“Let’s just get on with it, shall we?” said Lockhart. “We can talk about this later.”

Strasser smiled weakly. Fifty yards ahead of them, just to the right of the road, they watched a prisoner fall over. Lockhart couldn’t tell whether it was male or female, an adult or a child. What he did know was that he had witnessed the end of a life; a life ended because somebody had decided to find a difference where there was none. And so what if there was a difference, he thought, so bloody what?

The mountain loomed high over the camp. Thickly wooded and with shallow, graceful slopes, it looked the picture of tranquillity. But knowing what lay within, it also looked impregnable, forbidding. As Malcolm changed gear, readying the truck for the climb to the entrance, they left the camp behind, and entered the forest. The Germans had chosen their site well. There was no way that bombers could deal with this place, and a band of resistance fighters—well, such a thing didn’t even exist, at least not in the Reich itself. Their way was the only way; they had to get it right, there wouldn’t be another chance.

The road through the forest was peppered with warning signs, requesting that drivers should not exceed thirty kilometers per hour, and to take care on the blind bends. Their progress felt slow, desperately so. At one point, Malcolm had to stop and pull over, because he had heard the sound of a loud horn from around a corner.

As they waited for whatever it was to pass, Lockhart became aware that the ground was starting to vibrate. Whatever was coming was clearly massive. There was not just one, but six of them, six flatbed trucks each carrying a single rocket. Lockhart, Strasser and Malcolm gasped as the convoy went past. Each rocket must have been at least fifty feet long, from the tip of their pointed nose cones to the base of their fins.

Lockhart felt a slight panic; a chill that these rockets already contained the sarin, that what was passing them was enough to kill everybody in London. He felt almost sick, sick that they were too late. But then, he told himself, there was every chance that those rockets had contained conventional warheads, that the sarin was not yet ready. There was only one way to find out, and that was to keep going.

After the last truck had passed, Malcolm gunned the engine, and put the truck into first gear. Lockhart looked down at the ground below his window, noticing that the road was littered with pinecones. Malcolm started to pull away.

“Wait!” Lockhart barked.

“What is it?” Malcolm asked, jamming on the brakes.

Lockhart opened his door and jumped to the ground. If she was here, he would give her a pinecone—she had always liked them, had baskets of them back home. Amy could paint it one day. He stood, walked forward warily, and picked one up. The one he had selected wasn’t the best cone, not the most symmetrical, even a little on the rough side, but it was his cone now. He put it in his pocket and climbed back into the truck.