‘I’ll need to see the order first, though.’

‘Oh well,’ trilled Colby, yanking a piece of paper out of his pocket. He was so happy it was nauseating. ‘If you must.’ He waved the paper under the man’s nose. ‘Signature looks familiar, maybe?’

‘That it does,’ said the man, shifting aside. ‘You’re all right, then. Off you go.’

They walked through the opening and into a long, narrow tunnel. Unlike every other tunnel Albert had so far seen, this one seemed to have no sort of illumination at all, natural or otherwise, especially once they had made their way a few feet down the passage. Onwards they went, till after a long time, he saw a faint light in the distance. They made their way towards it, another opening, to a cavern of some sort. The light he had seen came from here, a strange bluish-green–tinged glow.

‘All right, boys,’ said Colby, ‘I think we’re clear now.’

Suddenly, Albert felt the pressure on his arms ease as Kieran and Joe stepped back, releasing him. A moment later he saw a flash and turned, and saw them standing there, holding lit torches, broad smiles across their faces. He turned again and saw Colby, now standing in front of him, also grinning. ‘Told you the plan always works best on a need-to-know basis.’

Albert looked at him in disbelief, a strange kaleidoscope of emotions flooding though him, one after another and then all together—relief, fury, a new excitement and, above all, guilt, for the things he’d thought about the man—all the men, he appended mentally, as Kieran and Joe came to stand silently beside Colby.

‘Easy, now,’ said Colby, still grinning. ‘No hard feelings, I hope.’

The anger took over the kaleidoscope, forcing guilt and relief to fade ignominiously into the background. ‘You could have told me!’ he said in a harsh whisper.

‘Sorry, but we didn’t think you had the … um … acting talent to pull off the role convincingly, unless you, say, sort of believed in the part.’

Albert glowered at him.

‘And you delivered, all right! Your performance out there was just what we needed—something to distract them from taking too close a look at this paper.’

‘So it’s a fake, then?’

‘No, it’s real. It’s just not for you. I made a little trip here after you left us and filched it from the paperwork pile.’

‘Aren’t you really proud of yourself?’ said Albert acidly.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact. The idea struck me when we were looking at the schematics earlier. You know, when I said we couldn’t just walk in here. Then it struck me that in fact, the only way in here was to walk in—with a prisoner!’

‘You know, for a while I really believed you there. That you’d turned on me.’