3:45 AM

DAISY was shivering so much she could hardly hold the ladder. Elton climbed the rungs, grasping a pair of garden shears in one frozen hand. The exterior lamps shone through the filter of falling snow. Kit watched from the garage door, his teeth chattering. Nigel was in the garage, arms wrapped around the burgundy leather briefcase.

The ladder was propped up against the side of Steepfall. Telephone wires emerged at the corner of the house and ran at roof height to the garage. From there, Kit knew, they connected with an underground pipe that ran to the main road. Severing the cables here would cut off the entire property from telephone contact. It was just a precaution, but Nigel had insisted, and Kit had found ladder and shears in the garage.

Kit felt as if he were in a nightmare. He had known that tonight's work would be dangerous, but in his worst moments he had never anticipated that he would be standing outside his family home while a gangster cut the phone lines and a master thief clutched a case containing a virus that could kill them all.

Elton took his left hand off the ladder, balancing cautiously, and held the shears in both hands. He leaned forward, caught a cable between the blades, pressed the handles together, and dropped the shears.

They landed points-down in the snow six inches from Daisy, who let out a yell of shock.

"Hush!" Kit said in a stage whisper.

"He could have killed me!" Daisy protested.

"You'll wake everyone!"

Elton came down the ladder, retrieved the shears, and climbed up again.

They had to go to Luke and Lori's cottage and take the Toyota Land Cruiser, but Kit knew they could not go immediately. They were nearly falling down with exhaustion. Worse, Bat was not sure he could find Luke's place. He had almost lost his way looking for Steepfall. The snow was falling as hard as ever. If they tried to go on now, they would get lost or die of exposure or both. They had to wait until the blizzard eased, or until daylight gave them a better chance of finding their way. And, to make absolutely sure no one could find out that they were here, they were cutting off the phones.

This time, Elton succeeded in snipping the lines. As he came down the ladder, Kit picked up the loose cable ends, twisted them into a bundle, and draped them against the garage wall where they were less conspicuous.

Elton carried the ladder into the garage and dropped it. It clanged on the concrete floor. "Try not to make so much noise!" Kit said.

Nigel looked around the bare stone walls of the converted stable. "We can't stay here."

Kit said, "Better in here than out there."

"We're cold and wet and there's no heat. We could die."

Elton said, "Bloody right."

"We'll run the engines of the cars," Kit said. "That will warm the place."

"Don't be stupid," Elton said. "The fumes will kill us long before the heat warms us."

"We could drive the Ford outside and sit in it."

Daisy said, "Fuck that. I want a cup of tea and hot food and a dram. I'm going in the house."

"No!" The thought of these three in his family home filled Kit with horror. It would be like taking mad dogs home. And what about the briefcase with its virulent contents? How could he let them carry that into the kitchen?

Elton said, "I'm with her. Let's go into the house."

Kit wished bitterly that he had not told them how to cut off the phones. "But how would I explain you?"

"They'll all be asleep."

"And if it's still snowing when they get up?"

Nigel said, "Here's what you say. You don't know us. You met us on the road. Our car is stuck in a snowdrift a couple of miles away. You took pity on us and brought us back here."

"They aren't supposed to know I've left the house!"

"Say you went out for a drink."

Elton said, "Or to meet a girl."

Daisy said, "How old are you, anyway? You need to ask Daddy before you can go out at night?"

It infuriated Kit to be condescended to by a thug like Daisy. "It's a question of what they'll believe, you brain-dead gorgon. Who would be daft enough to go out in a snowstorm and drive miles for a drink, when there's plenty of booze in the house anyway?"

She retorted, "Someone daft enough to lose a quarter of a million pounds at blackjack."

"You'll think of a plausible story, Kit," said Nigel. "Let's get inside, before our fucking feet drop off."

"You left your disguises in the van. My family will see your real faces."

"It doesn't matter. We're just unfortunate stranded motorists. There'll be hundreds like us, it will be on the news. Your family won't connect us with the people who robbed the laboratory."

"I don't like it," Kit said. He was scared of defying these three criminals, but desperate enough ............