value. Some of the devices would be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. It would be catastrophic, in fact. There are foreign governments that would give almost anything to get hold of some of the items we have in here.’
‘Yeah, but—’ Chaz began to argue.
Jason was growing more irritated and cut him off. ‘Let me put it another way. If this had been an actual break-in attempt, on a scale of importance to this country’s security your oil-platform hijack would have equated to a handbag snatch in comparison . . . There’s nothing more we can do. Deal with it. Good day to you.’ He headed out of the room.
Binning gave Stratton a sympathetic look and followed his boss.
Stratton watched them go before looking back at the small screen. ‘Sounds like you’re going to have to sit this out for the next twenty-four, Chaz.’
‘That’s just friggin’ brilliant!’ Chaz shouted. ‘We didn’t bring anything in here. Their system screwed up!’
‘I know exactly how you feel. What was the task?’
‘Dropping in some new surveillance device that these guys put together.’
‘When are the assault teams supposed to be getting in?’
‘First packet in the next forty-eight hours. Two more to follow soon after.’
‘Where’s the forward mounting base?’
‘Aberdeen initially. Then on board one of the assault ships. They’re going to give us our RV within the hour.’
‘Any task timings?’
‘No. But they want to have the ability to assault asap. This puts us back big time. Someone’s going to be pissed off in Poole.’
‘I’d better let them know the bad news,’ Stratton said as he realised what he was going to have to do.
‘Sorry, mate.’
Stratton suspected that Chaz was going to get it in the neck. ‘Make yourselves comfortable. I’ll talk to you later.’
Chaz’s frustrated look filled the small screen.
Stratton headed back to the main complex.
7
The wind whipped at Deacon as he walked down a set of metal steps beneath the housing deck that was sandwiched under the main deck. He stopped to look further down between multiple cross-struts at a couple of his men working below. ‘How’s it coming?’ he shouted.
The Scotsman looked up, grimacing unhappily. ‘It’s coming,’ he said as he fixed a thick malleable plastic pack horizontally to one of the massive supporting legs that reached down into the foaming grey water thirty metres below. The metre-long pack joined the end of a string of others fixed around the leg. The Bulgarian handed Jock another pack from one of several large plastic containers that the team had brought with them.
‘That storm front’ll be here in an hour,’ Deacon shouted. ‘That stuff’ll need to withstand a good pelting.’
‘You do your job, I’ll do mine,’ the Scotsman shouted back without looking up.
‘Good enough,’ Deacon mumbled to himself. His satellite phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out to read the screen. He pushed the call button and put it to his ear. ‘Yeah.’
‘You are cleared to go to the next phase,’ a rugged male voice said.
Deacon checked his watch. ‘We’re ahead of schedule, then.’
‘The schedule was always meant to be flexible.’
‘Will do,’ Deacon said, unconcerned. He turned off the phone. ‘How much longer will you be?’ he called out.
‘Ten, maybe fifteen minutes,’ the Scotsman shouted.
‘Head up to the control room when you’re done. I need you to do that video feed.’
‘Am I the only bastard with any brains in this outfit?’ Jock shouted.
The Bulgarian paused to look at the Scotsman as he handed him another explosive charge.
Deacon knew that the man actually relished the responsibility. Jock was one of only two on the team whom he’d met previously. The first time had been in 2004 in the Green Zone US military hospital in Baghdad. Jock had had three bullet holes in him. Deacon had only had a piece of shrapnel in his leg. The Scot had been the sole survivor of an ambush on a six-vehicle, thirty-man convoy to Mosul.
A couple of hundred insurgents had hit them from all sides on the outskirts of the city. It had been a soldier’s worst nightmare. They’d had no support, no air cover, no reinforcements and no hope. Jock’s steel-plated black pick-up had been riddled with armour-piercing bullets within seconds and the next thing he remembered was running down the road back the way they’d come with a couple of colleagues on his tail. They’d all taken hits. The others had gone down but Jock had managed somehow to keep on going. Stopping would have meant death.