Andy McNab - Avenger

'We wait!' snapped Deveraux. 'We cannot afford to alert Black Star by bursting in on Elena!'

The seconds turned to minutes as they waited for the next message to appear. While Deveraux stared at the Xda screen, Fergus got up and paced anxiously about, trying to ease the throbbing pain in his leg. A flight across the Atlantic in a confined space had done nothing to help the injury.

'She's back,' called Deveraux, and Fergus moved across the room as quickly as he could to stare at the screen. Got the ice. Wot do I do with it??? Go into the bathroom. Put the plug into the sink and pour in the ice. Then u need 2 pour the contents of the 2 bowls onto the ice. The fumes r gonna be a nightmare so u need 2 get out quickly and close the bathroom door. Wait 10 minutes, then go back and u should see yellow crystals.

'That's it!' shouted Fergus. 'Those crystals are pure explosive! She's got another couple of hours' mixing and maybe three or four while the mix holds its detonating velocity. You've got to find Black Star soon or she'll be walking around the city with all that crap strapped to her body!'

As the afternoon sun hit the darkened study windows, Charles Pointer frowned: he'd just heard a soft ping from his computer. It had happened on each of the last three occasions he had sent or received a message, and each time the pings had been slightly louder.

During his career Charles Pointer had been a universally acknowledged master of computer technology and software development. Where he led, others followed. He had designed and built the system he was using now, and it was unlike any other in the world.

His computer was his weapon of war, with unique defence software, his own form of armour plating in the event of an attack.

He knew without doubt now that his system was under attack and that his armour plating had been pierced in some way. They were closing in on him. First there had been the break-in at the Winnebago, and now this. But there was still no need to panic; Pointer's computer was designed to turn defence into counterattack.

Another message came through from Elena, and with it came the accompanying, slightly louder ping. Done it. It stinks, can hardly breathe in here. Don't worry, it will clear soon. Just keep the aircon working and let the ice do its work. U'll need 2 do this maybe 4 times 2 get the amount of yellow stuff we need. So go get more ice and b careful!!

Danny had had it with being patient. And he'd had it with following orders. He'd done exactly as Deveraux had instructed by leaving a 'DLB live' marker and a message in the DLB for Elena, but had got nothing in return.

He had waited for more than an hour before revisiting the DLB, but there was no message from Elena. Her room was just down the corridor, and he desperately wanted to know what was going on in there, but he realized that if he went and knocked on the door he might very well endanger Elena's life.

Danny knew that Black Star almost certainly had some sort of surveillance system operating in Elena's room. And although Deveraux had kept him strictly on a need-to-know basis as far as information was concerned, he had figured out for himself that Fran and Mick had somehow been trying to locate that system.

That was why he'd been given the surveillance job, and he'd done it to the best of his ability. But now he was doing nothing again. And Danny hated doing nothing.

He was back in his room, staring out of the window, down at the Manhattan traffic streaming past the hotel, trying to decide whether or not he should call Deveraux and his grandfather again.

His mobile phone was in his hand and he was itching to punch in Deveraux's number. But somehow he resisted the urge. He turned away from the window and picked up the key card for his room. All he could do was take another look at the DLB.

He decided to take the emergency stairs again, figuring that if he took the lift from his floor, it would look odd to anyone else when he got out on the eighth floor. The only reason for doing that would be if he knew someone on the eighth floor, and as far as any third party was concerned, he knew no one. SOPs were now almost second nature to Danny – when he decided he was going to stick to them.

The stairwell was cold and draughty, and Danny counted the floors as he moved down, his trainers making virtually no noise on the concrete steps.

He reached the eighth floor and paused, then looked through the wire-meshed, heat-resistant glass of the small rectangular window. He could see no one walking along the carpeted corridor. Danny pushed open the door and stepped through.

Then he froze.

Elena was standing at the door to her room. Clasped to her chest with one arm was what looked like two large paper cups filled with ice. She had just used her key card to unlock the door and was pushing it open when she glanced to her right and saw Danny.

She stared at him, then smiled briefly and went into her room.

Danny was still trying to work out if there was something more he could have done when his mobile phone rang. He pulled the phone from his pocket as he moved back into the stairwell and then answered the call. 'Yeah?'

Fergus's voice was little more than a whisper. 'Danny it's me.'

'Granddad! I saw her; she's OK.'

Fergus was in the bathroom of Deveraux's suite, attempting to keep his voice as low as possible. 'Good news,' he said, relieved to hear that Elena was surviving the poisonous fumes which he knew would be filling her room. 'Now, listen up. She's mixing, so we've only got a few hours before the attack and Deveraux hasn't got to Black Star yet. I've got the powder with me; we have to try to get it to Elena. I know she's being watched all the time, but she might be able to add it to the mix. It's worth a go. So where do we RV?'

He nodded as he listened to Danny's instructions. 'Good, I'll be there soon. Wait out.'

He closed down his mobile and flushed the toilet and then went back into the sitting room, where Deveraux was watching the messages between Black Star and Elena. Pointer's hands were moving swiftly on the computer keyboard as he calmly sought to pinpoint the source of the attack on his machine. The technicians at the British Consulate may have been good, but compared to Pointer they were like kids at primary school…

Deveraux and Fergus had no idea that the hunted was becoming the hunter. Fergus was more concerned about Elena. 'We've got to pull her out of there now.'

'No,' said Deveraux. 'Not yet. Fran and Mick are tracing the Ramirez call through ECHELON. We'll find Black Star and get him soon. If we pull Elena out now, he'll know we're onto him. She has to continue.'

The ECHELON computer, which collected all the electronic information zipping around in space from phone calls, texts and e-mails and sent it back to earth to be stored in huge computer mainframes, was already pinpointing Herman's calls and tracing precisely where those calls had been received.

But Fergus was old school. Technology had moved on hugely since he had been active in the field, but first and foremost he still trusted his own skills, experience and instinct. 'That stuff she's making is totally unstable – it could detonate at any minute. We have to get her out.'

'No!' said Deveraux sharply. 'I command this mission, Watts, remember that. Elena is safe enough. The other IEDs remained stable until they were detonated. We're sure that the Williams incident in Pittsburgh was user error; nothing to do with the device. Black Star knows exactly what he's doing.' Black Star did know exactly what he was doing. In every way. As Fergus and Deveraux fell silent and stared at the Xda on the table, they were totally unaware of the almost inaudible click that came from the machine.

In the bottom right-hand corner of the Xda was the lens of the inbuilt video camera. It could be used for making short video movies or for video conference calls. But Pointer had almost effortlessly hacked into the PDA and had found his own use for the camera.