DrillingDownDeep Read online

  “Where are you even planning on putting him? It’s not as if there’s a guest suite on board.”

  “If he wants to stay, he goes in a driller cabin, just like everybody else. Luckily, we got one empty.”

  She scoffed. “Good. That’ll be the end of that.”

  “And until then you let bygones be bygones, Vanny. You said you could and you got medical expenses and a family that—”

  “I know,” she snapped. “Believe me, I know.”

  “Good. Make sure you do because this is no time to be showing anybody that temper of yours.”

  “Why do I have to show him around?”

  “Because it’s your job, goddammit. He wants a tour of this rig and that means as the safety officer, you’re going to give it to him. By the book, missy.”

  She smiled. “Don’t call me ‘missy’, old man.”

  He smiled as well. “You’re awfully worked up about this, Vanny.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “It’s really an honor, if you want to look at it that way. Who’d think we lowlife roughnecks would get a chance to meet the new CEO of the whole company face-to-face?”

  “Not me. That’s for sure,” she muttered.

  The cacophony of the approaching helicopter cut their conversation short.

  Despite her one-night stab at corporate espionage, Reynolds Industries—a huge conglomerate with a reputation for gobbling up other companies and chewing them over thoroughly before they spit some of them out—had purchased Transcoastal Drilling anyway. She never should have let that sleazy in-house lawyer Crable talk her into doing what she did in the first place.

  Not that he had talked her into the hot sex, of course. That had been her own little impromptu payback. He’d merely suggested that Michael Reynolds had a weakness for good-looking women and that whatever she could do to get copies of his plans for Transcoastal might be favorably looked upon by the current management. Crable had as much as said that if she helped in this way to try to keep the company independent, Transcoastal might reconsider their decision to fire her dad.

  So she’d dyed her long curly blonde hair brown, straightened it and picked up the contacts. Since her natural tan had faded from a six-month stint drilling in Alaska, the pale, dark-haired Shelly didn’t look anything like the usually tanned, blonde Vanny in the first place. By the time she got through with adding the heavy makeup, the two women were unrecognizable as the same person and Shelly got down to business.

  Unfortunately, like all the other bullshit that the suits had slung at her as she tried to defend her father, the promise from Crable had been, er, bullshit. At least the asshole had gotten fired in the shake-up and, thanks to Mick O’Malley, she hadn’t.

  Here was hoping that once Michael Reynolds stepped off that helicopter that didn’t change.

  Michael had spent the entire one-and-a-half-hour helicopter ride from Houston to the offshore oil rig gazing out the window and ignoring most of what his guide said to him over the headphones. He should be reading the latest Transcoastal projections on his iPad or commandeering the helicopter radio to pester his assistant Miss Prentiss since his cell wouldn’t work out here, something at least.

  But he didn’t feel like it. His sister Samantha’s wedding had set him off. He didn’t know why. He attended weddings all the time, several of them his father’s, although lately it had usually been a second- or third-married pal giving it one more try at the altar. Weddings usually didn’t affect him much at all, unless there was a bridesmaid or friend of a friend who caught his interest. Then the only possible effect was some mindless sex, his favorite kind, although he hadn’t had much of that lately either. The dark and mysterious Mrs. Shelly had left a bad taste in his mouth on that score.

  And now he had this odd, unusual melancholia.

  His flighty, beautiful, good-hearted baby sister was in love. He even liked the guy, her groom, though that was conditioned on the man’s hopefully-any-day-now retirement from Interpol where he was an undercover agent.

  So why should any of that disturb him? And “disturb” wasn’t quite the right word anyway. More like envy.

  But shit, that was worse. He was never getting married. And as to falling in love, he hoped for his sister Samantha’s sake, it existed, but personally, he’d never seen it.

  “You’re going to be shown around the rig by Vanny Donald, the rig’s safety officer.”

  The words permeated Michael’s consciousness over the noise of the helicopter all around them, even with the headphones. He turned to Bob Roberts, the chief financial officer of his newly acquired oil drilling company, and said through his own microphone, “Oh? I assumed you’d be showing me around.”

  “I’m afraid not. Policy requires it be the safety officer.”

  On the verge of pointing out that as CEO and majority shareholder, he was the one to make policy, not be dictated to by it, he stopped himself in time. No need to ruffle feathers just yet. He and Transcoastal were in what he liked to think of as the honeymoon phase, speaking of weddings. They were getting to know him. He was getting to know them.

  Before he weeded out the inevitable incompetents and fired them.

  “In fact, once I drop you off and introduce you, I’ll be heading back. Rigs and I don’t exactly mix. I get seasick after about ten minutes.”

  Michael didn’t comment. Seasickness had no bearing on the man’s financial abilities, so he didn’t fault him for the weakness. The sorry state of the balance sheet was another matter though. Roberts would eventually have to answer for that. But now was not the time.

  “Look, there it is!”

  After miles of sea interrupted only by the tiniest white dot of a yacht, the oil rig Treasure Driller rose out of the waves like some mammoth Lego creation. And that was exactly what it looked like at a distance from the air. A toy set of orange and gray Legos linked together in the kind of complicated maze that he and his younger brothers had liked to build behind their father’s back, with bridges and towers and platforms.

  Damien Reynolds had disapproved of game-playing activities that didn’t teach his oldest son the ways of the world. Michael’s father preferred he play with prospectuses and after a while, he just drifted away from his brothers’ Lego endeavors.

  He wondered if Samantha and Vik would have kids. He wouldn’t mind a nephew or a niece to whom he could give a set of Legos… Maybe build a miniature of the sight before him with the kid.

  The thought took him by surprise since he generally avoided minors of all varieties like the plague.

  The helicopter dipped closer to the rig in preparation for landing.

  “Now as you may recall, Treasure Driller is the rig that’s had a few incidents. Nothing serious, but it gets written up. Very much by the book and all that.”

  “Yeah. I saw the reports.”

  “Well, then you know that the perpetrator responsible—a disgruntled long-term employee as I understand it—has been discharged and we’ve been assured that’s that. So the problem’s been taken care of.”

  “I’d like to see for myself,” Michael muttered, not directly into the microphone.

  “What?” Roberts asked.

  “Nothing.” Something about those reports on the safety accident involving valve levels didn’t jive. Not familiar enough with the industry as yet to put his finger on it, Michael nonetheless had a gut feeling. And he always trusted his gut.

  The helicopter set down on the large white pad on the top deck of the rig. By the time the propellers stilled, he and Roberts had taken off their headphones and unbuckled their seat belts. Michael reached behind him for his briefcase and single bag, but the pilot offered to grab them and bring them out.

  “Okay, here we go,” Roberts said once they’d climbed down from the helicopter. Two hard hats were emerging from a stairway, one short and beefy and the other tall and slender.

  The beefy one nodded at Roberts—no love lost there apparently—and held out a roughened hand to shake Micha
el’s. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Reynolds. I’m Mick O’Malley.”

  “Mick’s the rig foreman,” Roberts explained as O’Malley took the bags from the pilot. Michael was surprised that the obviously younger man with him didn’t do the honors, but as he glanced closer he saw why.

  “And this is Vanny Donald.” Although her hard hat was still on, dipped precariously forward, Michael could nonetheless tell this close that Vanny was a woman.

  She held out a hand encased in a work glove.

  “Mr. Reynolds.”

  No “pleased to meet you” from her as they shook hands. No smile either. He couldn’t see much of her face under the shadow of the hard hat at the angle she was holding her head, but he could see the downturned edges of some surprisingly sensuous lips.

  “If you’d like to rest first before I show you around—”

  “That won’t be necessary, Miss Donald. Or is it Mrs.?”

  “Miss.”

  “Fine then. We can start the tour, Miss Donald.”

  “Sure. Okay.” She might as well have added “let’s get this over with” as she turned away. For all the sucking up he was usually treated to in the honeymoon phase, there was always a malcontent or two who wanted to show the new boss they didn’t kowtow to anybody.

  Rarely a woman though.

  “I see you’re in good hands, so I’ll be on my way.” Not even ten minutes, more like two, and Roberts was already looking green as the rig swayed slightly. The pilot, not to mention Miss Donald, threw him a contemptuous look. The pilot accompanied it with, “I have to use the head first, if you don’t mind.”

  “And don’t you want something to eat before you go?” Miss Donald added with a slight smile.

  The CFO’s hand went to the waistband of his trousers, as if the mere suggestion might cause him to heave. “No, we better be on our way. Michael, I’ll see you back at the office whenever you’re through here. Just radio in when you want to be picked up. Jim,” he turned to the pilot, “I’ll wait for you in the helicopter. Be quick about it.”

  “Yes sir,” Jim murmured with a smile as the CFO scrambled back. Miss Donald smiled as well and the two made eye contact.

  “That’ll be all,” Michael snapped to the pilot, sharper than he’d intended. He’d paid virtually zero attention to the guy from the moment they were introduced, hadn’t even remembered that his name was Jim, but the smile the man was sharing with Miss Donald annoyed Michael for some reason.

  A pair of long-lashed green eyes snapped right back at him. The woman’s, not the pilot’s. “He’s allowed to go to the bathroom first, isn’t he? Or do you want him to just piss over the side?”

  O’Malley shook his head, muttering something, and the pilot hurried below with a guilty look as if not to be associated with the smart remark.

  There was an awkward silence that O’Malley rushed to fill. “We’re a little rough around the edges out here, Mr. Reynolds. Don’t mind us. Right this way.”

  He hurried forward, and Michael followed without comment. Although if he had made one, it would have taken the form of a reprimand, lovely green eyes notwithstanding. He didn’t need an attitude along with his walk-around. Regardless of whether it violated policy, as soon as they were out of the wind of this deck, he’d be making sure he got a different guide for the tour…at a minimum.

  Miss Donald took up the rear as they went down the stairs. “Put one hand on the handrail,” she instructed and he did so automatically.

  “The rig can shift in currents, so until you get used to it you got to keep hold of something most times, sir,” O’Malley noted over his shoulder. “You seemed pretty steady on your feet up on deck though.”

  “I’m used to being on the water.”

  “You might be surprised,” came from behind him. “A rig isn’t exactly like one of your cushy yachts. We feel the sea beneath us, not get coddled from it.”

  They continued through a narrow hallway.

  “You’ve been on a number of yachts, have you, Miss Donald?” he asked, hoping she was bright enough to pick up on the sarcasm.

  Before she could respond, a voice came over the loudspeaker wired into a corner of the passage. “O’Malley to the control room. O’Malley to the control room.”

  There hadn’t seemed to be any panic in the voice that Michael could tell, but O’Malley stopped dead in his tracks. Michael barely avoided bumping into him.

  “Excuse me.” He set the cases down. “I have to see to that.”

  Shoving by him, O’Malley headed back up the stairs, with Miss Donald following, to Michael’s surprise. He watched them go and then followed as well—what the hell else was he supposed to do?—leaving the cases in the hallway.

  Once up the stairs, they headed in the opposite direction of the helipad and ducked into a room with gauges and levers. The drilling control room, he surmised from the pictures he had seen of a rig in his due diligence before buying the company. A number of men in hard hats and orange jumpsuits, like O’Malley and the woman’s but more used, mulled around.

  One tough-faced spokesman came forward and addressed O’Malley. “This fucking roustabout is trying to tell me my business, Mick. You better get him out of my face or I’m going to beat the living shit out of him.”

  “What’s going on?” O’Malley addressed the tall, string-bean-thin man the spokesman had jerked a thumb at. He looked so young he might have been in a high school shop class rather than on an oil rig.

  “The cement ain’t dry,” the kid said quietly.

  “Says you, you stupid prick. What the hell would you know? You been on this rig no more than—”

  “Hold on.” O’Malley stopped the tirade with a quick shove to the other guy’s chest, effectively backing the man away from the roustabout he’d been advancing toward. He then yanked the kid by the neck of his jumpsuit toward a corner and rattled off a list of questions that Michel barely heard.

  Rather than joining them, the safety officer rambled over to the gears, examining each one, looking into a tube of some sort and then crouching down to look at a gauge. She stood up, reaching into a cabinet, and turned around quickly.

  “Put this on.”

  Michael just barely caught the toss of the yellow hard hat and she didn’t check to see whether he had, going over to talk to the hot-under-the-collar guy who was glaring at the kid still.

  Michael put on the hard hat as O’Malley joined Miss Donald. They conferred, again too softly for him to catch it, and then O’Malley said loudly, “Show’s over. You’re okay to proceed, Kenny.”

  “Like I told you,” he huffed. “Now get that asshole out of my control room.”

  Miss Donald shook her head. “He stays.”

  “Fuck you, Vanny,” the guy shouted at her and she smiled.

  “You wish.”

  It stopped the big guy right there and after a moment of hesitation, he whipped his hat off and wiped a bald head that Michael saw was sweating profusely. “That I do, sweet cheeks,” he said, laughing.

  “Put your fucking hat back on,” she responded mildly.

  The kid hung back, but then turned to a shelf, his hand shaking as he reached for a bottle of water.

  “Everybody’s friends now, okay?” O’Malley said jovially before hustling over to him. “Sorry about that, Mr. Reynolds. These things crop up now and again.” He gestured toward the door.

  Michael didn’t take him up on the suggestion. “I’m sure they do. Wet cement. Isn’t that what happened on the Deepwater Horizon?”

  The room, which had been buzzing with quiet talk, suddenly became dead still. It was as if he had uttered the worst curse they could think of. All eyes stared at him, the hostility not difficult to read.

  Miss Donald spoke first. “We don’t mention that on a rig.”

  “I’m sure you don’t want to, but I’d feel better if you mentioned it a dozen times a day. If we don’t learn from our mistakes, Miss Donald, we make them again.”

  “It wasn’t our damn m
istake,” one of the men muttered.

  “This here’s Mr. Reynolds, boys. The new CEO of Transcoastal,” O’Malley said hastily, undoubtedly trying to protect the men from any ill-advised further remarks. He turned to Michael. “That’s ah, kind of considered bad luck, if you know what I mean, Mr. Reynolds. To mention that.”

  “I don’t believe in luck. Now is the cement on that really dry or isn’t it?”

  “It’s dry,” Miss Donald said. “And we’re done here.” She exited quickly.

  Fine. He’d rather have this conversation in private anyway.

  When he caught up to Miss Donald, she was heading down the same narrow passageway they’d started out in. He didn’t bother with the hand rail and if the rig swayed he had no problem with it. She pointedly walked past his bag and briefcase and O’Malley reached in front of him to pick them up, taking the lead again.

  “Now, let’s put these in your cabin.” The older man hurried along and opened a door at the end of the hallway.

  “Usually there’re two to a cabin, but you’ll have this one to yourself, of course. Assuming you still want to stay after you get the tour.”

  Michael glanced inside the small room as the man put the cases down. There was a vanity, what looked like another smaller compartment, a bathroom perhaps, and something he had never seen, not even when he’d been sent away to camp one summer as a young boy. Bunk beds. Built into the wall, they had heavy, short curtains presumably to draw closed before sleeping.

  Bunk beds.

  His summer camp experience had included a lavish wood cabin complete with servants.

  “You do it by sex, I assume?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Assign rooms. You have women on board. Correct?” He didn’t deign to refer to Miss Donald. “You bunk them together, I assume.”

  “Oh yeah, sure. If there are enough of them.”

  “And if there aren’t? Or there’s an odd number? What happens then? Do they get their own cabin?”

  “They’re drillers. Just like everybody else.” O’Malley looked over Michael’s shoulder at Miss Donald, who remained in the hallway, with what could only be interpreted as pride for some reason. “There’s no favoritism.”