The Rig 1: Rough Seas (10 page)

“N6933NA, you will return to the five mile limit or we will open fire on you. Nobody is to come any closer to the rig than that.”

The pilot looked at Elly again and she motioned to him to keep going. The FBI agent sat quietly.

“USCG Hurricane, we will only be a second.”

A rattle sounded below and Elly could hear bullets whipping past. Almost instantly the pilot jerked the stick and turned around.

“Sorry kid. I'm not getting her shot down!”

Elly nodded.

“That's okay!” She turned to the camera man. “Can you get a clean shot of me, with the burning rig in the back ground?”

The man frowned. “I'll try, but no promises.” He turned to the pilot. “Can you keep her steady?”

“I'll try.”

Elly bossed the FBI agent out of the way and took her compact from her bag and checked how she looked in the little mirror, fluffing her hair up a bit. She checked again and swore under her breath.

“Need a fluffer?” The camera man asked her with a grin. She looked perplexed and then poked her tongue at him.

“You ready?”

“Yep. Let me check with the director.”

Elly quickly put her IEM in and listened to the countdown given to her by the director in the van at the heliport. “Ready? Do a sound check.”

“Testing one, two, one, two, three.” Elly spoke into the microphone.

“Got you loud and clear. Going live in five, four, three, two, go!”

Across San Diego and Southern California CBS stations broke. A news anchor came on the air from the studio.

“We interrupt your regularly programming to bring you live reports on the emergency at ‘The City’. We'll now go live to our reporter Elly Boukhari.”

“Thank you Dan. Elly Boukhari here, reporting live from the CBS News Helicopter about five miles from ‘The City’, which earlier today was rocked by a shocking terrorist attack. During a music event in the Central Plaza of this great product of American enterprise, a powerful weapon of mass destruction was set off. The man suspected of the bombing is a US citizen of Egyptian descent, thirty-three year old Akhmed Hussain Abbasi. He set off the powerful blast which is thought to have killed hundreds of people. The blast then caused an oil spil and a massive fire, which is now causing a huge blaze that envelops ‘The City’.”

“Have you had any confirmation of the casualties of this tragic event, Elly?” the news anchor asked.

“No Dan, we have not. All contact with ‘The City’ seems to be impossible. We think the terrorist has first disabled the radio systems and the wireless communication of ‘The City’. This was a very well planned attack indeed.”

“And has a motive been found out? Why was this attack made against the American people?”

“Well Dan, we have just received an update that Akhmed Hussain Abbasi had published a manifesto on social media. He uploaded a number of radical Islamic videos onto Youtube as well. In it he claims to be fighting a holy jihad against the crusaders. He wants to make sure the US does not double cross the True Believers. He is thought to have suffered from mental health issues and to have been radicalized in the last year.”

“Thank you Elly. We will come back to you as soon as there is more news.”

The news anchor looked into the camera and put on the most serious face that he could muster.

“Next, we will talk to a former security advisor to the president about this shocking development off the coast of San Diego. Stay tuned.”

When the light on the camera went out and the camera man indicated they had stopped filming, Elly took her IEM out and looked at the FBI agent next to her.

“Was that all correct?”

The FBI man just nodded. He did not speak or even lift his sun glasses.

Chapter One

Akhmed had no idea how it happened. He found himself kneeling on the floor, his face in the urinal, and his trousers around his knees. Dazed at what he discovered, he looked around and noticed the urinal had been shattered. His head was bleeding from a cut and it throbbed liked crazy. He scrambled to his feet and looked around. Then he saw the woman behind him and suddenly he remembered what had happened.

Fatíma stirred and her hand closed tightly around the pistol. Slowly she brought her head up and she began to raise the gun toward Akhmed. He made to kick the gun out of her hand, but the trousers around his ankles would not allow him. He toppled over and fell onto Fatíma's head. There was a sickening noise as her head slammed into the floor tiles under the weight of his body. Her hand went limp, she sighed and went silent.

Akhmed scrambled to his feet again and hurried to pull his pants up. He saw a trickle of blood coming from Fatíma's head. It was strangely bright on the white tiles. He looked around, still wondering what had happened and what was happening. He could barely believe the whole thing.

Akhmed reached for his cell phone and selected his girlfriend's number. He needed to check whether or not she was safe. It didn’t ring. He looked at it and saw there were no bars. He sighed. For a moment he was tempted to pinch his arm to check whether this was a nightmare he was in, but then the throbbing of his head reminded him it was all too real.

Fatíma groaned. Akhmed's eyes opened wide and he bent down to take the gun from her hand. He looked at it. He knew nothing about guns, but had seen enough in the movies to notice that Fatíma had taken the safety off. He flicked the little switch back up and tucked the pistol into his belt. His hands were shaking. His lips were trembling. This was a nightmare, he determined. A nightmare made real.

His legs were barely working, his knees hurt from the impact of the fall, his head was a piece of pure agony and his sense of balance was gone. His ears buzzed from the double blast and emotionally he was in a complete shock. Akhmed managed to stagger out into the small corridor and then onto the Central Plaza where he had spent most of the day setting up the stage for Fatíma; DJ Medina.

The Plaza was like a scene from Hell. Akhmed had no idea what Hell might look like. His mother had never sent him to Sunday school, and his father had described the Islamic interpretation of Hell, but the Quran forbids Muslims to use images when it comes to matters of faith. But he was convinced that this was what Hell must look like.

Limp and torn bodies were everywhere. Close to the toilets laid a severed leg. It was a woman's leg, shaved and with the remnants of nylon stockings, wearing a red pump. Akhmed tried to trace its owner. He saw a man a few paces away that was missing an arm. Next to him he saw a red pump identical to the one on the leg. He went towards the shoe and then saw the woman underneath the armless man. She had barely been a woman. She had the face of a teen. He figured she could not have been more than twenty years old, just blossoming into full womanhood. And now she was not even human any more. She was a mangled piece of flesh and blood and guts. It made him feel sick.

Tears sprung to his eyes as he bent down. He did not know why he did it, but he reached down to close the woman's eyes. He looked at the man without the arm, but for some reason he felt numbed to this man's plight. His chest was not moving. He was dead as well. He must have been; the puddle of blood that was under his stump was too large for him to be alive.

Akhmed staggered on, his tears now flowing freely as he noticed the mayhem caused by the explosion. He was responsible for this. Not that he had ever wanted to be, but he had trusted Fatíma, Smith and Garcia and they had used him. He’d realised that now. Fatíma had told him she could sabotage the rig with sound waves during her DJ gig. He had checked the science and found out she was on to something. It would have been the perfect protest against ‘The City’ after all his protests against this whole failed project had been silenced.

But he had been had. Somehow they had made him smuggle a bomb on board and set it off. Then Fatíma had shown up in the toilets just before she would start her set and pointed the gun at him.

Akhmed’s mind was racing as he tried to figure out everything. He had checked the gear and all the boxes when he picked them up and there had been no bomb. Yet somehow they had managed to get it in there. He shook his head in a reflex, trying to come back to reality from his thoughts. His hearing began to return then. He noticed silence first, but then began picking up the small noises. There were the raspy breaths and soft moans of the wounded and dying and then he heard the noise that came through in the background. He looked around but could not find out what was causing the roar. Finally he looked up and he saw something through the skylight. He saw the flames and knew then that the rig was on fire.

The Rig: Storm Warning

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~~~~~

Also Available:

The Jade Dagger

An adventure novel

by Steve Rollins

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About the Author:

Steve Rollins
enjoys hiking and snorkeling and beer, but not necessarily in that order. He loves to travel and spends most of his free time doing just that. Presently, he lives in Las Vegas, Nevada because he likes to gamble, too
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