Snakehead

The sea was utterly flat. Alex didn’t need to steer himself. He seemed to be heading in exactly the right direction. He could make out the white H in the middle of the heliport. H for happy landing…at least, that was what he hoped.
    There are three stages to a parachute descent. The raw fear of the jump itself. The sense of calm once the chute has opened. And the first panic as the ground rushes up. Alex reached the third stage all too soon, and that was when he realized that he had drifted off course after all. Maybe he had been overconfident. Maybe some sea breeze had caught him unawares. But suddenly he found himself with nothing but water below him. He was drifting away from the triangular processing platform. Urgently, Alex tugged the two cords at his shoulders, trying to change direction. He was plunging toward the sea. He couldn’t let that happen. The splash might give the others away. Worse than that, he might drown.
    Alex jerked and writhed helplessly but at the last minute another breeze caught him and carried him over the lip of the drilling platform and onto one of the decks. He had been doubly lucky. The deck was wide enough to allow him to land safely, dropping to one knee and folding in his parachute in a single movement. And the area he had chosen was like a metallic courtyard, enclosed on all sides. With a bit of luck, he would be completely out of sight. What about the noise of landing? No worries there. He had landed on a bumpy, uneven surface, close to some sort of electrical generator. The noise of the machinery would have covered the crash of his feet as they made contact with the metal surface.
    Five seconds later, a figure dropped out of the sky and landed just a few yards away. It was Ben Daniels. Unlike Alex, he must have chosen the deck with pinpoint accuracy. He gathered in his chute and gave Alex the thumbs-up. Alex twisted around. As far as he could see, all the other SAS men had landed on the processing platform. He looked up. The helicopter had already gone, but presumably it would be nearby in case it was needed.
    Alex realized that his own inexperience had spoiled Scooter’s plan. The whole idea had been to stick together. It was vital that Alex should be protected at all times. In fact, he and Ben were cut off on the drilling platform. The SAS men would have to make their way across the bridge to find him. And if Yu’s control room was on the other side, they would have to take Alex all the way back again.
    Not good.
    He looked around him. He realized now that he was standing on a row of pipes. The whole deck was covered with them, cut into lengths of about ten feet. A huge metal trough rose up out of the ground, slanting toward the metal tower that housed the wellhead. Presumably, the pipes would be dragged up and somehow assembled in a straight line before they were lowered all the way to the seabed and beyond. On the other side, a metal wall rose up, like the side of a fortress. There were windows on the third or fourth floor, but they were so covered in dirt and grease that surely nobody would be able to see through them. One of the cranes stretched out over the water, its arm silhouetted against the stars and the night sky.
    Ben Daniels had taken off his parachute. He scuttled over to Alex, keeping low. He must have already come to the same conclusion—but he had decided what to do. “We won’t wait for them,” he whispered. “We’ll start looking over here. We don’t have a lot of time.”
    Alex didn’t have a watch. He looked at Ben’s. It was 11:10. He wondered how so much time could have passed so quickly.
    The two of them set off together, making their way across the pipes, trying to find the way into the wellhead. Dragon Nine was bigger than Alex had expected, but at the same time every inch was crammed with pipes and cables, cog wheels, chains, dials, and valves. The oil rig was also a living thing, throbbing and humming as different machines carried power or coolant to the various outlets. It was a hard, unpleasant environment. Every surface had a permanent coating of mud, oil, grease, and puddles of salt water. Alex could feel his sneakers sticking to the floor as he walked.
    But Yu didn’t seem to have posted any guards. Scooter had been right about that. With Alex supposedly dead, why should he have been expecting any trouble, miles from anywhere, in the middle of the Timor Sea? Together, they eased their way around corners and between ventilation