‘What took you so long?’ he called with a grin, before walking back around the row of consoles to his own screen, where, numbly but fixedly, he began to go to work. ‘Nick,’ he said, ‘I need your help.’

Nick Christopher rubbed at his eyes. His voice was hollow. ‘What do you want me to do?’

Hepton pointed to the computer console next to his own. ‘Get that thing up and running. Do you remember that TV satellite we hacked into a couple of months back, so we could get the porn channel?’

‘Yes.’ Christopher looked uncomprehending.

‘Good, get me back into it, will you?’

Fagin stared at the screen. Villiers was growing ever more agitated beside him.

‘What’s happening?’ he snarled.

‘Nothing’s happening,’ said Fagin. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

‘Then Harry must have found him!’ Villiers said.

‘I don’t think so,’ Fagin answered. ‘Look.’

He was pointing towards the screen. Numerical sequences were appearing, rows and rows of numbers.

‘What are those?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Fagin simply. ‘Perhaps he’s trying to confuse us.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean,’ Fagin explained, ‘maybe he’s using these to throw us off the scent of what he’s really doing.’

‘You mean you don’t know? I thought you were supposed to be an expert?’

‘In some things, yes. But when it comes to hacking, I think Martin Hepton might just have the edge.’ Fagin’s smile had a hint of pride about it. Villiers grabbed him and shook him.

‘So shut it down,’ he yelled. ‘Close the whole thing down.’

Fagin did not resist. Instead he waited until Villiers had stopped shaking him. ‘I can’t do that,’ he said. ‘All we can do is wait for him to make his move – his real move.’ Then he sat down in front of the screen, a grandmaster awaiting his opponent’s opening gambit.

The room was empty now, with the exception of two live bodies and one very cold one. Hepton was in a chair on castors. Once Nick had tapped into the television satellite, he used this chair to wheel himself quickly between the two computer terminals – his own, locked into the Argos satellite and, consequently, into Zephyr; and the TV satellite. He worked fast and expertly, so that even Nick Christopher had trouble deciding what he was doing. Hepton was happy to explain.

‘I’m going to marry these two bastards,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take over the TV satellite and lock it into Zephyr, then disconnect Zephyr from Argos. Resulting in …’

Nick Christopher saw it all now, and broke into a wide, devilish grin. ‘You can’t do that,’ he said. ‘Do you know—’

‘Of course I know. I know what it’ll do. What’s more,’ smiling too, he turned to glance at his friend, ‘I really think I can do it.’

‘What’s happening now?’ Villiers was frantic. What had happened to Harry? Why hadn’t she disposed of Hepton?