by Shaun Clarke
‘And the million pounds? You want us to give you a million pounds so you can finance more terror?’
‘Ackaye, that’s right, Prime Minister. That’s just what we want, like.’
The PM stared at him with cold rage in his eyes, then scratched his chin and studied the floor, clearly deep in thought. Eventually raising his eyes again, he said: ‘Then what? You’ve already done all the damage you can. I can’t see us recovering from the public knowledge that all this has happened.’
‘That’s correct,’ Barker interjected. ‘You’ve done too much damage already. We’ll lose international confidence when this gets out and that will finish the North Sea.’
‘It won’t be public,’ McGee explained. ‘It doesn’t have to be known. Sure, if you give us what we want, we’ll pull out and keep quiet about it. Then you people put out a statement. You say the loss of Eagle 3 was due to a serious earthquake on the seabed that caused damage as far away as Charlie 2. You say most of the crew on Charlie 2 were killed and will have to be replaced. Naturally, we’ll be gone. You then bring the new crew in. They’ll take over without knowing what’s gone on – nor will anyone else.’
‘To your advantage,’ the PM said.
‘Ackaye, Prime Minister. Sure we’ll stay quiet as long as our men stay out of the Maze. We’ll only talk if you try to drag them back in or otherwise harm them.’
The PM was thoughtful, pursing his lips and tapping his chin with his fingertips as the hut swayed from side to side.
Eventually, to break the silence, Robert Barker said: ‘So what if we agree? What guarantee do we have that the Prime Minister will then be released and that the bomb won’t be set off?’
‘Now why would we do that? We’d be cutting our own throats. Why destroy British oilfields and kill the Prime Minister, turning public sympathy against us, when we’ve got everything we need with minimum damage? We rely on public support as much as you do and we don’t want to lose it.’
‘So why demand the PM’s presence here in the first place?’
‘Because there’s something I have to tell you in his presence – and you’re not going to like it.’ He glanced at each of them in turn, grim-faced now. After checking the guard by the door, he turned back to them. ‘The IRA couldn’t have financed an operation this big on its own. No, we were approached by the spokesman for some overseas backers who wanted us to assassinate the Prime Minister.’ McGee’s thin smile at this point was not returned by the PM. ‘We only had one meeting with this single representative and he didn’t say who the others were. He only described them as a group with unlimited funds. But since he specifically wanted the assassination to take place during the PM’s visit to the oilfields, I think it’s safe to assume that they’ve some interests here.’
Masters felt a sudden chill sliding down his spine. He was shocked by this fresh revelation, the thickening plot, and felt that he, an SBS commando, a good marine, was out of his depths in this murky world of conspiracy.
‘This unknown group,’ McGee continued, ‘wanted the assassination to look like the act of a local terrorist group. For reasons not explained they didn’t want it to be connected to anyone outside the United Kingdom. They wanted us to do the job. We also had to take the blame. In return, they would finance the hijack operation and pay a separate fee of two million pounds.’
Barker glanced at his granite-faced Prime Minister, then lowered his gaze to the floor. Masters knew he was shocked.
‘As I said before,’ McGee continued, ‘it’s not in our interest to lose public sympathy by assassinating the Prime Minister – but we needed the money and we did want our men out of the Maze. So we accepted the job, receiving full finance for the hijack and with the first half of the two million to be paid to our representatives in Aberdeen the minute you all stepped aboard this rig. The other million was to be paid when we killed the Prime Minister.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Barker said. ‘How would these men, your backers, know that the Prime Minister had boarded this rig? Would they take your word for it?’
‘Of course not. They’d know because one of them – and I honestly don’t know who – is one of the men who took part in your conference back on Bravo 1. He’ll know the Prime Minister’s here. He’ll know everything that’s happened. He’ll be contacting the mainland right now, to arrange for the first million to be handed over. When my man rings to say that’s been done, I’m to kill the Prime Minister . . . begging your pardon, sir!’
The PM responded with a flat gaze. ‘But you won’t kill me,’ he said.
‘No,’ McGee replied. ‘And I’ve already told you why. I don’t know who these men are, but alienating the British public is something we wouldn’t do for their benefit. They offered two million pounds. We want you to offer more. Their first million plus your million makes two million – the original fee – but we also want our men out of the Maze and that’s really the capper.’
There was silence for a long time while they tried to digest the facts. Masters, Barker and the PM were all thinking of Bravo 1 and the unknown traitor in their midst. Which one of them was it? What was his motivation? Who on earth could have set all this up while pretending to be one of their own? Barker looked stunned and drained. Masters was still and self-contained. The Prime Minister, by contrast, was shocked and outraged, his icy-blue eyes bright with a burning anger.
‘I won’t agree,’ he said harshly. ‘The price is too high. I will not release your murderous friends from the Maze just to watch them organize more terrorism. Nor will I give you the money. I won’t finance the IRA. To capitulate will merely be a sign that you can get away with this again. No, I won’t do it. Nothing you say will make me do it. There are limits and I think you’ve just reached them. You won’t go any further.’
‘That I will,’ McGee promised.
‘I don’t think so, McGee. You said yourself that you depend on public opinion, so I don’t think you’ll risk turning it against you. You won’t do what you’re threatening.’
The second he finished speaking, he realized how wrong he was. He looked into the growing rage in McGee’s eyes and saw the truth of fanaticism. McGee was pushing his chair back, standing up, his eyes widening. He grabbed the PM by the collar to tug him forward and breathe right in his face.
‘Sure, I’ll do it,’ McGee snapped. ‘Believe me, mister, I’ll do it! I’ll do anything that puts you bastards down, even if I go with you!’ He pushed the PM aside, snatched a pistol from the table, then violently kicked the door open and stepped out of the hut. ‘Bring the bastards out here!’ he bawled.
One of the guards grabbed the PM and threw him out through the door. When he nodded curtly at Masters and Barker, both men left the radio shack, stepping into the light beaming out from the doorway and further dazzled by the lights shining down from the derricks and modules. Temporarily blinded, they blinked and then saw the two survivors: Griffith and Sutton, the geologist and the driller, both on their hands and knees on the deck, surrounded by gunmen. Sutton had been badly beaten; his face was bruised and he was weeping. Griffith, kneeling beside him, was untouched, but his eyes shone with fear.
McGee didn’t waste any time. He grabbed Griffith by the hair, jerked his head back, placed the barrel of the pistol against his head and then glanced around wildly at the PM. The latter tried to step forward, but two of the guards stopped him, then twisted his arms behind his back and held him there while he looked on in horror.
‘No!’ the PM cried out. ‘No! For God’s sake, you can’t . . .’
His voice was cut off by the gunshot. Griffith’s head exploded. His body jerked like a puppet on a string and then collapsed to the deck.
‘Do you believe me?’ McGee hissed.
He spun around and grabbed Sutton and jerked his head back. Sutton shrieked and the Prime Minister cried ‘No!’ and then the gun fired again. Sutton convulsed and collapsed. His body shuddered and then was still. The blood dribbled from the shadows where his head was to to
uch the PM’s boots. The Prime Minister started sagging, but the guards pulled him back up. He shook his head from side to side as if dazed, then started shaking all over. McGee walked up to him, his eyes bright and obsessed, and waved his gun in the PM’s face as if wanting to hit him.
‘Do you believe me?’ he hissed again. ‘Well? Is that enough for your conscience?’
The Prime Minister did not reply, but simply gasped and shook his head. Barker bit his lower lip and Masters clenched both his fists as the two bodies were thrown overboard. They didn’t hear the splash: the sea was too far below. They glanced down and saw the blood on the deck, seeping out of the shadows. The PM shuddered and Barker bit his lip again. Masters opened his clenched fists and spread his fingers as he fought to control himself. The huge derricks soared above him, their lights merging with the stars. Masters dropped his gaze only when he was prodded, none too gently, at gunpoint, back into the hut.
The PM was in a chair, covering his face with his hands, shuddering. Barker was standing beside him, clearly as shocked but trying to hide it. Masters, turning away in embarrassment, came face to face with McGee.
‘You have one hour to decide,’ McGee said, before slamming the door shut.
10
The Prime Minister raised his head and looked at them with shocked eyes. He shuddered and then controlled himself and sat up in the chair. Coveting his face with his hands again, he took deep, even breaths, then removed his hands from his face, placed them lightly on his knees and stared at them as if praying for clemency.
‘My fault,’ he said softly. ‘So stupid. God forgive me for that.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Masters said. ‘I think he wanted to do it anyway. He wanted to put on a show and he used you for that.’
The PM shook his head. ‘I can’t believe it, Sergeant . . . Like animals . . . They were shot down like animals. One always thinks men can’t do that.’
‘They can do it,’ Masters told him. ‘They’ve been doing it for centuries. Let’s forget it. Let’s talk about something else. We’ve got one hour to stop it.’
‘Stop it?’ Barker said. ‘How the hell can we stop it? We’re locked in and they won’t let us out. We just say yes or no.’
‘Wrong,’ Masters said. ‘McGee made one mistake. Of all the places on the rig to lock us up, he picked the wrong one.’
Barker looked sharply at him, then glanced around the radio shack. The single window had a solid metal covering which the terrorists had locked.
‘We can get out?’ Barker asked.
‘That’s right,’ Masters said. ‘But what happens then, I don’t know.’
He glanced at the PM, who was still taking deep breaths. The PM’s eyes were clearer now, and he seemed to be calming down.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ Masters asked.
‘Yes, I’m all right. I don’t feel good, but that can be lived with. Apart from that, I’m OK.’
‘They forgot something,’ Masters told him. ‘They probably don’t even know about it. This hut has a trapdoor in the floor, practically under your feet.’
The PM glanced down and saw nothing but solid steel. He looked between his legs, under the console, and saw a steel plate. It had an embedded handle.
‘That’s it,’ Masters confirmed. ‘It leads down to the drilling floor. This hut’s above one corner of that floor, well away from the moonpool. The corner’s packed with large crates, filled with spare parts and antennae. If anything goes wrong with the communications unit, the spare parts are passed up through the trapdoor. We can get down to that floor. The packing crates will give us cover. That corner of the floor rests on top of a pontoon leg and an exit door leads out to the catwalk. Ladders run down the pontoon legs – straight down to the sea. I know that there’s a supply barge anchored beside the rig and since they always unload from this side that’s where it’ll be. We can climb down the pontoon leg. There’ll be no one on the barge. If we go down the inside of the leg there’s no way we’ll be seen.’
‘And once there?’ Barker asked. ‘What happens then? Do we just hide and wait?’
‘No,’ Masters said. ‘We don’t have to do that. The barges are towed out by small boats, so we’ll take one of those. They’re not fast, but they’ll do. We’ll have to time it pretty well. McGee’s left the radio open to let us ring Bravo 1 because he thinks we can’t get away anyhow. So we will ring Bravo 1. We’ll ask for a helicopter to pick us up. It’s not much, but it’s something.’
‘We can’t just leave,’ the PM said. ‘I don’t think we should do that.’
‘The bomb,’ Barker explained.
‘That’s right,’ Masters said. ‘We have to disarm the bomb and kill their radar and cameras. If we manage that, we can return. Launch an assault against the rig. With their cameras and sonic beams out of action, we can come under the sea and get to the rig before they see us. In short, we have to leave them paralysed until we come back.’
‘It’s impossible,’ Barker said. ‘It can’t be done. We don’t know where the bomb is.’
‘I think I do,’ Masters told him. ‘McGee said a bit too much. He said the bomb was inside a pontoon leg – halfway down a pontoon leg.’
‘You’re going to search for it?’ Barker asked.
‘That’s right,’ Masters said. ‘The support legs are hollow, they’re laced with steel ladders, and if I don’t find the bomb in the first leg, I’ll climb through to the next.’
‘You haven’t time,’ Barker said. ‘The four main legs are a quarter of a mile apart. You haven’t time to check all of them.’
‘I won’t have to,’ Masters said. ‘At least I might, but I doubt it. I think the bomb is on this side of the rig and probably right there below us. McGee’s made this hut his base. He wants to be near the radio. I suspect he’d automatically place the bomb in the leg nearest to him. There’s another reason for him to do that. The offloading is done this side. When McGee brought the bomb aboard, whether it was well hidden or not, I think he would have wanted it stored in the nearest available spot. The closest spot is beneath this hut; it’s the first storage space you come to. Christ, come to think of it, he said the bomb was packed with some radio spares – and all the radio spares are stored beneath this hut. That’s where the bomb is – I’m almost certain of it. It’s in the pontoon leg directly below us.’
Barker gave a low whistle. ‘If you’re right,’ he said, ‘that just leaves the radar and cameras. How the hell can you kill them?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Masters confessed. ‘But if I cannibalize the plutonium bomb, I might be able to make some more modest explosives. I suspect the terrorist bomb is an implosion-type weapon, which means that the plutonium metal core is surrounded by a large quantity of ordinary, conventional explosive, such as dynamite.’
‘Sticks of dynamite?’ said Barker.
‘Yes. And if it’s that kind of bomb – and I think it has to be – I’ll use the dynamite on the antennae and the drilling room.’
‘You’ll never get there,’ Barker said. ‘The terrorists are bound to see you.’
‘I’m not sure that they will,’ Masters replied. ‘There are sixty terrorists aboard and they all arrived separately over the last eighteen months. They all worked with the regular crew and they all worked in shifts. Given the size of this rig and the nature of shift work, I think it’s safe to assume that one half has never seen the other half. A lot are probably meeting for the first time. Some probably haven’t even met yet. I’m in overalls and I look just like the rest, so they probably won’t give me a second glance. True, McGee knows me and a lot of the men outside have seen me; but I think those men are all stationed on this deck, so if I can manage to keep out of McGee’s way I’ll have a fairly good chance.’
The SBS man’s grey eyes shone with a hard, driving light as they focused steadily, relentlessly, on Barker. The Prime Minister was standing up. He wasn’t shaking any more. The colour had returned to his face and he gave a small smile.
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br /> ‘I don’t believe this,’ he said.
Masters grinned. ‘It’s a long shot,’ he confessed. ‘But we don’t really have another choice, so I think we should try it.’
‘Yes,’ the PM said, ‘so do I.’
‘There’s no time,’ Barker said. ‘We’ve only fifty minutes left. That gives us time to get off this rig. There’s no time for the rest of it.’
‘You want to leave them with the bomb?’
‘No, I don’t. I just think fifty minutes is too short. There’s no way you can do it.’
‘If the bomb’s below I can.’
‘It might not be below. It might be in the leg at the other end. It might be right over the other side.’
‘At least we can try.’
‘I agree,’ the PM said. ‘But what happens if we don’t get off in time?’
‘Then both of you leave me,’ said Masters.
The PM looked at Barker, who shrugged and turned away. He stared at the bolted steel door and then turned back again.
‘If you don’t get off, they’re going to find you,’ said Barker.
‘Not before I get their bomb.’
‘Then they’ll kill you. They’ll definitely do that. They won’t like what you’ve done.’
‘It’s the only way.’
‘No. Let’s call their bluff.’
‘No, we can’t call their bluff. You know they’re not bluffing.’
Barker looked at the floor, his shoulders slumped in fatigue and dread, but he soon regained control of himself and gave Masters a painful grin. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Can you work the radio?’ Masters asked.
‘Of course,’ Barker replied.
‘Good. Get in touch with Bravo 1 while I remove the trapdoor. Tell them we want a helicopter. Say we want it right now. Tell them to make sure that they fly by the chart route and that they stay at low altitude all the way. We’ll be in a small boat. We’ll be five miles north-east of the rig. Tell them to keep their eyes peeled because we’ll want picking up. They should have the harness ready. They should search around in that area. When we see them, we’ll send up a flare and they can come down and get us.’
