Assignment Black Gold (22 page)

Matty groaned. “He’s
doin
’ one
hell of a lot of damage. I can count one hundred grand in the wreckage
already."

Suddenly Durell saw what the driver of the crawler was
trying to do. The cargo boom, which could lift over seven tons and turn in a
thirty-five-foot radius, swung once more, rising as it moved. It struck
one of the legs of the Clyde, and the crash of steel on steel was as it two
ancient behemoths had locked horns. The Clyde shuddered and the leg collapsed,
and then the derrick arm came down in a crashing tangle of blocks and steel
cables. The rugged support girders bent and separated as if they were built of
wet cardboard. Half of the big boom went through the railing and over the side,
splashing into the sea.

The man in the crawler cab tried to back away from the wreckage.
His machine shuddered, gave out a pull of black exhaust that was quickly
whipped away by the wind. The crawler did not move. Durell could see that one
of the tracks had come oil the sprockets. The machine spun helplessly in a slow
circle, like a crippled bug.

A dim shout of triumph came from the attackers spotted here
and there on the crowded platform deck.

Durell ran down the ladder from the crew housing. Matty
limped after him. Above, Kitty watched with her rifle. All of the
attention of the Apgaks was centered on the crippled crawler. The firing
was heavy now. Every window in the crawler’s cab was smashed.

“This way!” Matty shouted.

The wind came in erratic gusts. Durell could taste the salt
spray from the wind and sea on his lips.

They ran through a bulkhead door, down another short flight
of steel stairs, and came out on the main deck. An Apgak, hunched behind a
corner of the machinery house, heard them somehow above the wail of the wind
and the thunder of the sea. The man turned, lifted an AK-47, his mouth open in
surprise. Durell fired, saw the man throw up both hands as a splotch of
red bloomed on his left shoulder. The force of the Magnum’s slug was enough to
stop a charging rhino. The man was literally blown off his feet, and went
sliding away along the wet deck plates.

“Is there a way to the tower mast?” Durell asked.

“Underneath. Catwalks. Come on.”

The shooting sounded like popguns against a renewed blast of
the wind. Durell saw a man climb out of the Link belt crawler and run for the
edge of the platform. He caught a cable that dangled over the edge of the deck
and swung downward on it, hanging perilously over the seething sea.

It was Hobe Tallman.

There was a short lighted corridor, then another flight
of steps down, then an open-
railed
catwalk going
forward from the heliport deck where they had first come aboard. The
heaving seas under the platform licked up hungrily for them. The deck treads of
the catwalk were treacherously wet. Durell ran forward, looking for a sign of
where Hobe Tallman might have landed. There was a small balcony-like structure
just below the bottom level of the platform’s rusty sides. Rain smashed into
Durell’s eyes. He thought he saw something or someone move onto the little
platform. He wasn’t sure.

He was halfway there, wondering if Hobe had fallen into the
sea in his desperate effort to escape the Apgaks, when he felt the explosion.

The charge had been placed somewhere in the housing that
held the tops of the great cylindrical legs supporting the semi-submersible rig
on the ocean bottom. A twisted plate of steel went floating lazily in the
air and spiraled outward into the sea from the side of the platform opposite
Durell. Smoke made a dark burst of cloud that was immediately shredded by the
wind. The catwalk trembled under his feet. The whole platform lurched, began to
cant to one side, dipping and shuddering down on the side of the rig away from
them. Matty yelled and tried for a grip on the catwalk rail and missed. Durell
caught the chunky man as his legs shot out over the side. He held Matt from the
sea for a long. straining moment until the rig foreman caught the
underrail
and pulled himself back. Everything slanted
steeply away from them.

Then there was another explosion from one of the corner
columns. This one was heavier. The whole rig, the huge artificial
man-made island the size of at least two football fields, shuddered and
cracked and groaned.

Matt‘s voice held tears of rage in it.

“Hobe!” he called. “Hobe, don‘t!"

Chapter 25.

The drilling mast came down above them with a great
screaming of torn and twisted girders. The crash was thunderous, even above the
noise of the storm. Durell felt as if everything were falling away from him.
The catwalk twisted, heaved, and bent under them. The rig sank slowly on its
side, going down by the opposite corner as the two cylindrical legs that had
been cracked by the explosion slowly buckled. Plates popped loose as if they
had been made of paper. Rivets shot through the air like bullets. Durell and
Matty hugged the floor of the catwalk, feeling the whole structure
shudder and tilt and slip more and more sideways toward the sea.

The rumbling movement seemed without end.

When it was over, the deck canted toward the far corner of
the platform by at least twenty degrees.

“Jesus,” Matty gasped. “Is he crazy?”

Durell said. “Can you get up?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m all right.”

“It’s not over yet. Hobe’s still up there, somewhere.”

Durell flipped a hand. He was surprised to see blood
on his knuckles. “He’s got more explosives, I’m sure. That’s why he came over
in the crawler to this side.”

“But he’s gone.” Matty peered down into the sea. “He must
have been shook loose by the explosions.” He looked tormented. “Why, Sam? Why
did he do this to the Lady?”

“I think he‘ll do anything now to keep the rig out of
Madragata’s hands. In case Madragata takes over the government.”

“But he—we worked like bastards to get this outfit
going. Even if it turned out to be a dry hole—”

“It isn‘t,” Durell said.

Matt turned his tormented face toward him. “What are you talking
about? I saw the records myself, the logs, the geological analysis—”

"Not the real ones. Hobe kept the true log. Maybe he
began it to keep information from the Lubindan Interior Ministry. Brady Cotton
swiped the real records from him as evidence. We might never find them,
however. Come on. We can’t stay here forever.”

Matty’s strong, angry hand clamped on his shoulder. He had
to bellow above the sounds of wind and wave. “What? What are you talking about?
I knew Hobe was a little crackers, he’s been
goin
’
off his rocker since it was decided the Lady was a wildcat failure. I came out
here this morning to stop him from doing something crazy, that’s all—I mean,
when I heard he’d come here, too, and all. I just had this hunch about
him." Matty paused. He was trembling. “I didn’t know he was going to wreck
the whole platform. We’ll all go into the sea if he sets off a few more charges
like these first two. We’re crippled as it is. Another one, and we all—”

Matty checked himself, gripped the rail, and stared belligerently
down at the heaving green ocean.

"Come on,” Durell said again.

Matty said, “I can’t swim."

“Nobody could, in these seas.”

Durell knocked the man’s hand off his shoulder and led him
forward along the slanted, twisted catwalk to where he had last seen Hobe
swinging down over the side.

Hobe had disappeared.

There was danger here from the loose steel cables that dangled
over the edge of the tilted platform. The wind lashed at the cables until they
acted like long, flailing whips. Part of the catwalk had been twisted
upside down, midway toward the corner pier where Hobe had gone over the side.
For a time, Durell had to crawl along the underside of the steel plates,
searching for any handheld available. The wind tried to pluck him oil his
perilous perch. He could see part of the tower mast on the other side, hanging
over the far edge halfway into the sea. Spray reached up and dashed in his
face. He was momentarily blinded. Matty urged him forward, consumed by his desire
to save the platform from Hobe’s explosives.

None of them would get back ashore alive, Durell suddenly
thought. They were twenty miles out to sea, caught in a raging storm, with a
madman aboard, bent on destroying them all. Not to mention the Apgaks, he
thought wryly.

He kept going forward.

There was no sign of Hobe at this far corner of the platform.
The catwalk angled on, under the deck. Durell looked for explosives, found
none. Apparently Hobe had taken off for another spot to set his charges. If he
hadn’t fallen into the sea, Durell reminded himself.

“Sam!”

Matty’s warning shout was torn away by the wind. Durell spun
about, saw two Apgaks swarming down the cables from the upper deck. The
flat sound of a gunshot reached him. He heard Matty’s big Colt smash out
a reply, and one of the Apgaks let go of his cable and fell into the sea below.
The second man fired again. And Durell heard the bullet scream off the
deck plates behind him. The Apgak turned and swarmed up the cable to the deck
like a long-jointed, giant spider.

“This way.” Durell said.

He pointed to the crosswalk that led amidships under the
platform. A bulkhead door at the other end of the walk seemed to offer
temporary safety. Hobe Tallman must have gone in through there.

They slid and clung and worked their way down the slanting
catwalk to the door. It was not locked. A heavy sea smashed under the platform,
sent spray bursting up at them, soaking their legs. The wind was growing
stronger again. There was a crashing and banging of loose, broken equipment
above them. Another crash made Durell turn his head in time to sec the
fishing boat tear loose and break against the more distant pier at the
far corner.

“We’ve lost another couple of degrees,” Matty yelled.

“The Lady’s settled some more.”

“Inside,” Durell said.

He pulled the bulkhead door open all the way.

They practically fell through, impelled by the slant of the
deck. Matt turned and shoved the heavy door shut and dogged it tight. His thigh
wound was bleeding again, and his khaki slacks, soaked with rain, looked darker
where the open wound bled through the cloth.

It was quieter inside, with the noise of the storm muffled by
the heavy door.

They were in a small, Spartan anteroom. A corridor sloped
ahead of them, still ablaze with lights. A flight of steps led upward
toward the laboratory offices, marked by a painted arrow on the bright yellow
walls.

Madragata stood at the foot of the steps, waiting.

He had an automatic rifle pointed at them.

As Durell started forward, the Apgak leader grinned.

Then he pulled the trigger.

And all the lights went out.

The bullets clamored past him and away.

Durell heard Matty fall to the deck. He slid to one side, listening
to the muted rumble of the seas. He smelled cordite in the air.

The image of Madragata, tall and muscular, his handsome face
ravaged by hatred, seemed to float in the darkness before him. He pressed
back against the wall beside the bulkhead door.

Very faintly, he heard the shouting of panicked voices like
the mewing of seagulls.

“Matty?” he whispered.

“
Yo
.”

“Are you hit?”

“Uh, no. The son of a bitch is still here.”

“Hold it.”

Durell moved farther to his right. He came to the corner of
the small ante-room, feeling unbalanced by the pitch of the deck that dropped
down ahead of him. Apparently the two Caterpillar diesels that provided
electric power had been knocked out. But there was a little light, seeping in
from somewhere ahead, down the stairwell from the upper deck. He could barely
make out the shape of the corridor and the steps. He could not see Madragata.

“Durell!”

Madragata’s deep voice trembled with hatred and frustration.
It came from somewhere beyond the open treads of the steel staircase.

“Durell, do you have Hobe?“ There was anxiety in the

words. “Have you stopped him?”

Durell called hack, “No.”

He moved immediately, forward and to the right, against the
corridor wall. He had to feel his way onward.

“He’s going to blow us up, Senhor Durell!"

Now there seemed to be panic in the Apgak’s voice.

But Durell was not sure.

“He must be stopped!” Madragata yelled.

Durell called forward into the downward-sloping darkness.
“Is that why you came here, Madragata?”

“Certainly.”

“And left your men to fight it out alone in Lubinda?”

“The fight is lost. The Saka is coming. He turned against
me, his own son. My own rightful father. Against me! The Chinese was killed.
Half my people have deserted. I want to cooperate now. We’ll make a deal, eh?”

The voice echoed and banged through the steely darkness.
There was a plea in it, and desperation, but still a sense of hatred, a need
for revenge.

Durell slid a little farther down the inclined corridor floor.
He estimated he was now about twenty steps from the stairway where Madragata
was hiding. Something clicked behind him, from where he had left Matty. He thought
he heard Matty breathing, the sound whispering of the man’s pain. He took
another step down the slope. Above, on the platform deck, something else came
loose and slid with a great crashing noise and went overboard.

Suddenly Madragata yelled, “Killing is too good for you,
Durell! You must die for all the ill fortune you brought to me!”

Another step.

He could not keep his balance on the tilted floor. He grabbed
for the wall. His palms made a thudding sound.