The Rescue Pilot. Rachel Lee
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Название: The Rescue Pilot
Автор: Rachel Lee
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Зарубежные детективы
isbn: 9781408977217
isbn:
She paused to sigh. “Oil wells stink when they’re pumping oil. Gas is mixed in, of course, but the hydrogen sulfide smell—rotten eggs—is enough to make you gag. There was no smell. They drilled into a pocket of pure methane, and it was odorless. That is so freaking rare. I had no idea they had already broken through when I started shouting for everyone to get away, and screamed again for those guys to stop the drill. No idea. I expected the smell. Maybe they did, too. I don’t know.”
“So the gas was everywhere?”
“Damn near. It couldn’t have been long, though.
Methane is heavier than air. It sinks to ground level. If enough of it had been out there, people would have started getting asphyxiated, and the flash fire would have singed everything at ground level. Instead, we just blew the well.”
She twisted toward him. “That’s why we have to burn off the escaping gas if we can’t manage to capture it. Because it sinks, and when it sinks it’s deadly. In the case of that well, we may have been saved by a good breeze. I don’t know. I’ll never know. I wasn’t there when they initially busted into the pocket so I have no idea how much gas just dissipated on the wind or how little escaped right before the explosion.”
“But why would those guys press on against orders?”
“Because I’m not the only boss. I’m the geologist. I find the oil, I try to keep them on track until they get the field open. There are other bosses, there isn’t anything like unions for those workers, people get paid crap, and if the guy running the drilling operation, say, is getting paid by the well, and not by the hour, he’d have a lot of incentive not to want things to slow down. And he might create incentives for his crews to push on, regardless of safety. I don’t know. I really, truly don’t know. I know what they want me to know, and I know what I can figure out from my explorations. Beyond that …” she shrugged. “The actual business end of what’s happening is opaque to me. I hear rumors, sometimes, but that’s it.”
“Sounds like a dangerous situation to be in.”
“Not usually. Most drillers are cautious and good at what they do. Most of the people working these jobs want to bring in a sound well, not a rocket. We have more problems from faulty equipment than from greedy people. For all I know, the entire thing may have happened because someone didn’t want to take orders from a woman.”
“Will you be going back when your sister recovers?”
She appreciated the way he posed that question. Her chest tightened a bit, but she squelched the feeling. She’d been alone for a long time, and she could handle this situation on her own. She couldn’t afford to show weakness because a stranger was being kind. “I’m not sure,” she said finally. “We’ll have to see how it goes.”
She heard his seat creak as he shifted. “I’m going back to check on the candle, make sure everyone’s okay.”
“I’ll go with you.” She couldn’t stand the thought of sitting here alone in the dark with that one red, unblinking eye. And checking on Cait had become an absolute compulsion for her.
“How come you have so many candles?” she asked him just before he opened the door.
“I’ve got even more in my hangar. An errant order got me a lifetime’s supply, and the restocking fee was huge beyond belief.”
That brought a smile to her lips and lifted her spirits a bit. It seemed that life happened to everyone.
“They make great gifts,” he said quietly, a note of humor in his voice. “Well, they did until people started running when they saw me coming.”
Everything in the cabin seemed fine. Rory bent over her sister, touching her cheeks, finding them cool but not too cool. She waited a moment, until she felt the flutter of her sister’s breath. All was good for now.
The wind’s buffeting made the plane creak a bit, but quietly now, not as loudly as earlier. Rory guessed that meant they were getting buried.
“I need some coffee,” Chase said. “And since it’s cooling down in here, we need to burn a couple of extra candles anyway.”
“Oxygen?”
He pointed to the door. “I think enough can get in through that hole the lock left, but if it starts to feel at all stuffy, let me know. The candle seems to be burning normally though, which is a good sign.”
Maybe the only sign they’d have, Rory thought. If the candle flames dimmed, they’d know they were in trouble. Like canaries in a coal mine. And a darned good reason to keep watches.
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