about Dilara. Someone wanted her dead, just like she’d claimed, and now Locke felt like an idiot for not believing her.
“There’s a corpse on the lifeboat deck,” Grant said. “That serious enough for you?” He showed Finn the backpack he’d taken from the intruder and pointed to the three empty slots in the case.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Finn said, his face drained of color. He turned to Locke. “Okay. You’re the bomb expert. What do we do?”
The weight of responsibility came crashing down on Locke’s shoulders, but the Army didn’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars training him to be a Captain for nothing. They got their money’s worth. He took a deep breath. Precision, calm, decisiveness.
“First,” he said, “muster everyone to the safety block.” The safety block, located under the helicopter pad, was the last-ditch safe haven for those who couldn’t make it to the lifeboats. It had blast resistant walls and a separate air feed.
“Done,” Finn said and slammed his hand on a huge red button. Three short horn blasts blared across the rig, followed by the sound of a woman’s voice.
“This is not a drill. Proceed to the safety block on deck seven. This is not a drill.”
“Second,” Locke said, “close the sea line valves.”
“I’m not authorized to do that unless there’s a fire,” Finn said.
“In a few minutes, there will be unless we find those bombs.”
Locke could see Finn mentally weighing the consequences of taking that action. Closing the valves that controlled the flow of oil from all of the rig’s well heads to the ocean-floor pipeline was a major decision. It would take days to start production again once they were closed.
“You’re sure there are bombs?” Finn asked.
“Positive,” Locke said. He had detonated and defused so many explosives in his life that the smell of C-4 was as recognizable to him as antiseptic was to a doctor. “And you don’t want to find out the hard way that I’m good at my job.” Another glance at his watch. “We’re at 11 minutes and 45 seconds.”
Finn reluctantly nodded at Hobson. Hobson punched the emergency stop button, which shut off the sea line valves.
“They’re shut down,” Hobson said, “but we’re still getting gas from Scotia Two. With the radio down, we can’t reach them to tell them to shut it off.” Scotia Two was One’s sister platform 20 miles to the north. Natural gas from Two was fed through One and then on to the pipeline to the coast.
Now Locke understood why the intruder had first put communications out of action. It would not only make any rescue calls impossible to send, but it would also make them unable to notify Scotia Two to shut off the gas supply. Any fires that were started by the explosions would be fed by three tons of natural gas per minute, reducing the entire rig to slag.
The disabled lifeboats were the crucial part of the intruder’s plan. He wanted to make sure no one would survive. Anyone who didn’t die in the initial blasts or resulting fires would be killed by the fall overboard or of hypothermia in the cold North Atlantic. It would look like an accident to investigators when it was all over.
The intruder knew exactly how to destroy the oil platform so that every single person on board would die, and Locke realized he might have stumbled into some luck. Knowing the intruder’s goal might be the key to finding the bombs before they detonated.
“This platform is huge,” Finn said. “How can we possibly find three bombs in less than twelve minutes?”
Locke didn’t respond. Time slowed as he tried to put himself in the head of someone wanting to destroy Scotia One. It was something he had done many times in the Army when he was looking for improvised explosive devices in Iraq. Try to think like the enemy. Where would Locke put the bombs if this were his demolition mission?
Another glance. 11 minutes and 10 seconds.
“Okay,” Locke said. “All we have time for is a targeted search. We’ll take walkie-talkies. Grant, you check the Scotia Two gas line, starting with the main valve. If that guy knew that we couldn’t shut down Two’s feed, that would be the best place to start a fire. Finn, the second one is probably at the pumping machinery for the firefighting system. He’d want to disable that at the same time.”
“What about the third bomb?” Grant said.
“I’ll take the safety block. If I wanted to kill everyone on board, that’s where I’d put it.”
“But I just sent everyone there!” Finn yelled.
“If the third bomb isn’t there, that’s the safest place on the rig. If it is there, it won’t matter where people go.”
Finn shook his head as he distributed the walkie-talkies.
“Let me know when you find it,” Locke said to Finn, “but don’t touch it. It may be booby trapped.” He took off his watch and tossed it to Hobson, who bobbled it like it was white hot.
“What’s this for?” he said.
“Call out on the walkie-talkie at every minute mark,” Locke said. It would keep them all informed about the time left, but in reality, Locke just didn’t want the distraction of looking at his watch any more. “And when you get down to four minutes, head to the safety block. You don’t want to be here if the bombs go off.”
“All…all right,” Hobson stuttered.
Locke followed Grant and Finn out of the control room and then sprinted toward the safety block. Masses of people were already herding in that direction, slowing him down.
“Coming through!” he yelled. “Make a hole!”
He pushed past one woman and saw that it was Dilara. She looked bone-tired and terrified.
“What’s happening?” she said, trying to keep up with him.
“We have a situation,” Locke said, deliberately not using the word “bomb” for fear of panicking those around him. But Dilara was persistent and latched onto his arm.
“What kind of situation?”
“Can’t say.”
“It’s them, isn’t it? They’ve sabotaged the rig.” A few passersby murmured in response.
Locke pulled her aside and put his lips next to her ear. “Look, I believe you now,” he whispered. “There are people trying to kill you. And now it looks like they’re trying to kill the rest of us with you.”
“Oh my God!” she said loudly, drawing more stares. “I’m right?”
“Keep quiet! The last thing we need is a panic. There are bombs on the platform.”
“Bo…” Dilara began to shout before Locke clamped his hand over her mouth.
“Just stay with me. I might need an extra pair of eyes to find it.” She still looked scared, but she nodded and Locke released her.
Hobson’s trembling voice came over the walkie-talkie. “Ten minutes.”
Locke led her past the others streaming toward the safety block. The block’s ordinary purpose was as a massive storage room underneath the helicopter deck, but it doubled as a safe haven in emergencies. Blast walls surrounded the room, and the door was heavy-gauge steel. The safety block was fed by an air system that would protect those inside from smoke emanating from fires on the rig. The room was so well protected, Locke was sure the bomb would be inside it.
Over 100 people already crammed the safety block. The room was big enough to fit every worker on the platform. If the C-4 went off inside here, the effects would be catastrophic.
“Start on that side and work around to me,” Locke said to Dilara. “I’ll take the other side.”
“What am I looking for?”
“It’ll be about the size and shape of brick. Check inside any drawers or lockers.”
“What if I find it?”
“Just call me over. And for God’s sake, don’t touch it.”
“I’m not insane,” Dilara said and began throwing open locker doors.
Locke quickly ran his eyes from floor to ceiling and over every piece of stacked equipment. The intruder wouldn’t have moved anything to set it. He’d simply choose an out-of-sight location because he didn’t expect a thorough search. Storage lockers abounded, containing all kinds of survival suits and other safety equipment, and Locke felt sure that was where the intruder would have hidden the bomb. He rooted through each one, tearing
