Athabasca Page 8

  “Completely. Operate on a much more moderate and undramatic scale but one equally effective. I’d go for the V.S.M.s every time.”

  Dermott said: “V.S.M.s?”

  “Vertical support members. Roughly half the length of the pipeline is above ground and lies on a horizontal cradle or saddle supported by vertical metal posts. That makes for a fair number of targets −78,000 of them, to be precise. They would be a snip to take out—wrap-round beehive plastic explosives which would need all of a minute to fix in position. Take out twenty of those, and the line would collapse under its own weight and the weight of the oil inside it. Take weeks to repair it.”

  “They could still use those hot-air canvas shelters.”

  “A hell of a lot of help that would be,” Bronowski said, “if they couldn’t bring up the cranes and crawler equipment to effect the repairs. Anyway, there are places where, at this time of year, it just couldn’t be done. There is, for instance, one particularly vulnerable stretch which gave the designers headaches, the builders sleepless nights and security nightmares. This steep and dangerous stretch is between Pump Station Five and the summit of Atigun Pass, which is between four and five thousand feet high.”

  Houston said: “4,775 feet.”

  “4,775 feet. In a run of a hundred miles from the pass the pipe comes down to 1,200 feet, which is quite a drop.”

  “With a corresponding amount of built-up pressure?”

  “That’s not the problem. In the event of a break in the line a special computer linkage between Four and Five will automatically shut down the pumps in Four and close every remote valve between the stations. The fail-safe procedures are highly sophisticated, and they work. At the very worst the spillage could be restricted to 50,000 barrels. But the point is, in winter the line couldn’t be repaired.”

  Brady coughed apologetically and descended from his Olympian heights.

  “So a break in this particular section, about now, could immobilise the line for weeks on end?”

  “No question.”

  “Then forget it.”

  “Mr Brady?”

  “The burdens I have to bear alone,” Brady sighed. “Let me have men about me who can think. I begin to understand why I am what I am. I find it extraordinary that the construction company never carried out any tests to discover what happens to the viscosity of oil in low temperatures. Why didn’t they seal off a couple of hundred feet of experimental pipe with oil inside it and see how long it would take before it gummed up to the extent that it would cease to flow?”

  “Never occurred to them, I suppose,” Bronowski said. “An eventuality that would never arise.”

  “It has arisen. An estimate of three weeks has been bandied about. Based on scientific calculations, one assumes?”

  Bronowski said: “I wouldn’t know. Not my field. Maybe Mr Black or Mr Finlayson would know.”

  “Mr Black knows nothing about oil, and I doubt whether Mr Finlayson or any other professional oilman on the line has anything but the vaguest idea. Could be ten days. Could be thirty. You take my point, George?”

  “Yes. Blackmail, threats, extortion, some positive and very material advantages to be gained. Interruption is one thing, cessation another. They require a lever, a bargaining counter. Close down the line completely, and the oil companies would laugh at their threats, for then they would have nothing to lose. The bargaining arm would have gone. The kidnapper can’t very well hold a kidnapee for ransom if it’s known that the kidnapee is dead.”

  “I question if I could have put it better myself,” Brady said. He had about him an air of magnanimous self-satisfaction. “We are, clearly, not dealing with clowns. Our friends would have taken such imponderables into account and would err on the side of caution. You are with me, Mr Bronowski?”

  “I am now. But when I was talking about hazards, I wasn’t taking that side of it into account.”

  “I know you weren’t. Nobody was. Well, I think that will do, gentlemen. We appear to have established two things. It is unlikely that any attack will be carried out on any major installation—that is Prudhoe, Valdez or the intervening twelve major pump stations. It is further unlikely that any attack will be carried out in regions so inaccessible that repairs may be impossible for weeks on end.

  “So we’re left with the likelihood that any further sabotage will take the form of attacks on accessible stretches of VSMs or the taking out of minor bridges—the possibility of destroying the Tazlina or Tanana bridges is remote, as those could well take weeks to repair. We may not have come up with too much, but at least we have clarified matters and established some sort of system of priorities.”

  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 rec
all 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.”

  6

  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?”

  Brinckman said: “About Jorgensen’s and Napier’s I wouldn’t know. I clip mine to my belt.”

  Mackenzie said: “Everybody’s got to sleep.”

  “So?”

  “You take your belt off then, don’t you?”

  “Sure.” Brinckman shrugged. “And if you’re going to ask me next if I’m a heavy sleeper, well, yes, I am. And if you’re going to ask me if it would have been possible for anyone to sneak into my room while I was asleep, borrow my key for a couple of minutes and return it unseen, well, yes that would have been perfectly possible too.”

  “This,” Brady said, “is not going to take us very far. Sticky-fingered characters with an affinity for keys are legion. Would there have been any security man in this area tonight?”

  “Jorgensen would know,” Brinckman said. “Shall I get him?”

  “Won’t he be out patrolling sixteen miles of conveyor belting or something?”

  “He’s in the canteen.”

  “But surely he’s in charge, on duty?”

  “In charge of what, Mr Brady? There are four men keeping an eye on the four draglines. The rest of the plant is closed down. We think it unlikely that this bomber will strike again tonight.”

  “Not much is unlikely.”

  “Bring him along to my office,” Reynolds said. Brinckman left. “I think you’ll find it warmer and more comfortable there, Mr Brady.”

  They followed Reynolds to the office block, through an external room where a bright-eyed and pretty young woman at the desk gave them a charming smile, and on into Reynolds’s office where Brady began divesting himself of several outer layers of clothing even before Reynolds had the door closed. Reynolds took his chair behind the desk while Brady sunk wearily into the only armchair in the room.

  Reynolds said: “Sorry to drag you all over the north-west like this. No sleep, no food, jet lags, all very upsetting. In the circumstances I feel entitled to bend company regulations. Come to think of it, I’m the only person in Sanmobil who can. A refreshment would be in order?”

  “Ha!” Brady pondered. “Early in the morning. Not only no dinner but no breakfast either.” A hopeful look crept into his eye. “Daiquiri?”

  “But I thought you always—”

  “We had an unfortunate experience over the Yukon,” Dermott said. “We ran out.”

  Brady scowled. Reynolds smiled. “No daiquiris here. But a really excellent twelve-year-old malt.” A few seconds later Brady lowered his half-tumbler and nodded appreciatively.

  “A close second. Now you two”—this to Dermott and Mackenzie—“I’ve done all the work so far.”

  “Yes, sir.” Not even the shadow of a smile touched Mackenzie’s face. “Three questions, if I may. Who suggested checking up on the amount of explosives in the blasting shed?”

  “Nobody. Terry Brinckman did it off his own bat. We have a meticulous checking system and an easy one. The tally sheet’s kept up to date twice a day. We just count the numbers of each particular type of explosive, subtract that number from the latest entry on the tally sheet, and that’s the number that’s been issued that day. Or stolen, as the case may be.”

  “Well, that’s certainly a mark in favour of your security chief.”

  “You have reservations about him?”

  “Good heavens no. Why on earth should I? Number two—where do you hang up your keys at night?”

  “I don’t.” He nodded towards a massive safe in a corner. “Kept there day and night.”

  “Ah! In that case I’ll have to rephrase w
hat was going to be my third question. You are the only person with a key to that safe?”

  “There’s one more key. Corinne has it.”

  “Ah. That lovely lassie in the outer office?”

  “That, as you say, lovely lassie in the outer office is my secretary.”

  “And why does she have a key?”

  “Various reasons. All big companies, as you must know, have their codes. We’re no exception. Code books are kept there. Corinne’s my coding expert. Also, I can’t be here all the time. Under-managers, accountants, our legal people and the security chief all have access to the safe. I can assure you the safe contains items of vastly more importance than the keys to the blasting shed. Nothing has ever gone missing yet.”

  “People just walk in, help themselves and walk out?”

  Reynolds lifted his eyebrows and looked hard at Mackenzie. “Not quite. We are security conscious to a degree. They have to sign in, show Corinne what they’ve taken and sign out again.”

  “A couple of keys in a trouser pocket?”

  “Of course she doesn’t search them. There has to be a certain amount of trust at executive levels.”

  “Yes. Could we have her in, do you think?”

  Reynolds spoke into the box on his desk. Corinne entered looking good standing up, in her khaki cord Levi’s and nicely disordered plaid shirt, a person with a smile for everyone. Reynolds said: “You know who those gentlemen are, Corinne?”

  “Yes, sir. I think everybody does.”

  “I think Mr Mackenzie here would like to ask you some questions.”

  “Sir?”

  “How long have you been with Mr Reynolds?”

  “Just over two years.”

  “Before that?”

  “I came straight from secretarial school.”

  “You have a pretty sensitive and responsible position here?”

  She smiled again, but this time a little uncertainly, as if unsure where the questions were leading. “Mr Reynolds lists me as his confidential secretary.”