Free Reckoning by Ian Barclay Page B

sea air. The hole was nine thousand feet deep, and the heat down there was about twice that of boiling water.
    At last the drill bit was brought to the surface. It was quite small, with a gold-painted top and bright metal teeth, many
     of them worn down. The new bit was attached, and now the whole process was reversed, with three-length sections of pipe being
     screwed on and sent down the hole.
    Avedesian went to study instrument readings and collect core samples and chippings. Dartley followed after a while. He passed
     the sealed wellheads of the holes already drilled. They expected to send down between twenty and thirty wells from Brent Alpha,
     radiating out like the roots of a tree beneath the seabed 450 feet below. Each wellhead was sealed with a block of solid steel
     called a Christmas tree because of all the red and yellow pipes and dials and nozzles sticking out of it. These pipes allowed
     the flow and pressure inside the well to be controlled. The noise everywhere was unbelievable. Dartley was so used to the
     banging andclanking that, for him to notice it at all now, the decibel level had to be painful.
    When he looked outside and saw fog drifting in, he cursed. This rig would not be a very comfortable place to be marooned on
     with poor visibility, and on the North Sea it was nothing to be stuck for days on an installation because of the weather.
     He went in search of Avedesian to tell him to move his ass so they could get back to the flotel before the fog closed in.
    “He’s gone,” a dour Scotsman informed him over the noise.
    “Gone where?” Dartley asked suspiciously.
    “None of my business.”
    Dartley pushed him back against a steel bulkhead. “Find out. Fast.”
    The Scotsman had knocked the back of his head against the bulkhead, which caused him to bite his tongue. He saw that this
     crazy Yank was ready to slug him. He was tired, and this wasn’t worth fighting about. “There was one seat left on a chopper
     back to the flotel. He had to radio in some important findings to Aberdeen, so he took it. There’ll be another chopper in
     half an hour. You’ll get a seat if you go up to the helideck now.” Then he grinned suspiciously. “If the fog don’t catch you
     here.”
    The news was good. Nicholas Avedesian had put his reputation on the line with some of the forecasts he had made. Now here
     was data to back him up! Like everyone else in the oil exploration business, he hadhad his share of dry holes. No one expected Brent Alpha to be dry, but more than a few had disagreed with Avedesian’s estimates
     for the site. All the initial measurements coming in were backing his predictions. Avedesian was not a man with a whole lot
     of pleasures in his life. Being occasionally dead right, in the face of knowledgeable opposition, was the greatest sweetness
     that he knew.
    He couldn’t wait to contact Aberdeen, from where the numbers would go to London. He could almost see the look on certain people’s
     faces. They would hem and haw and light their pipes, but they couldn’t fight numbers. When it looked like fog was coming in,
     he did what he had to do—grabbed his chance to get back to the flotel radio room. He could have radioed from Alpha, but technical
     messages often got garbled in being relayed. This was one message he wanted to send loud and clear. He didn’t have time to
     tell Dartley—who would no doubt have objected and perhaps knocked him unconscious. Dartley was a psycho. There were times
     when Avedesian feared him more than the mysterious assassin who would hardly be dumb enough to come out to isolated installations
     from which he could not escape after killing somebody.
    Avedesian beat the fog back to the flotel. He went straight to the radio room and heard for himself Aberdeen confirm all the
     numbers correctly from the other end. Feeling elated, he went to the coffee shop in hope of talking with someone about these
     developments. Most of the men here were