“You have me,” McGarvey said, dropping the walkie-talkie. He raised the shotgun up above his head, the muzzle pointed toward the overhead.
“Prick,” Burt said, and he grabbed the Franchi, his pressure with the MP5 SDG against the back of McGarvey’s head momentarily eased.
McGarvey ducked to the right, the Heckler & Koch firing an inch from the side of his head, and he slammed the Franchi’s receiver into the man’s face, breaking his nose and smashing out two teeth.
Burt grunted in pain as he stepped back and tried to bring the MP5 to bear, but McGarvey kept on him, batting his gun hand away, and yanking the shotgun out of his grasp.
“You should have turned down this job,” McGarvey said, jamming the Franchi under Burt’s chin. He pulled off one round, the twelve-bore taking off the back of the merc’s skull and violently slamming his body against the bulkhead.
As Burt crumpled to the deck, McGarvey grabbed the submachine gun, pointed it around the corner and, one-handed, sprayed the corridor, emptying the magazine.
There was no return fire.
“Get off this rig or I’ll kill you,” McGarvey called out, laying the weapon on the deck softly enough to make no noise. Picking up the walkie-talkie he hurried to the opposite end of the corridor where he ducked down the companionway, holding up on the first stair, and peering around the corner.
But no one was coming, or if they were they were being cautious about it.
McGarvey continued down five levels, taking the stairs two at a time, and making as little noise as possible. By now the explosive charges would have been set on two of the four legs, somewhere as close to the waterline as possible. But he didn’t think DeCamp would push the button until the helicopter was secured. For the moment their primary concern was taking him down and finding out if he’d been telling the truth that he had something they needed.
At the bottom, below the main deck, but still forty feet above the surface of the Gulf, the platform’s four massive legs, each thirty feet in diameter, were interconnected by a latticework of steel beams and girders and a catwalk with high railings.
Still no one had come after him, nor could he see anyone at or near the legs, which had to mean that the charges had already been set and the two men had gone topsides. But they had to know that he was down there. It was possible that DeCamp had sent someone to check out the helicopter and was at this moment getting set to fly off and push the button, but there was something else, McGarvey was certain of it.
DeCamp’s escape. Once the rig went to the bottom he’d be stuck with the flotilla. His only way out was the Bell Ranger, but with a full load its range was limited. They’d never get out of the Gulf.
But DeCamp knew what he was doing. He had a plan, and he was confident in it. McGarvey had heard that much in the man’s voice. There’d been no frustration, no fear, and especially no anger. He was a commander in control of the battlefield, and he had an escape route which he thought was foolproof.
But confident men made mistakes.
McGarvey turned up the walkie-talkie’s volume to counteract the noise of the boat horns, the tug’s massive engines out in front of them, and the wind tunneling through the substructure and the motion-induced waves sloshing against the legs, and pocketed it.
Keeping low, he headed to the leg on the front right corner of the rig relative to the direction it was being towed. He had a fifty-fifty chance at picking one of the two legs that had been sabotaged, but correct leg or not, he still had to find the explosives, while at the same time keep an eye over his shoulder for an attack he expected to come at any moment.
DeCamp knew where he was headed.
McGarvey hurried down the short ramp that led across from the main catwalk to another much narrower-railed walkway that circled the leg. An olive drab satchel, more like a small duffle bag, was shaped in an arc and jammed between the walkway and the curved steel plates of the leg.
Glancing over his shoulder to make sure one of DeCamp’s shooters wasn’t right behind him, McGarvey knelt down in front of the satchel. No wires came out of the thing, which meant its detonator was already in countdown mode, or the explosion would be radio-controlled once DeCamp and his people abandoned the rig. McGarvey gingerly released the snap catch and eased open the top flap. The duffle was half filled with a gray material that smelled faintly sour, like plumber’s putty. It was Semtex, the same explosive he and Gail had brought with them. Exceedingly stable — only an electrical charge would set it off — and extremely powerful. He figured the bag had to contain at least twenty kilos of the stuff, more than enough to take out a large section of the leg.
A radio-controlled detonator probe was stuck in the side of the mass, the light on a cell phone-sized unit green.
He glanced over his shoulder again, but if anyone was back there they were in the deeper shadows. Taking care not to disturb the detonator unit, which was possibly motion sensitive — too big a force or sudden movement would set it off — McGarvey prised the package out of the space between the narrow catwalk and the leg and set it down.
“Don’t kill him just yet,” DeCamp’s voice came from McGarvey’s walkie-talkie.
Kabatov unexpectedly came from around the curve of the leg, where he’d been waiting, and slammed the back plate of the MAC 10 into McGarvey’s temple.
A shower of stars burst inside of McGarvey’s head, and he went down heavily, banging his face on the steel grate.
These guys are good, the thought crystallized as he came around and could understand what he was hearing.
“He’s down,” Kabatov said.
“See if he’s carrying anything,” DeCamp’s voice came from the walkie-talkie. “Joseph says the bird appears to be okay, but I want to be sure the bastard didn’t take something we missed.”
“Standby,” Kabatov said.
McGarvey willed himself to remain loose, as if he were still unconscious, as Kabatov turned him over on his back, and began searching his pockets, finding and tossing the Semtex packets and fuses overboard.
“Semtex and acid fuses,” Kabatov radioed.
“Nothing from the helicopter?”
“Nothing yet, but maybe he hid whatever it is,” Kabatov said, and he laid the walkie-talkie and MAC-10 on the deck and grabbed the front of McGarvey’s jacket so that he could pull him away from the duffle bag to make a more thorough search. It was a mistake.
McGarvey suddenly reared up, headbutting the Russian, driving the man backwards and off balance.
But Kabatov was quick and he slammed his left elbow into the side of McGarvey’s neck, pushing him back, and he dropped to one knee and reached for his weapon, grunting something in Russian.
As he fell back McGarvey managed to kick the submachine gun away, and Kabatov lunged for it as it went over the side of the catwalk into the Gulf forty feet below.
“Oops,” McGarvey said, regaining his feet and charging before Kabatov could get out of the way. He wrapped his left arm around the Russian’s neck from behind to stabilize it in one position, and using his right hand pulled Kabatov’s head sharply to the right, the top of the man’s spinal column snapping.
McGarvey let the man’s body collapse onto the catwalk, and went back to the duffle bag, picked it up with great care, walked back up onto the main catwalk and well away from the leg and gingerly lifted the thing over the rail and let it fall into the sea. With a splash, not an explosion.
He turned as his walkie-talkie and Kabatov’s lying near the leg came to life. It was DeCamp.
“Nikolai.”
McGarvey keyed his walkie-talkie. “He’s dead.”
“How unfortunate,” DeCamp said. “But I have someone with me who would like to speak to you.”
SIXTY-SIX
Gail stood with Eve facing DeCamp, the man who’d fetched them from the pipe locker, and two others in the delivery control room whose windows gave a 360-degree view of the main deck below and the sea around them. Kirk was alive and that’s all that mattered r
ight now. They had a chance.
“Your numbers are dwindling,” Gail said pleasantly. “Maybe you should think about gathering what’s left of your merry mob and getting back into the helicopter.”
DeCamp was on her in two strides and before she could lift a hand to defend herself, he casually punched her in the mouth, and she went backwards on her butt, a ringing in her ears. “Speak only when I ask you to speak, Ms. Newby. I have Dr. Larsen as a hostage, so there is almost no reason to stop me from putting a bullet in your head. Clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Gail said, and Eve helped her to her feet.
“Don’t antagonize them for God’s sake,” Eve said.
Gail winked at her, and for just an instant Eve seemed nonplussed, but then she nodded almost imperceptibly. A smart woman, Gail thought, and a little bit wise, too.
“Mr. McGarvey,” DeCamp radioed.
“I’m waiting,” McGarvey replied.
“Where are you just now?”
McGarvey keyed the walkie-talkie, and he laughed. “Coming to kill you,” he said.
DeCamp’s neutral stance and expression did not change, but he motioned for two of his operators to head out, and they left immediately.
He took a Steyr 9mm pistol out of his chest holster and pointed it at Eve, who flinched. Holding up his walkie-talkie he keyed the push-to-talk button. “Dr. Larsen would like to have a word with you. I have a gun pointed at her head.”
“Get off the rig while you can!” Eve shouted.
DeCamp smiled. “Noble,” he said, and he released the transmit button.
Mac was on his way up there and nothing that Eve could possibly say was going to stop him. She just hoped that he’d managed to find and disarm the explosives on the legs because otherwise his actions were nothing more than an exercise in futility.
McGarvey did not reply.
DeCamp keyed the walkie-talkie. “Give me a reason not to shoot her.”
“You won’t like the outcome,” McGarvey said. “Yours, personally. Anyway, she would no longer be a hostage.”
DeCamp showed the first signs of anger. He keyed the walkie-talkie again, but before he could speak, Gail grabbed Wyner, pulled his pistol from a holster high on his right hip, jammed the muzzle in the side of his head, and using him as a shield dragged him to the doorway.
“Two bad guys here in the control room, two headed your way!” she shouted.
DeCamp released the transmit switch and cocked his pistol, still pointed at Eve, which was an empty gesture as far as Gail was concerned. The pistol had no conventional safety and could be fired in the uncocked position. “I will kill her.”
“Kirk was right, you need a hostage if you expect to get off this rig alive.”
DeCamp seemed to consider her comment, and he nodded. “You won’t get far.”
Wyner tried to break free, but Gail jammed the pistol harder into his temple. “Behave or I’ll blow your goddamned head off,” she told him.
Eve was not moving a muscle, her eyes locked on Gail’s. It was exactly the right thing for her to do.
“You won’t get far,” DeCamp repeated.
“Maybe not, Brian, but the odds are getting better by the minute,” Gail said. She glanced over her shoulder out into the corridor, but the two DeCamp had sent to find McGarvey were gone.
“Don’t leave me,” Eve said, and she sounded frightened out of her mind, but the look in her eyes was steady.
“Do what he says, Dr. Larsen. He needs you alive, unless you make yourself a liability.”
Gail stepped around the corner, pulling Wyner out of sight, but then she shouted, “Fuck it,” fired one shot into the overhead and shoved him forward back into the doorway.
DeCamp fired in reaction, hitting Wyner, shoving him back out into the corridor before Gail got more than two steps toward the companionway. She fired three times over her shoulder, reaching the steps and ducking around the corner, taking the stairs down two at a time.
She hoped to Christ she’d done the right thing, leaving Eve back there, but she’d seen no other choice. And with one more of DeCamp’s men down the odds had definitely improved.
SIXTY-SEVEN
McGarvey stopped at the bottom of the outside stairs that led up to the transverse corridor that crossed the back edge of the main deck. It was the logical route to and from the delivery control room and the helipad, and the quickest way down to the legs. To his left was the rig’s workshop, though a lot of the tools and equipment had been removed at Biloxi, and directly above that, just below the main deck, was a maze of tanking and piping.
He’d debated finding the second shaped charge, removing it and tossing it overboard which was exactly what DeCamp wanted to prevent. But the man would not leave the rig until he’d killed or locked up everyone who’d seen his face. And he wouldn’t send the detonate signal until he was aboard the helicopter and well away.
Eve was DeCamp’s ticket out of there. And the two operators Gail had radioed were on their way down as a reception committee, knowing that McGarvey was on the way up.
But it still didn’t make any sense. He was missing something, which all of a sudden came to him when he heard the sounds of the helicopter’s engines grinding to life.
In all likelihood Gail was dead, and DeCamp had taken Eve to the helicopter and was about to abandon the remainder of his operators, plus the scientists and techs trapped in the pipe locker on deck and whoever else might still be alive or wounded aboard the rig.
DeCamp no longer cared if someone who knew his face — even his own men — survived this night, because he was going to ground. It was his ace in the hole. The only question was how he intended to get out of the Gulf.
McGarvey started up. His only hope was to reach the helicopter and disable it before it was fully warmed up and lifted off, when one of the mercs appeared at the head of the stairs, armed with an MP5.
“Here he is then,” Helms said.
McGarvey stopped, absolutely no way of bringing his shotgun to bear before the merc pulled the trigger. “Sounds like your boss is deserting you.”
“Just waiting for us to confirm we’ve bagged you, and then we’re all getting out of here.”
“Not enough room for all of you.”
“Only the colonel, the broad, and three of us. Plenty of room.”
The pitch of the helicopter rotors deepened.
“Are you sure?” McGarvey asked.
Helms pulled out his walkie-talkie and keyed it. “We’ve got him!”
DeCamp did not reply.
Helms turned to look over toward the helipad, which was blocked from view by the edge of the superstructure containing the project control room. “Goddamnit, wait!” he radioed.
McGarvey raised the Franchi and pulled off two shots, destroying the front of the operator’s face and torso and shoving him backwards, the MP5 briefly firing overhead before it was flung away.
The helicopter sounded as if it were taking off, and McGarvey started up the stairs when five pistol shots, pulled off in rapid succession, came from inside the workshop. He spun around, bringing the Franchi to bear, prepared to fire from the hip, when the body of one of DeCamp’s mercs slumped out of the doorway, blood immediately spreading from his head and the back of his neck.
“Clear!” Gail shouted from inside.
“Clear!” McGarvey shouted back.
Gail appeared in the doorway, a pistol, but not her SIG-Sauer, in hand. Even in the harsh light from the overheads McGarvey could see that she was out of breath and flushed.
“They separated,” she said. “I figured you could handle one and I’d cover the other guy on your back.”
“Good job,” McGarvey told her. “But we need to get to the helipad right now before DeCamp lifts off.” He turned and raced up the stairs.
In the corridor he could hear the helicopter, and he knew damned well it was already away and accelerating, but he redoubled his efforts, emerging from the hatch just below the pad in time to see the Bel
l Ranger dip down out of sight to the west.
Gail was right behind him as he dashed across the lower landing, took the stairs up to the helipad two at a time and ran immediately to the edge, but the helicopter was already out of range for his Walther and certainly for the shotgun.
“Christ,” he said, a rage building. He’d failed. Again.
“Eve’s aboard with him,” Gail said. “Did you get to the explosives?”
“Just one of them, and he’s going to pull the trigger on the other any second now.”
Gail turned to look down at the main deck. “The techs are still locked in down there.”
“Get them out, and down to the lifeboats.”
“I’ll need Semtex to blow the lock.”
“Mine’s gone,” McGarvey said. He was watching to see if the helicopter would turn to the east, toward Florida, when he spotted something drop out of the hatch and fall to the Gulf sixty feet below.
And he got the momentary impression of flailing arms and legs at the same instant a tremendous explosion rocked the entire platform, and Vanessa began to slowly list to port.
SIXTY-EIGHT
McGarvey sent Gail below to get the Semtex and fuses from her room so that she could blow the lock on the pipe storage container and release Eve’s people, promising to be with her in five minutes. Standing now just down the slanting corridor from the delivery control room, Franchi in hand, he stopped to listen.
Blood had pooled in the doorway, but there was no body. Two pairs of footprints, one set larger than the other, led down the corridor to the hatch. DeCamp’s and Eve’s.
Gail had told him how she’d managed to escape. “DeCamp shot him and the last I saw the guy was on the deck. Looked dead to me.”
All the boat horns and whistles were shrieking loudly now. Schlagel’s followers had finally gotten what they wanted and the hell with the loss of lives they had to know was inevitable. They had to have seen and heard the explosion, and he could only hope that someone had the decency to send a Mayday.
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