Читать книгу Jimmy Coates: Sabotage - Joe Craig - Страница 5

Twelve black dots crept through the night sky. They were only visible because the North Sea was relatively calm that night and the lights of the oil rig reflected off the water. In the wind, the night manager’s tie blustered round his beard. He pulled his suit jacket tighter, but it was too small to cross over the front of his considerable stomach.

“Are they…?” he gasped. His words were lost beneath the constant pounding of the rig’s machinery.

“I think they’re helicopters, sir!” shouted a burly man next to him. “Do you know anything about this?”

The night manager shook his head and just caught his hard hat before it slipped off. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the horizon and the twelve silhouettes, moving like a pack of airborne panthers through the clouds. His mouth gaped in horror.

“Pack your belongings!” he yelled. “Tell everyone!”

“What?”

“They’re coming here! Don’t you see?” The night manager grabbed his colleague by the collar of his fluorescent work jacket. “I thought we’d be safe. I didn’t believe they would actually ever do it! But they’re coming!”

With that, he turned and ran as hard as he could back to his office, panting heavily. By the time he reached the office door, twelve helicopters were hovering over the rig. Their drone was as powerful as the thrashing noise of the rig. The night manager watched, a crunching panic in his heart.

From each chopper dropped twelve ropes, making the sky a grid of black lines. Then down each rope slid a black figure. The curve of each man’s back was interrupted by the solid horizontal line of his machine gun. The night manager collapsed against his office door.

Seconds later, a giant man loomed over him. He hitched his machine gun behind his back, pulled off his balaclava and held out a hand. His face looked like a veil of skin had been stretched over a construction of iron scaffolding.

“Get up!” he ordered. “I’m the commanding officer of this SAS unit. This oil rig is now the property of the British Government and temporarily under my supervision. Instruct your staff that you will all be leaving at 07:00, when a new workforce will arrive to take over.”

At last the night manager gathered the strength to slap the soldier’s hand away.

“You can’t do this!” he screamed. “This rig is owned by a private company! You’re stealing it!”

“I’m nationalising it.”

“Is that what the Government calls stealing now?”

The soldier dug his heel into the night manager’s beard and pushed him all the way to the floor. “So call the police,” he grunted.

He stepped over the night manager into the office, looking down his nose at the shelves of exotic ornaments that had obviously been collected from all over the world. He ran his finger along the edge of a checked board, covered in an arrangement of shiny black and white stones.

“Don’t touch that!” the night manager pleaded, sitting up against the door. “Please! I’m in the middle of a game.”

“A game? Looks like a bunch of stones to me.”

“Yes, yes, but it’s a Padukp’an board. An ancient Chinese game.”

“Paduk-what?”

“Padukp’an.” The night manager was panting even harder now and constantly wiping sweat from his face. The soldier thought for a moment, then announced,

“I like this. I’m keeping it.”

“What?” the night manager squealed. “You can’t! It’s mine!”

The soldier took a seat behind the desk. “The rig is the British Government’s,” he declared, “and that game is now mine.”

“But you don’t even know how to play!”

“I’ll teach myself,” said the SAS man. “Now get out of my office.”