‘Really? So, this surprise call out of the blue has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that an alien spacecraft has just appeared in orbit around the Moon?’

‘OK, it might have something to do with that.’

‘You know how to wound a man.’

‘Look, Will, I need a favour. You’re going to be sending up a probe to take a look at this thing, right?’

‘You know that any information that I might have about that is going to be classified.’

‘And I know that the very fact that you won’t tell me means that you are. So, listen. I want to be on that probe.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Dorothy could picture his incredulous expression. Damn, he still looked hot. She shook her head, hit the brakes as she took a corner. ‘I’m serious, Will. If you’re sending up a probe than I need to be on it.’

‘And I’m telling you, Dorothy, that it’s impossible.’

‘So you are sending a probe?’

‘I didn’t say that …’

‘Look, neither of us have time for this.’ Dorothy played her trump card. ‘So, what if I could get us into lunar orbit in a matter of hours?’

There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment.

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘You know me. I promise you that I can bring something with me that will guarantee that your probe will reach that UFO nearly two days before even that Chinese rocket gets there. But that offer comes with conditions …’

‘If you’re serious about this then you’ll have a place on the team …’

‘No team,’ she said firmly. ‘Just the two of us. No one else gets involved or the deal is off.’

There was another long pause.

‘You know, if you really wanted us to go out on another date then you could have just asked.’

‘You wish.’ Dorothy smiled. ‘Now, I’ll be there in a couple of hours. You’d better be ready for me. Call end.’

With a tingle of warmth inside her, Dorothy sped up, the grey, industrial sprawl of London soon giving way to the green fields and rolling hills of Buckinghamshire. As she passed through the gap in the Chiltern Hills that marked the boundary with Oxfordshire, she turned off the motorway. After a few miles she turned again, taking a narrow, single-track road signposted Kirkwood Farm. The road ended at a large, imposing-looking decorative iron gate. After a brief pause, the gate slid open and Dorothy drove down the long, sweeping driveway that led to the farm itself, admiring the sleek, thoroughbred stallions that stamped and snorted in the damp morning air in the fields at either side.