Athabasca

by Alistair MacLean

  He grimaced. “Most people never realise how huge this State is. It’s bigger than half Western Europe, but it’s got a population of just over three hundred thousand, which is to say it’s virtually uninhabited. Again, helicopters are an accepted fact of life in Alaska, and people pay no more attention to them than you would to a car in Texas. Third, we’ve still only got about three good hours of light, and the idea of carrying out an air search is laughable—anyway, we’d require fifty times the number of planes we have, and even then it would be sheer luck to find them.

  “But, for the record, we did find out something unpleasant. In case anything should happen to the pump station, there’s an emergency pipeline that can be switched in to bypass it. Our friends took care of that also. They blew up the control valve.”

  “So there’s going to be a massive oil spillage?”

  “No chance. The line is loaded with thousands of sensors all the way from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, and any section of it can be closed down and isolated immediately. Even the repairs would normally present no problem. But neither metal nor men work too well in these abnormally low temperatures.”

  “Apparently that doesn’t apply to saboteurs,” Dermott said. “How many were there?”

  “Poulson said two. Two others said three. The remainder weren’t sure.”

  “Not a very observant lot, are they?”

  “I wonder if that’s fair, Mr Dermott. Poulson’s a good man and he doesn’t miss much.”

  “Did he see their faces?”

  “No. That much is for certain.”

  “Masked?”

  “No. Their fur collars were pulled high up and their hats low down so that only their eyes were visible. You can’t tell the colour of a man’s eyes in the darkness. Besides, our people had just been dragged from bed.”

  “But not the two engineers. They were working on the engines. How come at that very early hour?”

  Bronowski spoke with restraint. “Because they had been up all night. Because they were going home to their families in Fairbanks for their week’s leave. And because I had arranged to pick them up there shortly after that time.”

  “Did Poulson or any of his friends recognise the voices?”

  “If they had, I’d have the owners behind bars by this time. Their collars were up to their eyes. Of course their voices would have been muffled. You ask a lot of questions, Mr Dermott.”

  “Mr Dermott is a trained interrogator,” Brady said cheerfully. “Trained him myself, as a matter of fact. What happened after that?”

  “They were marched across to the food store and locked in there. We keep it locked because of bears. Unless bears are near starving, they aren’t very partial to human beings, but they’re partial indeed to all human goodies.”

  “Thank you, Mr Bronowski. One last question. Did Poulson or his men hear the fatal shots?”

  “No. Both the men Poulson saw were carrying silenced guns. That’s the great advantage of those modern educational pictures, Mr Dermott.”

  There was a pause in the questioning. Brady said: “Because I am an acute observer of character, George, I can tell something’s eating you. What’s on your mind?”

  “It’s only a thought. I’m wondering if the murderers are employees of the trans-Alaskan pipeline.”

  The silence was brief but marked. Then Bronowski said: “This beats everything. I speak as Dr Watson, you understand. I know that Sherlock Holmes could solve a crime without leaving his armchair, but I never knew of any cop or security man who could come up with the answer without at least visiting the scene of the crime.”

  Dermott said mildly: “I’m not claiming to have solved anything. I’m just putting forward a possibility.”

  Brady said: “What makes you think that?”

  “In the first place, you pipeline people aren’t just the biggest employer of labour around here: you’re the only one. Where the hell else could the killers have come from? What else could they have been? Lonely trappers or prospectors on the North Slope of the Brooks Range in the depth of winter? They’d freeze to death the first day out. They wouldn’t be prospectors, because the tundra is frozen solid, and beneath that there’s two thousand feet of solid permafrost. As for trappers, they’d be not only cold and lonely but very hungry indeed, because they wouldn’t find any form of food north of Brooks Range until the late spring comes.”

  Brady grunted. “What you’re saying in effect is that the pipeline is the sole means of life-support in those parts.”

  “It’s a fact. Had this happened at Pump Station Seven or Eight, circumstances would have been quite different—those stations are only a hop, skip and jump from Fairbanks by car. But you don’t take a car over the Brooks Range in the depth of winter. And you don’t back-pack over the Range at this time of year, unless you’re bent on quick suicide. So the question remains, how did they get there and away again?”

  “Helicopter,” Bronowski said. “Remember I said I thought I saw ski marks? Tim—Tim Houston—saw the marks too, although he was less sure. The others were frankly sceptical, but admitted the possibility. But I’ve been flying helicopters for as long as I can remember.” Bronowski shook his head in exasperation. “God’s sake, how else could they have got in and out?”

  “I thought,” Mackenzie said, “that those pump stations had limited range radar-scopes.”

  “They do.” Bronowski shrugged. “But snow plays funny tricks on radar. Also, they may not have been looking, or maybe they had the set switched off, not expecting company in such bad weather.”

  Dermott said: “They were expecting you, surely.”

  “Not for another hour or so. We’d had deteriorating weather at No. 5, so we left ahead of schedule. Another thing—even if they had picked up an incoming helicopter, they’d automatically have assumed it was one of ours and would have had no reason to be suspicious.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Dermott, “I’m convinced. It was an inside job. The killers are pipeline employees. The note announcing their intention of causing a slight spillage of oil seemed civil and civilised enough, with no hint of violence, but violence there has been. The saboteurs blundered, and so they had to kill.”

  “Blundered?” Mackenzie was a lap behind.

  “Yes. Bronowski said the key had been left in the store room door. Don’t forget, all the engineers locked inside were engineers. With the minimum of equipment they could have either turned the key in the lock or slipped a piece of paper, cardboard, linoleum, anything, under the bottom of the door, pushed the key out to fall on it and hauled the key inside. Me, I’d have thrown that key a mile away. But the killers didn’t. Their intention was to bring the two pump-house engineers to the store room and usher them in to join their friends, and lock them in, too. But they didn’t do that either. Why? Because one of the saboteurs said or did something that betrayed their identity to the two engineers. They were recognised by the engineers, who evidently knew them well enough to penetrate their disguises. The saboteurs had no option, so they killed them.”

  Brady said: “How’s that for a hypothesis, Sam?”

  Bronowski was pondering his reply when the minibus pulled up outside the main entrance to the administrative building. Brady, predictably, was the first out and scuttled—as far as a nearly spherical human being could be said to scuttle—to the welcoming shelter that lay behind the main door. The others followed more sedately.

  John Finlayson rose as they entered his room. He extended his hand to Brady and said: “Delighted to meet you, sir.” He nodded curtly towards Dermott, Mackenzie and Bronowski, then turned to a man seated to his right behind a table. “Mr Hamish Black, general manager, Alaska.”

  Mr Black didn’t look like the general manager of anything, far less the manager of a tough and ruthless oil operation. The rolled umbrella and bowler hat were missing, but even without them his lean, bony face, immaculately trimmed pencil moustache, thinning black hair parted with millimetric precision over the centre of his sca
lp and the eyes behind pince-nez made him the epitome of a top City of London accountant, which he was.

  That such a man, who could hardly tell a nut from a bolt, should head up a huge industrial complex was not a new phenomenon. The tea-boy who had painstakingly fought his way up through the ranks to board-room level had become a man of no mean importance: it was Hamish Black, so adept at punching the keyboard of his pocket calculator, who called the industrial tune. It was rumoured that his income ran into six figures—sterling, not dollars. His employers, evidently, thought he was worth every penny of it.

  He waited patiently while Finlayson made the introductions.

  “I would not go as far as Mr Finlayson and say I’m delighted to meet you.” Black’s smile was as thin as his face. His flat, precise, controlled voice belonged to the City, to London’s Wall Street, just as surely as did his appearance. “Under other circumstances, yes: under these, I can only say that I’m glad you, Mr Brady, and your colleagues are here. I assume Mr Bronowski has supplied you with details. How did you propose we proceed?”

  “I don’t know. Do we have a glass?”

  The expression on Finlayson’s face could have been interpreted as reluctant disapproval: Black, it seemed, didn’t believe in using expressions. Brady poured his daiquiri, waved the flask at the others, who waved it on, and said: “The F.B.I. have been notified?”

  Black nodded. “Reluctantly.”

  “Reluctantly?”

  “There’s a legal obligation to notify of any interruption of interstate commerce. Quite frankly, I don’t see what they can achieve.”

  “They’re out at the pump station now?”

  “They haven’t arrived here yet. They’re waiting for some specialist Army Ordnance officers to accompany them—experts on bombs, explosives and the like.”

  “Waste of time. Among the people who built and run this line are as good—if not better—explosives experts than in any Army Ordnance Corps. The killers wouldn’t have left a trace of explosives at Pump Station No. 4.”

  If a silence can be said to be cold, the ensuing silence was downright chilly. Finlayson said stonily: “Does that statement mean what I think it means?”

  “I should imagine it does,” said Brady. “Explain, George.”

  Dermott explained. When he had finished, Finlayson said: “Preposterous. Why should any of our pipeline employees want to do a thing like that? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It’s never a pleasant thing to nurture a viper in your bosom,” Brady said agreeably. “Mr Black?”

  “Makes sense to me, if only because no other immediate explanation occurs. What do you think, Mr Brady?”

  “Exactly what I was asking Mr Bronowski as we touched down.”

  “Yes. Well.” Bronowski didn’t seem any too comfortable. “I don’t like it. An inside job is all too damn plausible. Point is, carry this line of thinking a little further, and the finger points at Tim Houston and myself as the two prime suspects.” Bronowski paused. “Tim and I had a helicopter. We were in the right place at approximately the right time. We know of a dozen ways to sabotage the pipeline. It’s no secret that we’re both pretty experienced in the use of explosives, so taking out Station Four would have presented no problem for us.” He paused. “But who’s going to suspect the security chief and his number two?”

  “Me, for one,” said Brady. He sipped his drink and sighed. “I’d have you clapped behind bars right now were it not for your impeccable record, lack of apparent motive, and the fact that it’s incredible that you should have acted in such a clumsy fashion.”

  “Not clumsy, Mr Brady. The killers were stupid to the point of insanity, or badly frightened. The job certainly wasn’t the work of professional hit men. Why shoot the two engineers? Why leave any evidence that murder had been done? Just knock them unconscious—a dozen ways that can be done without leaving a mark—then blow them to pieces along with the pump station. Act of God, and no hint of foul play.”

  “Amateurism is a grievesome thing, is it not?” Brady turned to Finlayson. “Could we have a line to Anchorage, please? Thank you. Give him the number, then take the call, George.” Dermott did so and within four minutes had hung up, his part of the conversation having been limited mainly to monosyllables.

  “Wouldn’t you know it,” Dermott said.

  “No luck?” said Mackenzie.

  “Too much. The Anchorage police have located not one but four hot phone boxes. Suspicious characters either inside them or lurking in the vicinity, and this at a most ungodly hour. All four of them, dammit, with a disproportionate number of high-denomination coins inside them. All four have been dismantled and taken along to the cop shop. But they haven’t been fingerprinted yet, and it may be hours before the cops can check the prints against their files.”

  Black said with sardonic restraint: “The relevance of this call escapes me. It has something to do with Pump Station Four?”

  “Maybe,” said Brady. “Maybe not. All we know for certain is that Sanmobil—the people who have the tar sands concession north of Fort McMurray, in Alberta—have also received a threat against their oil production lines. Couched in almost identical forms with the threat you received, the only difference being that while yours arrived by mail, theirs came from a public phone booth in Anchorage. We’re trying to trace which booth and, with any fingerprint luck, who the caller may have been.”

  Black thought briefly, then said: “Curious. A threat against Alaskan oil from Alberta, and one against Albertan oil from Alaska. Must tie up with Pump Station Four: the arm of coincidence isn’t all that long…and while you’re sitting here, Mr Brady, some ill-intentioned person or persons may be planting an explosive device at some strategic point in Sanmobil’s tar sands.”

  “The thought had not escaped me. However, surmise and speculation will serve no point until we turn up one or two hard facts. We hope that one may even result from a close inspection of Pump Station Four. Coming out there, Mr Black?”

  “Good heavens, no, I’m very much a deskbound citizen. But I shall await your return with interest.”

  “Return? I’m going no place. Those frozen wastes—not for me. My excellent representatives know what to look for. Besides, someone has to stay and run the command post. How far to the pump station, Mr Bronowski?”

  “Helicopter miles? Hundred and forty, give or take.”

  “Splendid. That will leave us ample time for a belated lunch. Your commissary is still open, Mr Finlayson, I trust, and your wine cellar tolerable?”

  “Sorry about that, Mr Brady.” Finlayson made no effort to conceal the satisfaction in his voice. “Company regulations forbid alcohol.”

  “No need to distress yourself,” Brady said urbanely. “Aboard my jet is the finest cellar north of the Arctic Circle.”

  5

  Three generator-fed arc-lamps threw the half-demolished pump-house and its shattered contents into harsh relief, glaring white and Stygian blackness, with no intermediate shading between. Snow drifted silently down through the all-but-vanished roof, and a high wind blew a fine white cloud through a gaping hole in the northern wall. Already the combined effects of the two snows had softened and blurred the outlines of the machinery, but not sufficiently to conceal the fact that engines, motors, pumps and switchgear had been either destroyed or severely damaged. Mercifully, the snow had already covered the two mounds that lay side by side before the mangled remains of a switchboard. Dermott looked slowly around with a face again as bleak as the scene that lay before him.

  “Damage evenly spread,” he said, “so it couldn’t have come from one central blast. Half-a-dozen charges, more likely.” He turned to Poulson, the charge-hand, a black-bearded man with bitter eyes. “How many explosions did you hear?”

  “Just the one, I think. We really can’t be sure. If there were more after the first one, our eardrums were sure in no condition to register them. But we’re agreed that one was all we heard.”

  “Triggered electrically,
by radio or, if they used fulminate of mercury, by sympathetic detonation. Experts, obviously.” He looked at the two shapeless, snow-covered mounds. “But not so expert in other ways. Why have those two men been left here?”

  “Orders.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “Head Office. Not to be moved until the postmortems have been carried out.”

  “Rubbish! You can’t do a post-mortem on a frozen body.” Dermott stooped, began to clear away the snow from the nearest of the mounds, then looked up in surprise as a heavy hand clamped on his left shoulder.

  “You deaf or something, mister?” Poulson didn’t sound truculent, just annoyed. “I’m in charge here.”

  “You were. Donald?”

  “Sure.” Mackenzie eased Poulson’s hand away and said: “Let’s go talk to the head office-man, Black, and hear what he has to say about obstructing murder investigations.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Mr Mackenzie,” Bronowski said. He nodded to Poulson. “John’s upset. Wouldn’t you be?”

  Poulson hesitated briefly, turned and left the pump room. Dermott had most of the snow cleared away when he felt a light touch on his shoulder: it was Poulson again, proffering him, of all things, a long-handled clothes brush. Dermott took it, smiled his thanks and delicately brushed away the remaining snow.

  The dreadfully charred skull of the dead man was barely recognisable as that of a human being, but the cause of the round hole above the eyeless left socket was unmistakable. With Mackenzie’s help—the corpse was frozen solid—he lifted the body and peered at the back of the skull. The skin was unbroken.

  “Bullet’s lodged in the head,” Dermott said. “Rifling marks on it should be of interest to the police ballistics department.”

  “There’s that,” Bronowski said. “After all, Alaska only covers just over half a million square miles. Optimism is not my long suit.”