“It’s impossible to change a hurricane once it’s formed,” Linda went on. “Even a nuclear detonation wouldn’t alter the eye structure, wind speed, or the storm’s direction. However, by affecting what causes the storms in the first place, Singer believes he can create what he calls hypercanes, storms that register above Category Five on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.”

“What’s this have to do with blowing up oil facilities?” Eddie asked, helping himself to a cup of coffee from Juan’s service.

“Here’s where he’s playing into media fears in a big way. The crude that’s pumped from the waters near the Congo River has the highest percentage of benzene in the world. Alaska crude runs roughly one part per thousand. Oil from some of the newest fields off Angola and the Congo is a hundred times that and higher. The crude is also contaminated with arsenic. This is removed at refineries, but when it comes out of the ground it’s a fairly caustic blend of oil and something called benzene arsonic acid, a known and tightly controlled carcinogen.”

“He wants to sicken a bunch of West Africans?” Linc asked, disgusted by the idea.

“Not exactly, although there will be some injuries here. No, what he’s after is to get the slick to disperse long enough so some of the oil evaporates.”

“And once it becomes airborne,” Juan concluded, “the westerly winds will carry the toxic vapors across the ocean to the Eastern Seaboard.”

“The levels won’t be high enough to sicken people in the United States,” Linda said. “But Singer’s banking on the panic caused by a toxic hurricane bearing down on the coast to get his point across.”

“Say he succeeds in dumping a lot of oil,” Mike interjected. “Can’t it just get cleaned up before it becomes a hazard?”

“Two things would make that difficult,” Juan said. “Number one is that regulations concerning oil spills are pretty lax in this part of the world. They wouldn’t have enough oil skimmer ships or containment boom. The second thing, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that Singer plans on causing enough damage to enough rigs that even with sufficient equipment, cleanup crews would simply be overwhelmed.”

“That’s it in a nutshell,” Linda agreed. “Local workers can contain an accidental spill from a tanker being improperly loaded and maybe even if a ship was holed, but with Singer’s army there preventing them from getting to work and oil continually flowing from damaged rigs and pipelines there’s nothing they could do.”

“How long after the oil is spilled would it take for the vapors to enter the atmosphere?” Max asked.