Some crewmen had been stranded by the advancing flame front while they raced to lifeboat stations; others were trapped high above the turbulent and cold North Sea. Given no choice, some men had leaped sixty-eight feet from one of the decks into the water. A handful of desperate, doomed workers had even jumped from the heliport, faced with either being burned to death in the advancing fire or dying as they plunged from skyscraper height to the sea. Several crewmen had climbed down knotted ropes or hoses to reach sea level as explosion after explosion rockedPiper Alpha .
Rescue crews had raced in boats and helicopters from nearby drilling platforms, but the fire was so bad that few of them could even approach the burning rig to fish survivors out of the water. The debris from one explosion killed half the crew on an approaching rescue craft.
In all, 165 people had died onPiper Alpha, making it one of the worst disasters in oil-drilling history.
Keene tried to imagine seeing the same inferno on theValhalla . In front of the vision in his mind he saw Selene’s face, heard her last words as she died beside him in the clearing near the Green Impact encampment. The fires grew brighter in his imagination.
Yes, he thought, that would just about do it.
38
Oilstar’s security squads grudgingly did what their boss had ordered, but McKendry noticed without surprise that they walked their routes together, sticking to the brightly lit decks, chatting with late-shift crewmen—in other words, going out of their way to avoid anywhere that trouble might occur.
The big man patrolled the darker ways himself, slipping through the claustrophobic and tangled pipe forests and chemical-storage areas, letting a sixth sense prickle his skin.
He felt uneasy.
Looking up into the dark and moonless sky, he was positive this uneasiness wasn’t his imagination.
Of course, he had been just as positive month after month, ever since the night Joshua Keene had died.
His doubts ended when he reached the fourth deck and stopped, feeling electricity go up his spine. Someone—perhaps a survivor from Green Impact—was here on theValhalla platform.
His flashlight beam revealed no movement in the dark corners; not that he expected any. No professional would have waited around. Then he discovered that one of the access hatches leading up from the support legs and the distant water was open. It was near the central wellhead and the shut-down mechanical shops. When he examined it more closely, he saw that one of the naked yellow lightbulbs had been smashed. Crumpled in the shadows, he found a lightweight black cloak—the kind he himself would have chosen for camouflage.
Whoever had been here, or was still here, apparently thought that security on board was as lax as it had been in the past.
He directed the beam of the flashlight all the way down to the water. Though the beam diffused, he saw something dark tied up to the ladder attached to the wide concrete leg. Running to the nearest lift platform, he descended to water level, where he studied the unobtrusive black boat tied to a ladder rung. The single rubber raft could have carried only a few of the terrorists, but even a small group could cause extreme damage to the rig if they knew what they were doing.
McKendry took out a knife and, with a quick motion, slashed the rope holding the Zodiac in place. He shoved with his foot so that the raft drifted into the water.
Whoever had come to his rig wouldn’t get away now. He’d have them cornered on theValhalla platform, where he could deal with them in his own way.
Creeping across the decks and ducking the rig’s still laughable security, Keene found a set of lockers that contained Oilstar work clothes. Diligent practices on the rig had been increased, and he thought he saw more guards on patrol, but they didn’t appear to be doing a better job than before. They talked loudly and walked in packs, making it easy for him to elude them.
From one of the lockers, he pulled on a greasy, thick jumpsuit that had the hand-lettered name Virata written on the left breast in bold strokes with a black Magic Marker. The jumpsuit smelled like grease and piss, but he’d endured worse. He found a hard hat adorned with crudely placed racing decals and snugged it against his hair.
Walking away from the lockers he was less stealthy, and instead walked as if he belonged on the rig. The explosive packs strapped to his chest and legs, as well as the packages he carried in one hand, made him look bulky and cumbersome, but if all went well, he wouldn’t have them for long.
Outside the mechanical rooms and shop offices, he found the central pipes and controls for the fire-suppression systems and alarms. He was relieved to see that the safety valves were split into two systems, one of which went toward the habitation quarters to protect the crew complement. An independent set dealt with the production facility, the pipes and chambers and machinery of the production rig itself.
He shut down, then permanently disabled the alarms, sprinklers, and safety systems in the production portions ofValhalla . Once the explosives went off, the alarms and sprinklers would activate inside the habitation module, getting the snoozing off-duty teams out of bed. That would give the crew members a chance to get away, but nothing would stop the flames in the production area. These sleepy South American crewmen certainly wouldn’t try to save the rig. They’d rush to the lifeboats, which would drop like padded sledgehammers into the water far below.
Keene supposed that kept him from being a cold-blooded murderer; now he qualified as just a warm-blooded one.
He worked for ten minutes setting up his explosives against a thirty-foot-high distillation tank connected to three systems that led to the heavy-gases storage chambers and out to the flame boom. His examination of design blueprints of theValhalla had showed that even his token amount of explosives would ignite this one tank. Once it blew, it would set off the second, which would set off the third, and so on like red-hot dominoes until nothing was left of the oil rig’s production facilities.
Given a huge supply of Oilstar funding, Van Alman might be able to repair and eventually restart production on theValhalla . But the cost to him in damage to public relations would be insurmountable.
Keene twisted the last wire onto the timer. He still had a few small grenades clipped to his belt, just in case he needed a little help getting away. If he got out of here and climbed down to his inflatable boat in time, he could roar off in the Zodiac with the outboard cranked full. With the rig blazing behind him, he could make his way back to the Venezuelan mainland and eventually return to North America.
This year he’d have one hell of a story to tell the remaining members of the Daredevils Club on New Year’s Eve. He would take great pleasure in rubbing Frik’s nose in it. First he had to finish his job and get off the rig alive, though.
He stood up. Before he could turn, there was a click as the hammer of a pistol was drawn back.
“Don’t move.”
Keene froze. Thoughts raced through his mind. He hadn’t even heard footsteps.
The background white noise of the drilling rig showered like snow around him. He rested a hand on one of the small grenades at his waist, cradling it. He could easily yank the pin out, toss it next to the other explosives. The grenade would blow up before the security guard behind him could stop it. The only problem was that he would be gunned down in an instant, or the explosion would take him with it.
He considered trying to bluff his way out, holding on to the grenade as long as possible. If he could redirect the guard’s attention, maybe he could toss the grenade far enough so that he could get away as the explosions rippled through the rig. In the meantime, he would have to dodge bullets, too. It was a near-zero chance of survival.