The men remained expressionless. One of the Russians whispered something to his associate. The two Arabs exchanged a whisper as if in retaliation. The bald Russian gestured with his hands to the Arab opposite in a manner that asked if he had anything to say to the phone. The man produced a polite smile and shook his head. The Russian indicated to Kaan that they were finished with him.
Kaan disconnected the phone from the speaker, walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.
The four men looked at each other, waiting for one of the others to begin. The suited Arab spoke. ‘We have reached the point where we must decide if we are to see this through, or abort.’
‘We have not yet reached the point of no return,’ one of the Russians pointed out.
The skinny Arab had not made himself clear. ‘If we proceed to the next stage there may be no turning back.’
‘He’s right,’ the other Russian agreed.
They all thought about it for a moment.
‘Shall we vote on it?’ the fat Arab asked.
‘We didn’t vote on the last decision,’ the Russian who still had his hair pointed out.
‘That’s because we all agreed beforehand and a vote wasn’t needed,’ the Arab reminded him.
‘What do we do if one of us votes differently from the others?’ the bald Russian asked.
‘We have already agreed that if it is not unanimous we abort,’ the man said, making an effort to hide his mild frustration.
The bald Russian looked unsure. ‘I thought that was only to begin with.’
‘No,’ his associate said, correcting him. ‘It stands for every phase. This needs to be agreed by all of us. It is crucial.’
‘So if one person votes no the whole deal is off,’ the bald Russian summarised. The skinny Arab struggled to come up with a polite smile.
‘Those in favour of continuing, raise a hand,’ the other Arab said. ‘Does that suit everyone?’
They glanced at each other and eventually nodded.
The bald Russian raised his hand.
The skinny Arab did the same.
The fat Arab followed.
The Russian with hair raised his hand.
All four broke into smiles.
The skinny Arab pushed a buzzer on his coffee table and a moment later the door opened and Kaan returned. ‘Would you bring in the satellite phone and prepare to make a connection to Mr Deacon.’
‘Are we going through to the next phase?’ Kaan asked.
‘Yes, we are.’
Kaan beamed. ‘Excellent. I’ll bring the codes.’ When Kaan returned he placed the phone and a file on the table and reconnected the speaker. After dialling a number he placed the phone in the cradle. A beep announced that the call was going through. Seconds later it was picked up. The initial sound was like that of a wind tunnel.
A man’s voice broke through the interference. ‘Yeah?’ he shouted as if he was outside in a storm.
Deacon was on the topmost deck of the platform, trying to find protection from the wind and driving rain among some heavy machinery. ‘I can’t hear you. Give me a moment,’ he shouted.
He hurried along the deck, the rain lashing at him and whipping his hood from his head. He reached the control room and pushed in through the door into the airlock, shutting the first door behind him and the weather with it. Deacon remained inside the lock. ‘Hello,’ he said into the phone.
‘Thanatos?’
‘Yeah. This is Thanatos.’
‘An identity code, if you please.’
Deacon took a second to select one of the many identity codes he had memorised. ‘Jupiter’s moon.’
‘Good. You are instructed to proceed,’ Kaan’s voice came over the phone. ‘I suggest you get a pen and paper if you don’t have one to hand. We don’t want this next phase to go wrong due to a faulty memory.’
‘Right,’ Deacon said, feeling his pockets. He pushed open the inner door, went to a desk and found a pen. Jock sat reading a newspaper.The only other person present was a technician working at a bank of electronic machinery. ‘Go ahead,’ Deacon said, ripping a piece of paper from a printer.
Jock looked up to see the nerd staring at the hijack leader. He picked a steel nut that was doubling as a paperweight off the desk and tossed it like a frisbee. It struck the man on the side of the head with a loud
Deacon wrote down the number and read it back to make sure it was correct. When he and Kaan were satisfied he turned off the phone and put it in his pocket.
He went to his bag that rested on the floor beside the Scotsman, took from it a small metal money box and placed it on the desk. The words WARNING: DO NOT OPEN THIS BOX WITHOUT THE CORRECT CODE had been written in bold letters on a piece of tape fixed across the keypad. Deacon removed the tape and studied a digital display, which he activated by pushing a button. He read the number on the piece of paper again and hit the first key.
‘What’s that?’ Jock asked.
‘My next orders,’ Deacon replied, keying in the next number.
‘Inside the box?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they don’t want me to see them before I have to.’ He pressed another key.
‘Bit silly, isn’t it, leaving your orders in a little box?’
‘Not if it’s got a stick of plastic that’ll detonate if anyone tries to open it without the right code.’
Jock nodded, impressed. ‘Nice. Wouldn’t it also be a good way to get rid of you if they’ve changed their mind about the task? They just give you the wrong code.’
Deacon hadn’t thought of that and gave Jock a look.
‘’Scuse me,’ Jock said, picking up his newspaper and walking into the security office to stand behind a cabinet from where he could just about see his boss.
Deacon’s finger hovered over the final key. If that was true, how had they planned to kill the rest of the team? He decided that killing just him would not make sense and so he pushed the key. Nothing happened. He could not help giving a small sigh of relief as he turned the handle on top of the box and raised the lid.
A lump of plastic explosive had been fixed to the inside of the lid. The detonator was wired to a battery and a small circuit board was attached to the keypad. An envelope rested in the bottom of the box. Deacon removed it and put the box into his bag.
The envelope contained a single sheet of instructions and a photograph of a man was stapled to a corner of the paper. The man was Jordan Mackay.
As Deacon read the instructions his brow creased into a frown. Jock stepped back into the room. ‘I take it we’re moving right along, then.’
‘It would seem so.’ Deacon put the envelope into his pocket. ‘I’m going down to the galley.’
Jock watched him go and glanced at the technician, who was looking at him. When he saw Jock’s hostile expression, the nerd could not get back to work quickly enough.
Deacon entered the accommodation block and wiped the rain from his face as he made his way down the stairs. He strode purposefully along the corridor, through a door and along another corridor towards the galley. The Lebanese thug slouched outside the entrance to the food hall. He gave Deacon a glance but no more.
‘What you doin’ out ’ere?’ Deacon asked.
‘I think some of them have shit their pants,’ the Arab said.
Deacon pushed open the galley door and scanned the room. It smelled like a foul toilet, and the workers were crammed into every inch of floor space. Some of them appeared to be sleeping. Banzi, the Pirate and the
