Closing in on theValhalla platform, thinking about his partner, Keene became aware of the sleek death of sharks swimming below. The idea, he admitted to himself, was not exactly pleasant. He wanted to believe that the noise and chemical leakage and higher temperatures from the offshore structure would drive away such predators, but he knew differently. Part of his education as a short-term investor had taught him that the environment around oil platforms was a boon for fish, and with the increased schools living among the concrete support pillars, he supposed that sharks might also hang out in the better feeding grounds.

He increased his speed, and was happy to reach the shadow of the platform and pull himself up to the metal rungs alongside the fat elephant leg of the pier. Better not rest here, he told himself. You look like somebody’s midnight snack. He grasped the rungs and scrambled up, not stopping until he was ten feet out of the water.

Access ladders led up the concrete support legs to the main platform. He looked at the long line of rungs waiting for him. It was quite a way to climb, especially if he wanted to make it to the top of the central derrick in good time.

He climbed higher, to the underpart of the main platform. It hung like a broad airplane hangar above him. Lifeboats dangled under the deck; in an emergency, they could drop a hundred feet down to the sea. Keene recalled having read somewhere that more people were killed during oil rig safety drills testing out the hazardous systems than had ever been hurt in other kinds of accidents on oil rigs.

He listened to the waves echoing in the superstructure, looked at the immense core of theValhalla, and found himself awed that something this huge could be built in a harbor and towed out to sea to be anchored elsewhere.

“Moving on up,” he said into the wind.

He began to climb again. Once he reached the undercarriage of the main platform, he followed catwalks, ascended metal steps, ducked through hatches until he stood on the main deck.

A helipad covered a large, flat circle atop the main platform. Next to that was an oil-processing area filled with huge tanks and a nightmare maze of piping. Radio masts and cranes protruded like spines from the rig.

At any moment, Keene expected to be stopped by a security patrol, but the platform supervisors were ridiculously complacent in their security. The pumps and generators hummed and clanked, making loud sounds in the night, but he met no one. Most of the blazing lights he had seen from a distance seemed to be for decorative purposes only, except for the natural blowtorch off to the side; the flare tip hissed and blasted its perpetual flame, removing excess natural gas from the operations.

Keene sprinted across the platform deck toward the central derrick, which stood like a skyscraper in the middle of theValhalla . He could have taken an elevator, of course, but that would have been too easy. And too noisy. Even sleeping security guards could be awakened if the noise was loud enough. Instead, he took the winding ribbon of metal stairs around and around the iron latticework of the structure, heading toward the narrow tip that supported the rig’s central production shaft and pipe.

Panting heavily, dripping with sweat, he reached the top platform. The sultry breeze brushed his sweaty chest. Between breaths, he could hear the whispers and clatter of the rig’s superstructure, the thrumming guide wires and anchor cables holding the various portions in place. A searchlight beacon flashed around and around in a slow strobe, signaling low-flying aircraft of the danger.

He stood in silence, grinning at the night and gripping the rails. Under stormy seas, he thought, this place must dance like a hiccuping marionette. He looked around the top level. Like a crow’s nest on an old sailing ship, it was adorned with the spikes of lightning rods and radio towers.

He raised his fist in the air and gave a short yelp of triumph. “I’m King of the Hill.”

Good as that felt, it was not enough to gratify Keene. Still needing completion, he went to the edge, pulled down his shorts, and urinated. Then, grinning and satisfied, he sat down, leaned against the rails, and fell asleep.

The sound of an insomniac seagull woke him from his nap. Not until the third successive squawk did it occur to him that the gull was McKendry, at the bottom of the derrick.

Keene’s watch read one-thirty. Unable to believe that his lighthearted infiltration had gone so smoothly, he descended slowly and carefully into the shadows.

“You dumb son of a bitch!”

McKendry’s words and fist hit Keene simultaneously. Keene reeled and swiped at his nosebleed. “Are you crazy, McKendry? You’ve probably broken my nose.”

“You have about as much sense as a centipede,” McKendry said, clinging fast to the iron rung Keene had used to descend the derrick.

“At least now we’ll have a story to tell next New Year’s Eve.”

“You’ll have a story to tell. I probably won’t make it.” McKendry let go of the rung and sank to the deck. He held one hand over his left ribs. With the other, he pointed at his foot. “Shark,” he said, his voice reduced now to the slightest whisper.

“Oh my God!” Keene fell to his knees. In the dim light, he could see huge, red blotches, leaking around the protection of his partner’s hand and running across his ankle. “McKendry, I’m so sorry. Oh my God!”

“Could you…could you kiss it better,” McKendry whispered.

Keene looked up and into his partner’s eyes.

“And while you’re at it, Joshua, could you…”

McKendry’s voice was so close to being inaudible that Keene had to lean into it. “Anything, buddy.”

“Good,” McKendry said, whimpering. “Then you can kiss my ass.” He wiped one of the red blotches vigorously. It paled as it left a stain on his fingers.

“The red pen,” Keene said.

“The red pen,buddy .”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Keene said.

“I meant to.”

“I’m sorry I…um…pulled your leg.”

“We’re supposed to be looking for Selene Trujold, not running around at two in the morning playing King of the Hill. As long as we find her, we’ll call it even.” He paused. “Since we’re here, I’d like to take another look around. But first, would you mind telling me what possessed you to pull off this dumb stunt and jeopardize the whole mission?”

“I pissed on the world from up there,” Keene said halfheartedly.

“Was it worth it?”

For a moment Keene was quiet. “Yes, it was.” He decided to give an honest answer, though he didn’t expect McKendry to fully understand. “Listen, we’re out here and we’re ready for whatever happens. Right now, everything’s quiet. We’ve already spent weeks sitting around in Caracas, taking canoe trips through the Orinoco Delta, drinking beer in dockside cantinas. I had to dosomething, Terris.”

He raised his eyebrows and spread out his hands innocently, indicating the ghost town of the oil platform.

“Had to find myself a story to tell. Just in case.”

18

Two black Zodiac rafts filled with commandos sped across the channel of the Serpent’s Mouth. They had eased out of one of the many mouths of the Orinoco Delta at midnight; after two hours Selene Trujold could just now make out the shape of theYucatán near the gleaming beacon that was theValhalla platform. There was half an hour’s worth of water still to cross, the last of it with engines off, moving in silence.

Around her in the rafts, the commandos wore dark suits and carried a stash of black-market weapons, rifles, hand grenades, and explosives. They had night-vision goggles to enable them to direct night operations, but she knew that the Caribbean stars would give them all the illumination they needed.

Her Green Impact fighters were well trained and high-strung, keyed up for this assault, which had been a full month in the planning. Their information had proved correct: the tankerYucatán was lashed to theValhalla ’s separate pumping platform during the darkest hours of the night. Though the normal complement of crew members aboard the tanker outnumbered them, Green Impact had both weapons and determination.