I
It had been a shock for Luke to see Jay first talking with their captors, then intervening on his and Rachel’s behalf. He’d tried to resist the implication that his old friend not only knew these people but was working with them, had been working with them from the start. But the inference became inescapable. He glanced at Rachel. Her eyes were closed and her head was bowed slightly forwards, as if in prayer. She’d recovered some of her colour since her ordeal on the balcony, but she still looked shattered. And he didn’t feel so good himself, though he tried not to let it show. He wanted to give her confidence, make her think he had a plan. Yet his only plan involved using Jay somehow, and the thought of that sickened him, for Jay had sold them out.
The bruiser was on sentry duty across the room, playing games on a tablet. He grew bored, went to the door to talk to whoever was on guard outside. Luke glanced across at Jay and jerked his head in summons.
‘What is it?’ asked Jay, coming across.
‘You know these people,’ murmured Luke. ‘How do you know these people?’
‘My uncle,’ said Jay, glancing at the door, clearly nervous of overstepping some obscure line. ‘This is his project. That’s how come I can protect you, because tonight won’t happen without him.’
‘Tonight?’ asked Luke. ‘What’s tonight?’
Jay shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you that. But everything’s going to be okay. Trust me.’
‘Trust you?’ scowled Luke. ‘You’ve been working with them all along. You
‘I tried to keep you out of it,’ said Jay. ‘I swear I did. That’s why I sent you to the Monument.’
‘Oi!’ said the bruiser. ‘Shut it, you two.’
Luke ignored him. ‘You got these people to hire me in the first place, didn’t you? To find the Newton papers, I mean.’
Jay looked anguished. ‘You said you needed work. I thought I’d be helping.’
‘But why?’ asked Luke. ‘Why not do it yourself?’
‘I hate that kind of thing,’ said Jay. ‘Dealing with strangers. I’m no good at it. And, anyway, I was too busy double-checking all Newton’s other manuscripts.’
‘Enough,’ said the bruiser. He strode across and pressed the taser against Luke’s throat. ‘Or maybe you’d rather have a taste?’
‘No,’ said Luke. ‘I’ll be good.’
II
While Morgenstern called the White House, Croke attended to some business of his own. He set up office in an empty room then sent Avram an email detailing latest developments plus a link for the video-feed. After that, he checked to see if Grant had yet honoured his part of their deal.
He logged onto the website of Rutherford amp; Small’s, a boutique British Virgin Islands bank. He entered the account number, password and security code. And there it was, enough to jolt his heart into a pleasurable canter.
It wasn’t his yet, however. Not by any means. He and Grant used a three-stage payment system for jobs like these. In this, the first stage, Grant would lodge the full sum in an existing, mission-specific account, allowing Croke to check that it was there. But all he could do for the moment was look. Later tonight, once Avram had launched his assault, Grant would send Croke new passwords giving him veto power over all future transactions, effectively turning this into an escrow account. Only then would Croke deliver his cargo and so fulfil his side of the deal, at which point Grant would give up his residual control of the funds, and the money would be Croke’s.
He logged out and returned to the crypt. A pair of diamond-tipped saws were screeching and sparking against the mosaics, throwing up small clouds of grit and dust. ‘She said yes, then, I take it?’ he asked Morgenstern, almost having to shout to make himself be heard.
‘She said yes,’ grinned Morgenstern, handing him a pair of safety goggles. ‘I knew she would. It’s her destiny.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I told her we’d be through by eight p.m. our time. She’s cleared her schedule to watch it live. And she’s promised to have a word with Downing Street, make sure they don’t give us any grief.’
‘Can she swing that?’
‘So she says. Apparently we’ve got footage of the new PM.’
‘Footage?’ Croke squinted incredulously at him. ‘You don’t mean
‘Even better.
Croke laughed happily. ‘Outstanding.’
‘We’re going to pull it off,’ said Morgenstern. ‘I can’t believe it: we’re really going to pull it off.’
‘We’re not home yet,’ warned Croke. ‘We don’t even know it’s down there.’
‘It’s down there,’ said Morgenstern. ‘I told you: this is destiny.’
‘Maybe. But destiny won’t get it to City Airport.’
The NCT man frowned. ‘Why will that be a problem?’
‘Are you kidding? The whole world’s watching. Anything leaving here in a truck is going to take a trail of media like you wouldn’t believe. And I don’t just mean helicopters and cars and vans that maybe you can block off or pressure to look the other way. I mean every Londoner with a camera-phone and a Twitter account. If we’re seen going to the airport, if we’re seen boarding my plane, this is over. The PM may control British airspace, but it’s not British airspace I’m worried about.’
‘Then what do we do?’ asked Morgenstern.
Croke nodded at Nelson’s tomb. ‘What would you do if there really was something down there? I mean, imagine that terrorists had used the sewers or the underground or whatever to mine their way beneath the crypt and plant some kind of dirty bomb.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Humour me. You must have contingency plans. What would they call for?’
Morgenstern frowned. ‘We’d evacuate the area, as we’ve already done. We’d bring in experts to assess and then disarm the device. We’d load any radioactive materials into a nuclear container, then take it to a suitable facility for analysis and disposal.’
‘Civilian or military?’
‘Depends. A warhead would have to be military. But dirty bombs are typically just TNT packed inside some spent fuel rods and other high-grade waste. Power stations deal with that kind of shit all the time.’
‘Where’s the nearest?’
‘Sizewell, I think. On the Suffolk coast.’
Croke nodded. He’d visited Suffolk many years before, on one of his father’s tours of the USAF bases there. ‘And you’d give this container the full escort, right? Police cars and bike outriders, maybe a security truck or two. And you’d clear the roads so there was no danger of getting stuck in traffic?’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘When we came in from the airport yesterday, we passed through a long tunnel.’
‘The Limehouse Link,’ said Morgenstern.
‘That’s on the way to Suffolk, isn’t it?’
‘It could be. But why would that …’ He laughed out loud when he saw the answer. ‘Yeah, it could work. But what about when we get to Sizewell and they find nothing in the container?’
Croke shrugged. That wasn’t his problem. ‘Can’t you find some old fuel rods to put in it?’
‘Not a chance. Not at this notice.’
‘Then why not take it to a USAF base instead? They’re up that way, aren’t they? And nuclear equipped?’
