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company comes first, not your feelings or protecting your ass."
    Finlayson's eyes showed no expression. Mackenzie was staring at the ceiling as if he had found something of absorbing interest there. Dermott, he had learned over the years, was a past master at pinning an adversary into a corner. The victim either surrendered or placed himself in an impossible situation of which Dermott would take ruthless advantage. If he couldn't get co-operation, he would settle for nothing less than domination.
    Dermott went on, "I have made three requests, all of which I regard as perfectly reasonable, and you have refused all three. You persist in your refusals?"
    "Yes, I do."
    Dermott said, "Well, Donald, what are my options?"
    "There are none." Mackenzie sounded sad. "Only the inevitable."
    "Yes." Dermott looked at Finlayson coldly. "You have a radio microwave band to Valdez that links up with the continental exchanges." He pushed a card toward Finlayson. "Or would you refuse me permission to talk to my head office in Houston?"
    Finlayson said nothing. He took the card, lifted the phone and talked to the switchboard. After three minutes' silence, which only Finlayson seemed to find uncomfortable, the phone rang. Finlayson listened briefly then handed over the phone.
    Dermott said, "Brady Enterprises? Mr. Brady, please. . . Dermott." There was a pause, then, "Good afternoon, Jim."
    "Well, well, George." Brady's strong carrying voice was clearly audible in the office. "Prudhoe Bay, is it? Coincidence, coincidence. I was just on the point of phoning you."
    "Well. My report, Jim. News, rather. There's nothing to report."
    "And I have news for you. Mine first, it's more important. Open line?"
    "One moment." Dermott looked at Finlayson. "What security classification does your switchboard operator have?"
    "None. Jesus, she's only a telephone girl."
    "As you so rightly observe, Jesus! Heaven help the trans-Alaska pipeline." He pulled out a notebook and pencil and addressed the phone. "Sorry, Jim. Open. Go ahead."
    In a clear, precise voice Brady began to recite a seemingly meaningless jumble of letters and figures which Dermott noted down in neatly printed script. After about two minutes Brady paused and said, "Repeat?"
    "No thanks."
    "You have something to say?"
    "Just this. Field manager here uncooperative, unreasonable and obstructive. I don't think we can profitably operate here. Permission to pull out."
    There was only a brief pause before Brady said clearly, "Permission granted." There came the click of a replaced receiver and Dermott rose to his feet. Finlayson was already on his. "Mr. Dermott -- " Dermott looked down at him icily and spoke in a voice as cold as winter, "Give my love to London, Mr. Finlayson, if you're ever there."
     
     
     
    Two
    Thirteen hundred miles southeast of Prudhoe Bay, at ten P.M., Brady's men met Jay Shore in the bar of the Peter Pond Hotel in Fort McMurray. Among those qualified to pass judgement on such matters, it was readily agreed that as an engineering construction manager Shore had no peer in Canada. His face was dark, saturnine, almost piratical -- which was rather an unfair trick for nature to play on him, since that same nature had made him easygoing, companionable, humorous and cheerful.
    Not that he felt in the least humorous and cheerful at that moment. Nor did the man who sat beside him, Bill Reynolds, Sanmobil's operations manager, a rubicund and normally smiling man to whom nature had given precisely the kind of diabolical mind that Shore appeared to have but didn't.
    Bill Reynolds looked across the table to Dermott and Mackenzie, whom he and Shore had met thirty seconds previously, and said, "You make fast time, gentlemen. Remarkable service, if one may say so."
    "We try," Dermott said comfortably. "We do our best."
    "Scotch?" asked Mackenzie.
    "Thanks." Reynolds nodded. "Twin jet -- is that it?"
    "Right."
    "A shade expensive, a man would think."
    "Gets you around." Dermott smiled.
    "Head