Sea of Greed

“You’re anything but weak,” Buran said with a smile. “I suspect you’ll have the world wrapped around your finger soon enough. Contact me when the conditions are irrefutably changed and I shall trumpet your achievements to the Consortium.”

The screen went dark. Tessa looked out the window at the smoke marring the dusky horizon. She felt certain that the market conditions were turning in her favor. Soon enough, Buran and his Consortium would be throwing money at her. And not only them — other investors, other companies, even powerful world governments. They’d be climbing all over one another to throw money at her. The hardest part would be deciding just how much to accept and from whom.

Tessa turned her attention to a second flat screen. It displayed the view outside the plane. A commotion in the water had frightened away a pair of the gulls that gave the island its name. As the birds flapped madly and propelled themselves into flight, a disk-shaped craft surfaced behind the plane.

“About time,” she said to herself.

Without delay, Tessa got up and left the office. Striding through the aircraft, she traveled down a hall, passing her master suite and a control room behind the cockpit. A ladder took her to the middle deck, which held space for entertaining, including a marvelous lounge and a workout center where Tessa spent much of her time.

Another ladder took her to the lowest deck, with its unadorned metal decks and gray-painted walls. She walked aft along this deck, passing multiple vehicles, including a black Mercedes SUV and a silver Ferrari. Behind them were several ATVs, a pair of Jet Skis and two powerboats with large outboard engines.

Beyond the boats lay the tail end of the plane, which was comprised of a large door that lowered and doubled as a ramp. It was locked in the down position and two men wearing waders were standing halfway down the ramp up to their knees in water as they attached cables to the craft she’d seen on camera.

As it was pulled on board, the sleek disk revealed itself in detail. It had no conning tower or control fins to speak of, just various vents and panels that opened and closed to direct water across and through its hull, allowing it to pitch, roll and even rotate in any direction. It was powered by water jets instead of propellers, and a pair of bubble canopies on the top that resembled eyes covered the occupants.

All was not well, however, as Tessa noticed mechanical damage on the aft end of the hull and scrape marks near the nose.

As the craft was secured, one of the canopies opened and a man with peroxide-blond hair popped out. He was fit and muscular and looked to be in his mid-thirties. His face was angry and drawn.

“What happened?”

“There were problems,” he said.

“I can see that,” she replied. “Did you manage to get rid of the incubators?”

“The first set of the tankers were destroyed in the initial explosion,” Volke said. “The other tankers were still in place. I used the explosives to destroy them. There’s nothing but scrap metal on the bottom now. The tanks, the incubators, the injection systems — all of it has been obliterated.”

“And what happened to the Discus?” she said, pointing to the damage on the submarine’s hull.

Volke glanced at the scrapes. “I ran into some resistance down there. Another submersible.”

“From the oil company?”

Volke shook his head. “No. It had a NUMA logo plastered on the side.”

Tessa paused at that. She’d spent much of the last few years studying the design of submersibles, the methods used to build and recover things from the bottom of the sea. NUMA was very well known to her. Their presence concerned her. “What were they doing there?”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Volke said, “but you needn’t worry. I dropped one of the magnetized charges on their hull. Whoever was operating that sub is now waiting in line at the Pearly Gates.”

Done explaining himself, Volke jumped down and supervised the loading and storing of the Discus.

As he worked, another of her crewmen walked up the ramp. He was a burly man with a scruffy red beard. His name was Woodrich. They called him Woods. He differed in appearance from Volke, big, lumbering, earthy, nothing polished about him. But he was a fanatical environmentalist and his devotion to the eradication of fossil fuels had been very useful to her so far.

“That fire is spewing poison all across the Gulf,” Woods said. “That’s not what we came here to do.”

“Consider it creative destruction,” she replied. “Sometimes you need to burn down the old world before you build a new one.”

Woods could be as aggressive as Volke, but he tended to simmer quietly for a long time before blowing. For now, he held his tongue. That was enough for her.