“Normally, it
He dropped the bottle and smeared the acetone over the entire window with his hand to make sure it was covered with the liquid. Locke took the hammer from Grant and counted to ten, giving the acetone time to be absorbed through the scoring marks he’d made.
“What are you waiting for?” Finn shouted.
Locke ignored him and kept counting down. On one, Locke raised the hammer and swung it with all his strength at the window. The pane of polycarbonate shattered like glass into the lifeboat.
“Voila,” Locke said more calmly than he felt. He tossed the case through the window.
“Thirty seconds!”
Locke took hold of one of the two launch levers on the outside of the lifeboat. Grant grabbed the other.
He nodded at Grant. “Ready…Now!”
They both yanked simultaneously. The clamps released, and the lifeboat began its slide down the rails. It accelerated and then dropped into space. After falling gracefully for two seconds, it hit the water with a tremendous splash.
The entire boat disappeared beneath the water. For a moment, Locke couldn’t see it. Then it resurfaced again 100 yards from where it had gone under, and Locke breathed easier. He had specifically chosen that window because it was the smallest. No doubt the lifeboat had taken on water, but it wasn’t enough to sink it. The forward momentum from its slide down the rails continued to push it away from the rig at ten knots.
“Behind the lifeboats!” Locke yelled. They had no sooner retreated to the safety of the huge lifeboat when a tremendous roar ripped the air. The rig was briefly lit by a flame shooting hundreds of feet into the air. Bits of orange debris rained down around them.
When the hail of lifeboat hull abated, Locke got up and peered around the side. Bits of burning fiberglass and metal littered the sea, but no large pieces of the lifeboat were left. The intruder hadn’t been playing around. Any one of those bombs would have been strong enough to blow up half the platform and ignite a blaze that would have been impossible to put out.
“Well,” Locke said as the adrenaline drained from his system. “That was interesting.” He leaned back against the railing, suddenly exhausted.
“That may be the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard,” Finn said. “You must have ice in your veins. I nearly crapped my pants.” He pointed at the dead man still sprawled on the catwalk. “Who is that guy? A terrorist?”
Locke stared at the body. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Someone seems to want Dr. Kenner dead. And I’m guessing they want me dead now, too.”
“Why?” Grant said.
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
“That was a hell of close thing. That guy sure knew what he was doing.”
“True, but he made two mistakes.”
“Which were?”
“First,” Locke said, “he shouldn’t have tried to kill me. Gives me a personal stake in Dr. Kenner’s problem. It also just pisses me off.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Grant said, “he didn’t finish the job. You’re still alive.”
“That, my friend, was his second mistake.”
FOURTEEN
It took two hours for one of the rig’s electricians to rewire the radio antenna, but because of the destroyed junction box, the satellite link-up wouldn’t be fixed until Sunday evening when the fog was supposed to lift. With Grant’s help, Locke used the time to complete Gordian’s consulting work on the platform. The job kept his mind occupied since he couldn’t continue the conversation with Aiden MacKenna and find out more about Coleman until the Internet hookup was back online. Dilara could only wait in her cabin and stew.
At 10 PM the satellite connection was finally repaired, allowing Locke to rearrange his travel plans. At the same time, the fog dispersed, and a helicopter left from St. John’s, bound for Scotia One. When it took off from the oil platform, Locke planned to be on it with Grant and Dilara for the return to Newfoundland. Gordian’s private jet was en route from New York and would meet them at St. John’s to take them back to company headquarters in Seattle where he could investigate the incidents of the last few hours. Since the rig was in international waters, the oil company would be doing its own investigation. In the meantime, they were having new hatches rushed from the manufacturer to make the lifeboats functional again.
His work on the rig done, Locke turned his focus back to the bizarre incidents of the past day while he, Grant, and Dilara waited in his cabin for the helicopter to arrive. He had to find out why mild-mannered archaeologist Dilara Kenner had drawn two attempts on her life in the span of 12 hours.
As Locke expected, the intruder had carried no identification. The body was taken to cold storage after Locke had taken digital photos of the man’s face and close-ups of his thumb and index finger prints. The wi-fi system was now up and running, as were the telephones. He loaded the photos onto his laptop and emailed them to Aiden MacKenna so that he could start tracking down who this guy was. Locke spoke with Aiden while Dilara, who was now convinced that Grant could be trusted, filled him in on the story she had told Locke the previous day.
“I sent you a photo and some prints,” Locke said into the phone. “Let’s get an ID on this guy.”
There was a slight pause before Aiden’s answer. Aiden had gone deaf five years ago from meningitis. Aiden had seen Locke signing at an engineering conference and introduced himself, and Locke ended up recruiting the Irishman to Gordian. One of the toys Aiden had, courtesy of another Gordian contract, was a speech-to-text translator. Since his deafness hadn’t affected his ability to speak, it allowed him to talk on the phone with anybody. The only drawback was the milliseconds required for the software to convert the spoken words on the phone to printed words on his computer.
“Opening the photo now,” Aiden replied in a thick brogue. “Good lord! He looks like he’s had a few pints too many.”
“He’s dead. Tried to turn us into flambe.” Locke gave him the quick summary of the day’s events.
“Sounds dreadfully boring,” Aiden deadpanned.
“Yeah, it’s been a real yawner here.”
“I don’t suppose your dead ninja wannabe had a wallet on him.”
“No, but he had an ex-military vibe. I’d start there.”
Because of the work Gordian did with the FBI and the military — investigating plane crashes, evaluating new weaponry, assessing terrorist threats on infrastructure targets — the company had access to confidential databases not available to many other companies. Like Locke, Aiden had a top military clearance.
“And see if you can find out whether there was a Lurssen or Westport yacht in the area today. Eighty-footer. It’s got to be connected.”
“Can’t be too many of those cruising the North Atlantic.”
“Now what’s this about Coleman?” Locke asked. “You left me hanging.”
“Right. I was all ready to blow your mind, but you took the air out of my plan.”
“You said he was dead. When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“How?” Like Gordian, Coleman’s company was based in Seattle. Locke was sure it had been front-page news there, but he had been on the road for the past month and hadn’t read any newspapers.
“You’re going to love this,” Aiden said. “An explosion. Seems he and three of his top engineers were consulting on a demolition project. An electrical short detonated the dynamite early. All four were turned into hamburger.”
Another coincidence. Locke didn’t like it.
“Have Jenny set up an appointment for me tomorrow afternoon with whoever is left at Coleman’s company. I
