Chameleon

  "Where is he now?"

  "He's with your Alec, wherever that might be. Drowned. Fishing in some dipshit lake in Florida. Got drunk and fell out of the boat. The old bastard never did learn to swim."

  Outside, the wind wailed past the window, peppering it with sleet.

  "Wonderful night to stay in," Marge said. "We could build a fire and snuggle up."

  "If we had a fireplace."

  "We can make believe," she said.

  "I haven't been laid for three months."

  She held up four fingers. "Gotcha beat by a month," she said.

  "You've got a reputation as the Thoreau virgin," Lansdale said.

  "Been checking up on me, hunh?"

  "Well, it's my job, make sure everybody on this rig is happy. We can't afford morale problems."

  "I've got one you can take care of right now," she said, closing in on him.

  Lansdale said, "You are shameless."

  "Yeah," she said, "ain't it a kick in the ass."

  He laughed, a big laugh, and nodded. "Ain't it, though," he said.

  And laughing too, she ripped open her workshirt. She was not wearing a bra. Her breasts, firm from the hard work on the rig, stood out, the nipples already signaling her desire.

  Lansdale stood near the wall, staring at her. He shook his head. "Incredible," he mumbled, tearing off his shirt and throwing it on the floor.

  She was still seven or eight feet from him. She zipped down the fly of her jeans very slowly.

  "Need some music?" he asked.

  "Unh unh."

  He sat down on the bed, leaning back on his elbows, watching every little move she made. She was swaying back and forth as she slowly slid the jeans over her hips and let them fall away. A curl of black hair peeked over the top of her bikini panties. She turned away from him, still swaying, and began to tighten and loosen her buttocks. She had an absolutely incredible ass.

  "Hard work sure becomes you," he said.

  She hooked her thumbs under the edge of the panties and slipped them down partway, still moving, still swaying to the music in her head.

  He zipped down his pants and pulled them off. He was rock-hard and bulging against his Jockey shorts. She looked at him over her shoulder, began moving backwards toward him, turning as she reached the edge of the bed and sliding her hand under her panties, caressing herself as she looked down at him. He could hear her fingers sliding through her lips. She knelt between his legs on the edge of the bed and began massaging his hard penis through the shorts, then finally she slipped her hand under them, pulled them down to his thighs, and began stroking him. He jerked, involuntarily, surprised by her callused hand. But she had a special talent, rubbing the underside of his penis with the palm of her hand while her fingers stroked the top.

  Lansdale closed his eyes. "Christ," he said, "you ought to patent that."

  "Just the beginning," she said, and leaning over, sucked him into her mouth, her teeth nibbling at him. He leaned forward, reached out, and took one of her breasts in his hand and caressed it with his fingertips, letting the palm of his hand barely touch the nipple. Her tongue darted and traced the length of him and he sat up a little more, sliding his hand down to her hard belly, his fingertips just touching the edge of her panties. She began to hunch, moving against his hand. He could feel the moisture through the silk, feel her distending clitoris as he stroked the length of her vagina.

  She started to laugh, but then the laugh became a soft moan. "Goddamn," she cried out. Her legs began to tremble and she fell on her side next to him, grabbed his head and thrust it between her legs. He ripped her panties off and sucked her hard clitoris into his mouth, moving his head in tight little circles and flicking his tongue.

  Her fists tightened in his hair, guiding his head as she moved with him. She began to tighten all over. She sucked in her breath, held it, then let it out in short spurts. And again. And again. She rose against him, hooking her heels behind his hips.

  The tempo increased, her breaths coming shorter, the movement faster. Then all the muscles in her body seemed to freeze, her head moved slowly back, her legs straightened, her breathing stopped for a moment, and then she began to cry out and thrash her head back and forth and she came.

  "Oh God," she cried, "enough," but he didn't stop and she felt it building again, felt the trembling, the fire streak down her nerves and envelope her entire body and she began coming again and she could not talk and her breath seemed to be caught in her throat and then suddenly it all burst out at once.

  He rolled over on his back, slipped his arm under her waist and dragged her to him, lifting her so she was lying on her back on his chest and she reached down, found him and shoved him into her, while he stroked her breasts with one hand and masturbated her with the other.

  "No ... more," she gasped, but he couldn't stop. He thrust harder and harder, faster and faster, his fingers fleeting over her mound and as she tightened around him, he finally exploded with a great cry of relief and then he began to laugh, and a moment later she came again. He raised his knees and pressed down on her thighs and stayed in her as long as he could as the storm howled past the window.

  IV

  Lansdale awoke sharply from a deep, untroubled sleep. He lay on the bed for a moment, blinking his eyes, wondering what had awakened him so abruptly. The lights in the bedroom were still on and Marge lay beside him, sleeping soundly. It was 3:05 A.M. He sat up and grabbed the hotline phone and punched out the number of the stabilizer control room. It only rang once before someone answered "Hello."

  "This is Chief, who'm I talkin' to?"

  "Barney Perkins."

  "Everything all right down there?"

  "I'm not sure."

  Lansdale was stunned by Perkins' response. He jumped up, cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear, and grabbed clothes from the floor, chairs, wherever they had fallen a few hours before.

  "What d'ya mean, you're not sure?"

  "We got a ... uh ... like a tremor, Chief."

  "Tremor?"

  "Yeah. There was like ... I dunno, it was like ... the whole rig shivered ..."

  "Shivered? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

  Lansdale was watching the monitor as he spoke, looking at the exterior of the Thoreau, draped with ice, like some primitive ice castle. Searchlights played the seas around the rig. The waves were battering the legs, smashing small ice floes to bits.

  "I think maybe ... uh, maybe we took a hit from ... maybe a small iceberg or something."

  "'Or something' my ass. There's no 'or something' out there, for Christ's sake. I'll be right down."

  He slammed down the phone. Then he picked it up and punched out the number for the radio room.

  "Radio room. Harrison."

  "Harrison, this is Chief. Check the area for surface craft right now. Find out if we got anything in the area."

  "Jesus, what's—"

  "Don't fuck around, do it! Call me back."

  Marge turned over, eying him sleepily.

  "What is—" she began, but he cut her off abruptly. He was across the room, pulling life jackets and thermal suits from the bottom of a closet. He tossed them to her. "Get this on fast and come on."

  The phone rang again and he snatched it up.

  "Yeah?"

  "Chief? It's Harrison again."

  "What've ya got?"

  "A Greek tanker, running the troughs at quarter speed."

  "Where?"

  "Hell, if the weather was clear we could see it. About three miles northwest, heading toward the Strait."

  "Listen to me, Harrison. Something may have bumped us. Call the tanker and tell her we may need help."

  "You want me to give her a May Day?"

  "Just do exactly as I said, tell her we may be having trouble and we'd like a courtesy call. I'll get back to you from Stabilizer Control."

  He was still watching the monitor, then he felt it again, it was a tremor, like a light earthquake. Glasses jingled on
the bar. Then it settled again.

  She was pulling on the thermal long johns and there was panic written in her earthy features. "What's happening?"

  "I dunno," Lansdale said. "Maybe something hit us. I got to get down to Control. Ready?"

  He was dressed only in long johns with a life jacket over them.

  "Can I put some clothes on?" she asked.

  "No! Let's get going—now. Right now."

  At 3:04:58, the thermal explosives attached to the north leg of the Thoreau had gone off on schedule. There were actually two blasts. The first was an implosion, which rent the welded joint of the steel leg and split it open. The second was more formidable. The shock wave from it rippled the water despite the raging waves. It almost finished the job, but not quite. As the terrifying power of the second explosive was released, it split the leg, the crack edging up the column, ten or twelve feet. Air bubbles poured from the wound. The air seal, meant to provide additional buoyancy, was destroyed. The sound was largely drowned out by the storm, but the explosion itself telegraphed up the leg and jarred the rig. The leg, although buffeted by the heavy seas, held valiantly at first. But the joint began to oscillate as the twenty-foot sea wrenched it back and forth. Then it separated, and another tremor riffled up to the station. Still it held, flexing before the storm, the welded seam gradually tearing around the girth of the steel shaft. Above, the wind wailed torturously at the buildings, adding extra stress to the already shattered leg. Then with the agonizing screech of metal tearing, the leg finally surrendered to the sea and separated. It seemed poised for a moment, this spidery shaft tossed by the sea, and then the twenty thousand tons of steel and concrete above it, urged on by the wind, leaned into the ruined column and it plunged, like a needle, toward the bottom, four hundred feet below.

  On the surface the Thoreau, mortally wounded, yielded to the storm and as the north leg collapsed it listed, bobbed back and was immediately struck by a mountainous wave. Steel cables snapped like twigs. Its wintery shroud crumbled and shards of gleaming ice, caught in the wind, whistled through the air. Then the Thoreau tipped over. Its north perimeter plunged into the sea and the tower collapsed, smacking the waves and shattering immediately, bits and pieces of it washing back over the partially submerged deck. As it keeled over, the eight lines pumping crude oil into its tanks were torn loose, twisting in the wind like snakes, spewing crude into the wind. Electrical circuits exploded like fireworks, and the raw oil flooded through the cavernous room where the system converged. When the oil reached the hot lines, the room exploded. The six, men on duty were roasted as the room blew up in an enormous mushroom of fire that filled it and burst through the side of the building before it was swept away by the wind and sea.

  Inside the stricken rig, men were tossed about like toothpicks, crushed under furniture, thrown through smashed portholes. The lights went out. Most of them, trapped in darkness, died in panic and fear.

  The Thoreau lay on its side, held momentarily by the other legs, as the sea pounded it and the waves crashed against its five-story superstructure, which now lay sideways in the water.

  Lansdale was standing in the doorway of his apartment, urging Marge to hurry, when suddenly the earth seemed to tip crazily underfoot.

  "My God, we're rolling over!" he screamed as the floor bounded up at him. When he fell, his legs dangled through the open doorway. He clutched frantically at the walls, which now, insanely, had become the floor, trying to keep from falling back into the apartment. As the Thoreau tipped, there was a crescendo of destruction. Glasses, furniture, anything not tied down, poured through the hallways of the five-story building.

  As Lansdale struggled to pull himself out of the gaping doorway he could hear shrieks echoing up through the corridors of the dying structure. He turned back, looking down into the apartment. Marge lay crumpled in the corner, covered by furniture and debris. She was unconscious. Lansdale needed a line to get down to her. Then he heard the oil explode and felt the whole structure tremble. At the far end of the corridor the force of the oil explosion tore the door off and blew away half the wall. Frigid, damp air rushed through the hall. The lights went out. Lansdale turned his flashlight down into the ruined topsy-turvy apartment. The porthole, now submerged in the raging sea, could not withstand the pressure. Its rivets suddenly began popping like champagne corks. The round window burst open and a geyser of freezing water gushed up through it. Lansdale jumped to his feet and started down the hallway. Then the rig rolled again and this time he was thrown against the ceiling, now the floor, of the hallway. And then the sea rushed through the doorways and he saw the mountain of water pour down and engulf him.

  The shock of the below-freezing seawater numbed him. He held tenaciously to his flashlight as he was swept along the hallway by the torrent. He clutched at an open doorway, but his fingers slipped away from it and he was trapped in the submerged corridor. His lungs were bursting as he frantically felt the walls, trying to find an opening, anything to get free of this watery trap. But the frozen sea was already taking its toll, and the shock of the icy water robbed him of breath.

  My God, I'm drowning, he thought.

  And then he was in a glistening underwater wonderland, numbed beyond pain or caring, his lungs wracked with spasms, and as the flashlight slipped from his fingers and tumbled away, its beam diminishing to a pinpoint, he opened his mouth, like a fish in a bowl, and the sea flooded in, and his life, too, blinked out.

  The Henry Thoreau lay upside down. The cables that had held it firmly to the bottom were either uprooted or had snapped. Its once mighty legs pointed straight up. Buffeted by the storm, they bent before the gale and then were torn from their mounts on the deck. Their air pockets burst. The escaping air hissed out. And the Thoreau plunged straight down, four hundred feet, leaving in its wake a trail of bubbles, debris and bodies which bobbed upward, like innocent toys from a stricken dollhouse, toward the raging surface of the Chukchi Sea.

  V

  The Greek tanker, plowing through the gale, arrived on the scene forty minutes after the Thoreau had gone down. The tanker's searchlights swept the area, picking out one life raft with three bodies lashed to it. Three men, all frozen to death. For more than two hours the tanker lay in the troughs of the pounding waves while several volunteers recovered one corpse, then another. When the captain finally decided to abandon the search, they had fished fifteen men and a woman out of the sea. There was no sign of the Thoreau.

  By eight o'clock the next morning the storm had passed, and the sea, although still running high, had lost its muscle. The storm clouds raced onward, sweeping south toward the Bering Strait and Nome. Winds were down to twenty to twenty-five knots. Three more bodies were recovered. The captain sent a simple message to the Air Force rescue station at Point Barrow, two hundred miles northeast of the disaster area:

  "Henry Thoreau down in 70 fathoms. Location: 72 degrees north, 165 degrees west. Nineteen bodies recovered. No survivors. Holding position. Please advise."

  The Russian air station at Provideniya, just south of the Bering Strait, offered assistance, but three Air Force rescue planes arrived on the scene forty minutes after the tanker's message and reported no signs of life or the fated oil rig. They thanked the Russians but declined help. One of the planes swept low over the tanker and wiggled his wings in a final salute to the Thoreau and its crew.

  "This is Air Force 109," the pilot radioed the tanker. "Please drop a marker and you are relieved. Thank you and Happy New Year." He banked sharply and joined his formation and the three planes headed back toward Barrow.

  On the bridge, the man who had led the scuba-diving team the night before peered through powerful binoculars, watching the three planes leave. He had been there all night, watching the rescue attempt. Now he lowered the glasses. There was a patch over his right eye now, and a deep red scar ran, from his hairline to the edge of his jaw, down the right side of his face. He nodded to the captain, left the bridge and went to the radio room, where he sent a
simple message:

  "Mission accomplished. Scratch Thornley. Le Croix."

  That afternoon, eight hours before the beginning of the New Year, the man whose neck had been broken planting the explosives on the leg of the Thoreau the night before, was buried from the deck of the tanker as it plowed southward toward the Bering Sea.

  3

  EDDIE WOLFNAGLE WAS ON TOP of the world. It was a gorgeous day, the temperature was in the mid-eighties, and the sun was blazing, except for an occasional downpour that started suddenly and stopped just as suddenly. He guided the rented Honda along the Hana Road, which had started out as a respectable two-lane blacktop and now had petered out into a dirt road, barely wide enough for two cars to pass. As the road got narrower, the forest got thicker, so that before long he was driving under a canopy of mango, kukuis, African tulip blossoms and pink Rainbow Shower trees. Hidden among them, parrots squawked indignantly and ruffled the rainwater out of their feathers, and to his left, a hundred yards below, the Pacific Ocean was putting on quite a show, smashing at huge boulders with twenty- and thirty-foot breakers.

  Paradise.

  Everything was paradise. The night before, he had scored some unbelievable Maui grass. He had been shacked up at the Intercontinental Maui at Makena Beach for three days with a gorgeous model from London. In eight hours he was flying first class to L.A. The next day he had tickets on the thirty-yard line for the Rose Bowl game, with an even thou down on Michigan plus ten over Southern Cal, the biggest bet he had ever made in his life.