Ollie travelled to London to meet with his British and French contacts from the Nationalist movements. These two were selected by him as in each country there was a thriving nuclear industry as well as established laboratories in which nuclear weapons were produced. They met in a small hotel on Cartwright Gardens close to the St. Pancras railway station where the Eurostar cross-channel train from Paris arrives. Instead of the thick necked ruffian, the delegate from the British National Socialist Party, Paul Dooley, was an aristocratic gentleman, a graduate of Trinity College in Cambridge, with a law degree. The French counterpart, Ettiene Brune, was from Marseille, a stronghold of extreme racists, and an engineer by training. Ollie described the progress in production of the fissile material but explained that they now had to manufacture the actual device and this called for expertise that Professor Modena did not possess. He asked them to help in enlisting a suitable engineer or scientist from one of their national weapon labs — someone who was willing and able to work clandestinely in support of their cause. He emphasized that there would be no moral qualms or issues because the device would not be detonated but only be used for blackmailing the governments that gave in to immigrants while forfeiting the rights and welfare of the true citizens. Brune was skeptical if such a person could be found but Dooley said that he had someone in mind who might be persuaded to join them and that he would set up a meeting with him and Ollie for noon the next day. The Frenchman had nothing further to contribute to the project so booked a return journey to Paris by the Eurostar and continued on the TGV train to Marseille. The Briton returned to his office in the City of London and Ollie went to the excellent Italian restaurant in nearby Bloomsbury for dinner on his own.
The next day Ollie met with Dooley and his friend in a private room inside a pub near Dooley's office. Dooley was welcomed by the pub owner and they exchanged a secret signal that did not escape Ollie's eye. Without consulting with his partners, Dooley told the pub owner to bring his regular lunch for the three of them and a jug of pale ale. The private room was lined with fine wooden walls adorned Union Jack flags and British National Socialist Party (BNSP) Blood flags. When he saw the reaction of awe and reverence of Dooley's friend Ollie's mind was set at ease, since he realized that the man was a dedicated fanatic member of the BNSP and would probably not have qualms performing the task at hand. Dooley introduced his friend only as Doctor Jay and commended his knowledge and experience in designing and manufacturing what he termed "special devices". It seemed to Ollie as if Dooley was afraid of surveillance at this known meeting place of BNSP supporters and he wondered quietly why Dooley had chosen to meet there. Dooley told him that MI6 suspected him of illegal activities and occasionally followed him, so he preferred to meet right under their eyes and not to try evasive actions that would alert them that he was up to some mischief. Ollie understood the rationale but did not like it and suggested that they just enjoy lunch and then he could meet with Doctor Jay privately somewhere else without fear of being followed by Paul Dooley's "baby sitters".
After having their lunch and talking about sports, films and politics, Doctor Jay and Ollie left the private room in the pub and went to a crowded café and sat at a corner table. The background noise was at a high level so they could speak quietly without fear of being overheard. Ollie asked Jay about his background and learned that he had earned a doctorate in physics, summa cum laude, from UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) and had worked for several years at the very center of British nuclear weapons production in the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) near Reading. However he had been recently fired for abusing a co-worker who happened to be a British born chemist of Pakistani descent. Jay expressed to Ollie his hatred for Muslims in particular, blaming the government for allowing "fifth columnists" to penetrate the most sensitive center for development of nuclear weapons. He explained that after publicly stating that the Pakistani scientist would probably steal the atomic secrets like A Q Khan had done, he was reported to the authorities and was ordered to leave the building immediately and informed that he was to be fired without compensation.
Jay said he was willing to do anything to speed up the process of expelling all foreigners from England and said he did not care if they went to Scotland or swam into the North Sea as long as they left his country. Ollie asked him if he could lead a small team in production of a nuclear device based on U-233 and Jay said that he believed there were few differences between that and the plutonium based weapons he had manufactured before being fired. Furthermore, he said, he was privy to the most advanced designs that had not even been tested but were accepted as the latest word in nuclear weaponry. Ollie did not like the idea of untested designs but Doctor Jay claimed that the new designs were tested computationally and completely foolproof and that their manufacture was simpler than the older models.
Ollie insisted that they did not have the means to produce anything but the most simple device and Jay said that he had no problem with that approach. He said that Dooley had roughly outlined the project and that he was willing to travel abroad as nothing now tied him to the UK, especially after his wife left him and he no longer lived with his boyfriend who was the main reason his wife divorced him. Ollie said that he didn't care if Jay liked women, men or both and told him to prepare to leave for Italy two days later and they arranged to meet at Heathrow airport for the direct flight to Venice Marco Polo airport, a short drive from Padova.
Ollie and Doctor Jay left their hotel without even having breakfast and went straight to the warehouse in which the secret laboratory was located. Professor Modena was initially a bit reluctant to share his knowledge and concerns with Doctor Jay but Ollie convinced him that their jobs complemented each other and that Jay was not about to replace him or take over the production and separation of the U-233. In order to restrict the number of people who knew the true purpose of the Astraea project they were not to exchange ideas or discuss the project in front of the other people. The only exception was one of the older technicians from the production facility that would work with Jay on the fabrication of the device. Doctor Jay was asked to prepare a list of the equipment and materials he needed for the device and hand it to Ollie personally in the evening. Ollie then saw that Jay and Modena started to deliberate over the modifications needed for use of U-233 as the fissile material for the device.
When he realized that he was virtually ignored because the two scientists were already arguing about this very issue, he bid them farewell after arranging to meet both of them for dinner. Dr. Jay told the professor that they should adopt the classic and well understood and tested design for their improvised nuclear device since they would not be able to conduct any actual trials. He said the most foolproof design was based on a solid core of the fissile material, U-233, that would be transformed from a subcritical configuration to a supercritical one by the tremendous pressure of the implosion of a few hundred kilograms of conventional high explosives. Professor Modena asked him if he meant to deploy the "Christy gadget" configuration and Dr. Jay answered that although more fissile material was required than in other more advanced configurations such as the hollow sphere model, it was more reliable and easy to manufacture even with the unsophisticated machining equipment they had in the lab. He also explained that with this simple configuration the implosion could be triggered by simultaneous detonation of high explosives from 32 points arranged evenly around the sphere.