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.
14
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.