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 right 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!”
