She’d heard about Chernobyl, the heroism of the firefighters there. The casualty rate later.

She’d never expected to encounter such a situation herself.

When she looked into the exposed core, she felt its warmth, on her face and chest and legs. She wondered if she ought to ask for a dosimeter badge.

She fixed her helmet and oxygen mask. With the others, she pushed forward, into the heat.

The traffic crawled through Dunbar, and beyond.

Further east, there was something going on. Jane could see a pillar of smoke, blowing inland. Helicopters were flapping over, dumping tons of what looked like sand.

Five miles past Dunbar, close to the source of all the smoke, somebody came blundering into the road in front of her, and Jane braked sharply. It was a fireman — no, a woman — singed donkey jacket, blackened hair, what looked like a bad case of sun-tan darkening her skin. She looked around blearily, focused on Jane, and came staggering to the passenger door.

“Please,” she said. “Help me.” Her voice was a hissed whisper.

She was just a kid.

Jane nodded. She got out of the car, and bundled the firefighter into the back. The woman lay down, her legs drawn up to her chest, shivering. Her face looked swollen, and she seemed to be trying to protect her hands. Around her neck, her skin had burst and was hanging in strips. She was bleeding through her nose, perhaps haemorrhaging. There was a name badge on her jacket. STURROCK.

Jack just stared.

Jane realized where she was. Torness. Jesus. I should have thought of this. I have to get Jack out of here—

There was a thunderous roar overhead, startling Jane enough to make her brake. “Jesus Christ. What now?”

She looked out of the window. Planes: fleets of them, huge black shapes, sweeping in from the north.

“They’re coming from RAF Leuchars,” Jack said.

Jane stared at him. It was the longest sentence he’d uttered in days.

“There are Vulcans. See, the British ones. And B-2As. The Americans. Look, that’s a B-52. And I think that’s a Tupolev, the white one. Russian…”

The sky was black with the bombers, the growl of their jets filling the air. All around her people were climbing out of their cars to see, or peering out of their windows into the sky.

They were whooping, clapping. One woman was crying.

Henry had told her about this. The start of the counter-measures. Now we fight back, Jane thought brutally.

In the car, the firefighter groaned.

Jane pulled onto the road’s central reservation, and put her foot down, ignoring the blaring horns around her, putting as much distance between herself and Torness as she could manage. She tried not to hunch her shoulders against the invisible radioactive sleet that must be drenching them both.

In the back, Jack gave the firefighter water.