Harvey thought about it for a moment.  “Okay, that’s plan A.  Let me know if you come up with anything else.”  He returned to his own desk and called Hammond to pass on the news.

John Hammond was ushered into the Home Secretary’s office and took the seat offered by the minister.  The late spring sun hit him square in the face as he sat down and he had to lean to his left to avoid its glare and be able to see Stephen Wells.  Hammond was sure the chair had been strategically positioned prior to his arrival.

“John, the PM isn’t happy that this has been sprung upon him, especially with a general election just six weeks away.  He wants to know what we are doing about it.”  Hammond’s relationship with Wells had been a long and fractured one, and he knew that if things went bad there would be no ‘We’.  Even if things went their way, it would be the Home Secretary who took all the plaudits, while MI5 would get a brief mention if they were lucky.

“Minister, we have our best resources working on it.  As we see it, the priority is locating the device he mentioned.  Without that, we cannot make a move on him.”

“Do you know where he is?”  The Home Secretary asked.

“Not yet.  As I said, our priority is locating the device.  There is little point in finding Gray and his captives if we can’t make a move on him, so while we have a few people searching for his location, our best efforts are concentrating on possible civilian targets.  He claims to be targeting thousands of lives, so that narrows it down a bit.  We are concentrating on venues that will have large visitor numbers at midday on Friday, and we are in contact with local Police forces who are searching all possible targets.”

“Do you think this man is capable of killing thousands of innocent people?”

“Does he know how to create a device capable of killing thousands?  Possibly.  I’d even go as far as probably.  Does he have the resolve to detonate it?  That’s another matter.”

Wells leaned forward onto his desk and clasped his hands together.  “John, I don’t have to tell you how serious it would be if this maniac executes a young man live on the internet, criminal or not.”  He glanced at his watch.  “It’s just after midday, giving you seven and a half hours to stop this happening.  Find Gray, find his bomb, do whatever you need to do, but put a stop to this, and without loss of life, if you don’t mind.”

“We may have more time than that.”  Hammond told him.  “On the way over here I spoke to my team.  Our techies have access to his website and we have identified a couple of ways to manipulate his figures.  If we can swing the vote our way, we might be able to save the life of the first one.”