Free The Rig 1: Rough Seas by Steve Rollins Page A

San Clemente Juan stopped his engine again. He stood up in his boat and instinctively took off his baseball cap. Then he crossed himself. What he saw before him was an inferno. It was how he had always imagined Hell would look like. Tears sprang into his eyes as he thought of the poor people and knew he could not even get close to look for survivors of that blast. He turned around and headed for shore.
    The tears were still in his eyes when he walked along the dock and down the quay to his house on Santa Catalina. He was still wiping his eyes when he walked into the kitchen and hugged his wife. He told her about what he had seen and she smiled.
    “I feel so sorry for them, but at least the fire means the oil won't wash up here.”
    “That's a harsh way of thinking.”
    Juan could not believe his ears when his wife said that.
    “They shouldn't have built it in the first place.”
    She shrugged.
     
    ***
     
    Commander Lovell of the USCG Hurricane ran out onto the deck with his binoculars in hand when he heard the explosion. He saw the smoke rising and put the binoculars to his eyes. He saw the oil spill forming rapidly underneath the platform.
    “Fuck!” he swore. “Radio San Clemente. Get us closer, we might be needed!”
    “Aye, aye, sir,” the coxswain and the radio officer replied.
    They powered ahead as fast as their cutter could go, but then the second explosion hit and suddenly there was no longer a city before them, there were just flames. They saw a fishing vessel and a few pleasure boats veer away as they could no longer hope to reach it and help. The coxswain instinctively pulled the throttle back and let them drift towards the rig at a leisurely pace.
    The radio officer had finished his call to the naval base at San Clemente and tried to make contact with ‘The City,’ but he got no answer. He kept calling their sign on their frequency, tried to pick them up on the emergency frequency, even called their phone link, but no luck. Everything was dead.
    Soon there were US Coast Guard and US Navy helicopters and planes in the air above their heads, flying over ‘The City.’ They watched as they circled and then headed back to the airfield at San Clemente. They heard the reports from the pilots. Nothing could be done to help the people on that rig until the blaze had gone out. They could not get anyone on board from up there.
    Lovell sighed and just stared. He saw a yacht head to the blaze and promptly commanded the coxswain to head them off. He wanted to help, but right now, the only thing he could do was to make sure nobody else got hurt.
     
    ***
     
    The news of the explosion on ‘The City’ and the subsequent fire rolled into the office of CBS in San Diego and the editor in chief immediately sprang to life. He pushed his chair back to liberate his large belly from behind his desk and jumped to his feet. His mind began working out whether he knew someone on that rig, and when he had decided he did not, he began working out whom he could send to report on it and how he should conduct the coverage.
    There was a pretty multi-cultural girl who had just graduated from college in the office. He reckoned she deserved a shot. He would let her take a camera crew out in a helicopter and fly over to the site of the accident. If she messed up, then the helicopter would have to turn back anyway and he could have her replaced.
    He called her in and told her to get a move on. When she had gone, he called up the technical crew and told them to ready a chopper and a van.
    When Elizabeth “Elly” Boukhari arrived at the heliport she went straight for the CBS chopper. She shook hands with the pilot and every man of the crew and squealed in her excitement. She hurried to get into the chopper and get her gear in order, but just as the pilot told them to buckle up for takeoff a black car raced onto the tarmac and came towards them. The tires screamed as it stopped next to them. Out jumped two men in black suits and white