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“Hot dish coming,” Marple called out. She was walking from the kitchen with a huge soup pot held between two thick oven mitts. She leaned over and set the pot down on a large metal trivet in the center of the table between a luscious green salad and a plate piled high with dinner rolls. She placed one mitted hand on the top, held her breath for a second, and lifted the lid with a flourish. An aromatic cloud of steam burst out. All around the table, eyebrows shot up.

Gestard leaned forward and waved the steam toward his nose with one hand. He leaned back and gave Marple a noncommittal look.

“Promising,” he said.

CHAPTER 74

IT WAS PITCH-BLACK in the tiny sleeping module on the Aquila, and totally still. For Ron and Pete, there was no sense of being suspended above water eight thousand feet deep. No sounds of waves or wind, no sign that they were a hundred miles from the nearest land. Nothing to disturb their sleep. The work schedule had seriously messed with their circadian rhythms. It was mid-evening in the Gulf, but they were both out cold.

Suddenly the quiet was shattered by a piercing wail. A strobe light fired off with blinding pulses. A mechanical voice crackled through a ceiling speaker. “Alert! Alert! All crew to emergency stations! Repeat. All crew to emergency stations!”

Pete sat up and jumped off the top bunk. The second his bare feet hit the floor, he reached over and punched Ron in the arm. Still groggy, he slipped back into Russian. “Prosnut’sya!” He quickly corrected himself. “Hey! Get up!”

Ron rolled over, blinked once, then covered his eyes against the pulsing strobe. “What the fuck?” He rolled out of his bunk.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” shouted Pete. “Fire!”

Seconds later, they were both in their coveralls and boots, joining the line of scrambling co-workers on the ladder to the top deck. Everywhere on the rig, lights were flashing and sirens were wailing.

Pete spotted their boss, Joe-Don, at the designated gathering point near the drilling rig on Deck 1. The sky and water were dark, but the platform was lit up like a circus. On one side of the vast deck, a fire team was rolling out thick hoses. On the other side, crews were manning the winches on the bright orange lifeboats. When Pete looked up, he saw hundreds of men and a few dozen women lining the rails and clustered in work areas. The whole rig was awake.

“Hustle!” Joe-Don shouted as the team jogged over. Pete noticed that he was holding an iPad in front of him. As soon as all twelve members of his team reached the spot, he tapped the screen and turned it around. The stopwatch app read 00:01:42. “We can do better,” he barked. “We should all be up here in less than a minute and a half.”

“What’s going on?” asked Ron. “Where’s the fire?”

Joe-Don put down his iPad. “Shut up. Wait. Listen.”

A few seconds later, the PA speakers on deck crackled and blared. “Attention, all crew. Attention, all crew.” This time it was a human voice, not a mechanical recording. Pete recognized the voice from the orientation video. It was the OIM, the offshore installation manager, the boss of the whole damn platform. “This has been a drill. Repeat: This has been a drill. Return to your quarters or stations. Repeat: This has been a drill.”

There was a collective groan from the crew. At least a third of them had been ripped from their slumber, others from their meal or poker game. Joe-Don made some notes on his iPad as his team dispersed.

Pete turned and followed Ron across the deck. They’d made it only about ten paces when their Apple Watches lit up with the same text.

NEXT ONE WILL BE REAL.

Pete glanced at Ron.

Paul was coming. It was on.

CHAPTER 75

MARGARET MARPLE COULDN’T stand the suspense any longer.

They’d all been sitting at the table for nearly an hour. The bouillabaisse had been served, consumed, enjoyed. Compliments all around. Except from Luc Gestard. He’d eaten two helpings, drunk more than his share of the wine, and regaled the group with tales of how he’d first tasted the dish as an apprentice chef in Marseilles.

Margaret stood up. “Let’s have our digestifs, shall we? Everybody please leave their dishes. We’ll clean up later.”

Gestard pushed back from the table and put down his napkin. He stared at Marple. “That’s it? Don’t you want to know if you passed?”

Marple gave him a pleasant smile. “You can tell me privately.” She gestured toward the comms room. “This way, please.”

She walked past the kitchen and stood in the doorway, ushering everybody into the room. Holmes and Poe gave her puzzled looks as they passed. So did Grey. Marple noticed that both Virginia and Desan hung back, letting Gestard walk in front of them. They clearly didn’t want to be anywhere near him.

Gestard stepped to the center of the room and stopped. Marple could tell that he was confused. He had probably expected a cozy bar or a smoking lounge. Instead, he was surrounded by electronics. Not a bottle or snifter in sight.

Marple closed the door. Gestard turned to her with a quizzical look. “This room, Margaret. I don’t understand—”

Marple cut him off. “You will.” She pointed toward an office chair in the middle of the room. “Have a seat. We have some after-dinner business.”