Villiers’ gun hand twitched. ‘The greater good,’ he repeated, robotically. Dreyfuss remembered then what Parfit had said about Villiers: a cold-blooded killer with a history of instability. He tried to calm himself. The last thing he wanted to do right this second was die.

‘Well, if that’s what you believe,’ he said evenly.

‘We do, Major Dreyfuss. Believe me, we do.’ Villiers paused, seeming to drink in his own sense of power. ‘Any more questions?’ he asked. Dreyfuss shook his head. ‘Then if you’ll follow me, or rather, precede me through here …’ He lifted his left arm to unbolt another door.

Dreyfuss stood, taking a final look at the surveillance screen. He had no way of letting Hepton know Harry was on her way. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘I thought you wanted to find Miss Watson?’ said Villiers. ‘Besides, you haven’t seen half of what we’re doing here. Not nearly half.’

Then he pulled open the door to another world.

37

It had all gone smoothly at first. Hepton had done a spot of hacking in his time, and the process still intrigued and enthralled him. Once, he had found himself hacking into a company’s computer at the same time as another hacker. They had exchanged greetings before the other hacker identified himself as a member of the Chaos Club in West Germany; he was hacking from the Ruhr Valley into a computer system in Milton Keynes. Contact with the Chaos Club had taught Hepton much about hacking, and for a time he’d been hooked. But after a while, personnel records and medical files ceased to hold their one-time interest, and he’d given the sport up.

Like cycling, however, you never forgot the ‘how’. Having accessed the Zephyr onboard computer, he found that COFFIN 762 was the code to unlock the interface between the two satellites, or rather between their two computers. The code was simple enough: COFFIN hadn’t been expecting anyone to attempt an access, or to have the knowledge so to do. Otherwise they would not have been so unimaginative with the password, and they would surely have used a less simplistic numerical combination. Izzard’s black box had done its job, finding the number sequence in a space of minutes.

Nick Christopher was watching over Hepton’s shoulder, interested and excited but trying to look unimpressed so as not to draw undue attention to the console.

But meantime, Hepton was stuck. He’d got this far, but progressing any further seemed an impossibility, for there was a further code to be gleaned, and he had run out of ideas.

What is your name?

COFFIN

Thank you, COFFIN. Please wait.

---------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------

What is your identifier number?

762

Identifier number accepted. Welcome to interphase control at 19:45 hours. You have fifteen minutes online remaining before engagement of protection circuitry. Do you wish to access:

1. Classification?

2. Interlock?

3. Transmission?

4. Quit?