Free The Ark: A Novel by Boyd Morrison Page B

seconds.
    Locke stepped onto the catwalk that led to the top of the habitat module, where the satellite dish was located. Ahead of him, barely visible through the haze, Locke could make out the figure of a man dressed in a black jumpsuit disappearing into the mist toward the lifeboat evacuation stairs. He had something slung over his shoulder, but Locke couldn't make out what it was before he was gone. Maybe he had already fixed the dish. Locke called out twice, but the man didn't respond. Must not have heard him over the grinding noise.
    Locke reached the stairs and climbed up to the antenna cluster that formed Scotia One's communications link. The satellite dish was about six-feet across, pointed at a geosynchronous satellite, and the radio antenna was 30-feet tall, with plenty of power to reach St. John's 200 miles away. Neither was damaged.
    He trailed the wires leading from the dish, and an iciness knotted his stomach when he saw the problem. The wires had been cut and a section removed. Whoever had done it was skilled. Locke followed the wires from the radio mast and found the same thing. The wires ended in a control box, which had been smashed. Someone didn't want them in touch with the outside world.
    Locke could think of a few reasons why someone would go to that trouble, and none of them had a happy ending. He rushed down to the control room and burst through the door, startling Hobson, the only man inside it. His thick glasses magnified his eyes to a cartoonish size.
    "We have an emergency," Locke said curtly. "Someone cut the wires to the antennas and destroyed the control junction."
    Hobson leaped out of his chair. "What? Who would do that?"
    "Get Finn and tell him there's an intruder on the platform."
    "An intruder?" Hobson said, recoiling at the thought.
    "I saw him a few minutes ago. At the time I just thought he was just a rig worker wearing an outfit I hadn't seen before, a black jumpsuit." The intruder must have known it wouldn't take much time for the crew to discover the destroyed equipment, which meant he wasn't going to be on board much longer. Locke had to catch him before he got away, and for that he needed Grant's help. For all Locke knew, there were multiple intruders, and they were heavily armed. That notion disturbed Locke, but it would terrify Hobson, so he didn't mention it.
    "How could anyone get on board?" Hobson asked.
    "Maybe he climbed up. Doesn't matter. Before you call Finn, get Grant Westfield and tell him to meet me at the lifeboats. Quietly. You know his cabin number?"
    Hobson nodded. "Should I activate the alarm?"
    "No. That'll tip off the intruder that we know he's here." Locke needed to find out why this guy would want to cut off their communications. He wished he could get his hands on a gun, but an oil platform was the last place that they would let him bring his trusty 9mm Glock, and they certainly didn't stock shotguns on board.
    He had to hope he and Grant would be able to handle the situation. In a battle, Locke preferred staggering force against an overmatched opponent. If there were two armed intruders, he and Grant could handle it. They had been up against worse odds than that before. But if there were three or more, they could have real problems, so some kind of weapon might make a difference.
    Hobson snatched up the phone and dialed. Locke went to the door, but before leaving, he said, "Frank, tell Grant to stop at the tool room and pick up two big, fat wrenches."
Chapter 11
    Locke crept down the stairs until the lifeboats were in view. He felt naked. No gun. No situational intelligence. No plan. Although he could improvise with the best of them, he'd rather put together a well-thought-out plan of attack that--like all Army operations--went to hell
after
the mission started. Instead, he'd already skipped to the second part, which made the hair on the back of his neck stand at attention.
    Through the fog, he saw the man in the black jumpsuit hunched over the hatch of the