at its very crest, Aggie maintained an unsteady control of the Cessna, not sure if her adjustments to yoke and rudder were effective in keeping them in place or if the aircraft was at the whimsy of the raging onslaught.
As her ears stopped ringing and she became aware of the sounds of the torrent around her, she also heard Mercer laughing. “What’s so goddamned funny?” she shrieked.
“Half hour ago, you were complaining about my flying. I don’t see this as an improvement.”
Before Aggie could come back with an obscenity-laden rejoinder, the wave smashed into the breakwater protecting the Alyeska facility, the top of it battering the seawall built specifically for just such a tsunami, although the designers expected waves generated from earth tremors, not catastrophic explosions. The pontoons were ripped from the Cessna by the concrete wall, and much of the force of the wave was beaten down by the massive cement structure, leaving the plane to sail clear for an instant before it plowed into the rocky ground, its belly scraping off their speed brutally, the prop blades folding back around the engine cowling like the tentacles of some sea creature.
The threat of fire was real, and both Aggie and Mercer launched themselves from their seats as the plane finally ground to a stop.
“Remember, this flight counts double for your frequent flier miles. We want to thank you for flying Mercer Airlines. Have a nice day.” He was out the cargo door of the Cessna as the last words rolled from his lips, with Aggie right behind.
The sprint to the Operations Building took forever, both of them hampered by their injuries and by the countless vehicles they had to dodge as technicians and employees raced to evaluate the situation. Mercer pounded through the door, tossing a hapless employee back about ten feet as the edge of the door caught her square in the chest. He raced for the control room, ignoring the dazed woman completely. The room was packed. Voices clashed angrily over the wail of countless alarms, the normally calm professionals driven to the point of panic by the scope of the catastrophe facing them. Andy Lindstrom was in the center of it, his face red and his shouts muted to angry growls from hoarseness. He scanned the multiple panels and video display units, assessing the damage to his precious pipeline. Twenty or so engineers were gathered around him, ranked by seniority so the most experienced was at his shoulder and the juniormost stood in the back of the room. The windowless room was filled with cigarette smoke and the smell of fear’s sweat.
“Andy!” Mercer shouted over the arguing voices, but the noise drowned him out.
To gain attention, he pulled out Kerikov’s pistol and fired into the floor, silence echoing after the shot.
“Andy, how bad?” Mercer asked calmly. If he was bothered by the stunned crowd around him, it didn’t show on his stony face.
“Jesus Christ, Mercer, what the hell are you doing?” The shock on Lindstrom’s face was a combination of seeing Mercer with a pistol, seeing Mercer even alive, and the stress of the nitrogen packs freezing his pipeline as solid as a Popsicle. “Great to see you again, but I don’t have time for this — your friend the Russian has destroyed my pipe.”
“I know.” Mercer couldn’t afford the delay caused by emotional answers. “I need to know if the pumps are running right now.”
Before Andy could answer, an engineer seated at the console spoke up. “No, the computer logs show they shut down about a minute before the nitrogen packs went off. Right now they’re off-line. And it looks like they’ll never run again. Preliminary reports indicate at least forty spots where oil flow has stopped completely and a couple more with minimal flow. It looks as if there are at least two ruptures, one at the center of the Tanana River suspension bridge.”
“The bridge collapsed?” Mercer asked fearfully.
“Yeah. Oil is flowing toward it through open check valves like a spigot.”
“Where is that computer guy, Mossey?”
“He was in the computer room a moment ago,” replied a technician standing near Mercer.
Mercer turned so fast he bumped into Aggie, whom he’d all but forgotten. She was sickened by the fact that the pipeline had been cut by the nitrogen freezing. As a member of PEAL, she was, by default, responsible. “This isn’t over yet,” Mercer said and ran down the hall.
The computer room, in comparison to the Op-center, was sterile and clean and empty save for one frantic figure stuffing papers and computer discs into a soft-sided leatherette bag. Mercer didn’t give Ted Mossey a chance to even turn around. He used his left hand to smash Mossey’s head down to the desk while his other pressed the automatic pistol into his face so hard that Mossey’s teeth ripped the delicate inner skin of his cheek. When Mercer spoke, his voice was a white fury, his eyes glazed with hatred.
“Shut the program down! Now!”
“I can’t,” Mossey stammered, saliva and blood dripping from his mouth onto the computer station. “I was locked out as soon as Kerikov triggered the nitrogen.”
Mercer snicked back the hammer of the pistol, the small click sounding very final in the quiet confines of the room. “That’s too bad. You’ve had the program for a couple of months. I’d thought you’d have broken into it and set up a back door. Last mistake you ever made, pal.”
He was willing to let the bluff go for a few seconds before knocking Mossey unconscious, but it wasn’t necessary. Mossey folded instantly. “Wait, please. God, don’t kill me. There is a back door. I put it in soon after Kerikov hired me to reinstate his old program.”
“Use it now, you little ferret, and stop the pumps from coming on-line or, so help me Christ, I’ll pull the trigger and use your brains as finger paint.” Mercer let Mossey back up but kept the pistol screwed into his ear. The younger man started working on the terminal, his fingers blurring across the keys.
Aggie stood in awe at the back of the room, fascinated by the absolute control Mercer showed of both the situation and Ted Mossey. It wasn’t the gun that gave Mercer power, it was the man himself. His conviction and his unwavering belief in himself held her rapt. As unpredictable and wild as his actions had seemed to her, once the resolution became clear, his was the only logical course. Standing as he was, grim-faced and tensed, Mercer was the most desirable man Aggie had ever seen. The sight of him gave her a delicious thrill.
“I’m in,” Mossey said at last. “Just a minute more.”
“I blow your skull apart in thirty seconds.” No one, not even Mercer, knew if he was still bluffing or not.
Andy Lindstrom had followed Mercer and Aggie to the computer room and, after watching the drama unfold for a moment, crossed to a terminal next to Mossey, the computer screen before him indicating pump and pipeline status. Though the program had been installed by a mole at the height of the Cold War, only now was it active. All ten pumps had spooled up to full power, building a tremendous back pressure against the solidified oil plugs. Mercer had been too late to stop that from happening, but pipe integrity was still holding. If they could shut down the pumps in time, the line wouldn’t blow apart as Kerikov had planned.
“Internal pressure?” Mercer demanded without taking his eyes off Mossey.
“Twelve hundred pounds per square inch within the pipe casing at nearly every sensor,” Lindstrom cried. “We’re over the maximum rating. The whole thing’s going to let go at any second. Pumps are still in operation. This isn’t going to work.”
“Someone already told me that today.” Mercer stole a glance at Aggie, who smiled at him in response.
Mossey pushed himself from his keyboard computer, his slight frame spent. “That’s the most I can do.”
“Status?” Mercer barked.
“Twelve hundred twenty-five psi. It’s thing is going to burst.” Lindstrom screamed. “Massive pressure drop at one of the sensors, pipe blowout. Pumps are still… Wait, pumps are off-line. They’ve stopped.” Lindstrom’s voice trailed off as he watched fearfully. The internal pressure sensors placed within the line continued to climb higher and higher, now 15 percent beyond their rated maximum tolerance. Finally he spoke again, filling the thick silence, excitement crowding his words together. “Pressure going down across the board, steady drop. My baby held together. Oh, thank you, God, and thank the union welders for making this bitch stronger than we ever thought.”
Mercer looked over at him in relief, his face and body showing the extent of the battering he’d been through since last night. “What about the steel mills that rolled the pipe sections?”
“Fuck ’em, it was a Japanese firm.” Lindstrom laughed, emotion bubbling over. While still facing a major disaster — there were three huge leaks belching out thousands of barrels of oil — the extent had just been reduced to manageable levels. With Mossey as a witness, Alyeska would be found blameless for the entire affair.
“Human error,” Mercer said, as if reading Andy’s mind. “Not the negligent kind, but the type found when
