process, really. We got the contract for our reinforced resin system because it’s more resilient than monoset carbon fibre. It performs better in the atmospheric vacuum of space, too.’
‘Performs better how?’ queried Charlie, needing everything.
‘It doesn’t give off vapour, like monoset: lenses, mirrored reflective detection devices, surfaces like that won’t get fogged.’
‘What’s resilience got to do with it?’
‘If monoset carbon fibre is struck, by space debris for instance, it shatters. Thermoset – our system – might be penetrated but the overall structure remains intact.’
‘You called it reinforced resin?’
‘The resin is made from polyetheretherketone: it’s an oil by-product of petrol distillation. We construct a laminated matrix of resin and carbon fibre: in this case the complete lamination is twelve sheets in thickness.’
It wasn’t coming, realized Charlie. Maybe it had been naive – really desperate – to imagine that it would. He said: ‘So you lay sheets of carbon fibre, interspersed with the oil-based resin, one on top of each other?’
Despite the seriousness of the situation Springley smiled at the simplicity of the question. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s got to be created quasi-isotropic: meaning that it can carry loads in all directions. So as each layer is added it is laid at a different angle to that of the sheet beneath it…’ The man hesitated. ‘We call it a weave and it’s very much like that. A sheet of carbon fibre is composed of many fine threads, all running in the same direction: as each sheet is laid one on top of the other those threads criss and cross to provide the strength of the final, composite sheet, very similar to weaving cloth. Only hundreds of times stronger.’
‘We need to follow this, Charlie,’ cautioned Wilson.
‘I haven’t got it yet,’ freely admitted Charlie. To Springley he said: ‘What about
Springley shrugged once more. ‘In a moulding bay…’ He indicated the process specifications, alongside the drawing. ‘There are temperature and cleanliness requirements, of course…’
‘What!’ seized Charlie abruptly.
Springley continued to take Charlie through the drawing itemizing the points as he got to them. ‘Constantly maintained temperature, at twenty degrees centigrade. Fifty per cent humidity…’
‘…what are all these?’ demanded Charlie, going ahead of the man. ‘Dimethicones…magnesium sulphate… lanolin…camphor…salicylic acid… phenol…what’s the importance of these things…?’
‘I don’t really see the point of singling out those particular ingredients,’ conceded Springley. ‘There are many more, after all. We might just as well say any cream.’
‘For what?’ said Charlie, beginning to feel a tingle of hope.
‘Every two or three laminations have to be pressed down to consolidate the vacuum,’ said Springley. ‘We’ve obviously got to be careful of voids.’
Charlie smiled. It wasn’t perfect by any means – desperate, in fact – but it was an effort, at least. And still all might be a waste of time and effort. ‘Especially in an expanding vacuum,’ he agreed. ‘How long would it take you to redraw that drawing? Exactly as it is, with just two lines omitted? And one inserted in their place?’
Springley turned down the corners of his mouth. ‘No time at all,’ he said. ‘It’s already there, complete. All I’d need to do is a simple copying job.’
‘And you could match the lettering, by tracing that already there?’
‘Yes.’
‘When are we going to get this, Charlie?’ asked the patient Director General.
‘Now,’ said Charlie. And told them.
‘Ridiculous!’ rejected the Welsh official at once. ‘Preposterous and ridiculous.’
‘And do I need to remind you that a diplomatic bag is sacrosanct?’ asked his companion.
‘No,’ said Charlie, unperturbed. ‘Or that it could very well be preposterous and ridiculous and achieve nothing. But we’ve been sitting around here for hours, using words like disaster and catastrophe and bemoaning the demise of any future technological exchange with the United States of America. We’ve agreed the Russians must have everything from California and certainly twenty of the British plans…’ He waved the blueprint they had, for emphasis. ‘…because Krogh appears to have been numbering them and this is twenty-one. So what have we got to lose, apart from our time tonight and Mr Springley’s time tonight, and one simple, diplomatically illegal act…?’ He swivelled to the project chief. ‘You prepared to give us that time, Mr Springley?’
‘Of course I am,’ said the man.
To the others in the room Charlie said: ‘OK, let’s have another idea better than the desperate, preposterous, ridiculous one that I’ve put forward?’
No one volunteered immediately. Then the Director General said: ‘We’re grateful for your cooperation, Mr Springley. Tell us what materials you want and we’ll get them for you immediately.’
Determined not to misunderstand, Springley said to Charlie: ‘Dermatitis?’
Charlie nodded in agreement: ‘Severe dermatitis.’
‘Mr Springley,’ stopped the Director General. ‘Where did this man Krogh stay in London? There must have been a hotel? A telephone number at least.’
‘I don’t know,’ said the project chief. ‘I don’t remember his giving me one.’
It was approaching dawn, fingers of light already feeling through the darkness, before everything was completed, although the revised drawing of the moulding and the carbon-fibre preparation process was back in the safe deposit facility long before that because Springley worked remarkably quickly. When the project chief did finish there was a tired repeated objection from one of the Whitehall officials, which Harkness tried to support, but Wilson brusquely overrode both. Abruptly Charlie dropped his earlier objection to Blackstone’s arrest, because there was a purpose now, and orders were given for the man’s detention, initially by the local police to await the arrival, by helicopter again, of a Special Branch escort back to London: pointedly Wilson avoided giving the job to either Smedley or Abbott. Springley was still in the room, so he overheard the planning and asked that the company chairman be awakened and brought to London as well to be told what had happened, and Wilson agreed at once. The duty officer at the American embassy was contacted and arrangements made for a seven o’clock breakfast meeting with the local station chiefs of America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. While all the calls were being made Charlie wandered across to where the files lay, sorted through, and located the telephone number and address of the Kensington house that William French, from the Technical Division, had identified from it. No one tried to stop him: Witherspoon was flustering in and out of the room obeying the instructions of the Director General and Harkness remained dully at the half-moon table, staring down sightlessly and seemingly unaware of all the activity. Towards the end Wilson stumped over to Charlie and said: ‘Well?’
‘We’ve forgotten the Kensington house,’ said Charlie.
‘Fix it,’ agreed Wilson at once. Suddenly, depressed, he said: ‘I’m going along with everything but I don’t think it’ll achieve anything.’
‘It’s an attempt, at something,’ offered Charlie.
‘I’d like you to take the meeting with the Americans.’
He’d been yelled at and vilified by everyone else so why not them as well, thought Charlie. ‘All right,’ he said.
‘Let’s try to get some rest and put our thoughts in order,’ suggested Wilson. ‘It’s almost five in the morning.’
By then there had been some changes at the Kensington safe house. When they’d finished that night, much earlier than the English group, Losev had agreed to the dismantling of the photographic gear, because there only remained the last, duplicate drawing to be redone, and they already had the photograph of that. So only the drawing materials remained. And Yuri Guzins, on his makeshift cot in a small side room. He was awake that morning, at five, knowing that he was finally going home. Emil Krogh was also awake, with the same thought. And so was Natalia Fedova, thinking not of going home but of leaving it, for ever.
Outside the Kensington house the arrest squads began to assemble, with orders to await instructions.
