‘Tell me, Sleder, what the hell are you doing? What are you doing all this for? What’s so damned special about your B-marked fuel?’

‘That is my business and it is going to remain my business.’

‘I’ve beaten you to it, Sleder.’

He pulled a sheet of folded paper from his inside pocket, and handed it to me. It was a telex; the one I had told Martha to send to AtomSled.

‘The telex in that office does not connect with the telex network. It connects only with a second machine that is rather well concealed. This second machine prints out the message and holds it until a code is punched into the machine; only I know the code. You have held up nothing; the fuel shipments have been made already. You have achieved nothing except to waste a great deal of my time. I would like to know who you are, and what your purpose in doing all this has been?’

Three automatic Lugers pointed at me: one on my right, one diagonally opposite and to my right, the third diagonally opposite and to my left. My own gun was in Sleder’s pocket. It wasn’t hard to think of occasions, in life, when things had looked brighter. I was going to have to pull off something damn smart to get out of this one, and at this particular moment, no damn smart idea presented itself. The important thing was to keep talking, for as long as I kept talking, I was still alive, and as long as I was alive, I was in with a chance.

‘It’s been rumoured,’ I said, ‘that someone’s trying to do a lot of damage to a lot of power stations. I’m trying to stop that happening. Does that answer your question?’

‘About five per cent of it.’

‘What’s the big deal with the B-marked fuel?’

‘I thought you already knew, Mr Flynn.’

‘My guess is that it contains nuclear explosives.’

Sleder’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m not interested in your guesswork, Mr Flynn.’

‘But am I right?’

‘I would not give you the satisfaction of telling you.’

‘If you’re going to kill me anyway, I don’t see what harm it would do?’