Алистер Маклин - Athabasca

“Cities, yes – and the population of each must be crowding half a million. The captives wouldn’t be hidden – they’d be lost.”

“Well.” Brady pulled himself up in his chair. He looked weary. “Okay. I suppose we have to wait word from the kidnappers before we make a move. You two gentlemen–” he turned to Brinckman and Jorgensen – “I don’t think we need keep you any longer. Thank you for your co-operation.”

The two security men said their goodnights and left. Brady hoisted himself to his feet. “No sign of Carmody yet? Let’s go and make ourselves more comfortable while we wait for him. The desk will no doubt inform us when he arrives. This way, gentlemen.”

Once in the privacy of his own room, armed with a fresh drink, Brady seemed suddenly to shake off his exhaustion.

“O.K., George,” he said briskly. “You’ve been holding out on us. Why?”

“In what way?”

“Don’t pussy-foot. You said you were more concerned about the demands the crooks are going to make than about my family. You love my family. Now what did you mean?”

“The first demand will be that you, Don and I take off for Houston. They must be convinced we’re on the verge of a breakthrough.

“The second demand will be a ransom message. To keep things within reasonable bounds they can hardly ask for more than a couple of million dollars. But that would be peanuts compared with the stakes our friends are playing for.

“Third, the greater stakes. Obviously, they’ll demand a fortune to cease their harassment of both Prudhoe Bay’s and Sanmobil’s oil supplies, and the increasing destruction of their equipment. That’s where they hold all the aces: as we’ve seen, both systems are embarrassingly vulnerable to attack. For as long as the criminals’ identity remains undiscovered, they can keep on destroying both systems piecemeal.

“Their price will be high. I imagine they’ll base it on the development cost of the two systems – that’s ten billion for starters – plus the daily revenue, which is the cost of over two million-barrels a day. Five per cent of the total? Ten? Depends what the market will bear. One thing’s for sure: if they demand too much and price themselves out of the market, the oil companies are going to cut their losses and run, leaving the insurance companies to hold the baby – and it will surely be the most expensive baby in insurance history.”

Brady said querulously: “Why didn’t you bring this up downstairs?”

“I have an aversion to talking too much in crowded hotel foyers.” Dermott leant towards Jay Shore. “Did your Edmonton office send the fingerprints we asked for?”

“I have them in the safe at home.”

“Good.” Dermott nodded approval; but Willoughby was curious: “What prints?”

Shore hesitated until he received an all-but-imperceptible nod from Dermott, and said: “Mr Brady and his men seem pretty well convinced that we have at Sanmobil one or more subversives actively aiding and abetting the men trying to destroy us. Mr Dermott particularly suspects our security staff and all those who have access to our safe.”

Willoughby shot Dermott a cool, quizzical look. It was clear that he considered the matter one for the Canadian police and not for foreign amateurs. “Would you mind explaining why?” he asked coldly.

“They’re the only suspects we have – especially the men in charge of the security shifts. Not only do they have access to the key of the armoury from which the explosives were stolen, they actually carry the damn thing around with them on duty. More, I have good reason to suspect the security staff on the Alaskan pipeline. Further, it appears more than likely that both security staffs are working hand-in-glove under the same boss or bosses. How else can you explain how some villains here know the Sohio/B.P. code, while the villains there know Sanmobil’s?”

Willoughby said: “This is just conjecture…”

“Sure. But it’s conjecture shading into probability. Isn’t it a basic police philosophy to set up a theory and examine it from all sides before discarding it? Well, we’ve set up our theory, examined it from all sides, and don’t feel like discarding it.”

Willoughby frowned, then said: “You don’t trust the security men?”

“Let me amplify that. The majority are straight, no doubt, but until I know for sure, they’re all under suspicion.”

“Including Brinckman and Jorgensen?”

“‘Including’ is not the word. ‘Especially’.”

“Jesus! You’re talking crazy, Dermott. After what they went through?”

“Tell me what they went through.”

“They told you already.” Willoughby had become incredulous.

Dermott was unmoved. “I’ve only got their word for that – and I’m pretty sure in both cases that word’s worthless.”

“Carmody corroborated their story – or rather, Johnson did. Maybe you don’t trust him either?”

“I’ll decide that when I meet him. But the point is, Johnson didn’t corroborate the story. All he said – correct me if I’m wrong – was that when he arrived on the scene he found Brinckman unconscious and Jorgensen staggering around. That’s all he said. He had no more idea what went on before that than you or I do.”

“Then how d’you account for their injuries?”

“Injuries?” Dermott smiled sarcastically. “Jorgensen didn’t have a mark on him. Brinckman did, but if you’d been watching him, you’d have seen him jump when I told him he’d been struck by a lead-filled cosh. That didn’t fit. There was something wrong with the scenario.

“I suggest – both men were in perfectly good health until they saw the lights of Johnson’s minibus approaching, whereupon Jorgensen, acting on instructions, tapped Brinckman on the head just hard enough to lay him out briefly.”

“What do you mean, ‘under instructions’?” Willoughby demanded doggedly. “Whose?”

“That remains to be discovered. But you might like to know that these aren’t the first peculiar injuries we’ve come across. A doctor in Prudhoe Bay, for one, has discovered that we have highly suspicious minds on this subject. Donald and I had to examine a murdered engineer whose finger had sustained a curious fracture. The good doctor explained it away to his own apparent satisfaction, but not to ours. He probably gave orders that if any other such – ah marginal incidents happened, any security agents in the vicinity were to display proof of injuries sustained in the loyal execution of their duties – such as, in this case, their attempts to protect those whom they were supposed to be protecting.”

Willoughby stared at him and muttered: “You have to be fantasising.”

Dermott answered: “We’ll see.” But his reply was cut short by the sudden arrival of Carmody and Johnson. Both men looked pale and exhausted – a condition Brady sought to remedy by providing them with very large Scotches.

After a suitable pause for congratulation on his night’s work, Carmody was taken through his account, step by step. The exercise proved disappointing until, when he came to describe the scene of the helicopter ski-marks, he suddenly became tongue-tied. He broke off in mid-sentence and stammered: “Say, Mr Brady, could I – er – could I talk with you privately?”

“Well!” Brady was somewhat taken aback. “By all means – but what purpose would it serve? These gentlemen enjoy my fullest confidence. Say what you want in their hearing.”

“O.K., then. It’s about the girl – Corinne…” Whereupon he told them the story of the rescue. Amazement swiftly and thoroughly woke up his audience. They crowded forward, listening intently.

“Maybe I was wrong,” Carmody ended up, “but I just figured that if news of her survival didn’t get out, it might be a card up our sleeve.”