Алистер Маклин - Athabasca

Not without difficulty Brady heaved himself to his feet to indicate that the interview was over. “Thank you, gentlemen, both for your time and information. I’ll see you in the morning – at, of course, a reasonably Christian hour.”

The door closed behind Bronowski and Houston. Brady asked: “Well, what did you make of that?”

Dermott said: “As you said, just a limitation of possibilities, which, unfortunately, still remain practically limitless. Three things I’d like to do. First, I’d like the F.B.I. or whoever to carry out a rigorous investigation into the pasts of Poulson and his pals at Pump Station Four.”

“You have reason to suspect them?”

“Not really. But I’ve an odd feeling: something is wrong at Number Four. Don shares my feeling, but there’s nothing we can put a finger on except that buff envelope that went missing from the dead engineer’s pocket. Even with that I’m beginning to question whether my eyes or imagination were playing tricks on me: the lighting was damned harsh, and I could have got my colours wrong. No matter – as you’d be the first to agree, every pipeline employee is a suspect until his innocence is established.”

“You bet. You said Poulson and Bronowski seemed on pretty cordial terms?”

“Bronowski is the sort of character who seems on pretty well cordial terms with everyone. If you’re suggesting what I think you are I might mention that according to Finlayson there have been three security checks carried out on Bronowski.”

“And passed with flying colours, no doubt. What does Finlayson know about security checks and how to evaluate them? Has he any guarantee that none of those three professedly unbiased investigators was not, in fact, a bosom friend of Bronowski? Now, I have a very good and very discreet friend in New York. As you say yourself, every pipeline operator is as guilty as hell until proved otherwise.”

“I didn’t quite say that.”

“Hair-splitting. The second thing?”

“I’d like a medical opinion, preferably that of a doctor with some osteopathic knowledge, on how the dead engineer’s finger came to be broken.”

“How can that help?”

“How should I know?” Dermott sounded almost irritable. “God knows, Jim, you’ve emphasised often enough never to overlook anything that seems odd.”

“True, true,” Brady said pacifically. “There was a third matter?”

“Let’s find out how the fingerprint boys in Anchorage are getting on with that telephone booth affair. Three tiny things, I know, but it’s all we have to go on.”

“Four. There’s also Bronowski. And now?”

The telephone rang. Brady picked it up, listened briefly, scowled and handed the phone over to Dermott. “For you.” Dermott lifted an eyebrow. “It’s that damnable code again.”

Dermott gave him an old-fashioned look, put the phone to his ear, reached for a pad and started to make notes. After barely a minute he hung up and said: “And now? That was your last question, wasn’t it?”

“What? Yes. So?”

“And now it’s back to the old jet and heigh-ho for Canada.”

Dermott gave Brady an encouraging smile. “Should be all right, sir. Still plenty of daiquiri in your airborne bar.”

“What the devil is that meant to mean?”

“Just this, sir.” Dermott’s smile had gone. “You will recall our three brilliant minds sitting around in Sanmobil’s office and coming to the unanimous conclusion that there were six points vulnerable to attack – the draglines, the bucketwheels, the reclaimers’ bridges, the separator plates, the radial stackers and, above all, the conveyor belting? Some joker up there obviously didn’t see it our way at all. He’s taken out the main processing plant.”

Four hours later the Brady Enterprises team stood shivering in Sanmobil’s sabotaged processing plant at Athabasca. Brady himself was enveloped in his usual cocoon of coats and scarves, his temper not improved by the fact that the flight from Alaska had deprived him of dinner.

“How did it happen? ” he repeated. “Here we have an easily-patrolled area, brilliantly lit, as you pointed out yourself, and staffed with 100 per cent – I beg your pardon, 98 per cent – loyal and patriotic Canadians.” He peered through a large hole that had been blown in a cylindrical container. “How can such things be?”

“I don’t think that’s quite fair, Mr Brady.” Bill Reynolds, the fair-haired and ruddy-faced operations manager, spoke up for his colleague Terry Brinckman, the security chief at whom Brady’s remarks had been directed. “Terry had only eight men on duty last night – and that was his second shift of the day. In other words, he himself had been continuously on duty for fifteen hours when this incident occurred. You can see how hard he was trying.”

Brady did not nod in assent. Reynolds went on:

“You remember we had all agreed on the priorities, the areas most liable to attack. Those were the places that Terry and his men were doing their best to protect – which didn’t leave any men over for patrolling the plant itself. You will recall, Mr Brady, that you were in complete agreement. You also said Terry had nothing to reproach himself with. If we’re going to apportion blame, let’s not forget ourselves.”

“Nobody’s blaming anybody, Mr Reynolds. How extensive is the damage?”

“Enough. Terry and I figure that these guys let off three charges here – that’s the gas oil hydrotreater – and the same number next door at the naphtha hydrotreater. In fact we’ve been extremely lucky – we could have had gas explosions and fuel fires. We had none. As it is, damage is comparatively slight. We should be on stream again in forty-eight hours.”

“Meantime, everything is shut down?”

“Not the draglines. But the rest is. The radial stackers are full.”

“One of the plant operatives, you think?”

Brinckman said: “I’m afraid we’re sure. It’s a big plant but it takes surprisingly few people to operate it, and everybody on a shift knows everybody else. A stranger would have been spotted at once. Besides, we know it was an inside job – six thirty-ounce explosive charges were taken from the blasting shed last night.”

“Blasting shed?”

Reynolds said: “We use explosives to break up large chunks of tar sand that have become too tightly bound together. But we’ve only got small charges.”

“Big enough, it would seem. The blasting shed is normally kept locked?”

“Double-locked.”

“Somebody forced the door?”

“Nobody forced anything. That’s why Brinckman told you we’re sure it was an inside job. Somebody used keys.”

“Who normally holds the keys?” Dermott asked.

Reynolds said: “There are three sets. I hold one, Brinckman has two.”

“Why two?”

“One I keep permanently,” Brinckman explained. “The other goes to the security charge-hand for the night-shift, who passes it on to the person in charge of the morning and afternoon shifts.”

“Who are those other security shift charge-hands?”

Brinckman said: “My No. 2, Jorgensen – this is his shift, really – and Napier. I don’t think that any of the three of us is much given to stealing explosives, Mr Dermott.”

“Not unless you’re certifiable. Now, it seems unlikely anyone would risk abstracting keys and having copies made. Not only would they be too likely to be missed, but there’s also more than a fair chance that we could trace the key-cutter and so the thief.”

“There could be illegal key-cutters.”

“I still doubt the keys would have been taken. Much more likely someone took an impression: that would need seconds only. And that’s where the illegal side would come in – no straight key-cutter would touch an impression. How easy would it be for anyone to get hold of the keys, even briefly?”