Afterlight (62 page)

‘I think, in some way . . . I think Jake was
proud
? I dunno, like he figured Dad was watching over us and giving him the thumbs up. I think he died sort of knowing Dad was pleased with him.’ Leona wiped her damp cheek on the back her hand. ‘I don’t know . . . that sounds silly doesn’t it?’

Jenny shook her head. ‘No it doesn’t, Lee. I sometimes think he is there, watching us, somehow.’

‘So maybe they both are now?’

‘Maybe,’ Jenny smiled, ‘maybe . . . all three of them.’

Leona suddenly felt her own façade slipping.
Oh, screw it . . . cry if you want, girl.

She did. They both did, for Jacob, for Hannah, for Dad. For quite a while.

Presently, Jenny wiped her nose on her cardigan. ‘Oh, hark at us defenceless wimpy, weepy women.’

‘Mum?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m so proud of you. You’re not some wimpy, weepy woman. You’ve been a wall, protecting me and Jake, and Hannah. A solid wall. For all the others here, too. Even those ungrateful bitches who turned against you. You made this place happen. You kept us safe.’

Jenny said nothing. Not for a while. Finally she sighed. ‘I am so tired, though.’

‘I know. So am I.’ Leona reached out and hugged her mother. ‘You and me, like two peas in a pod.’
Both grieving mothers.
She left that unsaid. Didn’t need to be said. Mum knew what she meant.

Jenny cleared her throat, blew her nose. ‘Those men you brought with you seem like decent types.’

Leona watched as the moon cleared a thin skein of a combed-out cloud. ‘Yeah, I think they are.’

‘Particularly Adam?’

Leona snorted. ‘Oh, come on.’

‘What? He seems quite nice now he’s shaved that awful beard off.’

‘And more
your
age than mine, Mum.’

‘How old is he?’

She thought about it. ‘I think he said he was twenty-nine when the crash happened.’

‘Thirty-nine, then.’ Jenny grinned. ‘Now, if I was ten years younger . . .’

Leona shrugged. ‘Or if I was ten years older . . .’

They both laughed. It felt good; like gulping fridge-cold lemonade on a hot summer’s day. Wasn’t even that funny, but still, it didn’t stop them.

 

‘It’s much quieter, ain’t it?’

Adam nodded. Even when it
wasn’t
a party night back at the dome, those boys made a racket arsing about; shrieking, singing tunelessly, cackling like hyenas. He certainly didn’t miss any of that.

‘Nice an’ fuckin’ peaceful,’ added Walfield.

They gazed out at the moonlit sea; dark swells that bobbed and dropped gently; like a micro mountain range fast-forwarding through geological eras.

The darkness on the rigs was total. It had been Adam’s suggestion; tonight, and every night for the foreseeable future, no oil lamps, no candles, nothing after dark. Nothing that could give them away. No point of light guiding Maxwell and his boys in if they chose to make their approach after dark.

Murmurs of conversation drifted across the restless fidgeting sea from the other platforms. There were people on lookout duty on each platform, looking north, east, south and west. But it was this one at the end - the drilling platform - that was the most vulnerable. Its spider deck was the closest to the water, more often than not catching the tips of larger swells when the sea was in a spirited mood.

Adam silently scanned the sea, looking for the telltale sign of a faint grey skirt of suds amidst the shifting black hillocks. The last twenty-four hours had been busy. There were now little ammunition piles of rusting bolts and nuts and rivets set along the perimeter of the main deck of each platform at regular intervals. A number of women had been busy with needles, threads and scissors making hand-held catapults and slings from lengths of bungee rope, and - believe it or not - the cups of bras. Others had made an array of clubs and spears and cloth-wrapped handles on a number of cutting weapons fashioned from jagged strips of aluminium sheeting. Then there were their eight firearms; the five SA80s they’d taken from the boys and the three remaining assorted guns this community had been relying on for the last five years.

There was a plan of sorts. Adam could only guess that Maxwell would try for the lowest platform first and, with that bridgehead taken, move down the row attempting to take the production platform next, then the secondary compression platform, the accommodation platform, and then off to the left of that, the primary compression platform. Hopefully, if they threw everything they had at them before they could get a toehold on the drilling platform’s spider deck, the boys would think better of the idea, turn tail and sail away. That’s what Adam was hoping; the first sight of one of their own lying dead, they were going to bolt like rabbits. Failing that, though, if they got on, then with each of those hundred-foot-long walkways, there was another chokepoint on which they could hold them back. He doubted whether a single nut or bolt propelled from the cup of one of their bras was actually going to find a target, but with the air around them whistling with projectiles, perhaps Maxwell’s boys might decide these rigs weren’t such a soft target.

There was a football horn used to summon people for their meal sittings. That was going to be their battle horn. One honk meant everyone on the first platform was to retire across the walkway to the second. Two honks was the sign to retreat to the next. Three honks, the next . . . and so on. A simple plan. But simple was always best.

‘Danny?’

‘Yeah?’ replied Walfield.

Adam looked at him, caught the glint of his eyes in the moonlight. ‘Reckon we’re going to be able to hold them off?’

Walfield sucked his teeth like a builder giving an estimate. ‘Dunno, maybe. It’s a bit of a bastard of a place to try an’ take under fire, to be fair. I guess it depends how much those little bastards really want it.’

‘Maxwell won’t go back to the Zone. He knows the Zone hasn’t got a future. He knows he’s got to take this place. That or face a mutiny.’

Walfield shrugged. ‘His boys might not know that. They’re a pretty stupid bunch, the lot of them. Maybe they’re thinking this is just some bloody raiding trip.’

‘If I was in his shoes I’d tell them. Tell them this isn’t just a raid for booty. This is their survival. Take this place or face starving.’

Walfield whistled softly. ‘Them boys’re too fuckin’ stupid to explain things to. I reckon he won’t have told ’em anything. They’ll just be thinkin’ it’s a lark. A day out.’

They leaned against the railings in silence for a while, savouring the fresh salty breeze. They heard Bushey fart on the other side of the platform and Harry’s dirty Sid James cackle. Pair of bloody idiots.

‘And that’s how you charm the ladies,’ said Adam. ‘They do love a man who can hold a tune.’

They listened to the soft rustle of leaves above and below them, and the thump and wallow of the sea. Adam scanned the dark horizon, a mottled quilt of drifting moonlight and shifting shadows.

‘They’re something, though, aren’t they?’ said Walfield after a while.

‘What?’

‘Mrs and Miss Sutherland. Tough ladies.’

Adam nodded. Jennifer Sutherland with that tomboyish short brown hair, there was something of a GI Jane look to her, what with the khaki pants and the scarring down her cheek and neck. Tough. Very tough. She’d had to be.

Leona, on the other hand, was a puzzle. She seemed both vulnerable and strong. She was fragile like a vase with a handle broken off and glued back on again; never quite as fixed as it once was. But there was something about her, an inner strength she seemed to be finding. He realised both of them, mother and daughter, were women he might find himself putting on a pedestal, idolising even, if he wasn’t mindful of that.

He shook his head. Now really wasn’t the time to start thinking that sort of thing. In the old world, he suspected neither of them would have looked twice at him anyway.

Harry’s voice broke the silence, echoing across the flat deck.

‘Hey!! Shit!! There’s something out there!!!’

 

 

 

M
axwell watched the dark looming silhouette of the nearest platform as it drew closer. The tugboat was approaching slowly and noisily, sputtering fitfully like an old man choking on a mouthful of unchewed meat.

That’s exactly what he wanted; no discretion, no quietly sneaking up. Just a very noisy arrival; enough to rouse everyone.

A floodlight mounted on the roof of the pilot’s cabin snapped on, bathing the gently lolling sea in front of the boat’s prow with a brilliant cone of light. The beam swung across several hundred yards of water onto the nearest platform, slowly panning over its dark corroded legs, across the lattice of the spider deck and the drilling core’s support jacket. It swung up across the cellar deck, cluttered with flaking yellow Portakabins, onto the main deck where, finally, Maxwell thought he saw several faces watching them intently.

So they know we’re here
.

The floodlight arced down the side of the nearest platform, dimly picking out the next one along, a hundred feet further away. They were doing a good job of clearly announcing their arrival. There were more faces now lining the railings. More and more.

As the tug chugged closer, Maxwell tried to pick out individuals; how many of these people were adult, young, old? How many men were there? But the floodlight was dancing around too quickly, not lingering long enough to pull a single face out of the growing crowd.

‘Just put her over there, near that support-leg, Jeff,’ he said, picking up the loudhailer and stepping outside the cockpit, along the runner and onto the foredeck.

‘Hello?!’ His voice echoed over the thrum of the diesel engine and the churn of water past the bow. It sounded tinny, almost comical, over the loudhailer.

‘Hello there! My name’s Alan Maxwell! Who are you?’

There was movement amongst those gathered on the main deck but no answer.

‘I heard about this place from some people who came from here! Would it be possible for me to talk to someone?’

Maxwell was getting the response he wanted with this noisy well-illuminated arrival; everyone’s full attention. He’d made sure the tugboat appeared as harmless as possible; only Nathan and another lad were on the foredeck, Jeff in the pilot’s cockpit, the other boys - a dozen of them - were down below, armed to the gills and out of sight.

He glanced down at the bobbing troughs and hillocks of seawater and tried to locate Snoop and all the other boys in their rowing boats. He was pretty certain they’d be in position by now, waiting in the moonless gloom beneath the drilling platform, tied up to one of the legs and awaiting the signal to come out.

The tugboat’s engine finally dropped in pitch as it approached the base of the platform and bobbed slowly forward under its own momentum.

Maxwell craned his neck to look up again at the distant faces lining the main deck. He thought he could see one or two men standing up there.

‘Hello?!’ he called out again. ‘Is there someone I can speak to? We’ve come in peace!’ He smiled to himself at how corny that last bit had sounded.

The diesel engine had settled down to a quiet throaty mutter, accompanied by the slap of water against the boat’s hull.

‘We heard about this place!’ Maxwell said again. ‘Can we talk?! We’ve got a boat full of supplies. We’d like to join you, if . . . if that’s okay?’

‘Wait a moment!’ shouted a female voice back down to them.

He glanced across the foredeck at Nathan and the other boy standing right next to him; Notori-us. The nickname suited the young lad; a completely bloody psychotic little pit bull. He was packing a handgun and a knife under his orange jacket, and had orders to jump Nathan and slit his throat if he showed any sign of blowing the whistle on them. Even though Notori-us liked Nathan, he was happy to do it - there was the promise of double dope rations for a month if he did his bit well.

Maxwell was banking on the simplest approach. To talk these people into lowering a ladder and to allow him - just him, he’d assure them of that - to come up and talk. That’s where Nathan’s assurance of their good intentions came in. Lulling them into lowering a ladder. Of course, once the ladder was down, Notori-us was going to grab hold of it, whilst the boys hidden down below in the tugboat would spring out of hiding and storm up the thing as quickly as possible.

And with that going on as a distraction, Snoop and the rest waiting quietly in their rowing boats had knotted ropes and hooks which they’d sling onto the spider decking and pull themselves up.

Nothing particularly clever there in that plan. All nice and simple. Maxwell had been into the Bracton gas terminal, found an office block shared by Shell, ClarenCo, ATP and several other North Sea players. He spent most of yesterday rifling through their filing cabinets and found what he wanted; a proposal brochure on the platforms and modules manufactured for those oil companies. It wasn’t specific information about these particular gas platforms, but it was good enough ball-park information about this class of rig for him to work from. He now had a pretty good idea of the layout of the underbelly of these rigs, and that this one, the drilling rig, was going to be the easiest for them to scramble up onto.

Of course, the boys were all pumped up for this; giddy with excitement and slightly stoked on the last crate of that sugary alcopop. A bottle for each of them before they went in; a celebration drink to toast the victory. Just enough of a buzz to take the edge off any last-minute nerves, just enough to make each of them feel like invincible Super Army Soldiers.

Maxwell shot a glance at Notori-us. He was grinning with excitement, ready for the fun and games to begin; probably sporting a raging hard-on in his tracksuit bottoms. Maxwell looked at Nathan.
You going to be a good lad and play along for me?