Having examined the two tapes, they ran them side by side, and then started freeze-framing particular shots, shots of similar buildings taken from similar angles. On the top left corner of each was an hour-and-minute counter, and they used this to align the two tapes temporally, checking differences in light and in the quality of the shadows cast by the evening sun. Izzard never seemed satisfied, and would run a section again, sharpening the focus, enlarging a shot onscreen: this enlarging process was again of his own design and the unit he operated his own construction.
‘I haven’t perfected it yet,’ he admitted, though the results were, to Hepton’s eyes, impressive enough.
At four o’clock, Izzard suggested they pause for breakfast. Sanders was snoring, so they left him to his sleep and went outside. Birds were chirping hesitantly in the distance, and a few early cars and lorries were on the road. After the cool of the lab, the morning seemed already oppressively warm. Izzard walked with hands in pockets.
‘I think I can see it,’ he said.
‘What?’ Hepton asked, still coming out of his brief hallucinatory stage.
‘What it is you’ve been looking for. I can see it now.’ Izzard turned to him. ‘They’re not the same place, are they?’
Hepton smiled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘They’re not.’ He was pleased that Izzard could see it, too. If he could see it, then everybody could see it. It wasn’t just in Hepton’s mind. ‘I should have realised right back at the beginning,’ he explained. ‘One day I was watching Buchan and it got dark at a certain time. Then Zephyr was got at, and suddenly it was starting to get dark earlier at Buchan.’
‘Except that it wasn’t Buchan,’ Izzard noted.
‘That’s right,’ said Hepton. ‘That’s what this is all about. Someone doesn’t want us to see what’s really going on at Buchan. So instead they’ve rigged a lookalike.’
‘A mock-up.’
‘Yes. But a very good mock-up. A bit too good.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I think it must be a real airbase, but not one of the other ones the USAF has been using. We’ve been watching all of those at one time or other. It must be RAF.’
‘Excuse my ignorance, but if all you do all day is watch these pictures, wouldn’t someone notice that it wasn’t Buchan?’
‘Not really,’ said Hepton. ‘For one thing, our remit wasn’t to watch the bases so much as watch their perimeters for protesters.’
‘Weird,’ said Izzard. ‘Not so long ago, they were protesting about the Americans being here. Now they’re protesting about them going.’
‘Besides,’ Hepton continued, ‘we mostly examine still photos, and still aerial photos look much the same. We would be checking for things that were different, not things that looked the same. We’re only technicians, remember. We’re not spies.’
Izzard nodded, deep in thought but enjoying himself.
‘This base, the one they’re using, it’s south of Buchan?’
‘Yes, someplace where it gets dark earlier than it does in Scotland at this time of year; somewhere down here.’
‘There are plenty to choose from.’
‘Not very many would fit the bill. It should be easy to find which one it is.’
‘This begs two rather large questions: why, and how?’
They had reached the café. There were no taxis outside now. Shifts had either ended or not yet begun. The glare of strip lighting made Hepton squint as they pushed through the door. A small, sweating man was standing behind the counter, wiping it down with a rag. He looked up as they entered.
‘This is a late one for you, Graeme,’ he said to Izzard.
‘I wouldn’t mind, Alfie, but the overtime rate is diabolical. Give us two of your special breakfasts, will you?’
‘Coming up. Where’s my flask?’
Izzard opened his arms in apology. ‘Sorry, Alfie. I forgot. It’s back at the lab.’
‘Well, never mind. Do you want any tea?’
‘Coffee for me, black and sweet. What about you, Martin?’
‘Black, no sugar, please,’ said Hepton.
The man nodded and started to work.
‘How and why,’ said Hepton. ‘Yes, you’re right. But we’re very close to answering both. I can feel it. I can almost answer the “how” right now, though it’s only guesswork.’
‘Go ahead.’ They had seated themselves on padded benches either side of a Formica-topped table. Hepton rested his elbows on the table, hands supporting his head as he thought things through.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘A shuttle, the Argos—’
‘The one that crashed?’
‘Yes, the one that crashed. It was up there launching a communications satellite. Except the satellite wasn’t just your normal COMINT satellite, it was an intercept.’
‘An intercept?’
‘Yes. Its purpose was to lock on to Zephyr. While it was locking on, Zephyr’s transmissions went haywire. But nobody minded that, because as long as the transmissions returned eventually, everyone would put it down to a glitch, nothing more. Some top brass from the military were on site when it all happened, just to check that the operation went smoothly. It did, more or less. Except I noticed how pleased they were looking, and one other person, a friend of mine, caught a hint of the interference. They murdered him and wiped his disk.’
Izzard whistled softly. Hepton paused, then continued.
‘So what do we have? We have Zephyr apparently back to normal, except that it isn’t, not quite. Because whenever we lock on to one particular spot — Buchan — the other satellite breaks in and transmits its own pictures to Zephyr before they’re transmitted to the ground station.’
Izzard was shaking his head. ‘This is too big for me,’ he said. ‘I’m used to bank robbers and spies, not conspiracies in space.’
‘Conspiracy is right. The Americans and the British are in on it for a start. But the governments don’t seem to know, only the generals.’
The door opened and a well-dressed man came into the café. Hepton glanced up at him, but was too intent on his story to pay him much attention. The man slid into the booth next to theirs, so that his back was to Izzard’s back. Alfie was still in the kitchen, his frying pan sizzling.
‘Only the generals,’ Izzard repeated. ‘So whatever’s happening, what can we do about it?’
‘I really don’t know. We could persuade Whitehall that something’s going on, but the suits in Curzon Street didn’t seem to think it would produce much joy. What we need is proof, absolute proof.’
‘Well, you’ve got that, haven’t you? I mean, the tapes?’
‘But what do they prove? Not what’s happening, only that something is.’
‘So go to Buchan. Take a look for yourself.’
‘Yes,’ said Hepton. ‘Yes, maybe you’re right.’
The newcomer swivelled on his bench so that he was facing their booth. Hepton glared at him, realising that he had heard every word. The man looked pale, tired. Not a killer, not just at the moment.
‘Mr Izzard generally is right,’ he said.
Izzard’s head cracked round at the sound of the voice. Then his face broke into a grin.
‘Why don’t you join us?’ he said. The man got up and did so. Izzard was still grinning. ‘Once,’ he said to Hepton, ‘I went to lunch and came back to the lab, and I’d been in there ten minutes before I realised this sneaky sod was in there too. Just sitting, out of my line of vision, and absolutely still. A professional voyeur, that’s what you are.’