‘We were going to try and blow up this end of the Florida gate with HMX,’ Peggy butted in. ‘With our guy dead, we figured that was the only—’

Bailey turned to glare at her. ‘Peggy, what part of shut-the-fuck-up do you not understand?’

He turned back to Saul, and slid his Cobra off his shoulder, taking aim at the prisoner’s head. ‘I won’t bother counting to five. Just give me your fucking access code or—’

‘Okay!’ said Saul, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Okay, I’m sending it now.’

The colonel lowered his weapon as he received the code, then turned to one of the other soldiers. ‘Isnard, check it out, will you?’

A trooper with a shock of red fuzz standing straight up from his scalp nodded, staring off into the distance as he scanned the information now arriving on his contacts.

‘They wouldn’t have sent only the six of you,’ remarked Saul. ‘Where’s the rest of your squad?’

‘We’re all that’s left,’ said the other woman, apart from Peggy, her expression grim.

‘The code’s legit,’ said Isnard. ‘But his authorization doesn’t square with his ID.’

‘So it’s stolen?’ asked Bailey.

Isnard made a face. ‘Guess so.’

Bailey grimaced and turned back to Saul. ‘Don’t even think about trying to talk your way out of this one.’

Bailey turned to the surviving members of his squad and started giving orders. ‘Isnard, Jessup, take up positions over at the courtyard. Keep an eye out there. I don’t want to get caught out like last time, and lose anyone else. Merrill, take Dallas with you and get to work placing the rest of the HMX. Peggy, you’re with me.’

‘Before you do anything else, you need to listen to me,’ said Saul, his voice sounding ragged. ‘There’s a man named Mitchell Stone . . . he’s going to try and stop you from destroying the gate. When you grabbed me upstairs in the executive suites, I thought you were him, coming to try and stop me.’

‘He wouldn’t be the first to try stopping us, Mr Dumont, but we’re more than ready for trouble.’

‘That’s not going to be enough,’ Saul insisted, watching the others head off, which left him alone with just Bailey and Peggy. ‘This isn’t any ordinary human being you’re dealing with.’

‘Unless he’s driving a tank, I’m not worried,’ Bailey replied dismissively. ‘Right now we’re going to go head down to that terminal suite and shut the Florida gate down.’ He turned aside. ‘Peggy!’

Peggy moved up beside Saul and pushed him back in the direction of the elevators, while Bailey took the lead, striding fast.

At that moment a deep and almost subsonic rumble came from the direction of the Florida gate. It’s coming, Saul realized, breaking into a cold sweat.