“Not if we can help it,” said Bunty with a faint smile. “The technicians at Smite Solutions have offered us an alternative to losing anything at all. They have a novel and proven method of luring a smiting away from a city.”

I stopped pacing around the room and stared at her. She was looking straight ahead, unwilling to catch my eye.

“What’s the plan?”

“I’m not fully aware of the technique,” she said quietly. “I am here only to organize evacuation policy in the city, and I must respectfully demand that library staff be evacuated from the building an hour either side of the time of smiting. We’re extending the evacuation zone.”

“Why?” I asked.

“As a precautionary measure.”

She gave me a memo outlining when we should evacuate the building and where to. It was less rigorous than the Smite Zone downtown, but still quite large.

“You’re not going to tell me any more, are you?” I asked.

“I’m sorry. The less people who know, the better.”

“Fewer,” I said. “The fewer people who know, the better.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, I’ll be off then.”

“How much?” I asked as she hurried out.

“How much what?”

“For Smite Solutions to fix the problem.”

“It’s no secret,” she said. “A hundred million pounds. Considering the potential damage to property, it’s a snip.”

“Goliath is like that,” I said sarcastically. “Magnanimous and generous to a fault.”

“If you were in our shoes, you’d do the same, Thursday. They offer a solution, and we take it.”

“You can’t trust them,” I said.

“We don’t have a choice,” she replied pointedly, and she was right. I’d do exactly the same.

I saw her to the door and then walked through to Duffy’s office, where everyone there abruptly sat down. Like all good assistants, they had been listening at the door.

“Right,” I said, looking at the large map of Swindon stuck to the wall in that office, “let’s see what Bunty and Smite Solutions are up to.”

Duffy, Geraldine and I plotted the places that were listed on the memo’s distribution list. There were about sixty in total, and it looked as though Bunty were visiting companies and private residences on a swath a half mile wide leading from the financial center toward Wroughton, a few miles south-southeast of the city. It looked like a corridor of sorts—and if Smite Solutions planned on luring the smiting away, it had to be drawn away to somewhere.

I tapped the map at the disused airfield in Wroughton. “Something’s going on here,” I muttered.

“Any idea what?” asked Duffy.

“None—but I aim to find out.”

“Chief Librarian?” said Geraldine, the other assistant.

“Yes?”

“Your son is waiting in reception. About a trip to the Kemble Timepark.”