Athabasca (19 page)

He had barely finished when a knock on the door announced the arrival of Hamish Black. The pencil moustache on the Alaskan general manager was as immaculately trimmed as ever, the central parting of the hair still apparently drawn by ruler, the eyeglass so securely anchored that it looked as if it could have ridden out a hurricane. He still dressed in pure City Accountant, first class. At that moment, however, there was a difference in his general demeanour: he looked like a first-class accountant who had just stumbled across proof of unmistakable and gross embezzlement in the books of his favorite client. Yet he maintained his cool -- or cold.

"Good evening, gentlemen." He was a specialist in wintry smiles. "I hope I do not intrude, Mr. Brady?"

"Come in, come in." Brady was affability itself, a sure sign that he didn't care too much for his visitor. "Make yourself at home." He glanced around the cramped confines of his room and at the already occupied chairs. "Well -- "

"Thank you, I'll stand. I shall not detain you for long."

"A drink? One of my incomparable rum drinks? How about a cigar?"

"Thank you. I neither smoke nor drink." The minuscule twitch of the left-hand corner of his upper lip clearly indicated his opinion of those who did. "I have come here because in my capacity of general manager of Sohio/BP I felt it my duty to ask how much progress you have made in your investigations to date."

Dermott said, "What have we found out so far? Well -- "

"Will you please be quiet, sir. I was addressing -- "

"George!" Brady made a downward placatory movement of the hand toward a Dermott who was already halfway out of his seat. He looked coldly at Black. "We are not employees of yours, Mr. Black. We are not even retained by you, but directly by your head office in London. I suggest that if you want to leave this room the way you entered it, you watch your language."

Black's lips had disappeared somewhere. "Sir! I am not accustomed -- "

"Okay, okay. We all know that. You're obviously in a hostile mood. Our progress so far? Not much. Would there be anything else?"

Black was clearly taken aback. It is difficult for an old-time man-of-war to attack when the wind has been taken out of its sails.

"So you admit -- "

"No admission. We're just making a statement. Can we be of further help?"

"Indeed you can. You can explain to me the justification for your staying on here. The firm can scarcely afford the fees you seem likely to charge, if it gets no advantage. You have achieved nothing, and seem unlikely to achieve anything. You investigate industrial sabotage, specifically oil-flow interruption. There is, I suggest, a considerable difference between the spilling of oil and the spilling of blood. One cannot but suspect but that you are out of your depth and that events are beyond your control. One further suspects that the investigation should be left to those qualified to investigate criminal matters -- the FBI and the Alaskan State Police."

"We'd be interested to know what they've found out. Or don't you feel free to tell us?"

Black compressed his lips still tighter. Mackenzie said, "May I have a word, Mr. Brady?"

"Certainly, Donald."

"Mr. Black. Your attitude here is singularly reminiscent of the one you adopted when first we met you. Have you the power to make us leave?"

"Yes."

"Permanently?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"You know very well why not. London head office would reinstate you."

"Possibly with the qualification that if any such situation arose again it would be the general manager, Alaska, who would be required to leave."

"I couldn't really say."

"I can. Or didn't you know that Mr. Brady is a close personal friend of the chairman of your company?"

From the way that Black touched his collar, it was clear that this was news to him. From the way Jim Brady experienced a sudden, suppressed difficulty in swallowing a mouthful of daiquiri, it was clear that it was news to him also.

"To return to your earlier attitude, Mr. Black," Mackenzie persisted, "on that occasion Mr. Dermott said he thought you might have something to hide. Mr. Brady suggested you were being unduly secretive and had -- what was it again? -- some undisclosed and possibly discreditable reason for choosing to obstruct the best interests of your company. Reasonable requests you regarded as being preposterous. Finally, as I recall, Mr. Dermott said that you were either standing on your high horse as general manager, Alaska, and were above such petty annoyances, or that you were concealing something you didn't want us to know about."

Black was possibly a shade or two paler, but his pallor could well have been caused by anger. He reached for the door handle.

"This is intolerable! I refuse to be the subject of character assassination."

As he pulled open the door, Mackenzie said, reproachfully, "I think it's impolite to interrupt a man's speech."

Black's eyes matched well the icy conditions outside. "What does that mean?"

"Just that I would like to finish what I've been saying."

Black looked at his watch. "Make it short."

"I know you have a great deal to do, Mr. Black" -- two tiny spots of pink appeared on the pale cheekbones, for Mackenzie's tone had made it abundantly clear he didn't believe Black had anything to do -- "so I'll keep it short. Your intransigence interests us. You have made it abundantly clear that you would be happy to be rid of us. By your own admission you've acknowledged that we would be back very soon afterward, perhaps even in a matter of days. The conclusion is that you want us out of the way even if for only a brief period. One wonders what you intend to do or have done during that short time?"

"I see. You leave me with no alternative other , than to report your gross incompetence and insolence 1 to my board of directors in London."

When the door had closed Dermott said, "Not a bad exit line. He'll do nothing of the kind, of course -- not when he's had time to reflect on Mr. Brady's close personal relationship with his board chairman." Dermott looked at Brady. "I didn't know -- "

"Neither did I." Brady was positively jovial. He smacked one fat fist into the other pudgy palm. "Tell me, Donald, how much of what you said did you mean?"

"Who's to know? Not me. I just don't like the bastard."

"Hardly the basis for a dispassionate judgement," Dermott said. "But a splendid demolition job, Donald. There are times when a man rises above himself." He paused for a moment, then looked at Brady. "Remember the last time we had a run in with our friend, you said that it was a pity that he acted so suspiciously, otherwise he would have made a splendid suspect? Maybe we're outsmarting ourselves. It's barely possible that he should be a suspect. Maybe, in addition, he's outsmarting us. This won't have escaped you?"

Brady stopped being jovial. "Double-guessing again. How often do I have to tell you, George, I hate this goddamn double-guessing. General manager, Alaska. Jesus, George, somebody, by definition, has to be beyond suspicion."

In Dermott's cabin Mackenzie said, "Took you j-a long time to transmit that coded message to Houston. Your brief was merely to ask them to expedite the boss's earlier instructions. What the hell else did you say?"

"I asked them to find out if anybody had left Bronowski's security firm within six months before or after Bronowski's leaving."

"Maybe Brady's right. Maybe this security bit is getting to you. And even if Bronowski has hauled some of his old associates along with him, they may have changed their names."

"Hardly matters. Descriptions will be enough. And as for my being bitten by the bug, it's high time you and Jim were too. How would you try to account for the fact that the bastards in Alberta know the Alaskan company's code, while the villains in Alaska know the Albertan code, the private Sanmobil code?"

"Ever since the first identical messages were! received at Prudhoe Bay and Sanmobil, we've known [ our Alaskan and Athabascan friends were in ca-l hoots, nicely co-ordinating their efforts to keep us I wrong-footed and ensuring that we were in A while we should have been in B, and vice versa. There's no doubt in my mind that both security corps have been infiltrated. Our only suspects on both sides are security people."

"So you think the overall co-ordinator must be a security man?"

"Not necessarily. But what I'm sure of is that pretty soon we're going to hear of some fresh calamity that has struck in Athabasca. The master puppeteer must be thinking it's time the puppets were dancing again."

"Co-ordination," Mackenzie said darkly.

"In this instance?"

"You heard what-I said to Black. That he wants us out for a few days for some purpose. If he can't get rid of us in one way -- by asking us to leave -- then he'll do it in another by arranging a fresh Athabascan calamity."

Dermott sighed, drew a line under a list of names he had printed, and handed it over. "Names for investigation -- let's hope -- by our friend Morrison of the FBI. What d'you think of it?"

Mackenzie took the list and studied it. His eyebrows went up. "Make Morrison jump, for sure," he said.

"I don't care if he jumps over the moon, as long as he gets on with it when he comes down," said Dermott heavily. "We've got to get action somewhere." He was about to say something else when the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver to listen, and gradually his face went chalk white. He seemed not to notice when the glass in his left hand shattered, crushed by the pressure he had put on it, and a little rivulet of blood ran down his palm.

Eleven

"What a place!" exclaimed Stella as she came back into Corinne's office. "Heavens -- I had no idea it was so big. We seem to have driven about fifty miles."

"Well, it's quite a size, that's for sure." Corinne grinned, pleased that her guests had enjoyed themselves. "I hope you found it interesting too, Mrs. Brady?"

"Incredible!" Jean eased off the hood of her parka and shook her hair loose. "Those draglines -- I've never seen anything like them. They're -- they're sort of prehistoric monsters, burrowing into the bowels of the earth."

"That's right!" Stella's imagination had been fired no less. "Brontosauruses. Absolutely. Sure was kind of Mr. Reynolds to fix our tour. And to ask us to supper."

"Don't mention it." Corinne tried out the deprecating smile she had been cultivating. "We all like having visitors -- makes a change. You'll enjoy meeting Mary Reynolds, too. Now, let's see if the boss is ready to leave."

She buzzed the intercom and announced that the ladies were back. Over the loudspeaker they heard him say, "Fine -- I'll be through in a minute."

"Be right with you," she said. "All set?" She tidied her desk, locked the drawers, put the keys in her handbag and pulled on a fetching, roly-poly combination suit of powder-blue quilted nylon, as well as a pair of blue fur-topped boots. A moment later Reynolds himself came through the connecting door, similarly muffled in navy blue and white.

"Evening, ladies," he said pleasantly. "Had a good tour, I hope. Not too dull?"

"Not at all!" Jean had no trouble sounding enthusiastic. "It was wonderful. Fascinating."

"Good." He turned to Corinne. "Where are our strong-arm boys, then?"

"Waiting for us in the lobby."

"Great. We'd better not leave them behind, or your fattoer'll give us hell." He winked at Stella and ushered her through the door.

Terry Brinckman, Sanmobiles security chief, and his deputy Jorgensen were hovering in the entrance hall. As the party approached the two men opened the outside door and let in a blast of the Arctic evening. Out on the tarmac one of the firm's yellow-and-black-checkered mini-buses stood ready, with its engine running. Reynolds opened the passenger door, helped Jean and Stella into the front seat, nipped around to the driver's side and slammed the door, cursing the knifelike wind. Corinne hopped into the back seat between the two security men.

As they cruised down toward the main gates Reynolds called up the guard on his two-way radio and identified the vehicle, to save the man coming out into the cold. At the bus's approach the high weld mesh gates began to roll open, driven by electric motors. A few snowflakes drifted fast through the blaze of the arc lamps that illuminated the perimeter fence. Reynolds gave a couple of toots on the horn to signal his thanks, and a moment later they were out in the open, with the headlight beams boring into the frozen darkness ahead.

The bus was warm and comfortable. The journey would take only twenty minutes. Yet Corinne somehow felt uneasy. Her boss had been on edge all day, and although she had maintained a sunny enough exterior, she wasn't looking forward to the evening. It could be sticky. Maybe they could get a bit of a concert or singsong going -- that would help. She leaned forward and asked Stella if she could play guitar.

"Why, sure -- if no one else is listening."

"Ah, come on! I thought we could maybe have a singsong."

"Course she can play," Jean said firmly. 'Tick up any tune you care to sing."

"That's great." Corinne settled back between her two solid escorts. The bus had left the inhabited outskirts of the site and was winding through the low hills that separated the tar sands from Fort McMurray. Reynolds drove smoothly, without violent acceleration or braking, for the surface of the road was dusted with the ever-traveling snow, which flashed and glittered in the headlight beams.