Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021), A BATEMAN [urban books to read TXT] 📗

everyone started to shuffle closer to the windows, some picking up their coats and heading for the starboard deck.

Madeleine looked out of the window and said, “It really is a marvel.” She paused. “A wonder of engineering and resourcefulness…”

King nodded. “Come on, let’s get up on deck and take a closer look.” He did not give her any choice, heading for where he had hung his jacket. As he unhooked it, he knew the weight was off. He swung the jacket on like he was unaware and glanced around for a watching pair of eyes. The heavy little Makarov pistol was no longer there.

Chapter Twenty-Two

 

The sheer size of the first oil rig was remarkable. Four hundred feet high by some two-hundred and fifty feet wide and capable of withstanding one-hundred-foot waves as well as a twenty-knot collision from a five-thousand tonne vessel. There was a helicopter landing pad on the top deck and the drilling equipment had been removed and replaced by an experimental wind turbine which added another hundred and fifty feet in height. This turbine used a series of magnets to double the torque effect and generate four times the electricity as a standard wind turbine. As well as this, solar panel platforms had been attached around the second deck, jutting out a full hundred feet from the structure. The temperature may not have been warm, but clear skies generated enough power to work in tandem with the wind turbine and give the platform all the energy it would require, while a desalination plant provided an unlimited supply of fresh water. King had heard about the sustainability of the project, greenhouses and polytunnels made use of treated human excrement to fertilise the soil, and plants were heated and watered by an offshoot from the central heating system, providing sub-tropical growing conditions for tomatoes, herbs, salad leaves, strawberries, legumes, and potatoes. These plants were considered the easiest to grow in hothouse conditions, requiring just a few weeks from gestation to harvest. To compliment this self-sufficiency, weighted hook lines were lowered for a few hours a day using the waste remains of the previous day’s prepared catch and yielded daily hauls of cod, haddock and pollack to name but a few species of fish in plentiful supply, which were drawn to the molluscs and small fish that made the legs of the rig their home, which in essence was an artificial reef. Scraps of fish were also placed in crab pots and dropped to the seabed, where they would be hauled up every few days with a sizeable catch of crabs and lobsters.

“It’s enormous…” Madeleine said quietly. “You see there…” She pointed at a large boom jutting out several hundred metres. “That’s the hydroelectricity boom Aurora are testing. It remains deployed in the roughest weather, generating electricity twenty-four hours a day.”

King studied it, noticing the red flashing lights fitted along the top at intervals to warn shipping of its presence. The ship had slowed, the captain wary of the obstruction. Another boom connected with the neighbouring rig and in the lee of the rig, an identical boom jutted out several hundred metres. “Booms connect all the rigs as well in calm weather,” he replied. “And there’s seven of them in all…” He marvelled at the scale of the project. Seven out-dated oil rigs now used for the experimentation of hydroelectricity and regenerative power. King could see the nearest two rigs, both one-thousand metres equidistant, but the grey hue of the sky and matching greyness of the sea meant he could not see the other four rigs in the chain.

“These platforms could generate enough electricity to power London. That is, if it wasn’t being grounded on the buoy a mile south of here,” a voice behind King said. “Amazing, isn’t it?” King turned around and looked into the eyes of the man who had been on the beach watching Madeleine and Daniel. The man he’d had down as American, and CIA. “They just need governments to take on the technology, invest in similar projects.”

“But other companies need the technology, otherwise Aurora is a monopoly and that wouldn’t be fair on people. Sooner or later the tariff would go up and the supply chain could be affected.” King paused. “Who are you?” he asked, deciding not to beat around the bush and be direct.

“David Newman,” the man replied.

King stared at the man, a nagging feeling that he’d seen him before he had arrived in Svalbard. “What do you do?”

“I’m a salvage diver.”

“Small world.” King paused. “And what are America’s interests here?”

“Green energy,” Newman replied sardonically.

“From the country that pulled out of the Paris Accord, yet are the second largest polluter on the planet.”

“Another President’s policy. No, we’re all about the green these days.”

“In America’s case, the green usually means all about the dollar,” replied King. “Which is about right.”

Newman shrugged. “And you’re here because?”

“I’m helping Aurora salvage the submarine.”

Newman nodded. “Our paths may cross again, then.”

King looked at him, unsure whether their paths had already crossed. There was something vaguely familiar about the man, but he could not for the life of him remember where he had seen him before. He turned his back on him, confident that the man would not try anything here, and continued to look at the rigs, impressed not only by the size of a drilling platform up close, but the ambition of the project and the scale of the investment and organisation needed to bring it to fruition. He had read the articles in Forbes, National Geographic and USA Today about how Aurora had heard about Shell and BP’s issue of how to dispose of old drilling platforms in an environmentally friendly manner, and how the CEO of the new clean energy start-up had thought the opportunity too good to miss. Taking the rigs from them, the petroleum conglomerates had paid Aurora half