He walked to the semi-circular windowed buttress and looked out upon this gigantic facility over which he now had complete control. Six huge cylinders protruded robustly from the floor of the machine hall, yellow-walled, three metres tall, but they were merely the tips of icebergs. Out of sight beneath, the turbines plunged a further seventeen metres, accessed by four lower levels. Above them, the cavern ceiling arced to a height of twenty metres, flanked by gantries and traversed if necessary by a mobile platform suspended across the centre. A giant lighting rig illuminated the place, itself clinging to the overhead rock with dozens of stubby limbs.

373.

At the mouth of the entrance tunnel, he could see May and Cook rolling the first of the drills towards the nearest aqueduct's maintenance access door. One of three, the aqueduct ran from the turbines through five hundred metres of Ben Larig to the vast reservoir on top of the mountain. The reservoir was once merely a corrie loch, pooled at the bottom of a natural basin amid the expansive promontory that was Dubh Ardrain; the water another remnant of the glacier that had carved a trench through the mountain range, leaving the snaking scar that was Loch Fada and Glen Crom below. Further tunnels and aqueducts had been dug into the stone shoulders of the mesa, diverting the surrounding streams to flood the basin and expand its capacity to almost fifty square kilometres. And holding the billions of gallons in place up there was a concrete gravity buttress dam, four hundred metres long and fifty metres high.

Dubh Ardrain was a reversible pumped-storage system, allowing it to use its own stored power to pump water back up from Loch Fada into the reservoir at times of low demand. However, being constructed during the Cold War, an aspect of its intended purpose was to continue generating power in the event of a nuclear attack; hence the disproportionately enormous reservoir, allowing for sustained continuous generation without the need to reverse the flow. The threat of atomic annihilation had lifted since then, but the prudent practice had remained of maintaining capacity topside, especially during the comparatively drier summer months.

All six turbines were currently channelling the day's usage back up the mountain, but their capacity would shortly be reduced by one third, when Simon powered down Aqueduct Three. Inside each tunnel was a mobile 374.

maintenance and inspection platform, which they would be using to transport equipment to the surface, and these tended to work more efficiently when there wasn't several thousand gallons of water flowing rapidly around them. For emergencies, there was also a stairway cut into the aqueduct floor on one side, but that wasn't quite so handy when you were lugging several hundredweight of drills and generators around with you.

Deacon and Steve Jones emerged with the second drill as May and Cook headed back to fetch the generator. It had seemed almost insultingly ironic that they needed to bring their own electricity supply to a place like this, but the inconsiderate bastards who'd built it had inconveniently neglected to put an easily accessible power outlet at the head of the dam.

Headon and Mick Jones returned to cart away the last of the unconscious hostages, Taylor stepping aside in the doorway to let them through.

"That's eight,' he said. 'Everybody accounted for. No strays.'

'Good. I'm going to power down Aqueduct Three now.'

'Is there a signal or something for when it's clear? I don't remember you saying.'

'Yeah. The door unlocks and you can open the fucking thing. Clear enough?'

'Crystal.'

Taylor exited, no doubt muttering insults under his breath. Simon turned to the control console and deactivated pumps five and six. They would need a few minutes to fully shut down, then it would take another five for the aqueduct to drain. He returned to the window and looked down again, listening for the lowering note as the turbines gradually slowed to a halt, smiling with a private 375.

satisfaction. He had been here in another lifetime, just another glaikit Geography student on a field trip, and had marvelled at it like he was standing on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. Now he was in the captain's swivel chair.

He watched May and Cook wheel the generator out of sight, heading for the vacuum-sealed door leading into the freshly drained aqueduct. Deacon and Steve Jones stood behind them with the first of the drills, waiting for the platform to be sent back down. Strummer and Matlock would go up with the second, followed later by Lydon and Simonon with the explosives and detonators.

Simon took some time to savour the moment.

Burns was wrong. The plans that 'gang agley' were not the best laid: that was why they ganged agley, for fuck's sake. This, however, this work in progress, this plan in action, was why the Black Spirit was the most wanted man in international terrorism: whether they wanted his abilities or his head on a stick, they all knew he was the best in the business. The only thing better laid than his plans would be whichever young mademoiselle was lucky enough to catch his eye in Monte Carlo less than twenty- four hours from now.

The control room phone rang, shaking him from his reverie: May on the surface, checking in.

'Control,' Simon said, picking it up.

'It's May,' confirmed the voice. 'We've got a problem.'

'What?'

'The generator's fucked. Worse than that: it's been sabotaged. Drill parts jammed inside,'cables cut... It's a mess.'

'Sabo . . .' Simon's mind started racing, but the time for speculation was not now. There was only one pertinent question to be asked. 'Is it fixable?'

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'It'll take time. And parts, too.'

'Well, where are we going to find spare electrical parts in a power station? Bring it back down. We'll get Deacon on to it.'

'Roger.'

'No, Deacon. Taylor knows fuck-all about-'

'I meant Roger as in acknowledged.'

'Just get down here.'

'Roger.'

Simon slammed down the phone, the possibilities piling up in his head despite his attempts to stay focused. May was his first suspect, the bastard having been as jumpy as an arachnophobe in a room full of tarantulas since the farmhouse. Being the one to 'discover' the damage was a classic double-bluff, and he had broken the golden rule by sniffing around Simon's personal information, so had he jumped the dyke? Was the bastard wired? Were there a hundred troops topside waiting to huckle the lot of them? Or did he still think Simon was planning to kill him and had therefore thrown a spanner in the works so he could use the resulting confusion to cover his exit?

That said, it somewhat minimised the impact for the damage to be revealed at the earliest juncture, when there was still plenty of time to repair it; plus, if May was planning to get off his mark, topside wasn't the smartest place to make his getaway. Even if he had a motorbike secretly stashed at the reservoir, he'd have to travel three miles down the winding mountainside track to reach the main road, where the bridge west was out and the only open route would take him back past the power plant. On the other hand again, it was a good few hundred yards to the main gate from the machine hall, and if they were standing 377.

around waiting for him to descend on the automated platform, that would give him a few minutes' start.

Simon ran from the control room, hurrying down the stairs then making the rest of the journey to Aqueduct Three at a brisk walk, not wanting to appear panicked.

'Something up, boss?' asked Deacon as Simon brushed past him and through the vacuum door. He heard the sound of the pulley as soon as he entered, and looked up along the insulated lighting panels to where he could see only the underside of the descending platform.

Simon reached for his radio. 'May, this is Mercury, come in.'

He could hear the hiss of his own transmission echo in the tunnel above, just audible over the steady hum of the pulley, rendering May's response redundant.

'Receiving. What is it?'

'Forget it. Mercury out.'

Simon exited the aqueduct and went to the nearest drill, whipping off the blanket that was covering it. There was no visible damage, but if they had a saboteur in their midst, it was improbable he'd have stopped at the generator.

'I want these checked out before you take them anywhere,' he told Deacon. 'Somebody's been messing with the generator. May's on his way back down with it.'

'Messing with it? Deliberately?'

'Looks like it.'

Deacon had a troubled look, something else on his mind.

'What?'

'We were missing some stuff back at the truck, when we tooled up.'

'What stuff?'

'Radios. I mean, everybody's got one, but I was sure we had a couple of spares pre-tuned to the frequencies. They 378.

may just have been moved between crates, but now that you say . . .'

'Christ. Okay, I'll look into it. You worry about the drills.'

'i'll need power before I can-'

'I know. There's an adapter cable in the truck for plugging it into the mains.'

'I'll get it,' Steve Jones volunteered, with an eagerness that would normally have scored him points but today made him the highest new entry on the suspicion chart.

'I'll go,' Simon told him. "There's something else I need to check out.'

He stomped off towards the entrance tunnel, heading for the lorry. Lydon and Simonon were sitting among the crates laid out around the crossroads, drinking cans of juice.

'Tea break, is it, boys?'

'We're third in the line for the lift,' said Simonon apologetically, in that half-arsed American accent that he obviously thought covered up his European origins. Simon's own guess was boring old Belgium, which was why he had singled him out for that moniker. Only problem was that the bloke in The Clash's first name was Paul, and Simon kept calling him George.

'I don't care if you're third in line for the throne. Look fucking lively, the gremlins are out in force. Is anything missing? Where are the explosives?'

'Blue crates. We're sitting on them.'

'I need the cable adapters for the drills. Quickly.'

Simonon stood up immediately and made for one of the yellow crates, the colour code for miscellaneous supplies. Lydon followed suit, though with a moment's delay for a last swig from his can: the difference between slavish obedience and nonchalant cooperation measurable in a mouthful of scoosh.

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'Shit,' Lydon said, upon delving into his box.

'What?'

'Uniforms. They're all damp. And they smell of piss.'

'The magazines were wet too,' said Simonon. 'I thought it was just condensation.'

Simon looked into the back of the truck. There were dark streaks on the wooden floor where the crates had been dragged, as well as vivid tyre marks from the drills, all of it caused by fluid. He climbed up the ramp and walked inside, making for the spare small-arms cache on the right- hand wall. Pulling back the blanket with an anxious tug, he was relieved to see an array of weapons still attached to the wooden lattice, though it occurred to him that he didn't know how many there should be.

'Deacon, this is Mercury, come in.'

'Deacon, receiving.'

'John, how many spare guns should we have?'

'Six of each.'

'Oh, right. That's okay.'

'Yeah?'

'Yeah. That means we're only missing two fucking machine guns.'

Simon lashed out with an angry boot at one of the wooden crates sitting at the cab end of the lorry. The lid flipped into the air and tumbled down on to the floor, revealing a fanbelt and several empty tins inside, as well as a pish-soaked grey blanket like the ones piled up in the corner.

'What is this, a fuckin' dosshouse?' he muttered. Then the ramifications quickly began to sink in. 'Shite. Lydon, Simonon, get up here,' he commanded, taking hold of his shotgun with both hands at waist height.

Simon gestured towards the pile with a nod as they came 380.

up on either side. Lydon drew his pistol while Simonon approached the blankets. The Belgian counted down from three with his fingers, then hauled the pile away from the wall.

Fortunately, nobody fired.

Stacked up behind the blankets was what looked like half their supply of demolition charge.

'Our explosives,' George observed redundantly. Lydon restricted his utterances to a half-cough, half-sigh, in relief that his trigger finger hadn't twitched and blown them all to kingdom come.

'Begging the obvious question of just what you clowns were sitting on.'

All eyes turned to the crossroads. Simon pumped a round into his shotgun and began walking, slowly and deliberately, down towards the blue crates sitting on the tarmac. He stopped next to the nearest one, while Lydon and the Belgian, pistols drawn, took position close by. Simon flipped the lid off, revealing a stack of damp, paper-wrapped charges, then repeated the drill three more times to the same effect. He looked back at the stack against the inside wall of the truck. It wasn't half of their stash, but had to be a third. There were two blue crates left. Simon stood over the one on the right, Lydon and the Belgian its partner.

It was Simon's turn for the silent, gestured countdown, made on the fingers of his left hand as they bent in sequence to resume their grip on the barrel of his SPAS-12. On zero, they began firing: Simon pumping four rounds into his crate, Lydon and Simonon a dozen slugs between them into theirs.

The sound brought reinforcements running from the machine hall as Simon placed a boot against the crate and forced off the shot-punctured lid.

381.

It was empty, as was the other.

They stood wordlessly, staring into the crates as their arriving colleagues formed a semi-circle in the mouth of the entrance tunnel. Simon looked at his watch. The timing of Saturday's events meant that at least three spare hours had been necessarily built into the schedule. It wasn't time to panic - yet. But they suddenly had a lot of work to do, starting with solving a serious rodent problem.

The silence was broken by Simon's radio, a message from Deacon.

'I've had a quick butcher's at the consoles on these rigs. The wiring's cut and the circuit boards are like Swiss cheese.'

Simon breathed out very slowly, using all his experience to stay calm and focused.

'Is it fixable?' he asked, just about preventing his voice from breaking up.

'I think one of them is. I can wire up something. Might not be programmable, but . . .'

'Something that can drill a hole?'

'Yeah. That's all though, so we're looking at double drilling time at least.'

'Then why are you pissing about talking to me?'

'Roger. Deacon out.'

Simon designated everyone who could do more than wire a plug to assist Deacon in repairing the equipment, allocating the rest to seek-and-destroy parties to hunt for their uninvited guests. They cleared the truck of spare weapons and ammunition, now that they had more than unsuspecting electrical engineers to contend with; Simon helping himself to a machine gun to supplement his SPAS- 12 and his automatic.