made me furious. And it made me righteous. I wanted whoever
was behind the blowouts to be found and killed. Slowly and painfully. “He must’ve
had help to blow out so many, so far apart. Trick says all the wells blew within a
ten hour period.”

“One guy could have set all the land based production. I looked at the map, and the
distance between the wells would take maybe eight hours to drive.”

I leaned back again and closed my eyes. “Did Trick tell you how many men died on the
platform?”

“Yes. Did he tell you how many were killed on the fire we’re about to put out?”

My eyes flew open and I turned to look at him again. “He said he didn’t know if anyone
was hurt.”

Robichaud looked like he regretted saying anything. His gaze moved to a spot somewhere
in the vicinity of my lips. “They’d just reached total depth, Blair. About to run
a drill stem test. Think about that.”

How many wells had I seen in my lifetime? A hundred? A thousand? At least seven men
would have been on the drilling rig when it blew. “How many?”

Robichaud’s eyes met mine. “All of them.”

“Oh, God.” I leaned forward to rest my forehead against the seat in front of me. “I
just keep wondering,
why
? All those men dead, for what?”

“If it’s terrorists, they might do it just to prove they can, to point out the threat
to our domestic production. I also have to wonder if some militant environmental group
is behind it.”

I rolled my head so I could see him. “A lot of men are dead because of these blowouts.
No way can I get my mind around somebody doing that because they want to save the
prairie chickens.”

“Maybe I’m wrong. I hope so. What’s got me puzzled is why they blew an uncompleted
well. All the others were producing, and with the exception of the offshore, had no
personnel.”

“And how did they get close enough to blow it? A stranger would stick out on a drilling
rig.”

“Like I said, it’s got to be an insider. Somebody who fits in, whose presence no one
would question.”

I met his gaze. “Did you notice that every well is operated by Maresco, with the exception
of the one we’re headed for?”

His eyes widened. Apparently he hadn’t. “That puts a whole other spin on it.”

“I wonder if this one
wasn’t
blown on purpose? Maybe it’s actually a real blowout.”

“Could be. We’ll figure it out after we get it under control. But even if you’re right,
it’s a safe bet the Maresco platform was blown on purpose. Somebody killed a lot of
guys, and caused millions of dollars in damage. Before we left, Trick asked me to
keep an eye on things. He’s afraid we may be watched, that someone may try to sabotage
us.”

I sat up straight and stared at him. “Why would he tell you that? Why wouldn’t he
tell me?”

Robichaud gave me that crooked, slightly arrogant smile. The one that’s charming,
even while it pisses me off. “He didn’t want to scare you, and I think he’s worried
about you after what happened at that platform.” He shrugged. “Also because I spent
some time working terrorist-set blowouts in the Middle East. I’m used to looking for
suspicious activity.”

“While you were with Worldwide?”

His gaze moved away, toward the front of the plane. “Right.”

I sensed there was a lot to that story, but didn’t press for details, whether because
I didn’t think he’d tell me, or I just didn’t want to become that friendly, I wasn’t
sure. Without another word, I leaned back and closed my eyes again.

…

Our plane landed at twenty past two in the morning, on a lonely landing strip in the
middle of the west Texas desert. A Lacrouix and Book truck from the company’s yard
in Odessa waited for us. A Jeep was hitched to the truck. After we unloaded the plane,
Deke and Cash and I unhitched the Jeep while Robichaud and Harley climbed in the truck.
I drove.

Even though the well was over ten miles away, the horizon was the color of dawn. Anybody
who didn’t know it was a well fire would think it
was
dawn—until they realized they were facing due north. As we got closer, the flames
took shape and I whistled, impressed and amazed. And angry.

Deke, whose whole name is Billy Joe Deacon, but everyone calls Deke because anyone
with the name Deacon always gets called Deke, sat in the front seat beside me. “Holy
shit, it’s a monster. You coulda said something, sister.”

I handed him my tablet with the well specs. “Didn’t see any reason to freak you out.
You needed your beauty sleep.”

“He needed a helluva lot longer than four hours,” Cash said from the back seat.

Deke looked over his shoulder at Cash. “Maybe I ain’t so pretty to look at, but let’s
don’t forget which one of us got laid last Saturday. Yeah, bro, that’d be me. And
what did you do? Oh, yeah, you went home to that bag o’ dander you call a cat.”

“I coulda gotten laid. I just have standards, and every one of those girls was cheap
goods.”

“Of course they were. That’s the point. You didn’t see me taking that girl home with
me, didja?”

Cash made a disgusted noise. “You’re gonna get a disease, man. One of these days,
your dick’s gonna just fall right off.”

When Deke shot me a look, I shrugged. “If it does, I don’t want to know.”

He lifted the tablet to review the well data Trick had given me before we left New
Orleans. As he read, he called out pressure gauge readings and flow projections so
Cash could hear from the back seat.

“This well is operated by Arroyo Petroleum. You ever heard of Arroyo?”

“No. Must be a new company.”

“Aw, hell,” Cash said, “I hate screwing with stupid guys who want to play oil tycoon
and don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.”

“Maybe the operator isn’t stupid,” I suggested, a bit lamely.

“Yeah, and maybe I’m not gonna beat Deke and Harley outta some serious dough next
time we play poker.”

Deke shot him a nasty look. “No way, bro. I’m into you for four-fifty and it’s time
you started paying me back.”

“Learn to play poker and we’ll talk.”

Deke looked at me. “You want to play?”

Before I could answer, Cash yelled, “Don’t be hittin’ up little sister. Worst damn
poker player ever born. Hell, she couldn’t lie if somebody pushed her down and stepped
on her. Got no poker face.”

“True dat,” Deke said, grinning. “I bet you never got away with anything, growing
up.”

“I never
tried
to get away with anything. I’m a nice girl from Alabama.”

Deke snorted. “Nice, my ass.”

“You remember that guy in Iberville parish who got crossways with sister?” Cash hollered
over the noise of the Jeep’s engine and the wind as it whistled past.

“Sure, I remember. Bet that ol’ boy does too. Wonder if his insurance covered that
pickup?”

“Doubt it. I don’t think they cover things like pissed off women driving vehicles
into swamps.”

“It wasn’t a swamp,” I protested. “Just a low place with some water in it.”

“Yeah. They call that a pond where I come from.”

“Lay off,” I said, “and let’s talk about how we’re going to put this fire out.”

Cash leaned forward until his face was between the two front seats. He peered at the
fire looming up ahead. “This one won’t go down without a fight. We’re gonna have to
blow it out.”

The scent of burning petroleum permeated the air, and that, along with the sight of
those tremendous, billowing flames against the night sky, made my mouth dry, my palms
damp, and my stomach twist into a million knots. I was high as a kite on a dizzying
dose of adrenaline. It’s always like that—a rush that makes me totally get how people
become drug addicts. When I stop craving that feeling, I’ll be dead.

I said to Cash, “That’s what I think, too.” I looked at Deke for his take.

He nodded. “You reckon Robichaud will agree?”

“I don’t give a flying rat’s ass if he agrees.”

Deke stared at me as I drove. “You don’t like him.”

“He’s okay.” I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the headlights of the truck
behind us. “Smart, and he’s got a lot of experience.” I shrugged. “Whether I like
him or not doesn’t have anything to do with anything. Sweet hired him and Trick assigned
him to this job. I have to use him because I need the hands.”

Deke grunted. “Just let me know if he gets too handy, if you know what I mean.”

Maybe I would have laughed if he hadn’t looked more serious than a funeral. “I don’t
think you have anything to worry about. I get vibes about things like that, and trust
me, Robichaud isn’t giving off any.”

He and Cash exchanged a glance.

“What?” I asked.

He wouldn’t explain, so I frowned over my shoulder at Cash. “If you guys know something
I don’t, you better tell me pronto.”

Cash pulled a face. “We’ve been knowing you a long time, and we’re all friends, but
you don’t ever talk about your personal life. We don’t know if you’ve got a guy, or
if you date a bunch. Maybe because we’re all oilfield trash and you’re the boss lady,
we just don’t think about you like that. See what I mean?”