Reckoning by Ian Barclay Read Free Book Online Page A

puzzled in London by his attitude. I suppose
     you’ll want to spend time with him. I’ve no idea exactly what you, ah, see your duties as.”
    Dartley smiled politely. “Hard to say until I get out there. As you’ve just pointed out, I don’t fully grasp the scale of
     operations offshore.”
    “Well, it’s not a direct concern of mine so long as things go smoothly. I hope we can depend on that.”
    “Absolutely.” To Dartley, this meant no blood, no corpses showing up. Not too much to ask for, if that was what Penrod meant.
    “As an efficiency expert, you will have complete clearance to visit every part of every rig at any time. You are answerable
     to nobody, so long as you follow the general regulations for everyone. That’s the most I can do for you.”
    The plane touched down at the Sumburgh airport, and the passengers walked across the tarmac to the large terminal. Dartley
     noticed that their plane was the only one on a runway. Inside the terminal building, there was hardly anyone to be seen, apart
     from a few people behind counters.
    “Looks like a neutron bomb was set off here,” Dartley remarked, his voice echoing in the huge empty spaces. “What happened
     to everybody?”
    “Bit of a white elephant, I’m afraid,” Penrod said. “The government built this place and expected all the oil companies to
     use the field. It turned out cheaper for them to fly direct from Aberdeen with CH-47Chinook choppers, so this place became nearly obsolete. We’ll see some more flights in before you leave.”
    Dartley could see that the man was anxious to be rid of him and on his way back to his office in London. “I can manage from
     here,” Dartley offered, but the oil company executive insisted on staying to see him off, rather like a dutiful relative.
    Small groups gradually assembled in clusters distant from one another on the vast floor. To pass the time, some read the notices
     warning in detail against alcohol, drugs and weapons. At last Dartley’s flight was called. He shook hands with Jeremy Penrod,
     collected his boarding pass and joined a small line to be assigned a survival suit. The bright orange suits hung on a wall,
     and the man handing them out looked over each passenger critically before selecting a suit for him. Then he went on in a long
     monotone about what all the zips and flaps and pullcords were for.
    The rubber-lined suit was heavy and stiff. Dartley had some trouble getting into his, and gave up any idea of trying to follow
     what the purpose of everything was. The main thing was, if the chopper went into the water, he would not die of cold quickly
     in the icy North Sea. A strobe light was attached so he could be found at night or under conditions of poor visibility. Thick,
     awkward gloves were attached to the sleeves.
    Dartley followed the other bright-orange-clad men to a Sikorsky S-61 on the runway and ducked under its whirling rotor blades.

CHAPTER

4
    A computerized chart above the radar screen tracked the Sikorsky’s flight path. Dartley could see it from where he sat. The
     pilots were looking for a needle in a haystack—an oil rig somewhere in the continuous thick bank of fog beneath them. Some
     of the passengers were grumbling, expecting that the flight would have to return to Sumburgh. One disagreed, claiming that
     their two pilots never allowed the fog to beat them and would get them in somehow.
    After a while the helicopter circled slowly and lost altitude. One moment they were in the bright sunshine above the soft
     layer of mist, and the next they were lost in a swirling fog so thick it blocked out much of the daylight. The pilots sat
     erect and tense, talking rapidly into their headsets. Even the most bored and hardened oilmen on board stared out through
     the fog uneasily. Dartley knew that there were four giant rigs on the Brent field—Alpha, Bravo, Charlieand Delta. They were looking for Delta. These enormous steel structures were somewhere nearby, hidden in