HC took the telegram back, folded it carefully, and tucked it next to his heart. “Tomorrow. The first rig is a rust bucket held together by hope. But hope, Anna—hope is the one resource we’ve never drilled for.”
Anna laughed, but there was no joy in it. “The future? My father says you’re a fool. Drilling in the North Sea—he calls it ‘fighting God for a coin.’”
“I’m not trying to erase what we are, Anna. I’m trying to give us a choice. Right now, the only choice is fish or starve. But if Phillips finds what I think they will…” He let the sentence hang, heavy as a trawler’s anchor.
HC didn’t turn. “It does. It owes us a future.”
“Then I’ll be a wrong man with a right heart,” HC said. “But if I’m right…”
He pulled a folded telegram from his inside pocket. It was brief, typed in the clipped language of American oilmen: HC ERIKSEN – SEISMIC PROMISING. EKOFISK STRUCTURE CONFIRMED. STOP. NEED LOCAL LIASON. STOP. YOU IN OR OUT? STOP. Anna read it twice. Her hand trembled slightly—from cold, or from fear, she didn’t know.