Murph had done his job of clearing most of Mike’s LZ, but they were still in for a fight. And until Trono and his African troops had swept the yard of rebels, Linc and Ski couldn’t attack the tanker pier and prevent the insurgents from continuing to dump four hundred tons of toxic crude per minute into the sea.

Chapter 28

28

EDDIE Seng looked at the oil gushing up from the well drilled deep below the platform and wanted to shoot the fifteen rebels who’d surrendered five minutes into the gun battle. The Petromax workers trying to staunch the flow looked puny and ineffective compared to this awesome demonstration of man’s attempt to tame nature.

He glanced again at the kneeling terrorists lined against the edge of the platform, their arms bound behind them with the flex cuffs he’d brought and electrical wire the workers had provided. None were older than twenty-five, and as his eyes swept the line none of them could meet his cold stare. The bullet-ridden bodies of the six fighters taken out in Eddie’s lightning attack had been laid together and covered with an old piece of tarp.

Only one of Eddie’s men had been injured during the minute-long assault and that was just a flesh wound in the leg from a ricochet. As soon as the remaining rebels realized the ferocity of the attack they dropped their weapons and threw up their hands. A few of them had even begun to cry. Eddie had gone below and found the rig’s crew unguarded in the mess hall and learned eight of their coworkers had been gunned down when the platform was first assaulted.

The rig’s tool pusher had been killed when the rebels swarmed the platform, so it was his second in command who was in charge of shutting off the flow. He detached himself from the men gathered around the well head and approached Eddie. His coveralls and gloves were black with oil and his ebony face was streaked with the grease.

“We can fix it,” he said in accented English. “They replaced the topside Christmas tree with a twelve-inch shunt valve. They opened that valve to let the oil come out and broke off the handle. I think they dropped the Christmas tree over the side.”

Eddie imagined a Christmas tree was what the oilman called the well cap that diverted oil to pipelines connected to shore. “How long?”

“We have another tree in the stores. It’s not as strong as the one we lost, but it will take the pressure. Maybe three hours.”

“Then don’t waste time talking to me.”

Though it was a mile away, and the crude belching out of the well made a sound like a train roaring past, Eddie could still hear the sustained gunfire from the Chairman’s rig and knew Juan was having a much harder time of it.