Payback by Keith Douglass Read Free Book Online Page A

and put out anchors. Maybe sea anchors at that depth, he figured.
    He wiped one hand across his face and decided. Tonight was the night. He was going to swim out there and see what the hell they were doing. They had to be up to something fishy. Still, the inspectors had given them a go. He had his wet suit on the rig. He used it from time to time to go down and check the sea legs that extended down to solid footing on the channel seabed. A quarter of a mile wouldn’t even be a warm-up for him. Yeah, he’d go out tonight as soon as it got dark. He wouldn’t use his tanks, too damn heavy. He’d use a snorkel and stay just under the water. He’d done it a thousand times.
    Arnie waited five minutes after midnight before he entered the water. It was an easy swim, and he used the snorkel. When he came up to the rig, he circled it once, then swam up to one of the steel legs and held on to it taking a rest. He could see nothing in the water that indicated anything strange going on. It had to be topside. It wasn’t one of the huge platforms, just an exploratory one, but still had a night crew and a hundred glowing lights. He could hear the machinery clanging away.
    He pushed away from the steel ready to swim around to the surface platform and the ladders that extended up to the first level of the platform. For a moment he didn’t understand what he saw in front of him. Then he threw up his arms to try to protect himself.
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    The next morning Santa Barbara County Coroner Warren Watts shook his head as he looked at the body tangled in wire three feet underwater and against one of the legs of Oso Platform 27.
    â€œHow in hell did he get fouled up in wire like that? I didn’t think you guys were supposed to throw any solid trash into the water.” He looked at the body again. It was pinned against the steel legs of the tower with one arm sloshing back and forth with the swells.
    â€œThe damn-fool wet suit doesn’t seem to be damaged, and he’s still got the face mask around his neck,” the coroner said. The face with open eyes looked out at Watts through three feet of the clear Pacific Ocean. Two Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies stared at the body over Watts’s back.
    Pete Rumford, the platform boss of 27, sat in the sheriff’s boat and shook his head as he looked at his worker. “Arnie Gifford is his name. He liked to scuba and free-dive. He was good at it. We used him to check our legs underwater. Nobody on board last night knew he was going to go diving. What would he be looking for at night? It just doesn’t make sense.”
    The coroner scowled. “Probably drowned, but we can’t be sure until I do some work. Can you get a couple of men down here with bolt cutters and cut him loose so we can get him in the boat? This is the damnedest thing I’ve seen in a long time.” He looked at the older deputy sheriff. “You checked with the Coast Guard? They like to know when things like this happen. They’ll want to do a search for another body in the water if we think there might be one.”
    â€œDidn’t even call them. Sheriff says it’s our jurisdiction on a felony. They’d just turn it over to us anyway. So why bother them? The sheriff is on another case. Said he’d come out later and talk.”
    Ten minutes later they had the body in the boat. The coroner frowned. “You say he worked for you here at Platform 27?”
    â€œRight, my best foreman. Why in hell was he diving at night? Nobody saw him get in the water.”
    â€œI’ll let you know what the autopsy shows.”
    The deputy sheriff at the tiller moved the boat up to the small water-level dock so the platform boss could step off; then he pushed the throttles forward and thetwenty-two-footer raced toward the Santa Barbara harbor and the Sheriff and Lifeguard Dock.
    An hour later Santa Barbara County Sheriff Hal Kirkendol leaned on the first