explosion."
"Saw it?"
"You know, oil smoke and flames. You mean, did we hear anything? You never do in a helicopter. You don't have to -- not when you see the roof take off into the air. So we put down and got out, me with a rifle, Tim with two pistols. Wasting our time. The bastards had gone. Being oilmen yourselves, you'll know it requires quite a group of men and a complex of buildings to provide the care and maintenance for a couple of thirteen-thousand-five-hundred-horse-power aircraft-type turbines, not to mention all the monitoring and communications they have to handle.
"It was the pump room itself that was on fire, not too badly but badly enough for Tim and me not to go inside without fire extinguishers. We'd just started looking when we heard shouting come from a store room. It was locked, naturally, but the key had been left in the lock. Poulson -- he's the boss -- came running out with his men. They had the extinguishers located and the fire out in three minutes. But it was too late for the two engineers inside -- they'd come down the previous day from Prudhoe Bay to do a routine maintenance job on one of the turbines."
"They were dead?"
"Very." Bronowski's face registered no emotion. "They were brothers. Fine boys. Friends of mine... and Tim's."
"No possibility of accidental death? From the effects of the explosion?"
"Explosions don't shoot you. They were pretty badly charred, but charring doesn't hide a bullet wound between the eyes."
"You searched the area?"
"Certainly. Conditions weren't ideal -- it was dark, with a little snow falling. I thought I saw helicopter ski marks on a wind-blown stretch of rock. The others weren't so sure. On the remote off-chance, I contacted Anchorage and asked them to alert every public and private airport and strip in the state. Also to have radio and TV stations ask the public to report hearing or sighting a helicopter in an unusual place. I haven't but one hope in ten thousand that the request will bring any results."
He grimaced. "Most people never realize how huge this state is. It's bigger than half of Western Europe, but it's got a population of just over three hundred thousand, which is to say it's virtually uninhabited. Again, helicopters are an accepted fact of life in Alaska, and people pay no more attention to them than you would to a car in Texas. Third, we've still only got about three good hours of light, and the idea of carrying out an air search is laughable -- anyway, we'd require fifty times the number of planes we have, and even then it would be sheer luck to find them.
"But, for the record, we did find out something unpleasant. In case anything should happen to the pump station, there's an emergency pipeline that can be switched in to bypass it. Our friends took care of that also. They blew up the control valve."
"So there's going to be a massive oil spillage?"
"No chance. The line is loaded with thousands of sensors all the way from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, and any section of it can be closed down and isolated immediately. Even the repairs would normally present no problem. But neither metal nor men work too well in these abnormally low temperatures."
"Apparently that doesn't apply to saboteurs," Dermott said. "How many were there?"
"Poulson said two. Two others said three. The remainder weren't sure."
"Not a very observant lot, are they?"
"I wonder if that's fair, Mr. Dermott. Poulson's a good man and he doesn't miss much."
"Did he see their faces?"
"No. That much is for certain."
"Masked?"
"No. Their fur collars were pulled high up and their hats low down so that only their eyes were visible. You can't tell the color of a man's eyes in the darkness. Besides, our people had just been dragged from bed."
"But not the two engineers. They were working on the engines. How come at that very early hour?"
Bronowski spoke with restraint. "Because they had been up all night. Because they were going home to their families in Fairbanks for their
"Saw it?"
"You know, oil smoke and flames. You mean, did we hear anything? You never do in a helicopter. You don't have to -- not when you see the roof take off into the air. So we put down and got out, me with a rifle, Tim with two pistols. Wasting our time. The bastards had gone. Being oilmen yourselves, you'll know it requires quite a group of men and a complex of buildings to provide the care and maintenance for a couple of thirteen-thousand-five-hundred-horse-power aircraft-type turbines, not to mention all the monitoring and communications they have to handle.
"It was the pump room itself that was on fire, not too badly but badly enough for Tim and me not to go inside without fire extinguishers. We'd just started looking when we heard shouting come from a store room. It was locked, naturally, but the key had been left in the lock. Poulson -- he's the boss -- came running out with his men. They had the extinguishers located and the fire out in three minutes. But it was too late for the two engineers inside -- they'd come down the previous day from Prudhoe Bay to do a routine maintenance job on one of the turbines."
"They were dead?"
"Very." Bronowski's face registered no emotion. "They were brothers. Fine boys. Friends of mine... and Tim's."
"No possibility of accidental death? From the effects of the explosion?"
"Explosions don't shoot you. They were pretty badly charred, but charring doesn't hide a bullet wound between the eyes."
"You searched the area?"
"Certainly. Conditions weren't ideal -- it was dark, with a little snow falling. I thought I saw helicopter ski marks on a wind-blown stretch of rock. The others weren't so sure. On the remote off-chance, I contacted Anchorage and asked them to alert every public and private airport and strip in the state. Also to have radio and TV stations ask the public to report hearing or sighting a helicopter in an unusual place. I haven't but one hope in ten thousand that the request will bring any results."
He grimaced. "Most people never realize how huge this state is. It's bigger than half of Western Europe, but it's got a population of just over three hundred thousand, which is to say it's virtually uninhabited. Again, helicopters are an accepted fact of life in Alaska, and people pay no more attention to them than you would to a car in Texas. Third, we've still only got about three good hours of light, and the idea of carrying out an air search is laughable -- anyway, we'd require fifty times the number of planes we have, and even then it would be sheer luck to find them.
"But, for the record, we did find out something unpleasant. In case anything should happen to the pump station, there's an emergency pipeline that can be switched in to bypass it. Our friends took care of that also. They blew up the control valve."
"So there's going to be a massive oil spillage?"
"No chance. The line is loaded with thousands of sensors all the way from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez, and any section of it can be closed down and isolated immediately. Even the repairs would normally present no problem. But neither metal nor men work too well in these abnormally low temperatures."
"Apparently that doesn't apply to saboteurs," Dermott said. "How many were there?"
"Poulson said two. Two others said three. The remainder weren't sure."
"Not a very observant lot, are they?"
"I wonder if that's fair, Mr. Dermott. Poulson's a good man and he doesn't miss much."
"Did he see their faces?"
"No. That much is for certain."
"Masked?"
"No. Their fur collars were pulled high up and their hats low down so that only their eyes were visible. You can't tell the color of a man's eyes in the darkness. Besides, our people had just been dragged from bed."
"But not the two engineers. They were working on the engines. How come at that very early hour?"
Bronowski spoke with restraint. "Because they had been up all night. Because they were going home to their families in Fairbanks for their
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