added some gravitas to the operation. It had all been so polite and amicable otherwise.
The sound of the Eurocopter as it powered up its engines grew from the direction of the heli-deck and Deacon looked beyond the control centre to see the chopper rise into the air and turn away from the platform.
He looked to the control room to see the GM looking at him through the open door. ‘One hundred and sixty- four,’ Deacon called out, shrugging.
The Bulgarian closed the door.
Deacon looked down at the hard drive in his hand, walked over to the rail and tossed it over the side, watching as it flipped and caught in the wind on the long way down to the water. On the far horizon, beyond the crisp blue sea, slate-grey clouds were forming. The plan took into consideration the North Sea’s reputation for harsh weather, but it could still prove detrimental to the operation’s overall success.
He retrieved another stored number from the satellite phone and pressed the call button. ‘Is this the Ministry of Defence? . . . Good. Me and some friends have just hijacked an oil platform in the North Sea. Who should I speak to?’
5
Gerald Nevins walked briskly down a broad staircase into an Elizabethan hallway. Its ornate wooden carvings stretched from the ground- to the second-floor ceiling. He touched the perfectly tied knot of his silk tie as if to adjust it but without doing anything of the kind. It was a characteristic reflex when he was deep in thought. Two suited aides came down the steps behind him, one tapping the keys of a BlackBerry while the other talked into a phone.
‘All shipping within a radius of fifty nautical miles is being diverted away from the area,’ one of the aides announced. ‘Airspace is being cleared out to a radius of one hundred.’
‘The submarine HMS
‘It’s confirmed that the satellite-phone transmission originated on the Morpheus, sir,’ the second added.
‘Thanatos is Greek mythology,’ the BlackBerry scrutiniser offered. ‘The god of death.’
‘What did you think he’d call himself? Kermit the bloody frog?’ Nevins muttered.
‘Voice is definitely English,’ the aide continued, used to the sarcasm. ‘London or close to. Ninety per cent certainty he’s Caucasian.’
The three men headed across the marble-floored lobby towards a pair of solid-looking carved doors. The aide with the phone hurried ahead and placed his hand on a fingerprint scanner that unlocked the door. He opened it in time for Nevins to breeze through without breaking stride.
They entered a large operations room dominated by a huge screen that practically covered an entire wall from the floor to the high ceiling, the majority of its surface taken up by a live map of the North Sea - a hybrid of satellite imagery and colourfully illustrated enhanced topography. The Morpheus was indicated at the centre. Colour-coded reference numbers shadowed hundreds of other platforms and vessels, including the smallest fishing boats. Lines emanating from naval vessels extended across the map, indicating their tracks. Details of aircraft included their number, altitude and speed: most of them looked as if they were moving or turning away from the centre of the map. The screen’s deep margins contained data on various meteorological and current events. The air was filled with suppressed radio conversations from countless sources.
A dozen men and women occupied the room, a few in civilian clothes but most of them in casual military uniform from all three forces. They sat in front of computer consoles, facing the large screen and typing or talking into wire headsets.
The command centre’s operations officer, wearing a Royal Navy uniform and standing in the centre of the room looking at the screen, turned grim-faced towards Nevins as he approached, acknowledging his superior with a slight stiffening of the back and a nod. ‘We’ll have a satellite view of the platform in fifteen minutes,’ he said while Nevins scanned the display. ‘A Nimrod will provide a view in less than five.’
‘Do we know who these damned people are yet?’ Nevins asked as though it were all a great personal inconvenience.
‘No. It still appears to be a purely economic event. The ransom demands remain focused on the oil company.’
‘Arcom,’ one of Nevins’s aides interjected. ‘They’re at the top of the ownership tree, sir. Head office in Abu Dhabi.’
‘Any previous?’ Nevins asked.
‘Nothing relative to this,’ the aide replied.
‘Shareholders?’
‘Still compiling that one, sir,’ the other aide said. He went to one of the consoles and with the briefest apology to the operator typed in some commands. ‘A couple of red flags have already come up, though. Al Qatare Jalab Natar. Sim Basar Negal.’ Faces matching the names appeared in the margins of the large screen. ‘Both notorious money launderers for heavy Russian Mafia players like Valery Moscov and Boris Kilszin. Moscov’s a political player but so far there’s no plausible tie-in to this type of crime.’
‘Winners and losers?’
‘Still hard to say right now. We’re waiting for the underwriters to get back to us with the details of the coverage. One of them did say, with unmasked pleasure, that the ransom was marginally within the first-level deductions, suggesting that the oil company will take the brunt of the hit.’
‘Sir, I have a call for you,’ the other aide interrupted. A Mr Kaan in Abu Dhabi. Says he’s Arcom’s crisis-team manager.’
Nevins frowned as he looked at his aide clutching the phone as if he was protecting his boss from it. ‘He specifically asked for me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The operations officer looked at Nevins and raised an eyebrow. ‘He’s well informed.’
‘Clearly,’ Nevins muttered. ‘I only moved from South-East European operations last month.’
‘I can confirm that the call is from Arcom’s executive offices,’ said a young female technician operating one of the computer consoles.
‘Shall I tell him you’ll call back?’ the aide asked, putting the phone to his ear.
Nevins took a few seconds to decide before holding out his hand. The aide passed him the phone.
‘This is Nevins.’
‘Good day to you, sir.’ The accent was foreign but the words came across as well defined as any upper-class English that Nevins had heard spoken.
‘What can I do for you, Mr Kaan?’ Nevins asked.
A technician brought up something on her monitor and transferred it to the margin of the big screen: a photograph of a well-attired dark-skinned gentleman in his forties, with a finely groomed goatee. A biographical summary accompanied it.
‘I suppose the question to begin with has to be: what are you going to do about our oil platform?’
Nevins scrutinised the information on the man with disdain. Kaan had spent two years at Eton before moving to Harvard to complete a law degree. ‘Why, everything we possibly can, Mr Kaan.’
‘I don’t need to tell you that we have over a hundred and sixty people on board the Morpheus whose lives we are responsible for.’
‘Many of them British citizens who I am responsible for . . . not to mention that the hijacking has taken place in our sovereign waters.’
‘I fully appreciate that, Mr Nevins. Nevertheless, we will be the ones liable if harm comes to any of them. Can you give me an indication of your intentions?’
‘Have the hijackers made contact with you?’ Nevins asked, still reading the man’s bio.
‘Not yet. At the moment their dialogue appears to be directed towards your government.’
‘What’s your company policy with regard to the payment of ransoms?’
‘We don’t have one. We don’t enjoy the luxury that governments have when it comes to sacrificing our
