Athabasca. Alistair MacLean
“About any other disaffected types, I wouldn’t know. There are fifteen thousand people in Fairbanks, and it would be optimistic to expect they’re all as pure as the driven snow.”
“What did Bronowski think of the incident?”
“He wasn’t there.”
“That wasn’t what I asked …”
“He was in New York at the time. He hadn’t even joined the company then.”
“A relative newcomer, then?”
“Yes. In your book, I suppose that automatically makes him a villain. If you wish to go ahead and waste your time investigating his antecedents, by all means do so, but I could save you time and effort by telling you that we had him checked, double-checked and triple-checked by three separate topflight agencies. The New York Police Department gave him a clean bill of health. His record and that of his company are – were – impeccable.”
“I don’t doubt it. What were his qualifications, and what was his company?”
“One and the same thing, really. He headed up one of the biggest and arguably the best security agencies in New York. Before that he was a cop.”
“What did his company specialise in?”
“Nothing but the best. Guards, mainly. Additional guards for a handful of the biggest banks when their own security forces were under-staffed by holidays or illness. Guarding the homes of the richest people in Manhattan and Long Island to prevent the ungodly making off with the guests’ jewellery when large-scale social functions were being held. His third speciality was providing security for exhibitions of precious gems and paintings. If you could ever persuade the Dutch to lend you Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ for a couple of months, Bronowski would be the man you’d send for.”
“What would induce a man to leave all that and come to this end of the world?”
“He doesn’t say. He doesn’t have to. Homesickness. More specifically, his wife’s homesickness. She lives in Anchorage. He flies down there every weekend.”
“I thought you were supposed to do a full four weeks up here before you got time off.”
“Doesn’t apply to Bronowski – only to those whose permanent job is here. This is his nominal base, but the whole line is his responsibility. For instance, if there’s trouble in Valdez, he’s a damn sight nearer it in his wife’s flat in Anchorage than he would be if he were up here. And he’s very mobile, is our Sam. Owns and flies his own Comanche. We pay his fuel, that’s all.”
“He’s not without the odd penny to his name?”
“I should say not. He doesn’t really need this job, but he can’t bear to be inactive. Money? He retains the controlling interest in his New York firm.”
“No conflict of interests?”
“How the hell could there be a conflict of interests? He’s never even been out of the State since he arrived here over a year ago.”
“A trustworthy lad, it would seem. Damn few of them around these days.” Dermott looked at Mackenzie. “Donald?”
“Yes?” Mackenzie picked up the unsigned letter from Edmonton. “F.B.I. seen this?”
“Of course not. What’s it got to do with the F.B.I.?”
“It might have an awful lot to do with them, and soon. I know Alaskans think that this is a nation apart, that this is your own special and private fiefdom up here, and that you refer to us unfortunates as the lower 48, but you’re still part of the United States. When the oil from here arrives at Valdez, it’s shipped to one of the west-coast states. Any interruption in oil transfer between Prudhoe Bay and, say, California, would be regarded as an unlawful interference with inter-state commerce and would automatically bring in the F.B.I.”
“Well, it hasn’t happened yet. Besides, what can the F.B.I. do? They know nothing of oil or pipeline security. Look after the pipeline? They couldn’t even look after themselves. We’d just spend most of our time trying to thaw out the few of them that didn’t freeze to death during their first ten minutes here. They could only survive under cover, so what could they do there? Take over our computer terminals and master communications and alarm detection stations at Prudhoe Bay, Fairbanks and Valdez? We have highly trained specialists to monitor over three thousand sources of alarm information. Asking the F.B.I. to do that would be like asking a blind man to read Sanskrit. Inside or out, they’d only be in the way and a useless burden to all concerned.”
“Alaska State Troopers could survive. I guess they’d survive where even some of your own men couldn’t. Have you been in touch with them? Have you notified the State authorities in Juneau?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t love us. Oh, sure, if there was physical trouble, violence, they’d move in immediately. Until then, they’d rather not know. I can’t say I blame them. And before you ask me why I’ll tell you. For good or bad we’ve inherited the Alyeska mantle. Alyeska built the pipeline and they run it; but we use it. I’m afraid there’s a wide grey area of non-discrimination here. In most people’s eyes they were pipeline, we are pipeline.”
Finlayson reflected on his next words. “It’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for Alyeska. They were pretty cruelly pilloried. Sure, they bore the responsibility for a remarkable amount of waste, and incurred vast cost over-runs, but they did complete an impossible job in impossible conditions and, what’s more, brought it in on schedule. Best construction company in North America at the time. Brilliant engineering and brilliant engineers – but the brilliance stopped short of their PR people, who might as well have been operating in downtown Manhattan for all they knew about Alaskans. Their job should have been to sell the pipeline to the people: all they succeeded in doing was turning a large section of the population solidly against the line and the construction company.”
He shook his head. “You had to be truly gifted to get it as wrong as they did. They sought to protect the good name of Alyeska, but all they did, by blatant cover-ups – it was alleged – and by deliberate lying, was to bring whatever good name there was into total disrepute.”
Finlayson reached into a drawer, took out two sheets of paper and gave them to Dermott and Mackenzie. “Photostats of a classic example of the way they handle those under contract to them. One would assume they learnt their trade in one of the more repressive police states. Read it. You’ll find it instructive. You’ll also understand how by simple thought-transference we’re not in line for much public sympathy.”
The two men read the Photostats.
| Alyeska Pipeline Service Company | Supplement No. 20 |
| Pipeline and Roads | Revision No. 1 |
| Job Specification | April 1,1974 |
| Page 2004 |
C. IN NO EVENT SHALL CONTRACTOR OR ITS PERSONNEL REPORT A LEAK OR AN OIL SPILL TO ANY GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY. Such reporting shall be the sole responsibility of ALYESKA. CONTRACTOR shall emphasise this to all its supervisory personnel and employees.
D. Further IN NO EVENT SHALL CONTRACTOR OR ITS PERSONNEL DISCUSS, REPORT, OR COMMUNICATE IN ANY WAY WITH NEWS MEDIA whether the news media be radio, television, newspapers or periodicals. Any such communication by CONTRACTOR shall be deemed to be a material breach of CONTRACT by CONTRACTOR. All contacts with news media regarding leaks or oil spills shall be made by Alyeska. If news media people contact CONTRACTOR or CONTRACTOR’S personnel they shall refer news media to Alyeska without further discussing, reporting or communicating. CONTRACTOR shall emphasise the aforementioned ALYESKA news media requirements to all its supervisory personnel and employees.
Dermott