he will not be picked up. And even if he survives that, I will find ’im and kill ’im. Also, remind ’im that if he does not ditch at the precise location he won’t get the rest of his considerable pay cheque. And I’ll still find ’im and kill ’im.’
‘Sounds clear enough to me.’
‘And one other thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t call me sweetie.’
A chirp sounding very much like a kiss came from the radio as Queen disconnected. Deacon frowned as he dug a satellite phone from a pocket, retrieved a number from the address book and hit the call button. It rang a couple of times before it was answered. ‘Yes,’ said a man’s voice.
‘This is Thanatos. Phase one is complete.’
The phone beeped as if it had completed some kind of electronic eavesdropping scan and a monotone voice answered. ‘Understood. You can make the call to the British Ministry of Defence.’
Another beep indicated that the signal had been disconnected and Deacon turned it off and put it back in his pocket. The first phase had gone according to plan, apart from that Lebanese twat killing the worker. Then again, it 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 Torbay will be inside the operational boundaries by this evening,’ said the second. ‘Admiral Bellington will command all forces. He’ll be on board HMS Daring within the hour and then inside the ops area by early morning.’
‘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