Will Adams - Newton’s Fire

‘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.’

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.

$70,000,000.00

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 girl footage?’

‘Even better. Boy footage.’

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?’

‘Not any more. We shipped the warheads home.’

‘But the bases still have handling capability, right? In case they ever wanted to bring them back?’

‘So?’

‘Imagine something were to happen on your way to Sizewell. Imagine getting a tip off that terrorists are planning to attack your convoy, say. So you make an executive decision to divert to the nearest USAF base instead, because the bomb will be safe there. Once you’re inside, you’re as good as on US soil. Home free.’

‘The Brits will go ballistic,’ said Morgenstern.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘Fuck no,’ grinned Morgenstern. ‘More like a bonus.’

Avram and Shlomo parked side by side in a new lot off Ma’aleh Shalom, south of the Old City. The most direct route in was through the Dung Gate, but they couldn’t risk the extra security of the Western Wall Plaza, so they entered through Zion Gate instead. Avram led the way, not once looking back at Danel and his companions. Twice he saw squads of police ahead, but he knew these alleys so well that avoiding them was no problem.

The safe house was a one-bedroom basement apartment. He unlocked the door and left it ajar behind him. It was dark, stuffy and smelly inside. Apart from his own sporadic checks, no one had been in here for a year. But the place had everything he needed, including electricity, running water and a connection to a satellite dish. He hooked the laptop up to it now, while Danel and the others came in and bolted the door behind them, then he checked for messages from Croke. He had two, one with a link for video-feed, the other telling him to tune in at 8 p.m. London time.

‘Show us, then,’ said Danel. ‘This thing of yours.’

‘Not yet,’ said Avram, showing him Croke’s email. ‘And we need to go through the plan again anyway.’

‘We’ve already been through the plan.’

‘Not with the others, we haven’t.’

‘Where are they?’

‘I’ll fetch them now. But Ana and Ruth can’t be here when I come back. We’ll meet them later by the truck.’