“More bad news?” I said.
“I just got off the phone,” she said. “Not bad news, exactly. Not good news, either. The hazmat guys are here. They were out of the traps pretty fast. I spoke to the team leader just before you got back. He says their operation’s already underway.”
“They aren’t hanging around. I saw them, on my way back. And they looked like they knew what they were doing. But what about the CCTV? Is anything doing there?”
“No. A big fat zero. It’s the same story. None of the cameras that are working picked up anything. The ones in places that would have helped us aren’t back in service yet, despite Stan Leckie and his ‘best in the country’ contractors. He probably meant ‘cheapest in the country.’ We’re going to have a serious conversation when this is over, he and I.”
We sipped our tea. Melissa put her cup on the table and wheeled restlessly backwards and forwards, her gaze flicking from a window to the door to her phone and back again. I sat on her bed, and waited.
“No sign of a new chair, then,” I said.
“What?” she said.
“They didn’t give you a new chair. For the desk. To replace the one that got broken. You told me you’d spoken to Jackson about it.”
“Oh. No. I guess they didn’t think they could trust me with one.”
Melissa stopped moving and looked at me.
“I’m surprised you’re still here,” she said.
“I haven’t finished my tea,” I said.
“I mean, because of that girl. The one in the Frog and Turtle.”
“Which girl?”
“Oh come on. You know which girl. The tall brunette at the far end of the bar.”
“The one with the interesting blouse?”
“Yes.”
“What’s she got to do with anything?”
“She liked you.”
“She didn’t like me. You’re making that up.”
“Did you at least get her phone number?” she said.
“Why would I want her phone number?” I said.
“I saw how you were looking at her. Don’t try to deny it. At one point I thought I was going to have to reach across and wipe the drool off your…”
Melissa’s phone interrupted her so she grabbed it from her lap, talked for three minutes, then got to her feet.
“That was the hazmat team leader again,” she said. “Come on. We have to go.”
“What’s happening?” I said. “Was it a deliberate attack?”
“They can’t be sure. They’re looking at some worn out insulation they think came from the old generator equipment. It’s soaked in oil residue, and they say a spark from some kind of electrical short circuit might have been at the root of it.”
“Is the fire out?”
“Not yet. But here’s the thing. They had to move the caesium out of the way before the fire crew could get to work. They’ve no way of telling how long it’ll be before it can go back in the vault. And they can’t tell why the radiation alarm sounded, because none of the canisters appear to be damaged. So guess what they’re doing with it?”
“Moving it.”
“Correct. They’re doing exactly what you said would make the stuff most vulnerable.”
The hazmat truck was sandwiched between four police cars when it pulled out of the service entrance at the side of St Joseph’s, ninety minutes later. You could hear its engine rumbling from a hundred yards away. Its six spherical wheels could have been taken from a moon buggy, and its high, rugged bodywork looked like a Hollywood version of an armoured personnel carrier.
“If this pays off, I’ve got to warn you, I’m taking the credit,” Melissa said, easing the black Ford Mondeo away from the kerb. “It was hell, putting all this together with ten seconds notice. But if nothing happens, and anyone starts asking where all the money went, you’re taking the blame.”
“Wait,” I said, as she shifted into second gear. “Stop the car.”
“Come on, I was only joking. It’s not like the government can’t afford it. Austerity hasn’t gone that far. Not yet, anyway.”
“What have you got covering that thing, aside from the police?”
“Four unmarked cars, with two agents in each of them, and a helicopter.”
“And the real truck?”
“It has one car, which is standard.”
“OK. I think we should change our plan. We should follow the real one instead.”
“Why?”
“The decoy sounds like it’s well taken care of. If anyone hits it, having us there won’t make any difference. But the caesium is vulnerable, just like someone wants it. That’s where we should be.”
Melissa was silent for a moment, then swung the car back to the side of the road.
“This is insane,” she said, coming to rest again. “And all the more reason to blame you. I hope you realise that.”
For fifteen minutes we sat and listened as the agents tailing the decoy van called in their movements. Street after street, turn after turn, as central London began to give way to the outlying districts, they had nothing untoward to report. Then the hospital gate opened again and a plain white, long wheel-base Mercedes Sprinter emerged, closely followed by a silver Vauxhall Insignia. Melissa let the pair of vehicles pass us and make their way around the next corner before pulling away herself, guided by a new voice on the radio.
The agent in the chase car spoke calmly and clearly, giving precise details after each junction, and Melissa’s driving reflected his tone. She drove slowly and smoothly, making sure we were always at least two moves behind, worrying more about being spotted by anyone watching the truck than getting held up by the sparse traffic that was left on the road at that time of night.
The decoy convoy was making better time than us, and after another twelve minutes we heard them report their arrival at the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital in Croydon. The threat wouldn’t be over till the real truck caught up and the caesium was locked in the back-up vault, but a disappointed expression started to spread across Melissa’s face anyway. She glanced at me, and I thought she was about to say something when her phone began to ring.
“OK,” she said, ending the call after two minutes. She was breathing hard now. “Let me think for a minute. David, can you look at the map? We need a place to stop the van. As close to here as possible, but where the other units can quickly get back to, and nothing too near any housing. And we need it quickly.”
“Stop the van?” I said. “Why?”
“That was Jones on the phone. He’s back at St Joseph’s. All hell’s broken loose over there. A fire crew’s just discovered the hazmat team. The whole of it. In the basement. Knocked out. Tied up. And stripped of all their kit.”
“So who are we following?”
“That’s a very good question. Someone with the savvy to trick us into giving them a ready made caesium removal machine, I guess. Oh my God, David – you know what this means? This is it. The nightmare’s begun. The caesium’s gone. We don’t know who’s got it. Or what they’re going to do with it. Or when. All we know is how they got it.”