‘Blue Dog, this is Red Fox. Situation normal — all fucked up,’ came Mike Ford’s nasal twang. ‘No unfriendlies. The tin can looks ready for Go.’
‘Stay in touch, Red Fox,’ said Gallen. ‘Out.’
A British reporter in a pashmina put her question about degrading the Inuit fishing grounds and the fact that in vast areas of the Arctic Ocean, the Inuit were recognised by the UN and by the Hague as having what she called native title; while the current drilling was interesting in a limited sense because of the Ariadne experiment, how were Oasis or the other big oil companies going to contend with Inuit control of oil-field leases?
When the woman sat down, Florita swapped looks with her executive team, and then Joyce the PR guy gave a long nod.
Stiffening, Gallen watched the room sit up as Florita cleared her throat. She hadn’t said a word but the media sensed something and he watched them come dangerously alive, like a bear waking up as you trod on a stick.
The PR guy stood and opened his palms to the media and sat down when they were silent.
‘It’s a privilege to launch the Ariadne this afternoon,’ said Florita, leaning down to the microphone on her table, her helmet of black hair matching the black pant suit. ‘I believe it will revolutionise Arctic oil and gas exploration, making it safer for the environment, safer for the drilling crews and more cost effective for the explorers.
‘However,’ she said, after taking a sip from a glass of water, ‘there is another reason we’ve invited the world’s media here today.’
‘You’re saving the whales, too?’ said a shabby-looking Brit, making the whole room laugh.
‘No, Mr Beetham,’ said Florita, with a confidence that made Gallen realise why she held such a job. ‘But we’re saving a hundred million dollars by putting our rig on the Arctic floor, does that count at the Financial Times?’
The journos laughed again and another Brit ruffled Mr Beetham’s hair.
Gallen felt nervous: there was an anarchy about this profession, if you could call it that.
‘Before we go to the bottom in the Ariadne, I’d like to make an announcement: seven minutes ago, Oasis Energy launched a friendly takeover bid on the London Stock Exchange for the Russian oil and gas company Thor Oil.’
‘Takeover?’ said one reporter, standing. ‘That gives Oasis most of Siberia and Arctic Canada. How’s Moscow going to react?’
‘It’s a friendly takeover,’ said Florita. ‘An equity swap will see Thor Oil basically absorbed but with an accretive effect—’
‘What about the shareholders?’ said an American.
‘More than eighty-five per cent of the shares are held by two Russian groups,’ said Florita, making Gallen’s ears prick up, ‘and the rest is institutional holdings.’
The media hubbub rose as Gallen recalled the Newport Associates report: the two Russian groups behind Thor Oil were the Bashoff crime family’s ProProm oil company and Reggie Kransk’s Transarctic Tribal Council. What was Florita doing?
A tall Englishman stood up and raised his hand. ‘Excuse me, madam, could you tell us what share price the takeover offer has been made at?’
‘Initial offer was nineteen euros,’ said Florita, enjoying herself. ‘I believe we had our takeover threshold met within three minutes.’
The reporters gawped.
‘You mean three days?’ said an American, looking up from her shorthand pad.
‘No,’ said Florita, ‘we had our proxies in hand before I announced just now. Guess our advisers read the market perfectly, huh?’
The tall Englishman looked over his colleague’s shoulder at her iPad and read from it. ‘That’s very quick, madam, and very expensive: half an hour before this announcement, Thor Oil was trading at ten euros ninety-one.’
‘I believe so,’ said Florita, checking her watch.
‘That’s a premium of ninety per cent,’ said the Englishman, looking annoyed. ‘Forget about the Russian shareholders, I assume yours are happy with the price?’
‘Rather than getting your assistant to fiddle with that computer,’ said Florita, signalling for Joyce to start handing out a stack of white folders with the Deutsche Bank logo on the cover, ‘I can tell you that the takeover is valued at forty-eight billion US dollars.’
The journos mumbled and a few dialled their sat-phones.
‘So what’s the projected market capitalisation of the new entity?’ asked one.
‘Deutsche Bank is projecting ninety-five billion,’ said Florita, as Aaron touched her on the arm and gave Gallen the nod. They were heading for the Ariadne dive.
‘So you’ve overtaken ConocoPhillips in market cap?’ said the tall Englishman. ‘You’ve basically bought out Arctic oil.’
But the comment was lost as Florita stood and the photographers surged forward in a blast of flashes.
They stood on the starboard hull of the Fanny Blankes-Koen and formed a guard around Florita as she climbed the ladder and eased into the trapdoor on the top of the Ariadne. Tucker followed: he would organise the take-off from the Ariadne.
As he made to climb the ladder, Gallen grabbed Tucker. ‘Keep an eye on things, okay, Liam?’
‘That was the idea, boss.’
‘No, I mean it,’ said Gallen. ‘You see anything you don’t like, get her into a safe room and shoot anyone who approaches. Okay?’
‘Crystal, boss,’ said the former Marine, dancing up the ladder and disappearing inside.
The technicians secured the air lock and radioed up to the control room on the ship; most saturation-diving platforms were run from the ship they were connected to and it was the control room that monitored the temperature, oxygen mix and comms. The Ariadne was different, as Aaron had explained: once on the sea bed and set in place on the footings that the Dutch ship had secured ten days earlier, the Ariadne had its own power source and could be self-sustaining for months at a time, hence its capacity to keep operating when the sea ice arrived.
‘She’ll be up in twenty minutes,’ said Aaron, stamping warmth into his feet as Bjorn Hansen, the ship-side commander, walked to the outside railing of the service hull and yelled a command into his hand-held radio. Beside him, another man — also in a red exposure suit — trained binoculars on the crane and the lines and murmured updates to the Swede. The crane whirred into motion and the lines on the Ariadne went taut.
‘Twenty minutes is too long,’ said Gallen.
‘You worry too much,’ said Aaron.
Gallen pulled his arctic suit hood up. ‘I worry enough to keep myself alive.’
The submersible pilot was dressed in dark blue Ariadne coveralls with thermals beneath and held a helmet in his hands. His yellow mini sub sat on a cradle on the inside of the starboard hull, a smaller crane ready to lower her. He was talking with Mike Ford as Gallen approached.
‘Let’s do this as fast as possible, okay?’ said Gallen, offering Ford and the pilot a cigarette as they watched the Ariadne being lifted clear of her derricks, the lines straining and crane groaning as the huge Dutch service vessel laboured under her task, the barked commentary from the big Swede making many of the media contingent stare at him before looking away.
‘It is no problem,’ said the Dutch submersible pilot, a blond sailor in his late twenties. ‘This is easy for her.’
The crane swung away from the starboard hull, carrying the sea-floor drilling rig with it, the media contingent huddling as the Arctic wind bit deep. Gallen saw two reporters patting their cameramen and photographer on the back as they peeled back for the warmth of the ship.