McClure broke back to the surface, treading water as he pulled on the fins which had been hanging from his waist, and then popped open his life-jacket. Fifty metres away the woman was splashing down with an ease and elegance which matched his own. Between them he could see the other two’s helmet lights bobbing in the gentle Caspian swell.
They had arrived.
12
Ten minutes after splashdown the parachutes had been weighted and sunk, the Geminis inflated, loaded and motorized. McClure was with Noonan in one, Finn and Raisa in the other.
McClure checked his watch, which had already been adjusted for local time. They were five minutes ahead of schedule, which just about cancelled out their being half a kilometre further south than intended. The Aliyev rigs were fifteen kilometres to the north. First light was still more than four hours away.
‘Let’s go,’ he said softly, and the two muffled 40hp outboard motors came to life with an apologetic cough.
They headed north across the barely rolling sea at a steady 15kph, eyes peeled for other shipping, but for several kilometres the horizon remained empty. Then a bright light loomed above it in the north-east, causing McClure to slow and turn a questioning glance at Raisa. She nodded. It was the night ferry from Baku to Krasnovodsk, which they had been expecting to see in the distance.
Seconds later the ferry had again disappeared below the horizon, and the two Geminis resumed their previous speed. A scattering of faint lights were now visible in the north, and as the minutes went by a thin black line formed around them between sea and sky. This was the man-made peninsula of oil rigs and pilings which arced out into the Caspian from Baku, off the end of which lay the Aliyev twin rig.
Another minute and this too was visible, initially as a faint source of illumination and then, as the distance between them dropped, as an angular shadow flecked with pinpricks of white and yellow light.
They were about one and a half kilometres away when McClure cut the engine on the leading Gemini and signalled Finn to do the same in the boat behind. As the two craft bobbed in the swell, he spent several minutes examining the twin rig through the nightscope.
The larger of the two connected structures, Aliyev A, was certainly occupied – the lighted windows left no doubt of that. The exterior walkways were well lit, but more, McClure guessed, for the convenience of those aboard than as a security measure. He could see no sign of sentries, which suggested either a total reliance on hidden cameras or an assumption that the rig’s location was security enough. He hoped it was the latter.
To the east of the illuminated A rig, surrounded on three sides by the open sea, B rig seemed little more than the shadow of its twin. The bright light which adorned the top of the truncated drill tower was clearly intended as a warning to shipping and aircraft, not as a source of illumination, and the bulk of B rig was cloaked in impenetrable darkness. The SBS team could hardly have hoped for better.
They could make the approach as planned, McClure decided, taking a semicircular course which would bring them in on the blind side of the smaller rig. He gave Finn the appropriate hand signal, received a wave of acknowledgement, accepted a paddle from Noonan and settled down to work.
The next half-hour was less nerve-racking than they’d expected. The Stygian depth of this particular night would have made the two small boats almost impossible to see in any case, and the apparent lack of watchers on either rig merely added weight to the team’s belief in its own invisibility. Only Finn, with a cynicism borne of recent experience in such matters, found it slightly worrying that so much luck seemed to be coming their way at the beginning of the operation. He liked it better when fate owed him a break.
They reached the base of B rig without mishap, and edged the two Geminis in among the intricate web of girders which supported the platforms above. The girders themselves, as McClure and Noonan had discovered on Tempest Bravo, offered a slippery but straightforward way up to the lowest deck, and Noonan had made several such practice ascents during their time on the North Sea rig. He started upwards now, sacrificing speed for sureness of hold on the barnacle and algae-covered struts. Falling to his death at this stage would be fucking inconvenient.
Beneath him, the others were tying their supply and equipment bags to girders before carrying them up. Having emptied the Geminis they disconnected the outboard motors and stowed them in waterproof bags, before clambering out on to the structure themselves and deflating the boats. These, together with their bagged motors, were then attached to a flotation bladder, which was in turn inflated with carbon dioxide to the extent required to keep the whole package submerged a metre or so beneath the water’s surface.
This accomplished, they had only a few seconds to sling the supplies and equipment across their shoulders before the end of the lightweight caving ladder slapped Finn in the cheek. At a nod from McClure he used his own weight to pull it taut, and then started climbing. Raisa followed, with the PC bringing up the rear. Each emerged through a small trapdoor on to the metal floor of the rig’s lowest deck.
There they removed the silenced MP5s from the waterproof bag. B rig might seem deserted, but there was no point in taking chances.
The favoured spot for an observation post, picked out by McClure during a thorough exploration of Tempest Bravo, was a derrick control cabin, four floors above. They started up through the labyrinth, climbing steel ladders which showed no trace of ever having been used, and, having reached the right floor, worked their way round to the side which faced A rig across fifty metres of water. Having studied the plans, each member of the team felt familiar with the basic layout, but for McClure and Noonan, who had visited its North Sea counterpart, Aliyev B was something of a shock. It had obviously never been used for its original purpose, and after Tempest Bravo’s clutter of pipes, hoists, winches, barrels and drilling equipment it seemed so empty and bare. It felt like a half-built block of flats, with floors and internal supports but no walls. Movement during the hours of daylight would be a lot riskier than they had expected.
The derrick control cabin was beyond empty and bare – it was non-existent. But Lady Luck was still smiling on them, for close to the place where the cabin should have been, several large piles of metal lattice flooring had been lashed together with steel hawsers and left to rust. The space between two of these piles offered concealment from all angles but above, and this omission was made right by the floor of the deck above. Even better, gaps in the stacked sections of flooring provided a selection of views of the towering A rig. It was hard to imagine a more suitable place.
‘Home sweet home,’ Finn muttered.
McClure was pulling the MIL/UST-1 satellite communications unit out of its pack. ‘Get yourselves out of the rubber suits,’ he told the others. ‘I’ll let Galloway know we’ve arrived,’ he said softly, and walked off in search of an open sky at which to aim the satcom’s antennas.
It was still only 11.30 in Poole when McClure’s brief message reached Colhoun’s office. He sat there for a few moments, staring at the few words on the piece of paper, wondering at how little could mean so much. His team were ‘in position’, hidden on a converted oil rig in the middle of a sea which few Britons had ever laid eyes on. And millions of lives might depend on how successfully these four people spent their next couple of days.
It wasn’t right, Colhoun thought. Things like war and peace shouldn’t hang by such slender threads.
He supposed he should go home. Nothing was likely to happen in the next eight hours, and Galloway was quite capable of looking after the store by himself. But he felt reluctant nevertheless, for although it was utterly daft, having ordered his men into such a situation he was aware of something inside him which revolted against the idea of sleep.
* * *
Nearly five thousand kilometres away, McClure and Finn left the other two in occupation of the OP and began a systematic search of B rig. They didn’t expect to find anyone, and they weren’t disappointed, though the discovery of sev
eral used condoms on the platform above the empty drilling shaft suggested there were occasional visitors. Gazing down from the unprotected rim into the depths of the gaping shaft, Finn decided that these days sex was dangerous enough in bed.
‘They’re months old,’ McClure decided, after examining the condoms with the air of a palaeontologist sifting through recently excavated fossils.
‘We could try carbon-dating them,’ Finn suggested.
McClure grinned mirthlessly. ‘Fucking outdoors is something people do in summer,’ he said.
Finn had to admit the man had a point.
They moved down through the decks, finding no other traces of recent human occupation, and eventually reached the eastern end of the covered bridge which connected the two rigs. Its counterpart on the Tempest twin had boasted a narrow walkway enclosed in wire mesh above oil- and gas-carrying pipes, but this bridge was no more than a long and empty metal box suspended twenty metres above the water. Crossing it unobserved in daylight would be nothing more than a lottery, but at night the lack of any bridge lighting would be a definite plus. What ambient light there was came from A rig’s catwalk to the left, with the consequence that the northern side of the walkway was shadowed by its own roof.
‘Sweep complete,’ McClure said softly into the miniature microphone which was pinned to his shirt collar. ‘We’re alone, for the moment anyway.’
The view of the bridge from the OP was partial at best, and anyone emerging from the distant doors on A rig could get across over to B without their knowledge. So, McClure wondered, was it worth keeping a permanent watch down here on the bottom deck? He asked Finn what he thought.
The younger man thought about it for a minute or so. ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘The other three would get some warning, which might help, might not. It might just draw attention to us all. And the man down here wouldn’t have a prayer – there’s no cover, and no way he could get back up to the OP without being seen from the other side. I think we should assume that people only come over here once in a blue moon, and just play the odds.’
‘Agreed,’ McClure murmured. He had reached the same conclusion himself, and it was nice to hear he wasn’t just whistling in the dark. ‘I think this would be a good time to take a quick look over the other side,’ he added. ‘The less surprises we have to deal with tomorrow night the better.’
‘I was afraid you were going to suggest that,’ Finn muttered.
McClure smiled and passed on their intentions to Noonan, who sounded less than ecstatic himself.
A few seconds later the two men were walking briskly across the bridge, their eyes fixed on the double doors straight ahead. No one came through them, and no shouts of alarm rang out from the catwalks above. They stepped across the small open area at the foot of the external catwalk steps and flattened themselves against the doors. Through the small round windows they could see a dark corridor stretching into the distance, but the doors themselves were locked and bolted, and there was no sign of a key, either inside or out.
This was both good news and bad news. Good because it meant that the bridge across to B rig could only be approached by means of those external catwalks which were visible from their OP, bad because it meant they would have to use those same catwalks to gain entry to A rig’s interior.
‘Is there anyone out above us?’ McClure asked Noonan.
‘No.’
‘If anyone appears, let us know.’
‘Roger.’
McClure and Finn walked up the two flights of steps to the next level, where an otherwise identical pair of doors obligingly swung open in response to the PC’s push. There was no key here either, and the corridor in front of them was well lit. Colour scheme apart, it could have been the one on which their rooms had been situated aboard Tempest Alpha.
‘Two men on the fifth level, coming down,’ Noonan’s voice whispered excitedly in their earpieces.
‘Acknowledged,’ McClure murmured, and gestured to Finn to precede him down the steps. At the bottom they flattened themselves against the doors once more, listened to the footsteps above, and waited for Noonan to give them the all-clear.
‘They’re back inside,’ he reported almost instantly.
McClure and Finn recrossed the bridge and climbed back up through four of B rig’s five levels to the OP. It was now almost four in the morning, and time for half the team to get some rest.
‘Raisa, Finn – gonk time,’ McClure announced. ‘We’ll wake you at ten.’
The Londoner managed a quick leer, but otherwise needed no second bidding, and seconds after curling himself up in the Gore-tex sleeping bag he was dead to the world.
Raisa found it harder. ‘Gonk time,’ she murmured sarcastically to herself. This was an apt occasion, she thought, for using one of those Marine phrases which made no sense at all. ‘Fat chance!’ As she lay on the hard metal floor, listening to the sounds of the Caspian lapping at the supports of the two rigs, the whole business seemed far too fantastic for something as mundane as sleep.
Lingering over his coffee in the A rig canteen Tamarlan Shadmanov wondered what, if anything, he should be doing about the young Iraqi scientist. Salam Muhammad’s refusal to work was undoubtedly slowing down essential work on the project, a fact which pleased and dismayed Shadmanov in almost equal measure. He had no wish to see the work completed for Saddam’s sake, or for the sake of the idiots who ruled in Baku, but he had every desire to see it finished for his own. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life on a converted oil rig, spending his days working on weapons of mass destruction for a lunatic, his nights confined in a cell-like room with a woman for whom his feelings were at best residual.
Twenty-five years ago, as he knew only too well, such a selfish attitude would have filled him with guilt. But time and experience had changed him. For one thing, he was no longer so arrogant as to consider himself irreplaceable; for another, he had come to realize that events of world-shattering importance usually only mattered to politicians and journalists. Not always, but often enough for Shadmanov to give his own interests the benefit of the doubt. After all, if everyone concentrated on making the most of their lives, they might have less inclination to ruin other people’s.
But . . . he told himself, and left humankind’s most powerful syllable hanging there in his brain as he took another gulp of coffee.
‘Good morning, Professor,’ Vezirov said, looming above him. The security chief placed his tray on the table and stared at his large cooked breakfast with an expectant smile.
‘Good morning,’ Shadmanov said coldly.
‘I hear you’re being held up by Salam’s intransigence,’ Vezirov said, making a neat diametrical incision in the yoke of the first fried egg.
Shadmanov shrugged. ‘A little,’ he agreed. He didn’t want to get the poor kid shot.
‘Well, don’t worry about it. He’s getting a visit from his own people today. I expect they’ll point out the error of his ways, one way or another.’
Shadmanov looked up at Vezirov, wondering if the man could really be as big a shit as he made out.
Finn and Raisa were shaken awake at ten in the morning by a bleary-eyed Noonan. The clouds from the night before had appreciably thickened and the wind was fresher; the Caspian seemed almost lead-coloured underneath the heavy overcast. It was warmer though – somewhere in the high teens, Finn reckoned.
McClure was still at his post, staring through the veiled binoculars. ‘We’ve only clocked two men in uniform so far, and they had the look of internal security – more worried about their own people than outsiders. We’ve seen a lot of people in white lab coats – men and women.’ He smiled at Raisa, who had suggested they bring along such coats for possible use as a disguise. ‘But we haven’t seen anyone who looks like our man. And there’s been no arrivals or departures, either by sea or air. OK? Wake us at four – or earlier if you need to.’ He passed Finn his log of sightings and times and crawled away towards his sleeping bag.
Fin
n looked at the neat entries, the almost childlike numerals. ‘Sleep well,’ he murmured. ‘Now, what about breakfast?’ he asked Raisa.
They ate the last of the sandwiches from the Akrotiri canteen, a couple of apples and a packet of mixed nuts. ‘I suppose everyone has caviar for breakfast round here,’ Finn said. ‘This is where it comes from, right?’
‘Yes, but I’ve never had it for breakfast.’
‘You’re probably a Weetabix fiend.’
‘I like your Weetabix.’
‘You’re not alone. Rumour has it the Queen crumbles a couple for herself each morning.’
Raisa grinned. ‘What I’d really like is a cup of tea.’
‘I know what you mean, but I’m afraid it’s cold drinks for the duration. With any luck the chopper crew will bring a Thermos with them tonight.’
They settled down to watch. In the grey light of day the rig across the water seemed even more massive than it had by night. It was like a combined oil refinery, office building and block of flats on stilts, Finn thought. He had known the dimensions from the model back in Poole, but even so . . . It was fucking huge.
Advanced guesswork had placed the main work areas on the far side of A rig, and eight-plus hours of observation had offered no contrary indications. Occasionally there was movement visible through one of the windows in the wall facing them, but the rooms in question didn’t seem to be in permanent use for any sort of work. The external catwalks were occasionally used as a short cut between floors – the SBS team assumed the Aliyev A, like Tempest Alpha, also had lifts and internal stairs but were more commonly employed as the setting for a fresh-air break, with or without a cigarette.
A few of those who came out to lean against the rails were dressed in blue overalls – cleaners, probably – but the vast majority wore the white lab coats beloved of technicians and scientists the world over. Both groups came in both genders, though males seemed to preponderate among the lab coats. In racial terms, Finn was pleased to find a spectrum which ranged from blond Slavs to dark-moustachioed Turks. As long as no one expected any of the SBS men to understand Russian or Azeri they wouldn’t stick out like sore thumbs.
Marine I SBS Page 13