Andy McNab - Meltdown

'I don't like it, Teddy. We've only known the guy a couple of weeks and you want to tell him everything.'

'But I don't. Just enough. Look, Will, we've got to face it – if Siddie Richards managed to find out about us, then there's a bloody good chance one of the other gangs might show up before too long. If that happens, I want Watts around.'

'But we've been so careful with security. We've done everything we've been told.'

'Maybe we let something slip. Or someone did. Maybe we're coming to the end of it, Will. We've had a great run. Maybe we need to start thinking about winding it up and moving on.'

'That won't be popular. You know the instructions.'

Teddy sat up in his chair. 'It's our business. We can do what we want.' He looked closely at his brother. 'Now, are you with me on this, Will? Just trust me, like you always have done.'

Will hesitated for a moment but then sighed and nodded. 'But I don't like it, Teddy. I really don't like it.'

Teddy smiled. 'We'll talk to Watts together. Then we'll decide on whether or not he joins us on the Barcelona trip.'

'You mean, you'll decide.'

'We'll decide, Will.' Teddy opened a drawer in the desk and took out a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. 'And now we'd better start organizing tonight's production meet.'

Doug was the no-questions-asked variety of truck driver, wheels and wagon for hire. He was bowling along the M60, sticking to the speed limit and driving carefully, as country rock blared from the cab's speakers. The traffic was unusually light and Doug was smiling, thinking of the wad of cash he'd pocket for this job.

It was all going like clockwork, as it always did. He'd picked up packages from three different supply depots, then stopped as instructed at the Birch service station on the M62 to collect his passenger.

He was there in the trailer park, sitting reading Motor Cycle News on a worn patch of grass by the bins, wearing scruffy jeans, a baggy puffa jacket and a striped scarf, iPod ear-buds in place, a rucksack at his feet. As Doug pulled in, he stood up, folded his paper and pulled on a pair of thin gloves.

The articulated truck's hydraulic brakes hissed as Doug drew the vehicle to a standstill and then jumped from the cab to open the rear doors. Within a couple of minutes the skinny young guy was in the back of the truck and Doug was pulling back out onto the motorway, heading for the M60. Where possible, he would stick to motorways to keep the ride smooth. Today it was easy. It was going to be the M60 almost all the way.

Doug had no idea that the young guy he'd just picked up was a highly qualified chemist who was supplementing his meagre research assistant's pay carrying out the first half of the Meltdown process in the mobile laboratory in the back of the truck. But he only had the first part of the formula.

The whole operation was based on the way the wartime French Resistance movement operated; the way terrorist organizations still operate today. No one but the twins knew the whole story. Everyone else, from the chemists, through to drivers, loaders and security guys, only knew just what they needed to know when they needed to know it. It was brilliant. By keeping the process in two parts and mainly mobile, even if someone did blab about the location of the meet, by the time the police or security forces arrived, the DMP would be long gone. Eventually, Doug arrived back at the Birch services, dropped his passenger off, sent a coded text message and received a postcode and a hangar number in return. For the second time that day he pulled out onto the motorway and headed for the M60.

The production meet was at a decommissioned airfield about an hour north of Manchester. During the Second World War it had been the base for an RAF bomber squadron, but its glory days were long gone.

All that remained of the runways was cracked and broken stretches of concrete, with grass and weeds growing from wide, ugly fissures. The old hangars had been supplemented by newer factory units, creating a ramshackle industrial estate. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't purpose-built, but it was perfectly functional.

The twins had taken a short lease on one of the hangars. The location was good. Ten or more other organizations used the neighbouring units. A vehicle-hire company garaged and maintained its fleet of vans in one; an electrical supplies company used another for storage. Even the police had a presence on the site: the unit next door but one was used by the force as a dog-training centre.

Businesses came and went on a regular basis; there was frequent traffic in and out of the site and no one asked questions. It was that kind of place.

Doug backed his artic into the hangar, watching carefully in his wing mirrors for the signals from the pale and puffy-faced young guy with dark shadows under his eyes who always seemed to be in charge at the meet. There was a shout and his hand came up to signal a stop.

Doug applied the parking brake and switched off. He knew he had backed up to the open tail of another artic. He knew from the sounds that the back of his trailer was being opened and people were getting in. To one side, he could see two sleek black luxury coaches parked up, but he'd decided long ago that if this was dodgy stuff, he didn't want to know about it. Just as long as he got paid, he was happy to sit in his cab, read his paper and listen to his music until he was told to go. Hear no evil, see no evil was his philosophy.

Teddy had watched the coaches pull out of the yard on their way to the meet, before he asked Fergus if he'd heard of Meltdown. Fergus shook his head.

'It's a drug, a chemical drug. A bit like Ecstasy, but much better.'

'Yeah, I reckoned this was about drugs.'

'Do you have a problem with drugs?'

Fergus smiled. 'I've had a lot of problems with drugs over the years. Specially in Colombia.'

'I mean morally. Do you have a moral objection to drugs?'

Fergus had mentally prepared for this conversation, knowing which way it was likely to go. 'Morality is something you leave behind when you do my sort of work. You just get on with the job. If you stopped to think about what's right and what's wrong, you'd never do it.'

Will couldn't stop himself from interrupting. 'But you were in Colombia trying to bust the drugs cartels – we've read the stories.'

'I was a soldier. I did what I was told.'

'But then a better offer came along?'

'That's right. I spent half a lifetime doing the heroic Queen and country stuff. And for what? Pisspoor pay and a medal to shove in the back of a cupboard and forget about. FARC offered me a lot of money and I grabbed it. And when I got caught, I didn't have anyone to blame but myself.'

'So money is what motivates you now?' said Will.

'Totally' Fergus smiled. 'For some reason they took away my army pension.'

Will wasn't smiling. He was the one who still needed convincing; he hadn't been through the Siddie Richards experience. 'And this last job, the suicide bombings. Why you? Why did they pick you when they knew you were a traitor?'

This was the test. Fergus knew his answer had to be believable, and like all the best lies it had to be based on truth. 'MI5 had tracked me down – me and Danny and his friend Elena. The guy behind the bombings was targeting teenagers, grooming them on the Internet, and Elena was brilliant with computers and the Internet, even better than Danny. My speciality is explosives, so they gave us a choice, work for them or' – he lifted his right hand, made a pistol shape and held it against his temple – 'goodnight.'

Will still wasn't smiling. 'But why not just use their own people?'

Fergus was calculating his physical responses as carefully as his words, and now was the moment to act as though he was getting bored and irritated with the questioning. 'You think the security services only work with the good guys? That's bollocks. They'll work with whoever can get results. And the best thing for them, with us, was that if it all went wrong, they could deny any knowledge of our involvement.'