local who’d happened to come out of a driveway. God only knew why the man had chosen that moment to go for a drive. Iraqis tended to put all survival judgements in the hands of Allah. Operating on full survival mode Jock had shot the man through the head, yanked him out of the car, jumped in and hit the accelerator.
Within a couple of months he’d been back on the convoy route. The man was part crazy, Deacon was certain of that.
Deacon headed back to the accommodation block and went in through a door and then another immediately after it that acted as an airlock. The doors closed with a bang behind him, slammed shut by the rising wind. ‘Viking, this is Deacon,’ he said into his walkie-talkie. ‘I’m heading to the galley to set up the first media scenario.’
‘Understood,’ a voice came back.
Deacon pocketed the radio and walked along a narrow corridor of rooms, some with their doors open to reveal beds and closets. Bedding and clothing lay on the floor of the corridor as if there had been a hasty exit. There was no one here.
Deacon pushed through a door at the end, past vending machines, emergency firefighting equipment and signage, through a pair of swing doors on his left and then into another long corridor. Near the far end Viking and the Lebanese thug stood outside yet another door, carbines to hand, magazine pouches on belts around their waists, pistols in holsters on their thighs and radios dangling around their necks.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Deacon called out as he approached.
The red-headed warrior glanced at his Arab colleague and then back at Deacon.
‘Yeah, you,’ Deacon said, looking at Viking.
‘I answered,’ Viking explained.
‘So what are you still doing here? Go set up the bloody camera!’
The Norseman understood, grabbed his foul-weather jacket off a hook and hurried away.
‘Viking idiot,’ Deacon muttered as he pushed in through the door they had been guarding. The Lebanese thug jammed it open with his foot, his weapon at the ready.
Inside the large dining room a hundred and sixty-four platform workers minus those maintaining the rig’s life-support systems sat on the floor, hands secured behind their backs with heavy-duty plastic cuffs. They were a variety of shapes and sizes, many of them big or just overweight, dressed in dirty clothes and looking dishevelled. Among them were the rig manager and the security supervisor. They all eyed Deacon, their expressions ranging from curious to self-pitying, from coldly calculating to angrily malevo - lent. The room felt uncomfortably warm with that number of bodies crammed into it and the smell of sweat and other body odours was almost overwhelming.
Banzi and Pirate squatted on the edges of the counter in opposite corners of the room with guns held easily in their hands. Queen walked between the hostages, offering water which he squirted none too accurately from a plastic bottle into their open mouths. He looked approvingly at one handsome young man and gave him an extra helping.
Deacon took a moment to look them all over before stretching out a hand and pointing to one after another. ‘You, you, you, you, you, you. Stand up.’
The randomly selected six men looked from one another to Deacon, each waiting for the others to make the first move. Several of them looked concerned about their possible fate.
‘Come on. Hurry up. Get to your feet,’ Deacon called out.
‘Piece o’ shit,’ someone grumbled loudly.
‘Who was that?’ Deacon asked, not particularly annoyed and even somewhat admiring of the man’s spirit. He managed a smirk. ‘You six selected men. Stand up and file out of the room. Nothing’s gonna happen to you. The only shootin’ we ’ave planned, for the moment at least, is a little TV show.’
‘Lying bastard,’ another voice called out.
The men still did not move.
‘If you make it difficult for me, I’ll make it difficult for you,’ Deacon assured them.
‘Gutless bastard,’ another man muttered.
Deacon pulled out his pistol, walked over to the outspoken hostage and stopped behind him. The man was suddenly horrified about the outcome of the move. He had good reason to be. The hijacker slammed the pistol into the side of the man’s head, almost knocking him senseless. The man fell onto a colleague, blood pouring from a wound across his ear.
‘If you men don’t stand up in five seconds I’ll kill this gobshite,’ Deacon snarled, placing the muzzle of his pistol an inch above the man’s skull. ‘And then I’ll kill another, and another . . .