They crowded round the window.
‘That ship don’t look right,’ said Nail.
The plastic canteen window was pitted and scratched, scoured by fierce ice storms. The approaching ship was a blur. The crew ran upstairs to the rooftop helipad for a better view. They stood on the big red H and braced their legs against a buffeting wind. A small tug approached from the north.
‘Spirit of Endeavour my ass,’ said one of the men.
‘That’s a dinghy,’ said Punch. ‘That’s a fucking rubber duck.’
The ship drew close. It looked like a small fishing trawler. The wheelhouse was little bigger than a phone booth. Maybe a couple of bunks below.
‘I think some of us might be staying behind,’ said Jane.
The List
The tug entered the shadow of the refinery, splintering ice, and docked at the north leg. The tiny vessel bobbed on the swells like a cork. Chugging diesel engine. The crew watched from the helipad railing.
Rawlins met the captain on the docking platform. He caught the mooring rope and helped the captain aboard. They saluted. They shook hands. The captain wore snow gear and carried a shotgun. No one was surprised to see the gun. Most Arctic teams carried protection against polar bears.
Rawlins led the man up steel steps to the habitation levels of the rig. The first mate stayed on the tug. He paced the deck with a shotgun held in the crook of his arm.
The captain was a short man in his fifties. He took off his parka and sat at a canteen table. He kept his gun within reach. Punch put a steaming mug of coffee in front of him.
‘Got any food?’
The skipper ate two Snickers bars and started on a third. The Rampart crew stood over him and watched him eat.
‘I’ve got room for four men,’ said the captain. ‘That’s all I can take.’
‘Jane. Sian. Upstairs,’ said Rawlins.
Sian was the rig administrator. A timid, petite girl in her twenties. She also cut hair.
Rawlins sat the girls in his office and dumped a box of manila personnel files in front of them.
‘Work up a shortlist,’ he said. ‘People we can live without. People who deserve to go. There’s a weather front moving in. The captain says he’ll stick around for a couple of hours then he wants to be gone.’
‘Why me?’ asked Jane, daunted suddenly to find herself in a position of responsibility. ‘Why do I have to choose?’
‘You’re a priest. You’re impartial. And I better stay downstairs otherwise there’ll be a riot.’
Rawlins took his yellow Taser pistol from his desk drawer and checked the charge.
‘Let’s finish this quickly,’ he said. ‘The sooner that boat is out of here the better.’
‘Christ,’ said Sian, when Rawlins was gone. ‘We could be deciding if people live or die, you realise that?’
‘Let’s start a list,’ said Jane. ‘See if we can narrow it down.’
There was a whiteboard on the wall next to a picture of a tropical beach. Jane bit the cap from a pen and wrote names.
‘Okay,’ said Jane. ‘Who stays for certain? Who can we strike off the list right away?’
She put a cross through FRANK RAWLINS. ‘Goes down with the ship. He’d be insulted if we even considered him.’
She put a cross through ELIZABETH RYE. ‘The installation needs a doctor. Essential personnel.’
‘Says here she has a son,’ said Sian.
‘Rawlins won’t let her go. I guarantee it.’
She crossed out GARETH PUNCH. ‘We need a chef.’
‘Any fool can flip an egg.’
Jane shook her head. ‘Everyone is talking like we will be out of here in a week or two, but truth is we might be stuck a while. We need someone who can manage a kitchen, eke out provisions.’
Jane crossed out three more names. ‘Senior ops. Maintenance. Maintenance. We need people who can keep the lights on.’
‘Six down.’
‘Anything in the files?’
‘I can give you two names right away. Rosie Smith and Pete Baxter. Rosie is diabetic. She injects insulin every day. They have a crate of the stuff on ice in medical. We’re supposed to feed her sugar or something if she has a fit.’
Jane circled ROSIE SMITH. ‘All right. She’s on the boat. Pete Baxter?’
‘Heart attack four years ago. He takes some kind of bloodthinning medication. I heard he brought his own defibrillator. Keeps it by his bed. I’m astonished they gave him a job.’
Jane circled PETE BAXTER. ‘Two more. Maybe we should pull names out of a hat. It might be the easiest way.’
Fox News looped the same footage over and over.
‘…may God defend us in this dark and difficult hour..
The President’s sombre wave as he climbs aboard Marine One and flees the White House.
Food riots. Flaming cars. Humvees in the street.
Nail stood, arms folded, in front of the TV. He stood close enough to see the President’s face reduced to picture grain and blur.
He turned round.
The captain was sitting in the corner of the canteen. He was hunched over a bowl greedily spooning soup. His shotgun rested on the Formica tabletop easily within reach.
Nail crossed the room and sat next to his gym buddy, Ivan.
‘Reckon you could pilot that boat?’
‘Little tug like that? Sure,’ said Ivan.
‘Seriously. You could get it going? Navigate?’
‘Yeah. Pretty certain I could.’
‘We have to get his gun.’
‘He’s got his back to the wall. And look at him. He’s twitchy. He’s watching for someone to make a move.’
‘I should go over there,’ said Nail. ‘Offer him another coffee.
I want to see if the safety catch is on.’
‘We could wait until he’s up and walking. Catch him in a stairway, a corridor. It would give us a chance to get close, but we’d have to take his gun.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What about the first mate?’
‘What about him? We’d have a gun.’
‘Could you do that? Could you shoot a man?’
‘I’d fire a warning shot.’
‘But if it came down to it?’
‘Then, yeah,’ said Nail. ‘Him or us, right?’
‘Okay. You and me. Gus, Mal, Yakov. You give the signal. We move at once. We do it quick. But we’d have to be on the boat and gone before anyone has a chance to react. Bags and coats ready to go.’
‘I’ll tell the guys. Go to the kitchen and fix yourself a sandwich. Get some knives while you are in there.’
Rawlins brought the captain to his office. The captain still carried his shotgun like he expected to be jumped any moment. They examined a map of the Arctic.
‘They sent us to a pump station in the Kara. The place was deserted. We swung by Severnaya to see how the Russian team were doing but they had cleared out. Norway is closed for business. Don’t dare approach. They have a couple of AWACS planes guiding gunboats.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘We’ll catch the current south. Skirt Norway. Skirt Iceland. Western Scotland seems like a good place to ride out doomsday. We’ll find an island. Hide ourselves away.’
