‘The video’s of someone from SIS confessing to a major crime,’ said Eddie. ‘Alderley wants to expose them before they can hush it up.’
Roy’s eyes went wide — but with intrigue rather than alarm. ‘Ah, sounds sauce-ay! Well, if Mr A. wants me to help bust them, I’m in.’ He reached for the laptop. ‘May I?’
Nina nodded. ‘Please do.’
He took it, peering at her through the hole before going to a door. ‘Okay, let’s see what we have,’ he said, gesturing for them to follow.
While the rest of the apartment was clean and fastidiously neat, this room appeared to be occupied by Roy’s Mr Hyde. A second bedroom had been turned into a makeshift electronics lab, tall shelves covered in dismantled computer components and no fewer than three working machines on an equally untidy desk. ‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said as he sat and switched on a powerful lamp. ‘My hobby. Learned at an early age that I was very good at dismantling things — like all kids, ha ha — but fortunately turned out to be even better at putting them back together. Useful for my job — I’m sort of the Africa desk’s unofficial Q.’
‘Can you fix this?’ asked Nina.
‘Find out in a mo.’ He opened the laptop and pushed its power button. When nothing happened, he rummaged through a drawer for a set of small screwdrivers. ‘Have to open it up. Make yourselves comfortable, this could take a little while.’
The only potential seating in the room other than Roy’s chair being precariously stacked boxes, the couple retreated into the living room. ‘What do we do if he can’t get it working?’ Eddie asked quietly.
‘I’m not sure,’ said his wife. ‘Try to reach Macy, I guess. Oh, God.’ She gazed disconsolately at the carpet. ‘All this, and we haven’t even been able to let her know we’re okay. And we don’t even know if she’s okay. What if Brice already sent his people after her?’
He held her. ‘Have to hope he’s got other things on his mind right now.’
‘Blowing up the Houses of Parliament isn’t really a spur-of-the-moment thing, no.’ She rested her head on his shoulder. ‘How do you think he’s going to do it? From a boat, like you said?’
He shook his head. ‘Changed my mind about that. You’ve got to aim the Shamir, and standing on a boat in the middle of the Thames pointing something weird at Parliament’s going to draw attention. There’s a ton of security around there. They’re watching out for RPGs, car bombs, mortars…’
‘So where could he attack from?’
‘I dunno. If he really is getting help from the top, he could theoretically get security clearance to walk right into Parliament. But it’s more likely he’s got enough to get close without making anyone suspicious.’
‘In disguise, maybe? As a cop or something?’
‘Maybe. But he’s still got to carry the Shamir with him — and that lead box, or he’ll be blowing up buildings left and right.’
‘He’d need a car to move it in, then. Or a truck.’
Eddie nodded, but before he could voice any more thoughts Roy reappeared. ‘Okay, I’ve got, as the saying goes, good news and bad news.’
‘Let’s get the bad out of the way first, huh?’ said Nina.
‘Ah, a pessimist. Well, the bad news is that your laptop is completely shot, no pun intended. The bullet damaged a load of critical components — including the SSD, the hard drive.’
‘I’m finding it hard to see how there could be any good news after that.’
‘Oh, ye of little faith. The good news is that I was able to take out the SSD and connect it to one of my computers. There’s still data on it — the problem is that the directory’s been corrupted. At the moment, it’s just gibberish. But what I can do is clone it on to my own machine, then try to rebuild the directory and recover the files. It’ll take a while, but I’m sure it can be done.’
Eddie checked his watch. It was after seven thirty: less than four and a half hours before Parliament would be packed with MPs for Prime Minister’s Questions. ‘How long? An hour, two, three?’
‘Hard to say, chap. Depends how corrupted the files are, and how much data’s missing. Based on the size of the drive, at least two hours, though.’
Eddie and Nina exchanged concerned looks. ‘Can you do it on a laptop?’ Nina asked.
‘Yah, but it’ll be slower. Why?’
‘You might need to work on the move,’ Eddie told him.
‘What? Why?’
‘The thing is,’ Nina began, trying not to sound too alarming, ‘the person on the video has got watchers out looking for us. Peter’s put himself on the line to help us, but sooner or later, this person’s going to realise that he has. Once he does, he’ll check Peter’s phone calls and find you’re not at work. So the first place he sends watchers to check—’
‘Will be here?’ Roy said in dismay. ‘Wait, am I doing something illegal by helping you? Oh, bloody hell! That’s a great start to my career; I’ve only been at SIS for six months!’
‘You’re exposing something illegal,’ she countered. ‘And maybe stopping something even worse. That’s why we’ve got to recover this file — and why we can’t let anyone from SIS catch us first.’
Roy made a sound of anguish. ‘They’re the people I work for! Ugh. Okay. Let me think. I need to talk to Mr Alderley.’
‘They’re monitoring his calls,’ Eddie warned. ‘If you let on anything’s happening, they’ll be straight round here.’
That did not help Roy’s mood. ‘Peter was sure you could help us uncover the truth,’ said Nina. ‘Please, Roy — you’re the only person who can do it.’ She glanced towards the DVDs. ‘Working for MI6 probably isn’t like a James Bond movie, but you can still be a hero and save the country. And you don’t even need a gun, just a computer.’
‘Save the country?’ Roy echoed. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘Something big,’ Eddie told him. ‘And we’re running out of time to stop it.’
‘I really should talk to Mr Alderley again…’ he said, but his eyes had followed Nina’s towards the shelf of movies. ‘Is there anything you can tell me? At all?’
‘The man on the video admits to a terrorist act,’ she said, deciding to give him something more concrete in the hope of swaying his decision. ‘And we think he’s about to commit another, here in London — and we only have until noon to stop him. But without the video, we don’t have any evidence. It’s our word against his, and right now, he’s a lot more likely to be listened to by the authorities.’
‘And you say he works for SIS? He’s gone rogue?’
Eddie nodded. ‘He’s responsible for killing a lot of people. And he might be responsible for a shitload more.’
Roy thought hard before finally making a choice. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘all right. I may come to regret this, but… I’ll help you. If anything goes wrong, though, I’ll say you forced me at gunpoint.’ He chuckled.
Eddie opened up his leather jacket to reveal the automatic. ‘That’s plausible.’
‘Oh my God. Is that real?’ The Yorkshireman’s stony expression assured him it was. ‘I see. Well, I suppose that means you could have forced me at gunpoint if you’d wanted to, but you didn’t, so… Okay. Let me set things up on my laptop.’ He went back into the computer room, pausing in the doorway. ‘You know, in an odd way this is actually rather exciting! Terrifying, but exciting.’
Eddie and Nina followed him in, both to see what he was doing and to make sure he didn’t try to warn MI6. ‘Maybe for you, but I’ve had way too much excitement lately,’ she said.