‘Nothing,’ James said, smirking. ‘As someone who tossed and turned all night, worrying about this shit, I envy your ability to switch off and sleep for ten hours.’

‘It’s called being a teenager,’ Ryan said, giving up on the stifling and going full yawn. ‘Besides, what’s to worry about? We’re just camped out eighty kilometres inside the territory of a dangerous terrorist group who’ll torture and chop our heads off if they capture us. Have all the eggs gone?’

Ryan felt pampered as Lauren dished him eggs and Kyle brought coffee. Tovah made him jump by slapping her thighs and yelling, ‘We got tha shit, dudes!’

‘What you got?’ James asked.

‘Boss man just arrived. Told the workers to get all the burned control consoles out of the hut, because they have to be cleared out before replacements arrive.’

‘When?’

‘There’s a local electrician coming in to replace the burned-out supply box at 0800. Replacement consoles and the repair team are due in by lunchtime. Then the guy asked when they expected the well to be fixed. Boss guy said it depends on the engineers but hopefully they’ll be pumping oil again by tomorrow.’

‘Nice,’ Bruce said. ‘Looks like we timed our arrival just right.’

‘Don’t want to stick around any longer than we have to,’ James noted. ‘Be good to have a couple of cameras in the area before it gets too light.’

‘We can land a pair of micro-drones on the oil derrick,’ Tovah suggested.

‘Won’t they give the game away if they’re spotted?’ Ryan asked.

James got up and pulled a boxed micro-drone out of his backpack.

‘Three centimetres, weighs less than ten grams, but has an HD camera,’ James explained. ‘Battery lasts three kilometres in flight, and transmits a picture for up to twelve hours. You just program coordinates, after which it’s totally autonomous apart from the landing. In flight, it looks like an insect. Chances of it being spotted in situ are very slim and the plastic is corn starch, so after a couple of days the structure and rotors dissolve and the remaining components look like plastic scrap from a kid’s toy or something.’

Ryan picked it out of the box.

‘Don’t break it,’ James smirked. ‘That’s twenty-seven thousand pounds’ worth.’

‘Whoa!’ Ryan said, thrusting the device back at James.

‘Two will give us complete video coverage over the well site,’ Tovah said. ‘As long as it doesn’t rain.’

37. SURRENDER

At 13:05, Ryan lay chest-down on stony ground, sixty metres from the oil derrick. Two bearded men stood outside, using a crowbar to open a crate. When the plywood side panel snapped free, a torrent of Styrofoam packing peanuts subsided to reveal the side of a reconditioned Offshore Marine control console. He looked across at James.

‘See the gouge in the side panel?’ Ryan said. ‘I’d swear I saw that exact machine in Uncle’s warehouse five weeks back.’