That’s what Adam was hoping; the first sight of one of their own lying dead, they were going to bolt like rabbits. Failing that, though, if they got on, then with each of those hundred-foot-long walkways, there was another chokepoint on which they could hold them back. He doubted whether a single nut or bolt propelled from the cup of one of their bras was actually going to find a target, but with the air around them whistling with projectiles, perhaps Maxwell’s boys might decide these rigs weren’t such a soft target.
There was a football horn used to summon people for their meal sittings. That was going to be their battle horn. One honk meant everyone on the first platform was to retire across the walkway to the second. Two honks was the sign to retreat to the next. Three honks, the next . . . and so on. A simple plan. But simple was always best.
‘Danny?’
‘Yeah?’ replied Walfield.
Adam looked at him, caught the glint of his eyes in the moonlight. ‘Reckon we’re going to be able to hold them off?’
Walfield sucked his teeth like a builder giving an estimate. ‘Dunno, maybe. It’s a bit of a bastard of a place to try an’ take under fire, to be fair. I guess it depends how much those little bastards really want it.’
‘Maxwell won’t go back to the Zone. He knows the Zone hasn’t got a future. He knows he’s got to take this place. That or face a mutiny.’
Walfield shrugged. ‘His boys might not know that. They’re a pretty stupid bunch, the lot of them. Maybe they’re thinking this is just some bloody raiding trip.’
‘If I was in his shoes I’d tell them. Tell them this isn’t just a raid for booty. This is their survival. Take this place or face starving.’
Walfield whistled softly. ‘Them boys’re too fuckin’ stupid to explain things to. I reckon he won’t have told ’em anything. They’ll just be thinkin’ it’s a lark. A day out.’
They leaned against the railings in silence for a while, savouring the fresh salty breeze. They heard Bushey fart on the other side of the platform and Harry’s dirty Sid James cackle. Pair of bloody idiots.
‘And that’s how you charm the ladies,’ said Adam. ‘They do love a man who can hold a tune.’
They listened to the soft rustle of leaves above and below them, and the thump and wallow of the sea. Adam scanned the dark horizon, a mottled quilt of drifting moonlight and shifting shadows.
‘They’re something, though, aren’t they?’ said Walfield after a while.
‘What?’
‘Mrs and Miss Sutherland. Tough ladies.’
Adam nodded. Jennifer Sutherland with that tomboyish short brown hair, there was something of a GI Jane look to her, what with the khaki pants and the scarring down her cheek and neck. Tough. Very tough. She’d had to be.
Leona, on the other hand, was a puzzle. She seemed both vulnerable and strong. She was fragile like a vase with a handle broken off and glued back on again; never quite as fixed as it once was. But there was something about her, an inner strength she seemed to be finding. He realised both of them, mother and daughter, were women he might find himself putting on a pedestal, idolising even, if he wasn’t mindful of that.
He shook his head. Now really wasn’t the time to start thinking that sort of thing. In the old world, he suspected neither of them would have looked twice at him anyway.
Harry’s voice broke the silence, echoing across the flat deck.
‘Hey!! Shit!! There’s something out there!!!’
Chapter 82
10 years AC
‘LeMan 49/25a’ - ClarenCo Gas Rig Complex, North Sea
Maxwell watched the dark looming silhouette of the nearest platform as it drew closer. The tugboat was approaching slowly and noisily, sputtering fitfully like an old man choking on a mouthful of unchewed meat.
That’s exactly what he wanted; no discretion, no quietly sneaking up. Just a very noisy arrival; enough to rouse everyone.
A floodlight mounted on the roof of the pilot’s cabin snapped on, bathing the gently lolling sea in front of the boat’s prow with a brilliant cone of light. The beam swung across several hundred yards of water onto the nearest platform, slowly panning over its dark corroded legs, across the lattice of the spider deck and the drilling core’s support jacket. It swung up across the cellar deck, cluttered with flaking yellow Portakabins, onto the main deck where, finally, Maxwell thought he saw several faces watching them intently.
So they know we’re here.
The floodlight arced down