It took almost a month for the research and development department deep in the bowels of Leconfield House to be turned into what was effectively one giant mainframe of blinking towers, cables, and stacks of index cards. By the time his team had finished enhancing and refining Atlas, White felt comfortable describing it as the most advanced computer on earth.

But now he was standing in front of its primary control panel, watching hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of equipment do absolutely nothing. It had taken weeks to install Pipistrelle devices all over London ahead of the OECD conference, and thanks to Manning White had no idea what conversations any of them were listening in on.

The last person White wanted to see was Knox. He thought Knox wasn’t just responsible for Holland’s current condition, but his as well. And Knox was now very much persona non grata at MI5 headquarters, yet there he was, standing in the middle of what should have been one of its most secure departments.

White had wanted to give Knox a piece of his mind for several days. But instead of making a scene in front of his staff he simply smoothed back the thick shock of blond hair that had earned some distant ancestor of his their surname, straightened his jacket, and nodded towards his office door.

Before White could tell Knox exactly what he thought of him inside the small, gloomy room that had until recently been used for storage, Knox thrust the Italians’ papers into his hands.

‘These belonged to Bianchi and Moretti,’ Knox said.

White’s scientific curiosity immediately took over and he scanned the sheets for a moment before holding them out for Knox to take back.

‘It looks like nonsense to me,’ White replied.

‘Don’t be modest,’ Knox said, trying to charm him. ‘If anyone can anyone make sense of this, you can.’

‘I’m not, and I can’t.’

‘I know you don’t exactly like me at the moment, Malcolm, but I need your help.’

‘This has nothing to do with whether or not I like you,’ White said, Jetting the sheets fall on his desk. ‘I might think your obsession with Russian moles is a childish obsession. I might think you’ve betrayed the one man who deserves your complete loyalty. And I might think you’re the reason I’m now stuck dealing with Manning and his cronies. But none of that has any bearing on the fact that these calculations don’t make sense to me.’

‘Then I’m sorry to have taken you away from your very important work,’ Knox said, scooping up the papers and heading for the door.

It was already swinging closed behind him when White called out, ‘Try Kaspar.’

‘Who?’ Knox asked, leaning back into the office.

‘Dr Ludvig Kaspar. A German physicist up at Cambridge. One of the Dragons.’

‘You think he’ll know what they mean?’