Afterlight

by Alex Scarrow

  Walfield shrugged. ‘His boys might not know that. They’re a pretty stupid bunch, the lot of them. Maybe they’re thinking this is just some bloody raiding trip.’

  ‘If I was in his shoes I’d tell them. Tell them this isn’t just a raid for booty. This is their survival. Take this place or face starving.’

  Walfield whistled softly. ‘Them boys’re too fuckin’ stupid to explain things to. I reckon he won’t have told ’em anything. They’ll just be thinkin’ it’s a lark. A day out.’

  They leaned against the railings in silence for a while, savouring the fresh salty breeze. They heard Bushey fart on the other side of the platform and Harry’s dirty Sid James cackle. Pair of bloody idiots.

  ‘And that’s how you charm the ladies,’ said Adam. ‘They do love a man who can hold a tune.’

  They listened to the soft rustle of leaves above and below them, and the thump and wallow of the sea. Adam scanned the dark horizon, a mottled quilt of drifting moonlight and shifting shadows.

  ‘They’re something, though, aren’t they?’ said Walfield after a while.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mrs and Miss Sutherland. Tough ladies.’

  Adam nodded. Jennifer Sutherland with that tomboyish short brown hair, there was something of a GI Jane look to her, what with the khaki pants and the scarring down her cheek and neck. Tough. Very tough. She’d had to be.

  Leona, on the other hand, was a puzzle. She seemed both vulnerable and strong. She was fragile like a vase with a handle broken off and glued back on again; never quite as fixed as it once was. But there was something about her, an inner strength she seemed to be finding. He realised both of them, mother and daughter, were women he might find himself putting on a pedestal, idolising even, if he wasn’t mindful of that.

  He shook his head. Now really wasn’t the time to start thinking that sort of thing. In the old world, he suspected neither of them would have looked twice at him anyway.

  Harry’s voice broke the silence, echoing across the flat deck.

  ‘Hey!! Shit!! There’s something out there!!!’

  Chapter 82

  10 years AC

  ‘LeMan 49/25a’ - ClarenCo Gas Rig Complex, North Sea

  Maxwell watched the dark looming silhouette of the nearest platform as it drew closer. The tugboat was approaching slowly and noisily, sputtering fitfully like an old man choking on a mouthful of unchewed meat.

  That’s exactly what he wanted; no discretion, no quietly sneaking up. Just a very noisy arrival; enough to rouse everyone.

  A floodlight mounted on the roof of the pilot’s cabin snapped on, bathing the gently lolling sea in front of the boat’s prow with a brilliant cone of light. The beam swung across several hundred yards of water onto the nearest platform, slowly panning over its dark corroded legs, across the lattice of the spider deck and the drilling core’s support jacket. It swung up across the cellar deck, cluttered with flaking yellow Portakabins, onto the main deck where, finally, Maxwell thought he saw several faces watching them intently.

  So they know we’re here.

  The floodlight arced down the side of the nearest platform, dimly picking out the next one along, a hundred feet further away. They were doing a good job of clearly announcing their arrival. There were more faces now lining the railings. More and more.

  As the tug chugged closer, Maxwell tried to pick out individuals; how many of these people were adult, young, old? How many men were there? But the floodlight was dancing around too quickly, not lingering long enough to pull a single face out of the growing crowd.

  ‘Just put her over there, near that support-leg, Jeff,’ he said, picking up the loudhailer and stepping outside the cockpit, along the runner and onto the foredeck.

  ‘Hello?!’ His voice echoed over the thrum of the diesel engine and the churn of water past the bow. It sounded tinny, almost comical, over the loudhailer.

  ‘Hello there! My name’s Alan Maxwell! Who are you?’

  There was movement amongst those gathered on the main deck but no answer.

  ‘I heard about this place from some people who came from here! Would it be possible for me to talk to someone?’

  Maxwell was getting the response he wanted with this noisy well-illuminated arrival; everyone’s full attention. He’d made sure the tugboat appeared as harmless as possible; only Nathan and another lad were on the foredeck, Jeff in the pilot’s cockpit, the other boys - a dozen of them - were down below, armed to the gills and out of sight.

  He glanced down at the bobbing troughs and hillocks of seawater and tried to locate Snoop and all the other boys in their rowing boats. He was pretty certain they’d be in position by now, waiting in the moonless gloom beneath the drilling platform, tied up to one of the legs and awaiting the signal to come out.

  The tugboat’s engine finally dropped in pitch as it approached the base of the platform and bobbed slowly forward under its own momentum.

  Maxwell craned his neck to look up again at the distant faces lining the main deck. He thought he could see one or two men standing up there.

  ‘Hello?!’ he called out again. ‘Is there someone I can speak to? We’ve come in peace!’ He smiled to himself at how corny that last bit had sounded.

  The diesel engine had settled down to a quiet throaty mutter, accompanied by the slap of water against the boat’s hull.

  ‘We heard about this place!’ Maxwell said again. ‘Can we talk?! We’ve got a boat full of supplies. We’d like to join you, if . . . if that’s okay?’

  ‘Wait a moment!’ shouted a female voice back down to them.

  He glanced across the foredeck at Nathan and the other boy standing right next to him; Notori-us. The nickname suited the young lad; a completely bloody psychotic little pit bull. He was packing a handgun and a knife under his orange jacket, and had orders to jump Nathan and slit his throat if he showed any sign of blowing the whistle on them. Even though Notori-us liked Nathan, he was happy to do it - there was the promise of double dope rations for a month if he did his bit well.

  Maxwell was banking on the simplest approach. To talk these people into lowering a ladder and to allow him - just him, he’d assure them of that - to come up and talk. That’s where Nathan’s assurance of their good intentions came in. Lulling them into lowering a ladder. Of course, once the ladder was down, Notori-us was going to grab hold of it, whilst the boys hidden down below in the tugboat would spring out of hiding and storm up the thing as quickly as possible.

  And with that going on as a distraction, Snoop and the rest waiting quietly in their rowing boats had knotted ropes and hooks which they’d sling onto the spider decking and pull themselves up.

  Nothing particularly clever there in that plan. All nice and simple. Maxwell had been into the Bracton gas terminal, found an office block shared by Shell, ClarenCo, ATP and several other North Sea players. He spent most of yesterday rifling through their filing cabinets and found what he wanted; a proposal brochure on the platforms and modules manufactured for those oil companies. It wasn’t specific information about these particular gas platforms, but it was good enough ball-park information about this class of rig for him to work from. He now had a pretty good idea of the layout of the underbelly of these rigs, and that this one, the drilling rig, was going to be the easiest for them to scramble up onto.

  Of course, the boys were all pumped up for this; giddy with excitement and slightly stoked on the last crate of that sugary alcopop. A bottle for each of them before they went in; a celebration drink to toast the victory. Just enough of a buzz to take the edge off any last-minute nerves, just enough to make each of them feel like invincible Super Army Soldiers.

  Maxwell shot a glance at Notori-us. He was grinning with excitement, ready for the fun and games to begin; probably sporting a raging hard-on in his tracksuit bottoms. Maxwell looked at Nathan. You going to be a good lad and play along for me?

  Nathan smiled back at him, hoping his cavalier grin gave away none of the twisting, ch
urning emotions going on inside him.

  Oh, crap. Oh, crap. I’ve got to do something.

  Nathan wished he’d chugged another bottle of Froot-ka. He realised he was trembling from head to foot. He was hoping, desperately hoping, that they weren’t going to fall for this. That Maxwell’s plan to sweet-talk his way on was going to fall on deaf ears. And if he got Nathan to say hello there’d be a way to let them know, a tone of voice, a choice of words that would subtly warn them this was a trap waiting to be sprung.

  He glanced at Notori-us, grinning like an over-sugared toddler. He knew exactly why the boy was on the foredeck standing right next to him.

  Fuck.

  A voice he recognised instantly echoed down from the main deck. ‘Hello?’ It was Mrs Sutherland. ‘I’m in charge here. What do you want?’

  ‘To talk. That’s all. We heard about this place. That it’s a safe place!’

  A pause.

  ‘No! You should leave now! We have guns aimed on you!’

  ‘What?! I’m not armed!’ shouted Maxwell. ‘I . . . I was just hoping we could talk!’

  Jenny Sutherland said nothing.

  ‘Look, I’ve got someone you might know down here with me!’

  Nathan felt his bowels unknot and loosen.

  Oh, shit . . . Nate . . . you have to say something.

  A torch snapped on from above, lanced down eighty feet and dappled its way across their upturned faces.

  ‘Nathan?’ A syrup-thick voice that he recognised instantly echoed down to him. ‘Oh, God! Is it you, Nathan?!’

  ‘Hey, Mum!’ he called out limply. He couldn’t see where she was.

  Maxwell touched his arm lightly. ‘There’s a good lad,’ he muttered quietly. ‘Talk to Mum. Let’s go up and see her, eh? I promise she won’t be hurt, lad.’

  ‘Oh, my!’ Martha cried. ‘Oh, Nathan, love! You all right?’

  ‘Nathan led us here!’ called out Maxwell. ‘Said you were decent people. He wanted to come home. So I brought him back!’

  The torch beam flickered across their faces, across the deck onto the cockpit. Probing the boat for any secrets.

  ‘So, how many of you down there?’

  Shit, no . . . they’re going to fall for it.

  Maxwell smiled. ‘Just us three . . . and there’s Jeff in the cockpit.’

  Jenny said nothing in response, and they bobbed in silence for a few moments.

  Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

  ‘You can send Nathan up alone,’ called down Jenny. ‘Just him.’

  Fuck. No. Don’t lower anything!

  Maxwell shrugged. ‘Sure, okay.’ He made a show of smiling at Nathan like they were inseparable buddies; favourite uncle and favourite nephew. ‘That okay with you, fella?’

  Nathan stared out into the dark, unwilling to say anything, even nod silently. Then he heard the cranking of a windlass above.

  Shit-shit-shit. You gotta do something, say something . . . now.

  ‘MUM!’ he blurted. ‘THEY’RE DOWN HERE! THEY’RE EVERYWHERE! THEY’RE GOING TO ATTACK YOU!!!’

  Maxwell’s face split into a snarl. ‘Ah, for fuck’s sake, you little fucking shit!!!’

  Nathan saw Notori-us reach quickly under his jacket and he heard his mum’s distant voice screaming down at them not to touch her baby.

  God, she could be embarrassing like that.

  He turned to face the boy next to him, hands held out in front of him to protect himself, but Notori-us was already on him. Nathan felt several rapid punches in his stomach - like a boxer furiously working over a punchbag, except he knew each blow was more than that.

  He could still hear his mum’s voice, stretched thin and reedy, screaming down as his knees started to buckle beneath him.

  Adam realised the conceit was over and all the talking was done.

  He shouldered the gun, aiming through the SA80’s night-vision scope down onto the tugboat’s deck. If he could get Maxwell, maybe that would be enough to nip this whole thing in the bud.

  Before he could get a bead on his target, dropping and rising on the gentle swell, Maxwell shouted something and a dozen of his boys emerged from the pilot’s cabin, their orange jackets glowing like beacons in the torchlight.

  He glanced at Walfield, clearly thinking the same thing: why the fuck are those morons wearing those glow-in-the dark jackets for a night assault?

  The tugboat’s floodlight blinked out and then all of a sudden its foredeck was illuminated by the strobing light of a dozen muzzle flashes. Sparks danced along the rim of the deck and the railing and the torch that someone further along the deck had been holding tumbled down spinning end over end into the water where it glowed greenly for a moment beneath the froth before disappearing.

  ‘Shit, shit!’ hissed Adam, ducking back as he felt the warm puff of a shot whistle past his ear, too close for comfort.

  Walfield popped his head over the side of the main deck to look down. ‘Bollocks!’ he shouted. ‘They’re all over that bottom deck already!’

  Adam snapped his teeth angrily. The bastards must have sneaked in some boys underneath. They were swarming the spider deck now and there were too many stairwells and rung ladders from there up to the cellar deck, then the main deck, for them to risk making a stand here. He realised he should have had everyone on watch up this end of the string of platforms instead of spread out amongst them all.

  For fuck’s sake. Great start.

  The spider deck was the big hurdle he’d been hoping would stop them. Clearly Maxwell’s parley had been intended to be nothing more than a distraction whilst the rest of them found a way to scramble up. Never mind, they still had the choke point of each connecting walkway.

  ‘All right, screw this, Danny, they’re on. We’ve already lost this platform.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Bushey? BUSHEY!’

  ‘Over here, sir!’

  ‘First horn! Everyone back across the walkway.’

  ‘Right.’

  A moment later the horn belched a loud football terrace honk above the clatter of gunfire and the heavy metallic ringing of boots on the stairwells below them.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ he said, slapping Walfield’s arm.

  He waited until the last of those who’d been stationed on this platform scrambled past him, then set off after them, stumbling a moment later over the prone form of somebody. He didn’t know her by name, but recognised her: a mature woman with long grey hair in plaits. He’d listened to her strumming a guitar a couple of nights ago. Presumably she’d been the one holding the torch aimed down on the tugboat.

  From below he could hear the boys whooping with delight as they charged up stairwells on the decks beneath them, a multitude of heavy feet clanging on metal rungs.

  He looked around and saw Harry still firing over the rail in controlled three-shot bursts. ‘Harry! We’re pulling back! Move your bloody arse!’

  ‘Right!’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘I’ll cover you, sir!’

  Adam nodded. He sprinted back across the deck picking out, by the flitting moonlight, the obstacle course of redundant junction boxes and cable conduits ready to trip him up, listening for Harry’s pounding footsteps behind him. He heard chattering gunfire. Short double taps - Harry’s . . . and long undisciplined pray-n-spray bursts - the boys.

  Come on, you idiot, just run!

  A moment later his feet clattered onto the mesh floor of the walkway, it rattled and rang beneath his boots. He turned back, looking for the lance corporal, listening for his following footsteps.

  ‘Come on, Harry!’ he shouted.

  The silly bugger must have got himself lost. Even on this small deck, a third of an acre of it, it was all too easy to get lost amidst the maze of rusting metal pipes and Portakabins. Especially in the dark.

  He heard another couple of double taps, then a volley of return fire from several guns that seemed to go on for ages.

  Jesus.

  Then it was quiet.

  Chapter 83

 
; 10 years AC

  ‘LeMan 49/25a’ - ClarenCo Gas Rig Complex, North Sea

  Leona tripped, stumbled and spat a curse as she rubbed her barked shin. She could hear the distant rattle of firing and voices screaming. Where she was, at the opposite end of the row of rigs, standing on the main deck of the primary compression platform with Rebecca and Claire, they’d spotted the flicker of a floodlight lancing up from the sea. Leona had decided they should stay where they were, keeping a vigil at this end of their archipelago. Just in case. But then things had suddenly kicked off all the way over there and she cursed the fact they were too far away to be able to help out.

  Her feet slammed down the walkway, Rebecca behind her clutching her bra-and-bungee cord catapult - for what it was worth - in both hands. They emerged onto the main deck of the accommodation platform, turned right, skirting the edge of the deck to avoid tangling with any obstacles.

  People were spilling out of their cabins, brandishing their home-made weapons, and heading towards the noise. Leona converged with them, pushing and stumbling along the walkway cage towards the second compression platform, towards the sound of gunfire.

  She emerged from the cage moments later, and then weaved her way across the platform’s main deck until she could see the far side, and the next walkway. Across the dark empty space between platforms, she watched for a moment. Trying to make out the situation. She saw some flickers of light, and the occasional flash of gunfire, but nothing that clearly explained how things were. She suspected the shots were coming from the furthest platform.

  Rebecca hunkered down next to her, wheezing from the sprint thus far.

  ‘Can you see anything?’

  ‘I think they’re on drilling. Come on,’ she said, stepping onto the walkway taking them across with the sound of her heavy steps ringing in her ears.

  They emerged twenty seconds later onto the firm deck of the production platform into a confusion of panicking people, some scrambling past her to head back along the cage away from the fighting. She pushed her way through the mingling confused bodies and crossed the deck, catching sight of the skirmish going on ahead of her.