“Like the Somali pirates?”
“Not them,” McGarvey said, and it took several beats for the real meaning of what he’d just told them and its implications to sink in.
Don Price started to protest, but Eve touched his sleeve. “Continue,” she said.
“We believe that there are people other than some religious fanatics who don’t want this platform to reach Florida. They want to see your experiment fail.”
“What people?” Don demanded, his anger spilling over.
“We don’t know for sure,” McGarvey said. “But it’s possible they’re the same ones who attacked the Hutchinson Island reactor.”
“Speculation,” Don fumed, and Eve didn’t stop him from voicing his opinion. “What proof do you have?”
“None,” McGarvey admitted. “But I’m hitching a ride with you across the Gulf just in case something does develop. I wanted you to know who I was and why I’m here.”
“So now we know,” Don said. “Just get the hell out of here, we have a lot of work to do.”
“Could I have a word with you?” McGarvey asked Eve.
And before Don could object, she nodded and went with McGarvey out into the narrow space at the head of the steel stairs.
“Sorry about Don. He can be overbearing sometimes.”
“Don’t worry about it,” McGarvey said. “I’m interested in your news conference the day after tomorrow.”
“Interested or concerned?”
“Interested. Do you have list of the media people coming out?”
“No. InterOil set it up, and it was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Eve said. “Should I be worried?”
And what was the answer? McGarvey wondered. By his nature he was, if not a worrier, a man who paid very strong attention to the details. Especially the ones he had no direct control over.
He smiled. “No, that’s my job, remember?”
Her smile was a little less certain, but she nodded. “You’re leaving now?”
“Yes. But I’ll be back in time for your news conference.”
FORTY-EIGHT
McGarvey went back to Washington, calling Rencke on his sat phone before boarding the commercial flight at Biloxi-Gulfport Airport to find out the latest in the search for the contractor. “This guy doesn’t exist,” Otto said, and he sounded frustrated.
“But we know he does.”
“Yeah,” Rencke had said. “Maybe I’m getting too old for this shit.”
“He’s had years to devise his cover, but you’ve only had a couple of months to break it,” McGarvey said.
He’d spent a good deal of time over those same weeks trying to think like their contractor, trying to get inside the man’s head, trying to figure out what motivated him, trying to work out his background, and the direction he was headed — had likely always headed. And he had come to a few conclusions, actually just probabilities, based on the notion: If I were in his business, what would I do? Where would I live? How would my life be structured?
“He probably doesn’t live in the States,” he said.
“Eric thinks so too, but we don’t have any indicators,” Rencke said.
“Just bear with me. If he lived here he might have made mistakes. He’d likely to be in some database somewhere. City taxes, car registration, something. The only reason I think that he doesn’t live here is because he killed a teacher in San Francisco for an identity to get into the power plant.”
“He wouldn’t crap in his own nest.”
“Something like that. So where does he live?” McGarvey asked. “Not in some Third World country. He’s doing this work for what’s probably a great deal of money, which means he likes his comforts.”
“I’m working Switzerland, the Channel Islands, the Caymans, honest injun.”
“Let’s forget the money trail for a moment. Gail said the clerk at the Southern Power reception desk told her that the man had an English accent, but not Australian. Right now South Africa seems the most likely.”
“I’ve come up with nothing from SADF records.”
“Computer records,” McGarvey said. “I’m betting that this guy got out of the service
“Shit,” Rencke said. “Good point, Mac. I wasn’t thinking.”
“So where would a guy like that go to ground? Someplace civilized.”
“Europe,” Rencke said. “With the immigrant problem, a Westerner with culture and money would get no hassles from the local authorities. Long as he kept his nose clean no one would give him a second look. Switzerland, Germany, France.”
“Maybe France,” McGarvey said. “It’d be easy to get lost in Paris.”
“It’s a start,” Rencke said. “But there’d have to be more.”
“A woman. He wouldn’t live alone.”
“She’d leave no traces.”
“She might if she were bored,” McGarvey said.
And Rencke saw it all at once, his frustration giving way to excitement. “Oh, wow, kemo sabe, you’re right. When this guy is at home, he’s really at home. With his lady twenty-four/seven. But when he gets an assignment he’d have to drop out of sight for a week or two, maybe for months at a time, and she would get bored. She’d want to do something to keep from going crazy.”
“He would have warned her against getting too friendly, so whatever it is she does for pleasure will have to be very low-key. Maybe a garden club, maybe a tour guide or museum docent. If it’s Paris there’d have to be hundreds, probably thousands of such women.”
“Who don’t socialize.”
“It’s a start.”
“I’m on it,” Rencke said. “In the meantime have you found anything useful down there?”
“I think I know how he means to sabotage the rig, but he’ll have to get aboard to do it, and he’ll need some help.”
“When are they heading out?”
“Probably by the weekend, but they’re holding a news conference the day after tomorrow, on InterOil’s suggestion. See if you can come up with a list of who’ll be there.”
And Rencke saw that, too. “You think that he’s going to try to get aboard. Reconnoiter?”
“It’s something I might try.”
“Do you think it’d be worth the risk?”
McGarvey had thought about that too on the way back from the oil rig. There’d be only one reason for the man to take such a gamble, and that would in part depend on inside knowledge. “If the company plans on giving the media a guided tour he’d have to try it.”
“That’d mean someone at InterOil was feeding him information.”
“Find out what you can, but especially the names of everyone invited. And I want them vetted, all of them, including the cameramen and anyone else in the group.”
“I’m on it,” Rencke said.
McGarvey found that it was impossible to relax on the flight up to Washington. He couldn’t get out of his mind how vulnerable even something so large as an oil exploration platform was. A few kilos of well-placed Semtex as shaped charges on two legs would do the job, and once they exploded nothing could stop the platform from capsizing and ending up on the bottom of the Gulf.
A couple of operators could easily handle that task in fifteen minutes or less. In the meantime three or four others would round up the crew and technicians and herd them into the mess. But the biggest problem would be
