Athabasca

Six

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 one hundred per cent ― I beg your pardon, ninety-eight 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 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 Naptha 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 supervisor 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 supervisors?"

Brinckman said, "My number two, 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' 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 sank wearily into the only armchair in the room.

Reynolds said, "Sorry to drag you all over the northwest 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 Sanmobile 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 right off the 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 favor 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 toward a massive safe in a corner. "Kept there day and night."

"Ah! In that case I'll have to rephrase what 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. Undermanagers, 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 been 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 distorted 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."

"May I ask how old you are?"

"Twenty-two."

"You must be the youngest confidential secretary of any big corporation I've ever come across."

This time she caught her lip and glanced at Reynolds, who was leaning back in his chair, hands clasped lazily behind his neck, with the air of a man who was almost enjoying himself. He smiled and said, "Mr. Mackenzie is an industrial sabotage investigator. He has a job to do, and asking questions is part of that job. I know he's just made a statement, not asked a question, but it's one of those statements that expects comment."

She turned back to Mackenzie, with a swing of her long chestnut hair. "I suppose I've been pretty lucky at that."

She spoke with marked coolness, and Mackenzie felt it. "None of my questions are directed against you, Corinne, okay? Now, you must know the executive-level people pretty well?"

"I can hardly help it. They all come through me to get to Mr. Reynolds."

"Including those who have business with that safe there?"

"Of course. I know them all well."

"All good friends, I take it?"

"Well" ― she smiled, but the smile had an edge to it ― "lots of them are much too senior to be my friends."

"But on good terms, shall we say?"

"Oh, yes." She smiled again. "I don't think I've made any enemies."

"Perish the thought!" This came from George Dermott, who took over the questioning on a brisker note. "Any of the people using the safe ever give you trouble? Like trying to take away what they shouldn't?"

"Not often, and then it's only absentminded-ness or because they haven't studied the classified list. And surely, Mr. Dermott, if anyone wanted to get something past me they'd hide it in their clothing."

Dermott nodded. "That's true. Miss Delorme." The girl was inspecting his rough-and-ready good looks with a spark of humor in her eye, as if amused by his blunt approach. He caught the expression and, in his turn, watched her for a reflective moment. "What do you think now?" he asked her. "Do you think anyone might have smuggled something past you out of the safe?"

She looked him in the eye. "They might," she said, "but I doubt it."

"Could I have a list of the people who used the safe in the past four or five days?"

"Certainly." She left and returned with a sheet which Dermott studied briefly.

"Good Lord! The safe appears to be the Mecca for half of Sanmobil. Twenty entries at least in the last four days." He looked up at the girl. "This is a carbon. May I keep it?"

"Of course."

"Thank you."

Corinne Delorme smiled at the room in general, but the blue eyes came back to Dermott before she went out.

"Charming indeed," said Brady.

"Plenty of spunk," Mackenzie said ruefully. "She built a whole generation gap between you and,me, George." He frowned. "What gave you the idea. her name was Delorme?"

"There was a plaque on her desk. 'Corinne Delorme,' it said." Dermott shook his head. "Hawkeye Mackenzie," he said.

The other men laughed. Some of the tension that had grown in the room during the questioning of the girl fell away again.

"Well. Anything more I can do for you?" Reynolds asked.

Dermott said, "Yes, please. Could we have a list of the names of your security staff?"

Reynolds bent over the intercom and spoke to Corinne. He had just finished when Brinckman arrived accompanied by a tall, red-haired man whom he introduced as Carl Jorgensen.

Dermott said, "You were in charge of the night security shift, I understand. Were you around the sabotaged area at all tonight?"

"Several times."

"So often? I thought you would have been concentrating on what we regarded ― mistakenly ― as the more vulnerable areas."

"I went around them a couple of times, but by jeep only. But I had this funny feeling that we might have been guarding the wrong places. Don't ask me why."

"Your funny feeling didn't turn out to be so funny after all. Anything off-beat? Anything to arouse suspicion?"

"Nothing. I know everybody on the night shift and I know where they work. Nobody there that shouldn't have been there, nobody in any place that he hadn't any right to be."

"You've got a key to the blasting shed. Where do you keep it?"

"Terry Brinckman mentioned this. I have it only during my tour of duty and then I hand it over. I always carry it in the same button-down pocket on my shirt."

"Could anybody get at it?"

"Nobody except a professional pickpocket, and even then I'd know."

The two security men left and Corinne came in with a sheet of paper. Reynolds said, "That was quick."

"Not really. They were typed out ages ago."

Brady said to the girl, "You must come and meet my daughter, Stella. I'm sure you'd get on. Both the same age. Stella is very like you, actually."

"Thank you, Mr. Brady. I think I'd like that."

"I'll have her call you."

When she had gone, Dermott said, "What do you mean, like your daughter? I've never seen anyone less like Stella."

"Dancing eyes, my boy, dancing eyes. One must learn to probe beneath the surface." Brady heaved himself to his feet. "The years creep on. Breakfast and bed. I'm through detecting for the day. It's tougher than capping fires."

Dermott drove the rented car back to the hotel, Mackenzie sitting beside him. Brady took his ease across the entire width of the back seat. He said, "I'm afraid I wasn't quite leveling with Reynolds there. Breakfast, yes. But it'll be some hours before I ― we ― retire. I have come up with a plan." He paused.

Dermott said courteously, "We're listening."

"I think I'll do some listening first. Why do you think I employ you?"

"That's a fair question," Mackenzie said. "Why?"

"To investigate, to detect, to think, to plot, to scheme, to plan."

"All at once?" Mackenzie said.

Brady ignored him. "I don't want to come up with a proposal and then, if it goes wrong, have to spend the rest of my days listening to your carping reproaches. I'd like you two to come up with an idea and then if it's a lemon we can all share the blame. Incidentally, Donald, I take it you have your bug-box with you?"

"The electronic eavesdropping locator-detector?"

"That's what I said." "Yes."

"Splendid. Now, George, let's have your reading of the situation."

"My reading of the situation is that for all the good we're doing we haven't a hope in hell of stopping the bad guys from doing exactly what they want and when they want. There is no way to forestall attacks on Sanmobil or the Alaska pipeline. They're calling the shots and we're the sitting ducks, if you'll pardon the mixing of the metaphors. They call the tune and we dance to it. They're active, we're passive. They're offensive, we're defensive. If we have any tactics, I'd say it's time we changed them."

"Go on," his leader urged him from behind.

"If that's meant to sound encouraging," Dermott said, "I don't know why. But how's this for a positive thought? Instead of letting them keep us off-balance, why don't we keep them off-balance? Instead of their harassing us, let us harass them.".

"Go on, go on," the back seat exhorted.

"Let's attack them and put them on the defensive. Let them start worrying, instead of us." He paused. "I see things as through a glass darkly, but I say plant a light at the end of the tunnel. What we'll do is, we'll provoke them. Provoke a reaction. Provoke the hell out of them. We'll hang it on this one factor: Our own pasts, our backgrounds, can be probed until the cows come home, and nothing will be turned up. But you can say that about how many people in a hundred?"

Dermott twisted his head briefly to locate a peculiar noise from the back of the car. Brady was actually rubbing his hands together. "Well, Donald, what's your reading of it?"

"Simple enough when you see it," Mackenzie said. "All you have to do is to antagonize anywhere between sixty and eighty people to hell and back again. Investigate them as openly as possible. Deploy maximum indiscretion."

Brady beamed. "What sixty to eighty people do. we investigate?"

"In Alaska all the security agents. Here, the security agents again, plus everybody who's had access to Reynolds' safe in the past few days. Going to include Reynolds himself?"

"Good heavens, no."

Mackenzie said inconsequentially, "She is a lovely girl."

Brady looked aloof. Mackenzie asked him, "Do you really expect to find your panjandrum among that lot?"

"Panjandrum?"

"The prime mover. Mr. Big. Messrs. Big."

"Not for a moment. But if there's a rotten apple in the barrel, he may well find him for us."

Mackenzie said, "Right. So we get all their names and past histories. Later on ― sooner rather than later ― we'll have the lot fingerprinted. Sure, they're going to stand on their civic rights and yell blue murder, and that will please you no end ― refusal to co-operate will point the finger of suspicion at the refusee, if that's the word I want. Then you feed the information to your investigators in Houston, Washington and New York. Cost no object, urgency desperate. Not that you'll care a damn whether the investigators come up with anything or not. All that matters is that the suspects get to hear such inquiries are under way. That's all the provocation they'll need."

"What kind of reactions do we expect to provoke?" Dermott asked.

"Unpleasant ones, I should hope. For the villains, I mean."

"The first thing I'd do," Dermott told Brady, "is send your family back to Houston. Jean and Stella could really become a liability. The scheme might rebound on you. Can't you see the word coming through ― lay off, Brady, or something unpleasant's going to happen to your family? These people are playing for high stakes. They've killed once, they won't hesitate to kill again. They can't be hung twice."

"Same thought occurred to me." Mackenzie turned to face the back seat. "Either get the girls right back home, or have the RCMP protect them."

"Hell ― I need them!" Brady sat forward with indignation. "Number one, I have to be looked after. Number two, Stella's handling the Ekofisk business for me."

"Ekofisk?" Dermott almost turned backward. "What's that?"

"Big fire in the North Sea, Norwegian half. Started after you'd come north. We have a team going in there today."

"Well, okay," Dermott gave way a little. "So you have to keep in touch. But why not work through the locals? That brunette of Reynolds' ― Corinne. She could field calls for you."

"What happens when we go back to Alaska?"

"Use somebody up there. Finlayson's got a secretary ― must have."

"No substitute for the personal touch," said Brady magisterially. He sank in the seat as though the argument were over.

His two heavyweights turned forward again with an exchange of looks. Having been through all this a hundred times before, they knew that further pressure would be useless for the moment. Wherever he went, Brady maintained the fiction that his wife and daughter were part of his essential life-support system, and he kept them with him regardless of the expense. Or danger.