through to MI5 for analysis. You said you had a handheld computer?’
Bruce nodded. ‘Yeah, quite a flash one, it was in his jacket. I tried getting something out of it while I was in the cab, but it’s got a password.’
‘That’s no major surprise,’ John said. ‘I’ve got you booked on a BA flight leaving at one a.m. Last check-in for business class is at midnight, which gives you two hours to get yourself cleaned up, fed and headed off to the airport. Chloe has brought your passport and a change of clothes over to my hotel room. It’s a thirteen-hour flight. You land in London at seven a.m. GMT.’
‘Why am I leaving?’
‘Help Earth always uses strong encryption. Any useful data on that PDA is going to take serious computer power to decode and that means I want that machine at MI5 headquarters in London ASAP. An intelligence officer will meet you at the gate when you get off the plane and take it off you.
‘You’ll be taking it because the sooner you’re out of here the better. You’ve almost certainly been filmed by a security camera entering that hotel and then leaving with Barry Cox’s bag. Hong Kong makes a lot of money out of foreign visitors and the police take crime against tourists seriously. They’ll be on the lookout for a kid fitting your description.’
‘That’s if it gets reported to the police. Cox might prefer to stay out of their way.’
‘The hotel management are bound to call in the cops when they find him trussed up. Whether Cox files a complaint or not is another matter.’
‘I cleaned up my fingerprints and I wore gloves during the search, but someone might still pick up traces of my DNA in that hotel room.’
‘We’ll deal with it,’ John said. ‘Hong Kong was a British colony for a hundred and fifty years and MI5 still has deep roots around here. Once the heat dies down, we’ll make sure any evidence linking you to that hotel robbery goes walkabout.’
Bruce nodded. ‘Do you think there’s any chance I could be picked up at the airport?’
John shook his head. ‘A hotel mugging isn’t going to spark a full security alert.’
The pair stopped at a crossing and waited for a walk sign.
‘So what are you lot gonna be doing while I’m flying back?’
‘We’re discussing various options,’ John said. ‘I’ve given campus all the details we’ve got so far. Hopefully they’ll come back with solid info in a few hours and we’ll be able to start making some decisions.’
7. TIDYING
Kerry was woken by the doorbell at 6:45 the following morning. She rubbed her eyes as she wandered into the kitchen dressed in a grey vest and knickers. A motorcycle courier stood in the doorway and Chloe was signing for a small padded envelope.
‘What’s going on?’ Kerry yawned, as Chloe pushed shut the door. ‘You look a state.’
‘Thank you, Kerry.’
‘Sorry,’ Kerry said. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude …’
‘I know you didn’t,’ Chloe smiled. ‘I’m sure I do look pretty rough. My head hasn’t touched a pillow yet. Neither has John’s.’
‘Why not?’ Kerry asked.
Chloe walked to the cutlery drawer, grabbed a steak knife and used it to slice open the envelope. ‘Fuses,’ she answered cryptically, as Kerry poured out a glass of orange juice and sat herself at the dining table.
Chloe delved her hand into the envelope. She stripped out a layer of bubble wrap before removing four sticks of plastic explosive, identical to the ones Kerry had seen in Clyde’s bedroom the afternoon before.
‘At two a.m., we got information from CHERUB campus based upon the pictures you shot in Clyde’s room,’ Chloe explained. ‘The fuses are a special design made in tiny quantities for the CIA. They’ve never fallen into the hands of terrorists before. The fuse is designed to trigger when air pressure drops below a certain level.’
Kerry looked confused. ‘What good is that?’
‘At high altitude, air pressure is lower than at ground level.’
‘Right,’ Kerry said. ‘So if you want to blow up a mountaineer …’
‘Or an aeroplane,’ Chloe said.
‘Oh.’ Kerry felt like an idiot as she realised that American intelligence didn’t go around blowing up mountaineers.
Chloe continued her explanation. ‘Viennese is a small Italian oil exploration company that just hit big with the discovery of a major oil field in the South China Sea. But they need the financial muscle and expertise of a larger company to develop it. The chairman and owner of the soon to be explosive overnight bag is a guy called