LITMIR.BIZ

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spoke:

      “The Martin Frobisher drilling platform, owned by Innovate Natural Resources, is located here, in the ocean six miles north of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. We don’t have an exact census at the time of the attack, but an estimated ninety men live and work on that platform, and a small surrounding artificial island, at any given time. The platform operates twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, in all but the most severe weather.”

      Stark paused and stared at Dixon.

      Dixon made a hand motion like a wheel spinning.

      “I got it. Please continue.”

      Stark nodded. “A little over thirty minutes ago, a group of heavily armed, unidentified men attacked the platform and the encampment. They arrived by boat, on a vessel made to appear as a personnel tender bringing workers to the island. An unknown number of workers have been killed or taken hostage. Preliminary reports, gleaned from video and audio feeds, suggest that the invaders are of foreign, but still unknown, origin.”

      “What suggests this?” Dixon said.

      Stark shrugged. “They don’t seem to be speaking English. Although we have no clear audio yet, our language experts believe they are speaking an eastern European, likely a Slavic, language.”

      Dixon sighed. “Russian?”

      The day he took over this thankless job, indeed moments after he took the Oath of Office, he had unilaterally stood American forces down from a confrontation with the Russians. The Russians had done him a favor and responded in kind. And Dixon had then been subjected to merciless and scathing criticism from the warmongering quarters of American society. If the Russians turned around and attacked now…

      Stark shook his head the slightest amount. “Not sure yet, but we think not.”

      “That narrows it down,” Thomas Hayes said.

      “Do we have any idea what they want?” Dixon said.

      Now Stark shook his head completely. “They haven’t contacted us, and refuse to answer our attempts at contact. We have flown over the complex with helicopter gunships, but except for a few fires, the place currently seems deserted. The terrorists, and the prisoners, are either inside the rig itself, or inside complex buildings, away from our prying eyes.”

      He paused.

      “I imagine you want to go in with force and take the rig back,” Dixon said.

      Stark shook his head again. “Unfortunately, no. As much as we are one hundred percent certain we can take back the facility through sheer force, doing so will put the lives of any men being held prisoner at risk. Also, the facility is of a sensitive nature, and if we make a large-scale counterattack, we risk calling attention to it.”

      A few people in the room began murmuring together.

      “Order,” Stark said, without raising his voice. “Order, please.”

      “Okay,” Dixon said. “I’ll bite. What’s sensitive about it?”

      Stark looked at a bespectacled man sitting halfway down the table from the President. The man was probably in his late thirties, but he carried some extra weight that made him look almost like an angelic child. The man’s face was serious. Heck, he was in a meeting with the President of the United States.

      “Mr. President, I’m Dr. Fagen of the Department of the Interior.”

      “Okay, Dr. Fagen,” Dixon said. “Just give it to me.”

      “Mr. President, the Frobisher platform, although owned by Innovate Natural Resources, is a joint venture between Innovate, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and the United States Bureau of Land Management. We have extended them a license to do what is known as horizontal drilling.”

      On the screen, the image changed. It showed an animated drawing of an oil platform. As Dixon watched, a drill extended downward from the platform, below the surface of the ocean, and into the sea floor. Once underground, the drill changed direction, making a ninety-degree turn and now moving horizontally beneath the bedrock. After a time, it encountered a black puddle beneath the ground, and oil from the puddle began to flow sideways from the drillhead into the pipe following behind it.

      “Instead of drilling vertically, which is how the vast majority of drilling was done in the twentieth century, we are now mastering the science of horizontal drilling. What this means is that an oil platform can be many miles from an oil deposit, perhaps a deposit in an environmentally sensitive location…”

      Dixon held up a hand. The hand meant STOP.

      Dr. Fagen knew what the hand meant without having to ask. Instantly, he stopped speaking.

      “Dr. Fagen, are you telling me that the Martin Frobisher, out at sea six miles north of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, is in fact drilling inside the Wildlife Refuge?”

      Fagen was staring down at the conference table. His body language alone told Clement Dixon all he needed to know.

      “Sir, with the newest technologies, oil platforms can exploit important underground deposits without endangering sensitive flora or fauna, which I know you have previously expressed your concern…”

      Dixon rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air.

      “Aw, hell.”

      He looked at the general.

      “Sir,” Stark said. “The decision to grant that license was made two administrations ago. It was just a matter of perfecting the technology. Granted, it’s controversial. Granted, neither you nor I may agree with it. But I believe that’s a fish to fry at another time. At this moment, we have a terrorist operation underway, with an unknown number of American civilians already dead, and even more American lives at risk. Time is of the essence. And as much as is possible, I think we need to keep this incident, and the nature of that facility, out of the public eye. At least for now. Later, after we rescue our people and the smoke clears, there will be plenty of time for debate.”

      Dixon hated that Stark was right. He hated these…

      …compromises.

      “What do you suggest?” he said.

      Stark nodded. On the screen, the image changed and showed a graphic of what appeared to be a group of cartoon scuba divers swimming toward an island.

      “We strongly suggest a covert group of highly trained special operators, Navy SEALs, infiltrate the facility, discover the nature of the terrorists and their numbers, decapitate their leadership, and, if at all possible, take back the rig with as little loss of civilian life as circumstances will allow.”

      “How many and how soon?” Dixon said.

      Stark nodded again. “Sixteen, perhaps twenty. Tonight, within the next several hours, before first light.”

      “The men are ready?” Dixon said.

      “Yes, sir.”

      Dixon shook his head. It was a slippery slope when you were President. That’s what he, despite all his years of experience, had never understood. All his fiery stump speeches, his podium thumping, his demands for a fairer, cleaner world… for what? Everything had been sold down the river before you even started.

      The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was off limits to drilling. From the surface. So they parked themselves at sea and drilled from beneath it. Of course they did. They were like termites, always biting, gnawing, and turning the sturdiest construction into a house of cards.

      And then the men doing the drilling were attacked and held hostage. And as President, what were you supposed to say—“Let them eat cake”?

      Not a chance. They were Americans, and on some hard-to-understand level, they were innocents. Just doing my job, ma’am.

      Dixon looked at Thomas Hayes. Of all the men in this room, Hayes would be the closest to his own thoughts on this. Hayes would probably be feeling boxed in, betrayed, frustrated, and flabbergasted, just like Clement Dixon.

      “Thomas?”

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