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‘I must thank you,’ he said. ‘I know Lynn wasn’t always – always quite up to it during the crisis.’

‘She fought remarkably well.’

‘But I also know that Lynn’s initial enthusiasm for you turned into rejection. Don’t blame her. Lynn’s judgement was clouded during this trip. You were farsighted and brave.’

‘I did my job.’ She mimicked a smile, making her features softer but no more sensual. ‘Will you excuse me?’

‘Of course.’ She floated past him and disappeared down the next side corridor.

Julian immediately forgot about her. He hungrily sniffed his lasagne, looked into the scanner and slipped into his cabin.

* * *

Dana reached Torus-1, with its bars, libraries and common rooms – then continued on and slipped into the long tunnel which led towards the upper level and connected the OSS Grand with Torus-2. Only two astronauts were still on duty at the terminal.

‘I have to go to Charon for a minute,’ she said to them. ‘For some documents.’

One of the men nodded. ‘Fine.’

She turned away, disappeared into the corridor that linked Torus-2 with the outer ring of the space harbour and drifted towards the airlock behind which the spaceship lay at anchor. Everything was still going to plan. Hydra still hadn’t lost, quite the contrary. It was only Lynn’s suspicion that unsettled her, as she couldn’t work out how it had come about. But even that wasn’t particularly important. Dana opened the bulkhead leading to the Charon and looked behind her, but no one had followed her down the corridor. In the Picard they were indulging in lasagne and homesickness. She sped into the landing unit and on into the habitation module, crossed the bistro, the lounge and started working away at the wall covering.

Hanna had told her exactly where to do it.

And there she was.

* * *

The lightning flash of memory. Amazing how it appeared in the middle of heavy cloud cover. She couldn’t remember exactly what she’d done in the igloo, but she could see Carl Hanna very clearly, before she had sunk to the floor by the coffee machine, frozen with terror. She saw him murdering Tommy Wachowski, heard his quiet, traitorous cursing:

Dana, for fuck’s sake. Come on!

Dana.

Her suspicions had already been aroused a few hours ago, when Dana Lawrence had hypocritically asked her how she was, but now it was certain. Hanna had tried to make contact with the bitch, in a way that revealed that the contact had been prearranged. Why? Drawing the necessary conclusions would have taken a considerable amount of energy, too much to put Julian in the picture as well, particularly since she didn’t talk much to her father any more. It had dawned on her that she felt a lot better as soon as she banished him from the centre of her thoughts. At the same time she missed him, as a puppet misses the hand that moves it, and she was already aware, at least on an intellectual level, that she actually idolised him. Maybe she no longer
felt
what she felt, but at least she still
knew
what she felt.

Something had gone wrong in her life, and Dana Lawrence had played an inglorious part in that.

Lynn peered down the corridor.

Determined not to let her enemy out of her sight, she had followed Dana Lawrence when she had left the Picard with Julian. The cunning of madness, she thought,
almost
with amusement, but the madness had fled. A few seconds passed, then she slipped after Lawrence. At the end of the corridor she saw that the Charon’s bulkhead was open, and knew that Lawrence was in the spaceship.

I’ll get you, she thought. I will prove you’re a snake, and the seething hatred that I know you feel for me will be your downfall. You shouldn’t have allowed yourself to be dragged into all this, unapproachable, unassailable, controlled Dana, but you aren’t unassailable after all. You didn’t try to shatter the others’ confidence in me for nothing. You will pay.

She floated silently over the rim of the bulkhead, crossed the landing module, the bistro, the lounge. She glimpsed Dana in the sleeping area bent over something angular, the size of a briefcase, that she had taken from the opened wall. Saw her fingers darting over a keyboard and entering some data:

* * *

Nine hours: 09.00

The plan was so simple, so efficient at its core. Launching a rocket to the Moon and detonating it above Peary Base might have worked, but its trajectory would be
immediately traceable, and the risk of missing the base was great as well. To fire another missile at the OSS, whether from Earth or a satellite, was practically impossible. The rocket would have been intercepted, and here too the reconstruction of its flight-path would have led straight to its originator.

But Hydra had come up with the perfect solution. Two mini-nukes, disguised in a communication satellite, from which they could travel unnoticed to the Moon and land some distance from the base, to stay there until someone came to take them out of the capsule and put them in the right places. One in the base, the second in the spaceship that would bring the bomb and the killers back to the OSS. Immediately before leaving the base, set bomb 1, then hide bomb 2 in the OSS, program that too and travel quite officially back to Earth in the lift before the timers set off both explosions, destroying both Peary Base and the OSS. The perfect double whammy.

A trajectory that couldn’t be reconstructed.

Okay, they’d messed up Peary. They wouldn’t mess up the OSS. At half past nine, when they had all long-since arrived on Isla de las Estrellas, or were back on the way to their own countries, the space station would vaporise, leaving only a few thousand kilometres of feather-light carbon rope to fall into the Pacific. They probably didn’t even need to get the bomb out of the spaceship. The Charon was supposed to be at anchor for at least two days, as she had learned in the terminal. It didn’t really make any difference whether she hid the mini-nuke in the ceiling cover of the airlock or just left it where it was.

08.59

08.58

She looked contentedly at the blinking box. And as she was savouring her triumph, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

There was someone there.

Right behind her.

Dana swung round.

That moment she felt a kick in the chest that threw her against the wall of the cabin. The mini-nuke slipped from her hands and sailed away. Lynn reached out for it, missed it, ended up at an angle and started rotating on her own axis. Dana dashed after the spinning bomb, felt a hand gripping her ankle and was pulled back. In front of her eyes Julian’s daughter darted upwards, grabbed the box and fled, carried on her own momentum, to the lounge and from there to the landing module.

She must not leave the Charon.

Dana hurried after her. Just before the airlock she caught up with Lynn, grabbed her by the collar and dragged her back inside the unit. Lynn somersaulted, tightly gripping the bomb, and wedged herself, legs spread, in the passageway to the
habitation module. Lawrence risked a glance over her shoulder. Through the open bulkhead she could see into the airlock and glimpse the connecting corridor. There was still no one to be seen, but she knew the airlock was under surveillance. She couldn’t afford to let the silent struggle continue outside the Charon.

Julian’s daughter stared at her, gripping the ticking atom bomb like a cherished object from which she never wanted to be parted.

‘Indecisive?’ she grinned.

‘Give me that thing, Lynn.’ Dana was breathing heavily, less out of exertion than out of rage. ‘Right now.’

‘No.’

‘It’s an expensive scientific device. I don’t know what’s got into you, but you’re about to ruin a very high-level experiment. Your father will be furious.’

‘Oh, really?’ Lynn rolled her eyes spookily. ‘Will he?’

‘Lynn, please!’

‘I know what this is, you bitch. It’s a bomb, exactly like the one you and Carl hid in the base.’

‘You’re confused, Lynn. You—’

‘Don’t you dare!’ yelled Lynn. ‘I’m completely fine.’

‘Okay.’ Dana raised conciliatory hands. ‘You’re completely fine. But that isn’t a bomb.’

‘Then you won’t have a problem letting me out!’

Dana clenched her fists and didn’t move, as her thoughts did somersaults. She had to get hold of the mini-nuke, but what was she to do with the madwoman who clearly wasn’t as crazy as all that? If she let Lynn live and go back to the others, she might just as well hand over the bomb and admit everything.

‘Problems?’ Lynn giggled. ‘Without me the lift won’t return to Earth, will it? They’ll spend hours looking for me, and you’ll have to join in. There’s nothing you can do.’

‘Give me the box,’ Dana said, struggling to control herself, and floated closer.

Lynn lowered the bomb. For a moment it looked as if she was wondering whether she could comply with Dana’s demand, then she suddenly threw herself back into the habitation module.

‘And now?’ she asked.

Dana bared her teeth.

And suddenly she lost her head, reached for the disguised pocket on her thigh and brought out Carl Hanna’s gun. Lynn’s eyes widened. She leapt after the bomb. Her hand hit the sensor that controlled the bulkhead between the module and the habitation unit. Dana cursed, but the connecting door closed too quickly, no chance
of getting through it, at best she’d be trapped. Through the narrowing gap she saw Lynn’s torso, her flying, ash-blonde hair half covering her face, took aim and shot.

The bulkhead thumped shut. She went straight to the control panel and tried to open it again, but it didn’t budge. Lynn must have activated the emergency lock.

She hammered furiously against the steel door.

Too late.

* * *

Her body drifted somersaulting through the lounge.

Spirals turned before her eyes. With a great effort, Lynn focused her ideas on the command panel in the rear zone, straightened out, gripped the edge of the next passageway and impelled herself forwards to the control console.

The terminal. She had to call the terminal.

‘Lynn Orley,’ she gasped. ‘Can anyone hear me?’ Oops! Something wrong with her voice? Why did she sound so feeble, so crushed?

‘Miss Orley, yes, I can hear you.’

‘Put me through to my father. He’s in his – his suite. Quickly, get a move on!’

‘Straight away, Miss Orley.’

Something had found its way through the crack. Something that hurt and dulled her senses. Everything went dark.

‘Julian,’ she whispered. ‘Daddy?’

* * *

Dana was beside herself. She’d been duped. She’d let her feelings take control, rather than diplomacy. Flight was the only option now. It didn’t matter whether she’d killed Lynn, wounded her, or even missed her entirely, she had to get out of the OSS before the lift arrived. She furiously catapulted herself out of the landing module, pelted down the corridor and into the torus, took aim and shot one of the astronauts in the head.

The man tipped sideways and drifted slowly away. With her legs outstretched she braked herself and aimed the barrel of her gun at the other one. He stared at her in silent horror, his hands over the touchscreen.

‘Get one of the evacuation pods!’ she yelled. ‘Quickly!’

The man trembled.

‘Go, now! Get it!’

Inflamed with rage, she whacked him in the face. He gripped the console to stay upright.

‘I can’t,’ he panted.

‘Are you mad?’ Of course he could, why couldn’t he? ‘Do you want to die?’

‘No – please—’

Stupid jerk! Trying to hold her up! All the docking ports could be relocated along the ring, she knew that. He would just park the Charon somewhere else, and instead take one of the pods to the airlock and anchor it there.

‘Just do it,’ she hissed.

‘I can’t, I really can’t.’ The astronaut gulped and licked his lips. ‘Not during the launching process.’

‘Why the launching process?’

‘Wh-when a ship launches, I can’t relocate the docking port, I have to wait till—’

‘Launches?’ she yelled at him. ‘What’s launching?’

‘The—’ He closed his eyes. The movement of his lips was oddly out of time with what he said, as if he were praying at the same time. Spittle glistened at the corners of his mouth, and he was losing control of his bladder.

‘Open your mouth, damn it!’

‘The Charon. It’s the Charon. It’s – it’s launching.’

* * *

‘Daddy?’

Julian gave a start. He had just been talking to Jennifer Shaw, when a second window had appeared in the holowall.

‘Lynn,’ he said with surprise. ‘Sorry, Jennifer.’

‘Daddy, you’ve got to stop her.’

Her face was right up against the camera, sunken and waxy, as if she were about to lose consciousness. He immediately switched Shaw to standby.

‘Lynn, is everything okay?’

She shook her head feebly.

‘Where are you?’

‘In the spaceship. I’ve launched Charon.’

‘
What’s going on?
’

‘I’m flying away – I’m taking – the bomb away from here.’ Julian saw her eyelids fluttering and her head tipping over. ‘She’s smuggled a second bomb on board, she or – Carl, I don’t know—’

‘Lynn!’

His hands gripped the console. Slow as snake venom the realisation of what was happening seeped into his consciousness. Of course! It made horrible sense. This wasn’t just a blow against the Americans, it was an attack on space travel!

‘Lynn, don’t do it!’ he urged. ‘Bring Charon back! You can’t do this!’

‘You’ve got to stop her,’ she whispered. ‘Dana – it’s Dana Lawrence. She’s the – she’s Hanna’s—’

‘Lynn! No!’

‘I’m – I’m sorry, Daddy.’ Her words were barely audible, a breath. She closed her eyes. ‘So sorry.’

* * *

The spaceship decoupled. The massive steel claws that connected it to the airlock opened to reveal the Charon.

It drifted slowly out into open space.

Julian’s voice reached her ear. He called her name, over and over again, as if he had lost his mind.

Lynn lay down on her back.

Nonsense, of course, she was weightless. Just a matter of perspective whether she was lying on her back or her belly. She might even have been lying on her side, of course she was lying on her side, all at the same time, but from here she could see the bomb that floated above her, spinning listlessly.