The screens began to jump around 8.15. Hepton’s intention was always to wreck the interface, not merely snip the connection. The estimated viewing figures of seven and a half million, however, came as a bonus. For in linking up the satellites, he had projected the shots of what was really happening in Buchan to a Europe-wide audience. While two video tapes, one master, one backup, ran, capturing the moment for posterity, satellite receiver dishes across most of Europe started to pick up a new station. Early-evening quiz shows, old movies and wildlife programmes crackled and faded and were replaced by pictures of nobody quite knew what. Some pirate station, people assumed, and many of them settled back, waiting to see if there would be any pornography on display, as the tabloid newspapers had been warning and promising. But all they got until nightfall was pictures of a building site. At least, they mostly assumed it was a building site. Except that one repeated shot showed what looked to be a large and ugly missile, resting nose up in its near-finished silo …

The plug had been well and truly pulled on COFFIN.

Villiers and Fagin were easily subdued, and Jilly was released. But Dreyfuss was in a bad way. Parfit felt an uncomfortable moment of sentiment: one second the pleasure of terminating Harry; the next the grief of seeing the blood-soaked shirt and feeling the fading pulse. How many lives could a man have? Dreyfuss had used up a fair quota already, but Parfit was grimly determined that he deserved yet another. He staunched the wound as best he could and waited for the ambulance.

Jilly buried her face in Hepton’s shoulder and let the tears come. They were tears of frustration rather than relief. Hepton, his work finished, didn’t know what his own tears were. But he let them fall all the same.

40

General Colin Mathieson-Briggs was sitting in his office when the men from Special Branch arrived. He knew why they had come, and had prepared himself for the moment, his tie knotted tightly so that his head remained erect.

General Jack Holliday was not, however, to be found in his office. Like Mathieson-Briggs, he had been on site at Binbrook the day they had infiltrated Zephyr. He had timed the whole process. From initial interference to complete locking-on had taken just under four minutes. Not long enough for anyone to notice any mischief, surely? There had been risks, of course, but they were not so great as the risk of leaving Britain defenceless and dependent on unreliable European allies for future safety …

His wife found him dead in the woods near their country estate. Holliday had gone shooting with his dog, a young Weimaraner. She discovered him slumped against a tree, his head taken clean off, the dog anxiously licking and cajoling the corpse’s hands and neck, its whiskers shiny crimson.