Sampson disappeared behind a screen into his makeshift darkroom.
Samantha took Megan off to her tent to inspect her ankle, leaving David and Susie alone.
“We need to hide the rucksacks and tools in the woods,” said David. “Sampson will take the keys.”
Susie glanced at the camera. “Would you mind doing that? I’m shattered.”
“Of course.”
He checked the rucksacks to make sure they had retrieved everything bar the tools, and headed out.
Susie figured she had a few seconds before Sampson would reappear from the screens. She pointed the torch directly at the camera, turned its back toward the light and fiddled with the catch on its base until the back flipped open.
She held it in the light for as long as she dared.
Too long.
Sampson appeared next to her.
Shit.
She closed her eyes. There was nothing she could do. Caught red-handed.
Nothing happened.
Opening her eyes, she reached forward and as softly as possible pressed the camera shut.
“Move, please,” he eventually said.
She looked to her left to find him crouching under the table, groping for something.
As he stood up, with a brown A4 size envelope marked ILFORD PHOTOGRAPHIC PAPER, he nodded toward the torch. “Switch that off, please. Go outside and make sure no-one comes in. I’m about to open the camera. Where is it?”
She handed it to him.
“Susie,” she said as he walked away. “I’m Susie.”
“Thank you, Susie,” he said without looking back.
She pulled the flaps of the wigwam closed and took her position guarding the entrance.
Megan reappeared in shorts with a neat bandage around her ankle.
“Samantha’s done a good job,” Susie said.
“It’s fine.”
Susie handed over guard duty and slipped off to her tent.
She sat cross-legged in the opening, pulling a sleeping blanket around her to keep off the overnight chill.
And waited.
Her watch said 4.10AM. They were just a few days from the summer solstice, and the sun was about to come up.
It was deathly quiet.
After a few minutes, she saw Sampson appear at the wigwam opening.
A rising inflection in Megan’s voice.
It sounded like panic.
“No! Impossible!”
Susie got up and walked over.
“Everything all right?”
Megan shot her a look like thunder.
“There’s nothing on the bloody film. It was all for nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing on it?” Susie asked, looking wide-eyed and innocent.
Megan pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. Sampson appeared through the flaps of the wigwam, his arms laden with the darkroom equipment.
“The film’s exposed,” he said, as he headed to the back of his van.
“Exposed? How did that happen?”
“It happens,” Sampson said.
“Or someone sabotaged us,” Megan said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
Sampson didn’t look up but he made a derisory snorting sound.
“Sabotage?” Susie said.
“Leaky camera,” Sampson said. “I told you to test it.” He disappeared back into the tent to retrieve the rest of his kit.
Susie turned to Megan and spoke with as much sympathy as she could muster.
“We still have the folder. Where is it?”
The lines of Megan’s face looked deep in the grey first light. She didn’t reply, and wandered off.
When Sampson came back out, he held a bulging rucksack.
She followed him, not taking her eyes off the bag.
“Can I help with anything?”
“No.”
There was something in the way he looked at her. The first signs of suspicion, maybe?
She decided not to push her luck.
It was out of her hands, now.
As she walked back toward her tent, he drove past, the Morris van rocking as it trundled over the uneven grass. It turned onto the main road and disappeared from view on the other side of a hedge.
She bit her lip, listening to the receding engine noise.
The van came back into view in the distance, heading toward the S-bends south of the airfield.
After what seemed an age, a second set of headlights came on and a car swung out behind the van.
The two vehicles disappeared from sight.
12
SATURDAY 18TH JUNE
“Where are they?” said Kilton.
“On their way, boss,” the adjutant replied.
Millie stood between the two, staring down at the broken door.
Secure Cabinet 3 had been cleared out. The small padlock discarded on the floor, along with the thin metal base plate.
The room was quiet.
They’d followed so much protocol to ensure it remained hidden from view. Not just from the public, but from the rest of the RAF and armed forces.
And yet someone had been inside TFU, forced open the cabinet and simply walked out with it.
Who was reading about Guiding Light now?
Kilton’s breathing grew heavier.
He kicked the cabinet; it rocked against the wall, flakes of paint fluttering to the ground.
The adjutant flinched.
Rob May and Red Brunson crashed through the doors.
Kilton set off toward his office.
“Follow me.”
He sat down as the men shuffled in behind him.
“It was targeted. They must have known about Guiding Light.”
Brunson and May looked at each other.
“We had a break-in last night,” Millie said. “One cabinet was accessed. Guiding Light material is missing. Tapes and project files.”
“Christ,” spluttered Rob. “Do we know who it was?”
“Who’d you think it was?” Kilton said. “It was obviously those bloody fairies at the end of the bloody runway.” He paused. “But they must have had help. There’s someone in here leaking. Someone on the inside. We have a traitor in our midst.”
“Or they just broke in to do some damage and got lucky?” Millie suggested.
“Don’t be so bloody naive, Millie. They knew what they were looking for. Nothing else is gone. The hatch to the Vulcan was open. Engineers are certain it was left closed.”
Millie had seen Vulcan hatches left open overnight before, but said nothing.
“They’ve stolen Guiding Light from the Vulcan?” Rob said.
“No. Everything’s still there. But they know it exists and that could be the end of the project.”
Millie could contact JR to stand down the flight to Abingdon. The peace protestors may have just done him a favour.
But Kilton continued. “We can’t let that happen, can we? We’ve come too far. There’s too much at stake.”
Kilton looked galvanised, eyes wide.
“We need to move quickly and surely. First, we find out who the traitor is. I need a list of everyone who has had any dealings with the project. Anyone who knew what it was, where the paperwork was, and which aircraft it was fitted to. And I want the list now.”
Rob looked at Millie.
“That’ll have to be you, Millie. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“That’s a lot of people, boss,” Millie said. “Only a few of us properly know about it, but others know of it.”
“Just draw up the bloody list, Milford.”
“May, Brunson, you can start by rounding up everything to do with the project now. This place is no longer secure. From now on, everything stays in the safe in the HQ building.”
The men stayed where they were for a moment, not sure if Kilton was finished. He looked at them, exasperated. “Go! Get on with it!”
THE CELL WAS DAMP. Condensation clung to the thick stone walls. Susie pulled her arms tightly around herself and tried to settle on the hard wooden bed.