Nucflash (20 page)

Brayson could hardly speak. He exchanged glances with Sally Kirk, then realized that she'd not heard anything of this conversation save his responses. She looked afraid, though. Almost as afraid as he felt. She must have guessed at least partly what was going on, simply from the tightness of his voice, and his expression.

“I understand.”

“Sehr gut.
Do what you are told, and all of you will come through this safely.” He sounded almost considerate. Businesslike. It added to the surreal horror of the moment. “We will talk further when I come aboard. Until then, Mr. Brayson, this is the
Noramo Pride
, signing off.”

“God,” Brayson said softly as he set the microphone down. “Dear God in heaven . . . ”

“What is it, sir?” Kirk asked.

“We're . . . being hijacked,” Brayson said quietly. He was wondering if anybody had ever been held up by oil tanker before. The
Noramo Pride
was not exactly your typical deadly weapon, but it was deadly. It would have been funny . . . if the situation had not been so dangerous. “Better sound the alarm, Sal, and get everybody up. We've got a lot to do.”

He was already wondering just how he was going to explain this to his bosses ashore.

The shrilling of the phone brought Sir Thomas groggily awake. It took a few moments to focus eyes and mind; the clock on his bedside table read twenty of six, fifty minutes before his usual hour of rising. He groped for the telephone, already angry. Whoever was calling at this ungodly hour had better . . .

“Yes?”

“Sir Thomas? This is Harlow.”

Anger evaporated. Donald Harlow was Sir Thomas's personal secretary, an able and competent man who most certainly would not awaken Her Majesty's Minister of Defense without damned good cause.

“Yes, Donald. What is it?”

“Sir Thomas, I'm sorry to wake you. There is . . . a situation.”

Sir Thomas was fully awake now. He sat up, swinging his legs off the bed. Behind him, his wife stirred sleepily. “Go on.”

“A few moments ago, the headquarters of the BGA Consortium in Middlebrough received a telephone call. It was from the manager of their Bouddica facility in the North Sea. Apparently, terrorists are in the process of taking the place over.”

“Good God! Who?”

“No word on that yet, Sir Thomas. The manager—his name's Brayson, by the way—did say the terrorist he'd spoken to by radio was named ‘Adler.' We've contacted M15, of course, and they're looking into the name now.”

“Good. How did this Brayson make contact? Are the terrorists using him to make their demands?”

“Actually, the word I have is that the terrorists have forbidden anyone at Bouddica to contact anyone on the outside. Apparently they assumed all communications are by radio, however, and were unaware of the land lines. Brayson talked to his people in Middlebrough before the terrorists reached the platform and told them what he knew.”

Sir Thomas blinked. Had he missed something? “I don't understand. The terrorists communicated with Bouddica before they arrived? Doesn't the facility have its own security force?”

“A small one, Sir Thomas. According to Brayson, this Adler had already hijacked an oil tanker—the
Noramo Pride
, American registry. We're looking into that, of course. The terrorists were threatening to ram Bouddica if they were not allowed to come aboard.”

“I see.” A tanker would be a formidable, if somewhat clumsy weapon. Who were these madmen? “And no word about who the terrorists are, who they represent?”

“Not so far, sir.”

“What is being done?”

“The Prime Minister, the Ministers of Energy and the Interior, and Her Majesty are all being alerted now, of course. A cabinet meeting is being set for nine this morning, and the Prime Minister's office recommends that you have options available regarding a military response.”

“Of course.” That meant either the SAS or the SBS. Or both. They shared responsibility for the security of Great Britain's North Sea oil assets.

“Other than that, of course, there's little we can do in the way of a response until these people make direct contact with us and make their demands,” Harlow said.

“Something outrageous, I shouldn't wonder. Hijacking a billion-pound oil platform seems a desperate act.”

“Foolhardy, Sir Thomas, given the reputation of the Special Air and Boat people. Unless . . .

“Unless what?”

“Well, unless they have something pretty powerful in reserve.”

“From the sounds of things, Donald, we're dealing with terrorists, probably politically motivated, who from the nature of their objective must be afflicted by delusions of grandeur. They will scarcely be able to muster the resources of a national government.”

“Of course not, sir.”

“I'm on my way. You're at the office now?”

“Yes, Sir Thomas.”

“I'll see you in thirty minutes. Have the staff briefed, and have Charlene pull the folders on the 23rd Regiment. I want to know who's available for immediate deployment.”

“Very good, sir.”

Sir Thomas hung up and reached for his robe. His wife sat up in bed. “A little early for telephone calls from the office, isn't it, dear?”

“It's probably nothing, pet. Go back to sleep. I'll get something to eat at the Ministry.”

But she was already up, pulling on her robe. “At least let me fix us some tea.”

“Damn.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Eh? Oh, sorry. Yes, some tea would be nice.” His brain was only just getting into gear. He'd forgotten to ask Harlow whether the Americans had been notified. They would have to be, of course, if they hadn't learned already. And the Germans as well. The Americans and Germans owned part interest in the Bouddica facility, and Harlow had mentioned that the hijacked oil tanker was American as well.

That was all they needed . . . a bunch of clubfooted Americans muddying up the scene. Chances were, this confrontation could be handled diplomatically, and if not, by a quick, silent strike by Britain's finest covert warriors. The Americans were far too much the Wild West cowboys to suit Sir Thomas's taste.

He hoped they could be kept out of this.

 

The tanker had arrived less than an hour later, sliding gently through the rough, dark water and coming more or less to rest close by Fuel Mooring Station 3. There were a number of fuel mooring stations scattered across the surface of the sea within sight of the Bouddica complex. They were places where an oil tanker, even a super-tanker far larger than the
Noramo Pride,
could tie up and take on a full load of crude, without coming so close as to pose a hazard to the platform. Tankers rarely tied up at them anymore. Two years before, the main seafloor pipeline threading northwest toward the Ekofisk Center had been completed, linking Bouddica with the largest of Great Britain's North Sea oil facilities and with the eighty-mile pipeline running from Ekofisk all the way back to Middlebrough.

Brayson had watched from Bouddica's control center as the rig's safety boat ferried out the massive hawsers used to secure the 120,000-ton behemoth. It was still dark, but he could follow the operation well enough by the lights; searchlights from the
Noramo Pride's
superstructure bathed the
Celtic Maiden
, the anchor tug used as the facility's safety boat, in a glare reminiscent of a football stadium lit up for a night game.

A second radio call had arrived from the tanker at 5:30. Adler had warned Brayson once again that he was not to communicate with his superiors ashore—well, it was too late for
that
warning to have meaning—and informed him that the men aboard the
Noramo Pride
possessed portable rocket launchers, trained now on Bouddica Alpha's gas-processing plant and separators.

That announcement had crushed any thought Brayson might have been entertaining about resisting the terrorists, now that their tanker was at rest and no longer a threat to the platform. In retrospect, Brayson had to admit that this operation had been carefully planned, each step designed to force only the next level of compliance from the BGA people on Bouddica. He dared not resist in the face of threatened rocket fire, not when an explosion in the separators could loose a fireball that would engulf the entire platform.

The terrorists, obviously, were counting on his reluctance to risk the one disaster most dreaded by all oil-platform workers.

The helicopter landed on Alpha shortly after dawn, touching down on the helipad atop the crews' quarters and disgorging a small army of black-clad men carrying automatic weapons. Adler had radioed further instructions. As directed, Bouddica's full complement, save for the
Celtic Maiden's
crew, was waiting in the platform's main recreation hall when Adler finally made his appearance. It had been a rude awakening for the off-duty crew members. Many were still in their underwear or were wearing bathrobes. Brayson watched with slowly mounting anger as three of Adler's men made a careful count of everyone present.

“Drei hundert zwei
, ” one of the terrorists reported when the last person was counted.

“Which with the ten on the tug makes three hundred twelve,” Adler said, nodding with apparent satisfaction. He was standing with Brayson near the center of the enormous room, with the crowd ringed around them in near-silent, watchful dread. “Good. I am pleased to see that your crew is well behaved, Mr. Brayson. That will make things considerably easier.”

He was a tall, powerful, blond-haired man with the evident self-confidence born of training and experience. Unlike the others, he wasn't carrying a submachine gun, but he did have an automatic pistol tucked into the waistband of his trousers. He did not require the gun, however, to convince Brayson that he was a dangerous man.

“That was not my intent,” Brayson said through clenched teeth. “Listen. I don't know what your political philosophy is, what you hope to gain here, but—”

“My
philosophy,”
Adler said quietly, “is to accept no interference from anyone.” He paused and looked about the room. As big as a fair-sized school auditorium, it was luxuriously furnished, with thick carpeting, modern furniture, and an enormous central open fireplace. The room was located near the center of Bouddica's living quarters module, and there were no windows. At the moment, with over three hundred BGA employees crowded inside, with black-garbed men holding submachine guns standing around the crowd's perimeter, it felt claustrophobic.

Adler raised one hand and ran it along the edge of the gleaming copper-colored hood above the central fireplace pit. He smiled. “A fireplace? I'd heard you people were extraordinarily careful about sparks and flames in a place such as this.”

Brayson said nothing but wondered what Adler might be driving at. It was true that care was taken aboard the platform to avoid igniting the odorless and invisible natural gas fumes that could spread from an unsuspected leak. Visitors to Bouddica's work areas were asked to remove everything that might cause a spark, even the tiny batteries for the light meters and flashes in their cameras. The main rec room, however, was carefully sealed and was in fact one of the safest areas on the platform, reinforced against blast and equipped with elaborate automated-sprinkler and foam devices. Large amounts of money had been spent in Bouddica's construction to attract and keep skilled workers on this lonely North Sea outpost, on tours of duty that balanced two weeks of isolated and demanding work here with four weeks off ashore.

“Your people will stay here,” Adler said after another moment's inspection of the area. “I see sanitary facilities down there at the end, and we can have food brought in from your commissary as needed. My men will organize small working parties from your group to go to the sleeping quarters and bring mattresses here. It should be quite cozy.”

“You sound as though you plan to stay for a while.”

Adler regarded him coldly. “As long as is necessary, Mr. Brayson. If all goes well, I and my men will leave in a few days, taking a few of you with us to ensure our safe passage to our destination. Those whom we select will be released once our own safety is guaranteed. I assure you that we are not murderers. If you do as you are told, all of you should come through this safely. Understand?”

Jerkily, Brayson nodded.

“Good. Your people will be searched to ensure that none are hiding weapons. Your employees aboard the safety craft will be brought here shortly. After that a count will be made at intervals to make certain that all are present. If anyone is missing, five of your people will be shot for each missing person. Do I make myself clear?”

The captain nodded again.

“You will impress upon your people the necessity of obeying our orders. First among these.” Adler glanced about the crowded room. “There are four doors out. A guard will be posted at each. A line will be marked in tape on the floor ten feet from each door. Your people are forbidden to cross those lines. If they do, they will be shot. After the sanitary facilities have been thoroughly searched, your people can come and go there as they please.”

Almost irrationally, Brayson felt a small surge of appreciation for this one concession to dignity, and fought it down. He was furiously angry at this, this interruption of routine, this intrusion into his life and career. He wanted to fight back, yet felt pathetically inadequate before this hard and competent man.