Rogue Angel - The Lost Scrolls Part 9

"Anomalous traffic in the sea north of here," Tex said.

"Surface? Air? Radio?" Phil Dirt asked.

"Yes."

He raised an eyebrow at the American, then chuckled. "Aye."

"Boats, helicopters," Rod said. "See 'em all the time, buzzing off to sea."

"Do you know where they go?" she asked.

Phil looked at her a moment with an appreciative twinkle in his eye. With something like a shock she realized he was ogling her. She didn't know whether to be horrified or flattered.

He sighed. "No idea, I'm afraid."

"Can you find out?" Tex asked.

"Gannet can," Rod rasped.

"Who's Gannet?"

"Gannet Hundredmind," Phil said. A corner of his mustache quirked up in evident amus.e.m.e.nt as he said it. Another in-joke, Annja figured. She refused to ask.

"Our boy wonder in residence," said Vicious Suze, knitting away. "He's all that keeps us on the air, you know."

"Can you take us to him?" Annja asked.

Phil Dirt smiled hugely. "Just how adventurous are you feeling, luv?"

"What makes me think," she said, "there's no right answer to that question?"

Chapter 13.

"Adventures," Annja muttered to Tex as the black Zodiac boat bottomed between two-story North Sea waves. The seat slammed her tailbone again. A spray of salt.w.a.ter drenched her anew. Her hair felt as if she had soaked it with an entire bottle of some toxic hairspray, from all the salt. "Why does it always have to be adventures?"

Her companion had his head up and his jaw set in a somewhat fixed smile. "What'd I tell you earlier?"

In the stern, Lightnin' Rod steered, looking even more pirate-like with a black head rag sporting a skull and crossed cutla.s.ses tied over his lengthy windblown locks. Having seen the same logo on a T-shirt sporting the legend Pirates of the Internet, worn by a geek from the tech department of the television station, Annja knew the kerchief probably came from some online store. She wasn't sure whether that added or detracted from the effect.

Ahead of them the Gannet C drilling platform rose slowly out of the gloom like a giant battle robot from some science fiction yarn. A few lights shone yellow and furtive from its bulk in the overcast early evening. Abandoned in the early nineties by British Petroleum after it ran too dry to remain economical to operate, the platform had become the haven and broadcasting station for Black Bart's bunch. The John o' Groat's contingent were cramped into the black inflatable power craft looking as serene as if bashing through sea were no more strenuous than a stroll in Hyde Park.

In among the shadowed pillars that formed the legs of the station, they found a welded metal ladder awaiting them. With a theatrical gesture Phil Dirt waved them to go up first. Tex in turn deferred to Annja.

Annja put a hand on a rung. It was cold and slick. Just the way she expected. Oh, well, she thought, no one is shooting at me.

She climbed. Tex followed.

"Our friends are being pretty magnanimous letting us go first," he called when they were twenty or so feet up.

"I just kind of figured Phil did it so he could watch my b.u.t.t," Annja said.

"Well, that's certainly among the fringe benefits, ma'am. But, going first, if we slip and fall we fall on them. As opposed to vice versa."

"I feel so special."

"Right," the young man said, rubbing together hands in fingerless gloves. "Let's see what we have, then."

The main engineering room at the heart of Black Bart's broadcasting station was a boxy steel womb lined with racks and racks of equipment of unknown purpose. The various tiny multi-colored blinking lights and indicators provided all the illumination except for a few amber blackout foot lamps. It added to the sense of claustrophobia, as well as giving Annja the impression of being surrounded by hundreds of psychedelic rats.

Gannet Hundredmind swiveled on his stool, flipping switches to the left and right, at seeming random. Annja and Tex stood behind him. Annja tried hard not to hover. Tex looked centered and relaxed and in general as if he was having a fine old time. But then, he always looked like that.

Lightnin' Rod had stayed with the Zodiac boat when the others went up, apparently to berth it somewhere. Making her apologies, the matronly Suze had vanished after the climb to the platform, a chilly collection of rusty pipes and metal bulkheads, saying she wanted to tend to dinner. The others who had met the Americans in the Jolly Wrecker escorted them through a warren of dimly lit pa.s.sages that echoed to the sounds of their footsteps, with water incessantly dripping from overhead. Now they stood in a clump at the back of the control center and chatted while young Gannet worked his magic.

"Sodding podcasts," Phil was saying to a stocky guy with a fluorescent pink Mohawk, jughandle ears and a pug's face, who wore grimy dark coveralls. He was Stan the Man McLeod, the physical plant engineer who kept the place as livable as it was which, on first impression, wasn't very, although Annja suspected he deserved huge credit for keeping it habitable at all in the chill and hostile environment. He poured a sable ferret named Isadora from one big, stained, scarred, crack-nailed fist to the other without seeming to notice. "They're stealing our audiences right out from beneath our noses, they are."

"It's a terrible thing," added Rod, who had just slid in the door. "The pigs couldn't shut us down for decades of tryin' their black-hearted best. And here we are getting done down by Silicon bleeding Valley!"

"We get all manner of chatter on the air up here," Gannet said. The young broadcast engineer had turned back to his monitor. He wore grimy cargo pants and several layers of sweaters over what was evidently a skinny young frame, so that his head stuck on a thin neck out of an incongruously huge ma.s.s of clothing. He looked like a plush toy turtle. "Satellite phone broadcasts, other radio traffic. It's increased a great deal the past few months. Never paid much mind to it before this, though."

"Can you listen in on any of the traffic?" Annja asked.

Gannet gave her a questioning look. He had pale skin that in the glow looked blue-white, and moist, almost purplish lips. "Oi, that would be un-ethical, now, wouldn't it?" he commented in a lilting Liverpudlian accent. Then he grinned. "Not that that slowed me down much. But the phone traffic is all encrypted. The rest is b.l.o.o.d.y ba.n.a.l. Talking to ships, the odd helicopter, that sort of thing. If I had to guess, I'd say somebody else has occupied another old rig like this rattletrap. Only they're a bit better funded than we are."

"Kids these day," Rod was saying, shaking his gaunt-cheeked head. "They've no appreciation for the fact we do this out of love. Not like when we was young."

"Do you know which platform?" Annja asked.

Gannet shook his s.h.a.ggy head. "There's a dozen it could be. More. Sorry."

"Can you triangulate the traffic?" Tex asked.

The boy held up a forefinger. "Ah," he said. "That we can do."

His fingers danced over his keyboard.

"Gotcher!" Gannet crowed, calling his elders from the back of the room. A map appeared, showing an angular ma.s.s of land narrowing into the northeast, breaking into a trickle of islands, as if squeezed from a cake froster with a tendency to drip. A red cross showed in the water above and to the left of the last island.

"We've our lat.i.tude and longitude. Now let's see what's there."

The map shrank and moved to the left of the screen. A text box appeared, and next to it the image of what appeared to be a Cubist mountain rising from the sea. The box showed the bolded words, Claidheamh Mor B.

"Cl cl whoa," Tex said. He looked at Annja, who shook her head.

"Sorry. I don't do Gaelic."

"Ah, but you should," said Gannet. "Just say it Claymore B, and you'll not be far off. That's what it means." He clicked some more at his keys. "Abandoned 1998. Bought in 2002 by a then newly formed oil consortium called Euro Petro."

"I've heard of them," Annja said. "I've seen their commercials."

Tex nodded. "I don't know about you," he said, "but something about that perky self-righteousness about how environmentally and socially conscious they are just goes right down my spine like a cheese grater."

"Me, too."

"Especially since it's all a sham," Gannet said cheerfully. "They deserve the name pirates far more than our lot."

"What do you mean?" Annja asked. "I thought the European Union was the majority owner."

"And that makes a difference how?" Gannet asked. "Most of the world's known oil reserves are owned by government companies. All just a matter of what you call the thieves in charge, innit?"

Phil Dirt came up and laid a meaty ring-laden hand on his shoulder. "n.o.ble work, boy," he said in his deep voice. "But you've got to do something about that uncontrollable cynicism about government. That's not what anarchy's all about."

"That's an airplane?" Annja asked.

"Sure is," Tex said with satisfaction. He was holding his Stetson on his head against the brisk salt wind with one hand. "An ultralight. Hand-built with love. And no small measure of genius."

"Uh-huh," she said, shading her eyes against the morning glare. "Just one question."

"What's that?"

"Where do you put the key to wind it up?"

The aircraft Annja had a hard time thinking of it as an airplane airplane whined past them down the narrow strip. It didn't look much like an airplane. It had a big pod-shaped c.o.c.kpit enclosed in wraparound gla.s.s, a single fuselage and a high wing. But where it parted company with real airplanes, to Annja's mind, apart from being the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, was that it kept its propeller at the rear of its high-mounted wing. That, she thought, was just wrong. whined past them down the narrow strip. It didn't look much like an airplane. It had a big pod-shaped c.o.c.kpit enclosed in wraparound gla.s.s, a single fuselage and a high wing. But where it parted company with real airplanes, to Annja's mind, apart from being the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, was that it kept its propeller at the rear of its high-mounted wing. That, she thought, was just wrong.

She could see it well deserved its moniker of ultralight, ultralight, and suspected that was why, after a very short landing run, it slowed and turned to taxi back toward them at the pace of a brisk walk. Annja noted the landing strip was very short indeed. For all its picturesque desolateness and quaint sense of ends-of-the-earth isolation, on the northerly Orkney Island of Papa Westray there wasn't room for anything else. and suspected that was why, after a very short landing run, it slowed and turned to taxi back toward them at the pace of a brisk walk. Annja noted the landing strip was very short indeed. For all its picturesque desolateness and quaint sense of ends-of-the-earth isolation, on the northerly Orkney Island of Papa Westray there wasn't room for anything else.

"How you feelin'?" Tex asked.

"I feel as if I'm filled with ants," she told him, "and an earthquake just hit the mound."

He nodded. "I hear you. We got plenty to do," he said. "It'll take your mind off worrying."

"Did I ever tell you how much I hate positive thinking?" Annja said. He only laughed at her.

The little craft came whining up to them. Annja tried hard not to think about mosquitoes. It stopped as a young woman in coveralls and a ball cap came dashing out from the airfield shack to stick fat wooden wedges under its tricycle landing gear. A door opened beneath the wing and a short man with short white hair, a snowy mustache and aviator shades popped out.

"Tex!" he exclaimed. He strutted forward, sticking out his hand.

"Leo!" Tex shook, and then they embraced briefly. Either the little English aviator was accustomed to such typically American intimacy or he faked it well.

He turned to the young woman. "Thank you much, my dear," he said. She nodded, grinned and scampered back inside.

"Annja," Tex said, "I'd like you to meet my old buddy, Leo." He smiled and spoke with great enthusiasm, as if reunited with his very best friend after decades. From spending a couple of days in his company Annja guessed he'd display the same enthusiasm if he was meeting a stranger for the first time. And it would be, so far as she could tell, entirely genuine, each and every time. "Leo, Annja Creed."

"A pleasure," she said, shaking his dry hand. It felt as if he could crack walnuts with it, although his touch was no more than a firm, quick squeeze.

"My pleasure, Ms. Creed."

He turned away with a look close to genuine alarm on his face. "My soul, who are these people? Did a caravan of travelers somehow make their way out here to Papa Westray?"

"These people" were Phil Dirt, Vicious Suze, Lightnin' Rod and Ob Noxious. "Travelers," Annja knew, was what the British called Gypsies. The motley bunch were trotting out from the little cl.u.s.ter of low structures beside the airfield toting bulging knapsacks and rolls of blue groundsheets. Despite the punk names, they were dressed more in the fashion of long-leftover hippies. Annja surmised that punk had in the end just been a phase for them. Their rest state was perpetually the Summer of Love.

"So you're the intrepid aviator," Phil Dirt boomed in his best Shakespearean baritone, rolling forward with hand extended.

Leo shook his hand with good if bewildered grace. "I say," he said, "what are are your people doing?" your people doing?"

"Let's go inside," Tex said, taking the pilot by the shoulder and tugging him gently toward the buildings. "Leo designed and built this aircraft himself, Annja. He's a wizard that way. Total legend in the aviation world. Test-flew England's first supersonic bomber in the early sixties. Even did a stint at Edwards."

"But my Ariel Ariel " Leo said. " Leo said.

Rod and Ob were unrolling the shiny blue tarps around the aircraft and weighting them down with head-sized chunks of rock. Kneeling, Suze was unpacking big rolls of masking tape and cans of spray paint. Phil's job seemed to be to shake the cans to make sure they rattled properly.

"She'll be fine, Leo, just fine. The paint'll wash right off. And if it doesn't, my show will pay for a nice new paint job. The old girl could use a fresh coat, couldn't she?"

As he towed the little Englishman away he winked at Annja over his shoulder. Annja wondered exactly what it indicated. Either that he was actually footing the bill himself, she guessed, or that he already had a plan in mind to get some kind of Past Master Past Master episode out of this escapade. He had displayed himself abundantly ready to bend or even break regulations and laws in what he thought was a good cause. episode out of this escapade. He had displayed himself abundantly ready to bend or even break regulations and laws in what he thought was a good cause.

"I've used her on the show a few times," Tex said to Annja. " Ariel Ariel and I go way back." and I go way back."

"There isn't any risk to her, is there, Tex?" Leo asked plaintively.

"I'll take as good care of her as I do my own precious hide," Tex said. "I'm not a stuntman, after all, Leo. You know that. I don't get paid to take foolish risks. Now, come on. There's a fresh-brewed pot of coffee waiting for you inside. Oh, and if memory serves, a bottle of thirty-year-old single malt with your name on it."

"Claidheamh MoR B is a pretty standard fixed offsh.o.r.e drilling platform, as you can see here, kiddies," Gannet said, pointing to the screen of a notebook computer that was so wide Annja could hardly think of it as portable. It gave a big, beautiful picture of the platform from above, Annja had to admit.

The radio nerd had ridden the Zodiac with them over twenty miles or so of North Sea to the north-ernmost island of the Orkney group from Gannet C, where Annja and Tex had spent the night on air mattresses in adjoining dank metal cells.

"Here's a night shot," Gannet said. The image twinkled with points of light.

"It's pretty," Annja said abstractedly. She was having trouble focusing, even though this briefing was vital.

The extension Jadzia's captors had conceded, in their cleverly coded e-mails, was due to run out at sunset. The plan called for Annja and Tex to infiltrate Claidheamh Mor B in the dark. And the real-time satellite weather image, currently resident in a small but readily discernible window in the lower left-hand corner of Gannet's screen, showed a nasty roiling ma.s.s of storm a typical North Sea blow. Despite the clarity of the day, the storm was due to hit the platform about the same time they were.

It was a good thing the diminutive pilot was in the airfield office in an adjoining building, getting expansive on venerable whiskey with the aging airplane buffs who ran the strip, Annja thought. Indeed, a small crowd had gathered, moving somewhat slowly and smelling of wool. Pretty much the island's entire collection of aviation fans had gotten wind of the unusual craft's arrival and turned up to look on in awe and be regaled.

"And here's another overhead from daytime," Gannet said. "Notice here on the southwest corner of the platform."

Annja squinted. A little white tadpole shape was visible in the middle of a big yellow circle. It hadn't been visible in the previous images.