“Freak accident.”
“‘Odd’ is better. Something else odd, too. When I searched him first there was a buff envelope in his inner pocket. I was unable to get it out.”
“But you were when you unzipped it later?”
“No. It was gone.”
“‘And/or’ at work, you think?”
“So it seems.”
“All very curious,” Mackenzie said.
Jim Brady was of the same opinion. After reporting the results of their investigation, Dermott and Mackenzie had retired with him to the room he’d been allocated for the night.
Brady said, “Why didn’t you mention those things to Black and Finlayson? Those are hard facts — an oddly broken finger, a missing envelope?”
“Hard facts? There’s only my word for it. I’ve no idea what was in the envelope anyway, and although I’d say the forefinger had been deliberately broken, I’m no osteologist.”
“But no harm in mentioning those things, surely?”
“Bronowski and Houston were there too.”
“You really don’t trust anyone, do you, George?” Brady’s tone was admiring, not reproachful.
“As you never fail to remind people, sir, you taught me yourself.”
“True, true,” Brady said complacently. “Very well, then, have them up. I’ll do my Olympian act while you ply them with questions and strong drink.”
Dermott spoke on the phone and within a minute Bronowski and Houston had knocked, entered and taken seats.
“Kind, gentlemen, kind.” Brady was at his most avuncular. “Long day, I know, and you must be damnably tired. But we’re babes in the wood up here. We’re not only short of necessary information, we’re totally devoid of it, and we believe you two gentlemen are those best equipped to supply us with that information. But I forget myself, gentlemen. I suggest a pre-inquisitional restorative.”
Mackenzie said, “What Mr. Brady means is a drink.”
“That’s what I said. You gentlemen like scotch?”
“Off-duty, yes. But you know the company regulations, sir, and how strictly Mr. Finlayson interprets those.”
“Strict? I am ironclad in the interpretation of my own regulations.” The wave of Brady’s arm was, indeed, Olympian. “You are off-duty. Off regular duty, anyhow. George, refreshments. Mr. Dermott will ask the questions, alternating, I do not doubt, with Mr. Mackenzie. You gentlemen, if you will be so kind, will fill in the gaps in our knowledge.”
He took his daiquiri from Dermott, savored it, laid down his glass, relaxed in his chair and steepled his hands under his chin. “I shall but listen and evaluate.” Nobody was left with any doubt as to which was the most demanding task of the three. “Health, gentlemen.”
Bronowski lifted his own glass, which he had accepted with no great show of reluctance. “And confusion to our enemies.”
Dermott said, “That’s precisely the point. The enemy aren’t confused. We are. The taking out of Pump Station Four is only the opening skirmish in what promises to be a bloody battle. They — the enemy — know where they’re going to hit again. We have not the vaguest idea. But you must have — by the very nature of your job you must be more aware of the points most vulnerable to attack than anyone else between Prudhoe Bay and Valdez. Take off your security hats and put on those of the enemy. Where would you strike next?”
“Jesus!” Bronowski fortified himself with some of Brady’s malt. “That’s more than a sixty-four-dollar question. It’s an eight-hundred-mile question — and every damned mile is virtually a sitting target.”
“The boss is right,” Tim Houston said. “If we sit here and drink your whiskey while pretending to help, we’re only abusing your hospitality. There’s nothing we or anyone else can do to help. A combat-ready division of the U. S. Army would be about as useful as a gaggle of Girl Scouts. The task is impossible and the line indefensible.”
Mackenzie said, “Well, George, at least we’re operating on a bigger scale than with the tar-sands boys in Athabasca. There they said a battalion wouldn’t be big enough to guard their installation. Now it’s a division.” Mackenzie turned to Bronowski. “Let’s switch hats with the enemy. Where wouldn’t you strike next?”
Bronowski said, “Well, I wouldn’t strike at any of the pump stations again on the assumption that, until this matter is cleared up, they will be heavily guarded. I’d have been sorely tempted to go for Pump Station Ten at the Isabel Pass in the Alaska Range, or Number Twelve at the Thompson Pass in the Chugach Mountains. All pump stations are vital of course, but some are more vital than others, and those are Number Ten and Number Twelve — along with Number Four here.” He considered briefly. “Or maybe I would go for them… I mean, maybe you’d be so damned certain that I wouldn’t hit again in the same place that you wouldn’t much bother — ”
Dermott held up his hand. “Start in on the double-guessing, and we’re up all night. On with the hazards — the low priority ones, I mean.”
“I wouldn’t go for the two Master Operations Control Centers at Prudhoe Bay. They could be taken out easily enough and, sure, they’d stall all production from the wells immediately, but not for long. It’s no secret that contingency plans for bypassing the centers are already in hand. Repairs wouldn’t take all that long. In any event, security will be now tightened to the extent that the game wouldn’t be worth the candle. So we can be pretty certain that there will be no attempt made to sabotage the oil supply before it enters the pipeline. Same goes for when it leaves the pipe at Valdez. Maximum damage there could be inflicted at the Oil Movements Control Center, where the pipeline controller can monitor and control the flow of oil all the way from Prudhoe to Valdez, and the terminal controller — he’s in the same room, actually — controls practically everything that moves in the terminal itself. Both of those, in turn, are dependent on what’s called the Backbone Supervisory System Computer. Knock out any of those three and you’re in dead trouble. But they’re pretty secure as they are. From now, they’ll be virtually impregnable. Again, not worth it.”
Dermott said, “How about the storage tanks?”
“Well, now. If one or two of them were attacked or ruptured — it would be impossible to get them all at once — the containment dikes would take care of the spillage. Fire would be another thing, but even then the snow would have a blanketing effect — we may only have an annual dusting of snow up here, but down there they have over three hundred inches. Anyway, the tank farms are the most open and easily guarded complex on the entire pipeline. There’s no way you can really get at them without bombing the area. Not very likely, one would think.”
“What about the tanker terminals?”
“Again, easily guarded. I hardly think they’re likely to run to underwater demolition squads. Even if they did, they couldn’t do much damage, and that would be easily repaired.”
“The tankers themselves?”
“Sink a dozen and there’s always a thirteenth. No way you can interrupt the oil flow by hitting the tankers.”
“The Valdez Narrows?”
“Block them?” Dermott nodded and Bronowski shook his head. “The Narrows aren’t as narrow as they look on a small-scale chart. Three thousand feet — that’s the minimum channel width — between the Middle Rock and the east shore. You’d have to sink an awful lot of vessels to block that channel.”
“So we cross off the unlikely targets. Where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us with eight hundred miles.” Bronowski shifted.
“The air temperature is the overriding factor,” Houston said. “No saboteur worth his salt would consider wrecking anything except the pipeline itself. This time of the year any attack has to be in the open air.”
“Why?”
“This is only early February, remember, and to all intents we’re still in the depth of winter. As often as not the temperature is well on the wrong side of thirty below, and in these parts thirty below is the crucial figure. Rupture the pipeline at, say, thirty-five below, and it stays ruptured. Repair is virtually impossible. Men can work, although well below their norm, but unfortunately the metal they may try to repair or the machine tools they use to make the repairs won’t co-operate with them. At extreme temperatures, profound molecular changes occur in metal and it becomes unworkable. Given the right — or wrong — conditions, a tap on an iron rod will shatter it like glass.”
Brady said, “You mean, all I need is a hammer and a few taps on the pipeline — ”
Houston was patient. “Not quite. What with the heat of the oil inside and the insulation lagging outside, the steel of the pipeline is always warm and malleable. It’s the repair tools that would fracture.”
Dermott said, “But surely it would be possible to erect canvas or tarpaulin covers over the fracture and bring the temperature up to workable levels by using hot-air blowers? You know, the way Poulson did at Station Four?”