“Gail, I –” George didn’t know where to begin, as he broke from their embrace and looked her in the eyes. “I thought I’d lost you, I –”

Gail cut him off, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I know, George, me too. But first we need to see to Ben and Henry.”

He was about to ask who Henry was when Zahra pushed past him and made her way to Ben’s side. She knelt down beside him and located the entry point of the bullet in his left shoulder through a hole in his shirt. She asked him a series of short questions in Arabic, and after each response nodded matter-of-factly. Finally, she repositioned herself so that she was kneeling behind his head and propped him up against her.

“I need some saline,” she told George. “And blood for him,” she nodded at Patterson, whose breathing had turned into a pant. Gail had gone to his side, and was trying to comfort him as best she could.

Tariq had followed them in through the airlock, and Zahra quickly gave him his orders in Arabic. Gail panicked for a moment as she wondered whether the airlock would let them out as easily as it let them in, but as soon as Tariq entered the brightly lit corridor the door closed behind him.

Probing the back of Ben’s shoulder, Zahra found the exit hole directly opposite the entry point on his front. It looked like a clean pass through the shoulder, and some tentative movement of the arm suggested that none of the bones or joints had been hit on the way through.

Using her knife, she cut his shirt open and cleaned the small hole with water from a plastic bottle she got from her backpack. Her medical training in the Army reminded her that there was one major artery and a major vein in the left shoulder, which supplied the left arm and the top of the neck. But the slow rate at which this wound was bleeding and the colour of the blood told her instantly that the bullet hadn’t severed either of them.

“Get me some bandages,” she asked George.

George ferreted in her backpack and came out with two rolls, which he ripped the cellophane from and passed to her one by one. She held the first roll over the hole in his front and used the second bandage to wrap over his shoulder and under his arm. Within a few moments the dressing was secure. She lay him back down on the floor and, standing at his feet, lifted his legs up so they rested against her groin.

“He’s a bit light headed, but the wound itself is not serious,” she said. “This will push some blood back to his head. But he still needs a saline drip to be sure – he could go into shock if we don’t treat him.”

When the colour started to return to Ben’s face and he smiled at her, she put his legs back down on the floor and got him to bend them at the knees.

She moved on to Patterson, and her face dropped. He had started to splutter drops of blood. She gave him a quick inspection and shook her head at Gail and George.

Patterson was drowning in his own blood. He needed emergency treatment, blood, saline and invasive surgery now to stand a chance of living, and they were capable of delivering none of it.

Gail mopped his brow with her sleeve.

“It’ll be fine, Henry,” she said comfortingly. He started to say something, but she hushed him. “No, don’t try to talk.”

He shook his head as best he could, spitting out a mouthful of blood and saliva. “No,” he insisted. “We failed; Mallus thinks he’s Aniquilus. He’s going to plan B.”

“Who’s Aniquilus? What’s plan B?” George asked.

Patterson looked him in the eyes. “Nuclear war,” he coughed and held his chest as he gasped desperately for air. His eyes widened as he realised he was unable to breath.

“Today.” he managed to say as the last breath left his body. He sagged limply against the wall and his chin fell to his chest.

They reached the surface carrying Ben between them, emerging into the evening chill to the welcoming arms of the al-Minya emergency services. George wasted no time in taking advantage of his phone, which had been useless underground.

Martín answered after the fourth ring. “George?”

“Martín, it’s me, we’re OK, and Gail is safe,” George summarised. He cut Martín’s joyous reply off. “DEFCOMM are launching an attack, Martín. They’re going to try and start World War III!” On their way to the surface, Gail had told him about DEFCOMM’s hangers full of missiles being assembled. There was no doubt that if Seth Mallus wanted to kick things off, he had the muscle to do so.

He said as much to Martín, and after wishing him luck, hung up.

They could only hope that Martín was able to get the message through to the Americans quickly enough, and that they would take it seriously.

As Ben was being looked over by two paramedics, Gail slipped her hand round George’s waist, pulled him close and kissed him softly on the lips.

Chapter 81

Martín was immediately on the phone to Larue, as Jacqueline tried to figure out what had got him out of bed in such a hurry: it was barely seven o’clock in the evening.  They were still in the earliest stages of their relationship, where love had no timetable and the world revolved around the bedroom. Plus, he’d been away in Egypt for days and they had spent most of Saturday making up for lost time.

She clung to his neck passionately, and he managed to untangle himself tactfully in order to concentrate on the conversation with Larue. Once she heard his tone of voice, all thoughts of love-making left her head, and she pulled a pillow to her chest for comfort.

Martín explained the situation in Egypt and what Patterson had told Gail and George before dying. He’d expected to make a full report to his boss after the weekend, but this new information couldn’t wait that long.

Jacqueline got dressed while he listened to Larue’s response.

“I’ve already told you,” he said desperately, cutting him off mid-sentence. “DEFCOMM, in Florida. Yes I know it sounds crazy, but think about it: they control the defence satellites for the United States, which includes all of the early warning systems for nuclear attack. If they want to, they can simulate an attack on the United States from anywhere on Earth. We need to warn the Americans!”

By the time he put the phone down Jacqueline had been to heat up some coffee. She passed him his mug.

“What did he say?”

He looked her in the eyes. “I’ve done what I can. I’m not sure he really believes it, but he’s going to talk to his counterpart at NASA.”

“Do you think it’s true, what they said about them wanting to start a nuclear war?”

He looked into the thick-black liquid. To Martín, coffee was one of the world’s great paradoxes; it would certainly put him on edge and make him nervous later, but when he was actually drinking it he felt a smooth calm descend on his mind. Its heat and bitterness could lift any doubt and confusion, allowing him to focus effectively.

“Think about it,” he said eventually, “remember what they did to the crew of the Clarke? What did we think at the time? That there must be something pretty incredible worth hiding to go to all the trouble of disrupting all transmissions from the spaceship, and then from Mars, too. And now, God only knows what’s happened up there, since we haven’t had any news from the planet for days.

“Not since Apollo 11 have the eyes of the world been so firmly rooted on a space mission, and never in the course of history has technology made it so easy for people to follow it. And yet they tried. Imagine the risk!” He took a gulp of coffee. “If they were prepared to do that, then they either had a lot to gain, or nothing to lose. It’s inevitable that they would be found out eventually, because –”

He froze. Jacqueline stared at him wide-eyed, and pushed him to talk. “Because what?”

“Because the mission was never coming home. That’s the only way they would have been able to ensure that no-one found out. But Gail Turner’s free now, she’s talked.”