CHRISTMAS DAY

MIDNIGHT

THE Kremlin looked like something from a fairy tale, with snow falling thickly around its floodlit roofs and towers. As the van with "Hibernian Telecom" on its side approached the main gate, Kit had a momentary fancy that he was the Black Knight riding up to besiege the place.

He felt relieved to get here. The storm was turning into a full-scale blizzard, contrary to the forecast, and the journey from the airfield had taken longer than expected. The delay made him fearful. Every minute that passed made it more likely that snags would threaten his elaborate plan.

The phone call from Toni Gallo worried him. He had put her through to Steve Tremlett, fearing that if he played her a fault message she might drive to the Kremlin to find out what was going on. But, having listened in to the conversation, Kit thought she might do that anyway. It was lousy bad luck that she was in Inverburn, instead of at a spa fifty miles away.

The first of the two barriers lifted, and Elton moved the van forward and drew level with the gatehouse. There were two guards in the booth, as Kit expected. Elton wound down the window. A guard leaned out and said, "We're glad to see you laddies."

Kit did not know the man but, recalling his conversation with Hamish, he realized it must be Willie Crawford. Looking past him, Kit saw Hamish himself.

Willie said, "It's good of you to come out at Christmas."

"All part of the job," Elton said.

"Three of you, is it?"

"Plus Goldilocks in the back."

A low snarl came from behind. "Watch your mouth, shitface."

Kit suppressed a groan. How could they squabble at such a crucial moment?

Nigel murmured, "Knock it off, you two."

Willie did not appear to have heard the exchange. He said, "I need to see identification for everyone, please."

They all took out their faked cards. Elton had based them on Kit's recollection of what the Hibernian Telecom pass looked like. The phone system rarely broke down, so Kit had figured no guard was likely to remember what a genuine pass looked like. Now, with a security guard scrutinizing the cards as if they were dubious fifty-pound notes, Kit held his breath.

Willie wrote down the name from each card. Then he handed them all back without comment. Kit looked away and allowed himself to breathe again.

"Drive to the main entrance," Willie said. "You'll be all right if you stay between the lampposts." The road ahead was invisible, covered with snow. "At reception you'll find a Mr. Tremlett who can tell you where to go."

The second barrier lifted, and Elton pulled forward.

They were inside.

Kit felt sick with fear. He had broken the law before, with the scam that got him fired, but that had not felt like crime, it was more like cheating at cards, something he had done since he was eleven years old. This was a straightforward burglary, and he could go to jail. He swallowed hard and tried to concentrate. He thought of the enormous sum he owed Harry Mac. He remembered the blind terror he had felt this morning, when Daisy held his head under water and he thought he was dying. He had to go through with this.

Nigel said quietly to Elton, "Try not to aggravate Daisy."

"It was just a joke," Elton said defensivcly.

"She's got no sense of humor."

If Daisy heard, she did not respond.

Elton parked at the main entrance and they got out. Kit carried his laptop. Nigel and Daisy took tool boxes from the back of the van. Elton had an expensive-looking burgundy leather briefcase, very slim with a brass catch—typical of his taste, but a bit odd for a telephone repairman, Kit thought.

They passed between the stone lions of the porch and entered the Great Hall. Low security lights intensified the churchlike look of the Victorian architecture: the mullioned windows, the pointed arches, and the serried timbers of the roof. The dimness made no difference to the security cameras, which—Kit knew—worked by infrared light.

At the modern reception desk in the middle of the hall were two more guards. One was an attractive young woman Kit did not recognize, and the other was Steve Tremlett. Kit hung back, not wanting Steve to look at him too closely. "You'll want to access the central processing unit," Steve said.

Nigel answered. "That's the place to start."

Steve raised his eyebrows at the London accent, but made no comment. "Susan will show you the way—I need to stay by the phone."

Susan had short hair and a pierced eyebrow. She wore a shirt with epaulettes, a tie, dark serge uniform trousers, and black lace-up shoes. She gave them a friendly smile and led them along a corridor paneled in dark wood.

A weird calm seemed to descend on Kit. He was inside, being escorted by a security guard, about to rob the place. He felt fatalistic. The cards had been dealt, he had placed his bet, there was nothing to do now but play out his h?nd, win or lose.

They entered the control room.

The place was cleaner and tidier than Kit remembered, with all cables neatly stowed and logbooks in a row on a shelf. He presumed that was loni's influence. Here also there were two guards instead of one. They sat at the long desk, watching the monitors. Susan introduced them as Don and Stu. Don was a dark-skinned south Indian with a thick Glasgow accent, and Stu was a freckled redhead. Kit did not recognize either one. An extra guard was no big deal, Kit told himself: just another pair of eyes to shield things from, another brain to be distracted, another person to be lulled into apathy.

Susan opened the door to the equipment room. "The CPU is in there."

A moment later Kit was inside the inner sanctum. Just like that! he thought, although it had taken weeks of preparation. Here were the computers and other devices that ran not just the phone system but also the lighting, the security cameras, and the alarms. Even to get this far was a triumph.

He said to Susan, "Thanks very much—well take it from here."

"If there's anything you need, come to reception," she said, and she left.

Kit put his laptop on a shelf and connected it to the security computer. He pulled over a chair and turned his laptop so that the screen could not be seen by someone standing in the doorway. He felt Daisy's eyes on him, suspicious and malevolent. "Go into the next room," he said to her. "Keep an eye on the guards,"

She glared resentfully at him for a moment, then did as he said.

Kit took a deep breath. He knew exactly what he had to do. He needed to work fast, but carefully.

First, he accessed the program that controlled the video feed from thirty-seven closed-circuit television cameras. He looked at the entrance to BSL4, which appeared normal. He checked the reception desk and saw Steve there, but not Susan. Scanning the input from other cameras, he located Susan patrolling elsewhere in the building. He noted the time.

The computers massive memory stored the camera images for four weeks before overwriting them. Kit knew his way around the program, for he had installed it. He located the video from the cameras in BSL4 this time last night. He checked the feed, random sampling footage, to make sure no crazy scientist had been working in the lab in the middle of the night; but all the images showed empty rooms. Good.

Nigel and Elton watched him in tense silence.

He then fed last night's images into the monitors the guards were currently watching.

Now someone could walk around BSL4 doing anything he liked without their knowing.

The monitors were fitted with biased switches that would detect equipment substitution, for example if the feed came from a separate videotape deck. However, this footage was not coming from an outside source, but direct from the computer's memory—so it did not trigger the alarm.

Kit stepped into the main control room. Daisy was slumped in a chair, wearing her leather jacket over the Hibernian Telecom overalls. Kit studied the bank of screens. All appeared normal. The dark-skinned guard, Don, looked at him with an inquiring expression. As a cover, Kit said, "Are any of the phones in here working?"

"None," said Don.

Along the bottom edge of each screen was a line of text giving the time and date. The time was the same on the screens that showed yesterday's footage—Kit had made sure of that. But yesterday's footage showed yesterday's date.

Kit was betting that no one ever looked at that date. The guards scanned the screens for activity; they did not read text that told them what they already knew.

He hoped he was right.

Don was wondering why the telephone repairman was so interested in the television monitors. "Something we can do for you?" he said in a challenging tone.

Daisy grunted and stirred in her chair, like a dog sensing tension among the humans.

Kit's mobile phone rang.

He stepped back into the equipment room. The message on the screen of his laptop said: "Kremlin calling Toni." He guessed that Steve wanted to let Toni know that the repair team had arrived. He decided to put the call through: it might reassure Toni and discourage her from coming here. He touched a key, then listened in on his mobile.

"This is Toni Gallo." She was in her car; Kit could hear the engine.

"Steve here, at the Kremlin. The maintenance team from H............