Mac Cole hopped down from the last rung of the pontoon ladder, his heavy boots splashing into a shallow pool of trapped seawater.
The granite abutment under his feet was slick as axle grease. Black harbor mud, rotting kelp, and dead barnacles covered the massive stone blocks that anchored Rig Twelve to the seabed reef.
Behind them, the rig’s semi-submersible hull towered fifty feet into the night fog, its red emergency floodlights washing the wet stone in bloody crimson.
“Watch that slime, Mei,” Mac said, reaching back with his right hand to steady Lin Mei as she jumped down. “That kelp will take your legs out from under you faster than a wet bus depot ramp.”
“I have my footing,” Lin Mei panted, her canvas coat soaked with sea mist. She held her stopwatch tight against her chest.
“Julian, zero two twenty AM! Exactly eight minutes until the slack tide window closes!”
Eight minutes.
Mac wiped cold salt spray from his chin. Eight minutes was barely enough time to change a split radiator hose on an old bus, let alone cross a half-mile of seabed.
