Oil Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 4) (18 page)

“All right, all right,” she answered, putting on the glasses and sliding down so that her head was below the level of the back windows. “Now I know what Greta Garbo must have felt like.”

“Who?”

“Don’t worry about it, Terry. Just drive. Get us there in one piece and maybe I’ll give you my autograph.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She could feel the car slowing now, and she could imagine the familiar turns that took them into downtown Bay St. Lucy.

Overhead she could now hear the throbbing pulse of rotor blades.

“Helicopter?” she asked.

“Yes. They’ve been flying in since about six o’clock this morning.”

“From where?”

“Just about everywhere. All right. We’re here, but I’m supposed to take you around back and park in the alley.”

“Wonderful. I’m breaking into my own husband’s old law office.”

The car parked.

She got out, looking warily up and down the alley, and running toward the rickety back stairs which she had not climbed for at least twenty years.

They held her, though they wobbled a bit and forced her to grab tight to the paint-peeling bannister.

She remembered Frank having painted this bannister all those years ago, beaming as he attached a cylindrical tube designed to hold messages that were, for reasons of security, meant to be delivered out of sight of the general public:

“The Bannister bannister canister!”

And she had answered:

“Oh, Frank, honestly!”

How many times had she said ‘honestly’ to her husband?

And just what did that mean, anyway?

She opened the door.

There was a restroom just to her right, and a dark corridor.

She followed the hallway, turning first right, then left.

Then another door.

And Jackson’s office.

Jackson Bennett himself turned as she entered the room.

“Well,” he rumbled. “The film star!”

She walked across the old office, took off her sunglasses, and put them on the arm of the couch.

“What is happening, Jackson?”

He shook his head:

“What isn’t happening? The whole world is in chaos. Look. I’ve been watching tv for the last ten minutes. The networks are breaking into all the regular shows. It’s the biggest story of the decade.”

“What is that you’re watching now?”

“CNN. Louisiana Petroleum is having a live news conference, out of Lafayette. There. There’s their president, and, I don’t know, a bunch of muckety mucks. Here. Sit on the couch.”

She did so, feeling as though she were living in a dream.

Jackson had, some years earlier, installed a flat screen television on the wall that Frank had always kept covered with maps.

It seemed a sacrilege, but one must, Nina had concluded at the time, keep up with progress.

Now the area that had been central Europe was plastered over by the face of a man who, dressed in a black suit and red tie, looked to be the model of all corporate presidents.

“I think,” said Jackson, “this guy’s name is…”

“It doesn’t matter what his name is,” Nina interrupted. “He’s the president of a corporation. He plays golf and has silver hair. That’s all you need to know.”

Jackson chuckled.

“I guess that’s right. Well. We’ll listen to what he has to say.”

They did.

“First, I want to assure everyone here present at the press conference today, and all those people who might be watching across the country––that every allegation made in this morning’s
New York Times’
story is completely without foundation. We have no idea how this particular professor got hold of his information, but it’s insane. There is no drilling installation in this country, or in the world, for that matter, that is safer than Aquatica. Every gram of cement, every valve, every pipe, must meet, and have met, the highest specifications. There is no ‘seepage’ of gas, no malfunctioning gas alarms, no malfunctioning blowout preventers—and we are completely at a loss to explain how these absurd allegations could ever have been made. Now—rather than my going on and saying the same things over and over again, I’d like to open the floor for questions. Yes, Allyson?”

Reporters had surrounded the podium like a pack of dogs. They fired questions one by one, and he answered with the same flat equanimity.

“Are steps being taken to evacuate the facility at this time?”

A shake of the head:

“No, of course not. There is no reason to evacuate Aquatica.”

“Have you been in contact with the crew?”

“John…”

How did this man seem to know the first names of all of these national reporters?

That must come with the territory, Nina decided, if one is a CEO.

“John, not only are we in contact with the crew of Aquatica now, but we are in contact with them daily, and even hourly—as we are every day of the week––without exception! We have people in Lafayette who are seeing the same images that the people in the control room at Aquatica are seeing. And I must tell you, everyone out there is just as shocked as we are here in the company’s main offices.”

“Is there any panic on the vessel?”

“Of course there’s no panic on the vessel! Nothing is wrong on the vessel! The only panic on Aquatica stems from the fear that families and loved ones on shore are going to believe some cock and bull story—I’m sorry, but that’s the only way I can describe it—about misinterpreted safety checks and dodgy cement.”

“Have you been in contact with the EPA?”

“Patricia, we are ALWAYS in contact with EPA. A team of EPA inspectors returned from Aquatica just last week. I met with them personally here in Lafayette. Their only concern—and this was in fact somewhat troubling, because we take these kinds of things very seriously—was that the lobster they were served for dinner was two days old.”

“Sir, do you think this is funny?”

“Do I think a nationwide demand that we shut down and dismantle our flagship oil rig––at a cost of billions of dollars—because of an absolutely ludicrous story, supplied apparently to
The New York Times
by a retired school teacher who stole a young engineer’s flash disk from what should have been a secure computer––is funny? No. No, I don’t think it’s funny, and the professionals who work on and are extremely proud of Aquatica don’t think it’s funny; and their families, who now may be terrified for absolutely no reason, don’t think it’s funny; and the residents of every town on The Gulf Coast, who are now imagining their beaches covered with oil and their livelihoods threatened—don’t think it’s funny either. Insane perhaps. Ludicrous. But no, not funny.”

“Do you have any comment about the death of Edgar Ramirez?”

“We regret it deeply, because the young man was one of us, a part of us. We have expressed our most sincere condolences to his mother, and to the rest of his family.”

“You deny then that anyone from Louisiana Petroleum had anything to do with his death?”

“Of course, we deny it! It’s as insane and ludicrous as everything else in this hodgepodge of a story! Also, we are demanding that
The New York Times
retract this garbage immediately.”

“And if they do not?”

“That will be a matter for our legal department to deal with. I’m not prepared to comment on it at this time.”

“Have you been in contact with Professor Narang, or with Nina Bannister, who according to
The Times
is the original source of the story?”

“Again, I’m not going to comment on that. But I do want do something else at this moment.”

He turned and addressed someone standing behind him:

“Are we ready? Have we got the signal? All right then…”

He spoke once again to the reporters:

“If you’ll look at the big screen to my right, you’ll see that we have a direct hook up with the main control room on the Aquatica.”

The screen on the tv flashed once. Then the scene changed and Nina saw the same control room she had visited some days earlier.

Staring into the camera were three familiar figures, all outfitted in the bright orange jump suits and yellow helmets.

The CEO continued to speak:

“The people you see before you,” he said, “are three of Aquatica’s top officers: Dr. Sandra Cousins, materials engineer and public relations specialist, Mr. Tom Holder, first drilling assistant, or Tool Master––and Dr. Phil Bennington, rig master. I’m going to let you ask your questions directly to them. Bill, you’ve had your hand up. Go ahead and address your inquiry to any one of them. They can see you now, and they can hear you.”

The reporter stepped forward and shouted at the screen:

“This question is for Dr. Cousins!”

Sandy Cousins, looking pert and sunshiny as Nina had remembered her being, spoke up to answer:

“Yes! I hear you!”

“Do you feel as though you are in any danger out there?”

She shook her head emphatically:

“No, not in the least! I’m one of the people in charge of importing materials we use to line the well. This story—and by the way we just were able to read it a little more than an hour ago—this story is complete fiction. Please, please, please, do not believe a word of this! Also, as chief public relations officer I’m in contact daily with people who are frightened of the dangers of deep-water drilling. All that I can tell you is, we share their concerns. And we’re dedicating our professional lives to making sure that nothing harmful happens, and that we continue to follow safe drilling procedures.”

A second reporter:

“I’m Randy Thomas of
The Memphis Star
. This question is for Mr. Holder.”

“Aye, Mate!”

“Mr. Holder, you fill the position known as Tool Master?”

“I do. And I have filled it for three years now. Been in offshore drilling for seventeen years, I have, my entire professional life. Started as a roustabout on a rig off Liverpool and worked my way up.”

“
The Times
story says that at the bottom of the main drill pipe there are two valves designed to stop the flow of gas to the surface.”

“Aye, that’s the only thing the damned story got bleeding’ right. Sorry about my language.”

“That’s all right, sir. But these valves…”

“These valves are exactly built to specifications. Not only that, but they’re checked daily. We checked them an hour ago. There’s nothing wrong with them! Also, if I might add, we didn’t do six pressure tests in the last two weeks; we did fourteen, since we do one pressure test every day. There is no increasing pressure down there, and there hasn’t been since Aquatica began operations three years ago.”

“I see. As for the blowout preventer…”

“There is one. It was installed two months ago. And the reason we installed it is because it is a state of the art mechanism. It was developed by The Luebke Corporation based in Bremen, Germany. It’s the best in the world. There was nothing wrong with the old preventer; but we’re constantly scouring all markets to find the best supplies available. When a better part is developed, we know about it, we buy it, and we install it.”

“So, in your opinion, Professor Narang’s allegations are…”

“His allegations are something that Sandy wouldn’t want me to say.”

All three of the figures on the screen smiled.

Another reporter:

“Dr. Bennington, I’m Susan Baker of
The Corpus Christie Caller
.”

“Yes, Ms. Baker.”

“As Rig Master, you oversee all operations on Aquatica, is that right?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Your final comments concerning this story?”

He shook his head.

“I’m just…I’m just speechless. Nothing about it is true. We have had nothing but the most minor problems on Aquatica for months now. I’ve been in this business twenty three years. This installation is absolutely without parallel, in terms of safety and efficiency. We have back ups to every back up. We have only the top people working here.