Spray blasted almost horizontally over the surface of the Atlantic, waves pounding explosively against the forward leg on the rig’s port side. The metal staircase that rose from the submerged pontoon to a ladder stretching up the towering structure rattled and moaned under the onslaught. It was not a place where anyone in his right mind would choose to be.

But someone was there.

The man was a giant, six feet eight inches tall, with every hard-packed muscle in his athlete’s body picked out by his skintight black wet suit. He emerged from the water and made his way up the stairs, hands clamping around the railings with the force of a vise, even the thunderous impact of the waves barely throwing him off his stride.

Once clear of the churning ocean, he paused to remove the scuba regulator from his mouth, revealing perfect white teeth-one inset with a diamond-surrounded by ebony skin, then began his climb up the ladder. Considering the distance and the conditions, most men would have been lucky to make it in under five minutes, and exhausted by the time they reached the top.

The intruder made it in two, and was breathing no more heavily than if he’d climbed a single flight of stairs.

Just below the top of the ladder, he stopped and carefully raised his head above the edge of the deck. The blocky gray superstructure of the SBX was three floors high, catwalks running along each level at the platform’s bow. Sickly yellow lights made a feeble attempt to illuminate them. Rain spattered on the man’s diving mask, obscuring his view. He frowned and pulled it from his face, revealing calculating black eyes before he flipped down another pair of goggles from the top of his head.

The weak yellow lights disappeared, replaced by shimmering blobs of video-game-vivid red and orange. Almost everything else was either blue or black. Ther-mographic vision, the world represented by the heat it gave off. The metal walls of the rig, lashed by freezing rain, were visible only as shades of blue.