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Shut Up And Drive: Rihanna
Matty shows us the video on the screen. "This is live footage from Nigeria. Eighteen hours ago, an oil wellhead exploded, igniting a geyser of fire over 600 feet tall."
"Blaze like that's got to be burning through 500,000 barrels a day?" Mac guesses.
She nods. "Oil company estimates a million."
"Why doesn't this oil company just, you know, turn it off?" McKenna questions.
"Well, McKenna, that's because they can't." Jack stands up. "That wellhead that exploded. That was the off switch. Now this towering column of fire is directly connected to a massive underground reservoir of oil."
"I think I speak for everyone when I say, Jack, did you just have an out-of-body experience?" Riley gets up and crosses her arms. "How do you know all this?"
"Ah, my granddad used to build drilling rigs outside of Amarillo. I practically grew up on one of these. Which is why, I gotta ask. Normally, highly-trained crews and specialized machinery are brought in to fight a blaze like this. Why is that not happening here?"
"Because this explosion wasn't an accident." I realize.
"Exactly." Matty taps the screen. "A rebel army called The Damisa are trying to topple the Nigerian government, and they've already seized three military installations along the Nigerian border. Then, they used stolen C4 to blow up the wellhead. And now they're using stolen RPGs to take out any plane, train or automobile coming into the country carrying firefighting equipment."
"Best way to destabilize a country is to bankrupt it. And the quickest way to bankrupt an oil-rich country is to do that." I cross my arms. "These guys are gonna do anything to keep that fire burning."
"And I'm assuming we're gonna do everything we can to put it out. Right?" Evan inquires.
"Correct." Matty replies. "But with the region about to collapse into a civil war..."
"D.C. wants to avoid direct involvement, so it's up to us?" I assert.
"Yes. And in the words of Mister President when he reached out, they have to move quickly."
"This imagery is live?" Riley points to the screen.
"Yeah. Our techs estimate that smoke from the fire is gonna block satellite overwatch in less than twelve hours."
"So let me get this straight. You want us to hike into a country on the brink of war, sneak past an army of trigger-happy rebels, and extinguish a blazing inferno the size of a skyscraper, using only what happens to be lying around?" Cage speaks up.
