She tapped the trackpad, and the video started to play. It was immediately clear that the pipeline monitoring system was not employing the latest technology: the image occasionally flickered with lines of static, looking as though it had originally been recorded on a well-used VHS tape rather than digitally.
The only things that moved for several long seconds were video glitches – until a figure, bent low and creeping stealthily through the shadows, appeared at the left of the frame. ‘There, that’s me,’ said Eddie.
‘Yeah, I kinda guessed that,’ Nina replied. He made a rude sound.
The Eddie on the screen, carrying a SCAR assault rifle, reached the base of the ladder and began to climb. ‘There isn’t any sound, is there?’ his present-day counterpart asked. Nina shook her head. Past-Eddie cautiously peered over the top of the ladder, watching something off-screen, then made a quick ascent to the walkway and brought up the rifle as he disappeared from view.
‘It’s a few minutes before anything else happens,’ said Nina. She was about to fast-forward through the recording, but Eddie stopped her. ‘What?’
‘If there’s anything in this that can help me, it has to be in the boring bits everyone skips through. Otherwise someone would have seen it by now.’
‘Interpol will have watched the entire thing.’
‘I’ve done surveillance work. It’s the most bloody mind-numbing thing imaginable, and it’s easy to miss something, even with other people looking as well. You can go over a tape again and again, and not catch something until the third or fourth time. So let’s keep watching.’
They did so. Apart from video flickers, nothing seemed to happen for over two minutes, and then a wash of light swept over the scene. ‘That’s me and Macy arriving,’ said Nina. ‘And—’
‘And now everything kicks off,’ Eddie said as two figures came back into view: himself and Kit, wrestling for control of the SCAR. Staccato flames burst from its barrel as it fired down into the pumping machinery. The pair continued their desperate brawl – then the image was momentarily wiped out by an explosive flash from below, video afterimages fading to reveal a jet of bright flame blasting out horizontally from a damaged pump.
Both Eddie and Kit had been knocked over by the blast, the Indian landing on top. He landed a couple of blows on Eddie’s head, then finally managed to prise the gun away from him, turning it round to fire – but Eddie kicked it upwards as he pulled the trigger, the last bullets searing just over his head.
Even though she had seen it before, Nina still winced. ‘Jesus, that was close.’
‘Feels even closer when you have a gun fired in your fucking face,’ said Eddie.
Another explosion flared as a second pump blew apart, starting the chain reaction that would soon consume the entire gas plant. The men on the screen were still fighting, Eddie slamming Kit’s head against a railing – then the section of catwalk on which they were battling suddenly collapsed, tipping like a trapdoor to drop them towards the burning gas jet below. Eddie hit a stanchion and swung for a moment before pulling himself up.
Kit had fallen further before catching the edge of the catwalk, dangling above the flames near a cluster of pipes. He tried to haul himself higher, but couldn’t get a firm enough grip. Eddie hesitated, then used the stanchions like stepping stones to get closer.
‘I was going to pull him up,’ said Eddie. ‘Honest to God. I needed him alive to find out what the hell was going on.’
‘I believe you,’ Nina reassured him. On the screen, her husband reached Kit, who had at last managed to find a more secure hold.
Eddie started to bend down, extending his hand—
Then abruptly drove a boot into Kit’s face, sending the Interpol officer plunging into the inferno below.
The sight shocked Nina as much as when she had witnessed it in person. And despite what Eddie had told her, she still couldn’t see a gun in Kit’s hand. She looked at him questioningly.
‘Wind it back,’ he said. She did so. ‘Okay, watch his right hand . . . now!’
Nina paused the recording. ‘Eddie, there’s . . . I can’t see anything.’ Shadows and the camera angle, coupled with the low quality of the video, made it impossible to discern anything clearly amongst the pipework.
‘It’s there, I tell you.’ He leaned towards the laptop until his nose was almost touching the screen.
‘I told you, not even Interpol found anything, and they gave it