Алистер Маклин - Athabasca

“Ask him to fly up now, please.”

“Sorry. Bronowski’s his own man. Overall, he’s answerable to me, but not in field operations. He’d walk out if I tried to usurp his authority. Unless he had the power to act independently, he’d be effectively hamstrung. You don’t hire a dog and bark yourself.”

“I don’t think you quite understand. Mr Mackenzie and I have not only been promised total co-operation: we’ve been empowered to direct security measures if, in our judgment, such extreme measures are dictated by circumstances.”

Finlayson’s Yukon beard still masked his expression, but there was no mistaking the disbelief in his voice. “You mean, take over from Bronowski?”

“If, again in our judgment, he’s good enough, we just sit by the sidelines and advise. If not, we will exercise the authority invested in us.”

“Invested in whom? This is preposterous. I will not, I cannot permit it. You walk in here and imagine – no, no way. I have received no such directive.”

“Then I suggest you seek such a directive, or confirmation of it, immediately.”

“From whom?”

“The grand panjandrums, as you call them.”

“London?” Dermott said nothing. “That’s for Mr Black.”

Dermott remained silent.

“General manager, Alaska.”

Dermott nodded at the three telephones on Finlayson’s desk. “He’s as far away as one of those.”

“He’s out of State. He’s visiting our offices in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. At what times and in what order I don’t know. I do know he’ll be back in Anchorage at noon tomorrow.”

“Are you telling me that is the soonest you can – or will – contact him?”

“Yes.”

“You could phone those offices.”

“I’ve told you, I don’t know where he’d be. He could be at some other place altogether. Like as not he’s in the air.”

“You could try, couldn’t you?” Finlayson remained silent and Dermott spoke again. “You could call London direct.”

“You don’t know much about the hierarchy in oil companies, do you?”

“No. But I know this.” Now Dermott’s customary geniality was gone. “You’re a considerable disappointment, Finlayson. You are, or very well may be, in serious trouble. In the circumstances, one does not expect an executive in top management to resort to stiff outrage and wounded pride. You’ve got your priorities wrong, my friend – the good of the company comes first, not your feelings or protecting your ass.”

Finlayson’s eyes showed no expression. Mackenzie was staring at the ceiling as if he had found something of absorbing interest there: Dermott, he had learned over the years, was a past-master of penning an adversary into a corner. The victim either surrendered or placed himself in an impossible situation of which Dermott would take ruthless advantage. If he couldn’t get co-operation, he would settle for nothing less than domination.

Dermott went on: “I have made three requests, all of which I regard as perfectly reasonable, and you have refused all three. You persist in your refusals?”

“Yes, I do.”

Dermott said: “Well, Donald, what are my options?”

“There are none.” Mackenzie sounded sad. “Only the inevitable.”

“Yes.” Dermott looked at Finlayson coldly. “You have a radio microwave band to Valdez that links up with the continental exchanges.” He pushed a card towards Finlayson. “Or would you refuse me permission to talk to my head office in Houston?”

Finlayson said nothing. He took the card, lifted the phone and talked to the switchboard. After three minutes’ silence, which only Finlayson seemed to find uncomfortable, the phone rang. Finlayson listened briefly then handed over the phone.

Dermott said: “Brady Enterprises? Mr Brady please, Dermott.” There was a pause, then: “Good afternoon, Jim.”

“Well, well, George.” Brady’s strong carrying voice was clearly audible in the office. “Prudhoe Bay, is it? Coincidence, coincidence. I was just on the point of phoning you.”

“Well. My report, Jim. News, rather. There’s nothing to report.”

“And I have news for you. Mine first, it’s more important. Open line?”

“One moment.” Dermott looked at Finlayson. “What security classification does your switchboard operator have?”

“None. Jesus, she’s only a telephone girl.”

“As you rightly observe, Jesus! Heaven help the trans-Alaskan pipeline.” He pulled out a notebook and pencil and addressed the phone. “Sorry, Jim. Open. Go ahead.”

In a clear, precise voice Brady began to recite a seemingly meaningless jumble of letters and figures which Dermott noted down in neatly printed script. After about two minutes Brady paused and said: “Repeat?”

“No thanks.”

“You have something to say?”

“Just this. Field manager here unco-operative, unreasonable and obstructive. I don’t think we can profitably operate here. Permission to pull out.”

There was only a brief pause before Brady said clearly: “Permission granted.” There came the click of a replaced receiver and Dermott rose to his feet.

Finlayson was already on his. “Mr Dermott–”

Dermott looked down at him icily and spoke in a voice as cold as winter: “Give my love to London, Mr Finlayson. If you’re ever there.”

Thirteen hundred miles south-east of Prudhoe Bay, at ten p.m., Brady’s men met Jay Shore in the bar of the Peter Pond Hotel in Fort McMurray. Among those qualified to pass judgment on such matters, it was readily agreed that as an engineering construction manager Shore had no peer in Canada. His face was dark, saturnine, almost piratical – which was rather an unfair trick for nature to play on him, since that same nature had made him easy-going, companionable, humorous and cheerful.

Not that he felt in the least humorous and cheerful at that moment. Nor did the man who sat beside him, Bill Reynolds, Sanmobil’s operations manager, a rubicund and normally smiling man to whom nature had given precisely the kind of diabolical mind that Shore appeared to have but didn’t.

Bill Reynolds looked across the table to Dermott and Mackenzie, whom he and Shore had met thirty seconds previously, and said: “You make fast time, gentlemen. Remarkable service, if one may say so.”

“We try,” Dermott said comfortably. “We do our best.”

“Scotch?” asked Mackenzie.

“Thanks.” Reynolds nodded. “Twin jet – is that it?”

“Right.”

“A shade expensive, a man would think.”

“Gets you around.” Dermott smiled.

“Head Office – that’s Edmonton – told us you might take up to four days. We didn’t expect you in four hours. ” Reynolds eyed Dermott speculatively over his newly-poured glass. “I’m afraid we don’t know much about you.”

“Fair enough. We probably know even less about you.”

“Not oilmen, then?”

“Of course. But drilling oilmen. We’re not familiar with mining the stuff.”

“And your full-time job’s security?”

“That’s right.”

“So there’s no need to ask what you were doing up on the North Slope?”

“Right again.”

“How long were you up there?”

“Two hours.”

“Two hours! You mean you can lick a security–”

“We licked nothing. We left.”

“May one ask why?”

“Operations manager was…unhelpful, let’s say.”

“Me and my big mouth.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m the operations manager here. But I get the message.”

Dermott said pleasantly: “No message. You asked a question, I answered.”

“And you decided to walk out–”

“We have a backlog of cases all over the world, and no time to waste trying to help those who won’t help themselves. Let’s not get off on the wrong foot, gentlemen: your company expects Mackenzie and myself to do the questioning while you do the answering. When was this threat received?”