“Sinai Surrender” hints at complexity, international scope of thriller ...Middle East

Offshore West AfricaNovember, 1999

The Alouette III followed the coast north before turning left into the Atlantic, heading for Total’s lease immediately south of the Congex property. Jake did not like helicopters and liked even less flying over the open sea. As they approached the FPSO, Jake was surprised by how big it appeared. After landing safely on the helipad, they went inside for a briefing by the chief safety engineer, then Meyer and Jake suited up with hard hats, safety goggles, and overalls to join the lead engineer Jimmy Rogers on the walkabout.

The ship was designed to accept produced fluids (normally a mixture of water, oil, and natural gas), which would be processed on board. Essentially, the stream was separated into components to be reinjected into the earth, flared off by burning, or put into ships for transport to market. To do this required more pipes, valves, dials, and equipment than Jake expected. Of everything on board, the oddest was a twenty-by-ten-foot tank five feet deep which served as a swimming pool for the crew. The captain said he came up with the idea when they were converting the old tanker into an FPSO.

After two hours wandering the vessel, they took the helicopter forty miles north to the Zedrill 2 drillship, which worked at punching a development hole into the Congex oil field. Jake’s familiarity with offshore drilling was limited to jack-up rigs that sat on the seabed. Those systems normally had three legs that could be cranked down until they hit the ocean bottom. As the legs kept cranking, the drilling structure itself, containing the lodging, rooms, and drill floor, moved upwards to where it could perform its function. The weight of the whole thing stuck it to the ground. 

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This was Jake’s first visit to a drillship, which performed its operations while floating on the sea. It had DPS (Dynamic Positioning Systems), basically thrusters which kept the ship in precisely the same spot while the drill pipe hung down through the water and into the earth. In the case of this prospect, named Chorum-3, the water depth beneath the ship reached fifteen thousand feet. They were currently running pipe into the hole after a day-long procedure of taking it all out to change the bit at the bottom of the drill string. Jake saw the roughnecks screwing thirty-foot pipe segments onto the string and lowering it into the moonpool. It always amazed him how difficult it was to drill an oil well.

“The geoscience team named our prospects and wells after Mbuti gods and goddesses,” said Meyer. “Chorum is the god of hunting, who made a bow out of two snakes. As the sun goes down each day, he gathers up pieces of stars and hurls them towards the sun, to provide it energy for the following day.”

The head driller offered to show them around the ship, which Jake knew cost Congex somewhere near three hundred thousand US dollars per day. He could not wait; Meyer declined, saying he did not need another tour. As Jake followed the driller from deck to deck and around the massive ship, he thought it a picture of efficiency, combining the rigor of a merchant marine vessel with the complexity of drilling operations.

 “I’d like to look at the core they cut last week,” Jake yelled over the din of the drilling operations.

“Mr. Meyer said ya’d wanna see it, being a geologist and all. It was staged in the bay to leave tomorrow, but we made it accessible for ya’.”

The driller led him to a storage room lower in the ship, near water level, where materials were staged, waiting to be offloaded onto a service boat and taken to shore. He pointed to a set of scaffolding, where the core sat eight feet off the ground. The rock cylinder was contained inside a PVC tube about ten feet long and ten inches in diameter.

“We put ‘er in the sleeve as soon as she got to the surface,” said the driller. “Ya’ll only be able to see the end if ya’ twist off the cap. I think she’s gonna ship to Europe where they’ll take ‘er out, slab ‘er, and run analyses. I’ll leave ya’ to look at ‘er. I gotta git back to the drill floor. Meet ya’ in the galley when ya’re done for a bit of lunch. No hurry.”

“Sinai Surrender”

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The large room, half-filled with metal cages ready to be put onto the tender, had a vacuous feel, with every step echoing hollowly. Jake climbed the metal steps to the iron grate platform and started unscrewing the large plastic cap on one end of the ten-foot-long tube. It was tight and took some effort to twist. As soon as the cap came off, he caught a quick whiff of something before blacking out and collapsing. As he fell, his body almost got caught in a post of the railing but rolled through the lower space in the barrier and fell eight feet to the ground.

The first thing he saw when regaining consciousness was a bright light. The ship’s medic bent over him with a small penlight, checking his pupils.

“What,” Jake mumbled.

“You in sick bay, mate,” replied Sven Olefsen. “We tink you suffer an H2S knockdown. You almost died, but not to worry, you be fine.”

Jake tried to sit up but could not lift his torso. With the help of Sven, he managed to swing his legs over the edge of the gurney and sit. His head pounded and he vomited between his legs, onto the floor. When he sat upright again, Olefsen smiled at him.

“I feel like a bus hit me.” 

“I don’t doubt it, mate. You very lucky man. One sailor heard you fall. He cop a peek into transfer bay and saw you unconscious on da floor. It’s good you breathe. Normally with knockdown, bronchial muscles are paralyze, breath is arrested, and you dead. I tink da fall save you. You maybe land on you chest, shocking you diaphragm into restarting normal breathe. Kind of like quick CPR, if you get drift. If you stay up on the platform where you faint, I suspect we send you to morgue right now in bag.”

Krasnokamensk, Eastern SiberiaDecember, 1999

For half a year now, Boris Oblonsky had been in labor camp YaG-14/10, near the town of Chita, five hundred miles east of Irkutsk. Laughably, he had been convicted of tax fraud. In reality, he was innocent of that, while being guilty of almost everything else, including extortion, blackmail, and murder.

Before his conviction, he ruled over a vast business enterprise stretching across six continents. One of the ten richest individuals in Russia, he started from humble beginnings in the Ukraine near Kyiv. His company BFC entered a partnership with Jake’s GusCo, the Russian providing funding for the Muat gold mine in the Sinai. After things soured, Jake arranged for Oblonsky to be abducted, taken to Sudan, and left for dead. It would have been more convenient for Jake if the Russian had never made it out of Africa. Since he did, Jake helped arrange Oblonsky’s incarceration, thinking that Siberian exile would be the end of their relationship. The camp Commandant knew Oblonsky hated both Jake and Libby for their role in his demise. 

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“What’s going on in the world?” asked Oblonsky. 

He got most of his news from the Commandant, a burly and hairy man who seemed evolved to live in Siberia. He had other sources for news, which allowed him to check the veracity of what the Commandant told him. However, these other avenues usually took longer.

“Most is normal,” came the reply. “Except for small news about your previous colleague, Marat Bragin.”

“I know he is selling off my assets,” said Oblonsky.

“That is not news, my friend. The news is I heard he talks to your friend, Jake Tillard.”

“About business?” asked Oblonsky.

The big man shook his head, waving his hand in the air. He poured more vodka.

“Apparently offering deals to him.”

“What deals?”

“Tillard went to Congo and his lady partner to Poland. I thought you would find this interesting.”

“Yes,” Oblonsky said to the fire. “Can you get a message to Igor Pasternack? Tell him I have a job. Tell him to bring ten thousand US dollars here. That will be for your account.”

“So, you still hate your American friends?”

“He almost killed me Ivan. In fucking Sudan, of all places. Can you imagine dying in that god-forsaken place? Maybe that would have been better. Now I’m rotting in your prison, waiting to get tuberculosis, watching the assets I spent a lifetime assembling being sold off. I have many reasons to kill these two Americans. That has become my goal now, my revenge. I only wish I could do it myself.”

Ivanovich of course did not need to do what Oblonsky asked. He did not know Tillard, or his woman. He wanted only to keep his income flowing from the Oligarch. He would do nothing to jeopardize this cash flow.

Perth, AustraliaSeptember, 2000

Stonewood’s corporate office, a large but unimpressive building, sits on the main street of Perth. Jake sipped a coffee while admiring the view from their corporate conference room, looking out over the city, the Swan River, and several marinas. He watched a local club holding a sailing class or a regatta, the white sails of a couple dozen Optimists set against turquoise blue water. Dr. Henry Cumberbatch from BOO, who had arranged the meeting, waited with Jake. They both turned when the door opened, allowing a diminutive, thin, balding man to enter.

“Andrew, how ‘ya goin’ mate?” asked Cumberbatch.

“Good, good. And you?” replied Andrew Blurton, Developments Manager for Stonewood. They were old school chums who had worked together for over a decade on the Western Shelf project. After slapping Cumberbatch on the back, Blurton extended his hand to Jake. “You must be the Yank.”

“I am,” replied Jake, noticing that Blurton’s handshake seemed like a vise.

“Welcome to Perth, God’s own oasis.” Blurton had a huge smile as he motioned out the windows. “Can you hate a day like this?”

Jake took an immediate liking to Blurton. Born outside London, he emigrated to Australia after university. His easy-going style fit Perth, leading to a happy man who exuded charm and joviality. He would be the first to say the best thing he ever did was leave the British Islands. Guidebooks often compared this western Australian town to San Diego in both geographic setting and cultural temperament. That seemed a fair comparison to Jake after only two days. 

The three men chatted amiably, getting to know each other, before Blurton fired up a slide projector and started a review of the Western Shelf Project. The slides were from a standard presentation he had given many times, but it fit Jake’s needs perfectly. The production scheme was large and complex. He took notes, which he planned to share with Libby and Owens when he returned to Denver.

“You want a tour?” Blurton stared at Jake, smiling.

“You mean of Winnipoo?” said Jake.

“Why not. It’s impressive. More so when you’re on the ground. I’ve got to go up for a quick look-see this afternoon. Henry, you’ve not been up in a while. We could jump the jet, do a quickie, be back by dinner.”

Even the approach to the landing strip at Winnipoo impressed Jake, the massive production facility spread out beneath them. Beyond the facilities lay bleak rocky desert as far as one could see from ten thousand feet. All the facilities were chiseled out of rock and desert, the equipment driven up from Perth over a thousand miles to the south. On the flight and the ground tour, Jake continued building a relationship with Blurton, who in true Aussie style opened up to both men on the flight back.

“Sounds like you’re peddling the Bight to this guy,” he said to Cumberbatch.

“That’s something we can’t discuss,” replied the Brit.

“It’d be nice to have fresh blood down here mate,” he said to Jake. “But I’ll tell you something. Stump, our CEO, won’t be happy. He doesn’t like outsiders. Especially Poms or Yanks. In any case, he’ll want to operate. Ask Henry. He’s been pestering BOO for years.”

Silence filled the aircraft, all three looking at each other. Jake took a risk and broke the silence.

“We hope our discussions don’t get out. It’s early days and I’m not sure a deal will ever be done. Your insights are welcomed, Andrew, but it’d be unfortunate for Stump to get involved right now.”

Blurton smiled and gave Jake a blink. He put his hand on Jake’s knee and patted.

“Mum’s the word, mate. I’m on your side. Be fun to get an American in. Stump’s OK as CEOs go. He’s overbearing and boorish and thinks of the continent as his own. I said he doesn’t like you Yanks but he really doesn’t much like anyone. Oh, he’ll have a cow if a Yank came into the Bight alright. That area’s been Stonewood’s for decades. Stump himself keeps it alive. We drilled the last well out there maybe eight years ago. Stump begged BOO to partner with us in the last bid round. Too pricey for anyone to go it alone. The area’s a crap shoot though. Virgin territory. I worked the acreage access myself, so I know. A significant gas province is likely, maybe even as big as the western shelf, but it’s gonna be a bugger to exploit. Stump will prefer an all-Australian group to dig it out. Somebody with deep local experience. And who better than himself. You’re gonna get a lot of resistance, mate. Expect him to get nasty.”

“Noted,” said Jake. “As I said, it’s early days.”

“Just be careful my new friend. Expect nasty.”

Jeff Lelek has lived on five continents and traveled in over 100 countries.  During his college years at Dartmouth and the University of Montana, he worked as a geologist hunting gold and silver in Colorado and New Mexico. After several years mapping “hard rocks,” he switched to finding and producing oil and gas. Initially based in Denver, he led exploration efforts throughout the Rockies and the mid-continent before moving overseas. Since retiring, Lelek resides in the mountains of Colorado and the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.

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