Abyss

slowly positioned them about twenty meters to the port of the Pascagoula Trader, which was the largest boat in the flotilla and the one with the small Bell Jet Ranger lashed to the after deck. His orders were to close the gap between the two boats as soon as DeCamp and Wyner were off.

Tony Ransom, one of Schlagel’s top aides, more or less in charge of the “operation,” as he called it, was aboard and DeCamp had been invited over for a drink a couple of nights ago. “You need anything, anything at all, Mr. Schlagel says to help you out. Says you met at the rally in Biloxi.”

DeCamp had nodded. “Great man, the reverend,” he’d said, smiling. “Maybe you can do me a favor, but later on. We’ll see.”

The seas were calm tonight, the wind relatively light, and as DeCamp hesitated at the back rail Forget It ’s automatic foghorn sounded. When Gunther Wolfhardt had shown up at his home above Nice, he’d made the decision that when this job was completed he would walk away from the business. And from Martine. Yet at this moment his blood was up, had gotten up over the past few days and especially this afternoon after they’d passed forty-two-double-oh-three, and he was having second thoughts. This thing that was going to happen tonight was the very reason he’d been born. Being deserted by his parents had been his real birth in the sense that he’d not come alive until he’d been taken in by Colonel Frazer, and eventually the SADF, where he’d learn to kill, quietly if the need arose, but above all efficiently and without remorse. “The bastard who you kill would certainly not shed a tear if it was you instead of him dead,” the tactical instructors drilled into them.

DeCamp climbed down into the dinghy, and Wyner released the painter and peeled off to the right in a straight line for the tug out ahead of Vanessa. For all practical purposes they were invisible from anyone aboard the platform or the fleet because the decks were all lit up — on the platform because work had been going on around the clock, and just now they were having a party, and aboard the boats because Schlagel wanted it that way. “He wants to make a statement, loud and clear, that we’re out here,” Ransom had explained.

The thirty-five horsepower four-stroke outboard was quiet enough to allow nearly normal conversation. DeCamp called Gurov on the sat phone. “Status?”

“They’re having a bloody party just like you expected they would.”

“Is Nikolai with you?”

“Here with me in my quarters.”

“Start with the off-duty crew in their cabins, then the delivery crew on the bridge and the communications equipment. Then the sat phones.”

“What about McGarvey and the broad?” Gurov asked, and he sounded excited; the past weeks without action had gone on too long.

“Take them if you can, but only after you disable the communications equipment,” DeCamp told him. “We’re on the way to the tug now. ETA back to the Pascagoula Trader three zero minutes. Call as soon as you’re ready for us.”

“Will do,” Gurov said. “Good luck.”

DeCamp broke the connection and smiled grimly. He’d never believed in luck.

* * *

Gurov and Kabatov used the 9mm Ingram MAC 10 because even with its suppressor tube the submachine gun was light and compact, which would make it much easier to conceal as they worked their way through the maze of corridors and spaces aboard Vanessa. And at a cyclic rate of more than one thousand rounds per minute it was devastating in small spaces.

Gurov’s eyes were bright as he stuffed a half-dozen thirty-round magazines into his pockets and seated the seventh in the handle of the weapon. “Finally we have the green light,” he said.

Kabatov was doing the same, and he was excited though his movements were steady and precise and the expression on his face was bland, even indifferent. “How much time do we have?”

“He wants our go or no-go in thirty minutes,” Gurov said. He pulled on his dark blue Windbreaker, put the sat phone in a zippered pocket, and donned a hard hat.

“That’s cutting it close,” Kabatov said. “If they run into trouble aboard the tug our arses could be out in the wind without some additional muscle.”

“If you’re talking about McGarvey and his bitch, we’ve been given the green light to take them out if we get the chance.”

Kabatov grinned, and to Gurov at that moment his friend reminded him of a wolf, a hungry wolf.

They’d spent the past week between work shifts wandering around the platform, sightseeing, getting some exercise and fresh air, away from the welding and pipe fitting — sometimes in tight, nearly airless quarters. They came across as men who’d rather spend their off time alone, which didn’t make them much different from many of the other roustabouts and construction workers, so they’d not stuck out, nor had anyone made any real effort to engage either of them in conversation, ask them to play pool or poker or go fishing off one of the lower decks. Which is exactly the way they’d played it. But in their wanderings they’d pinpointed all the crew’s quarters, including the wing where the scientists slept and hung out, had made handwritten copies of the deck crew’s schedule, and had taken quick looks at the platform delivery captain’s station with its communications gear, and mapped out plausible routes to the pair of satellite dishes on the roof of the control room.

The plan they’d worked out from the blueprints in Tripoli was straightforward. First they were to kill anyone asleep in their quarters — the roustabouts and construction workers first because they were the muscle. Next they were to tap Captain Lapides and whoever was on duty in the delivery station and destroy the radios. Finally Kabatov was to use the ladder on the backside of the control room, out of sight from anyone down on deck, and cut the coaxial cable leads to both dishes, while Gurov maintained watch. All that would be left after that were a couple of sat phones.

Their primary orders were stealth; eliminate as many of the crew as possible and destroy the comms gear, but do it without detection. If someone pushed the panic button and sent a Mayday the mission would be scratched.

“Ready?” Gurov asked.

Kabatov nodded. “I’ll go left.”

Gurov checked to make sure that the corridor was empty, then slipped out of his room and went to the next cabin on the right, eased open the door, and went inside.

A man — one of the welders, Gurov thought — was in bed reading, and he looked up, startled at first but then angry. “What the fuck—?”

Gurov hit him with a short burst, destroying most of his chest, blood spraying against the bulkhead behind him, the noise from the weapon acceptable.

* * *

Close up the Tony Ryan was much older and more decrepit-looking than DeCamp had expected. But on second thought the Vanessa Explorer had been ready for the breaker yard, and InterOil would not have diverted a new oceangoing tug for a job like this. Which in a way was a bit of good news; crews aboard junk heaps were usually second-string, not as sharp as those aboard newer vessels.

The pilothouse, crew’s quarters, and galley were all forward, leaving three-fourths of the ship open deck. A massive hawser was connected to a bridle arrangement taut behind the tug, beyond which a thick steel cable snaked back nearly one hundred meters to another bridle arrangement connected to the platform at three points for maximum stability.

The tug was making less than two knots, so there was virtually no wake, though directly aft the wash from the twin props was dangerous, so Wyner maneuvered the dinghy to the port quarter and forward to a position just below the pilothouse. The entire hull from the gunwales to the waterline was festooned with large truck tires and frayed four inch rope hawsers used as fenders.

DeCamp gently tossed a grappling hook and line up to the deck railing ten feet above and made it fast to the dinghy’s painter, and Wyner throttled back and put the outboard in neutral.

They took out their weapons, charged them, slung them over their shoulders, and DeCamp started up first, no words between them, none needed at this point. On deck they crouched in the shadows for just a moment or two to make sure they’d not been detected. But the deck lights didn’t come on, and DeCamp headed up the portside ladder to the bridge while Wyner went through the hatch and headed below to the galley and crew’s quarters.

The Tony Ryan ’s bridge, dimly lit only by the red night-lights on the two radar