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The command made her raise haughty eyebrows. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Anna’s head poked around the corner. ‘Hey, Chief, Bryan says you’d better suit up—it’s zero-minus-ten and counting.’
‘All right, all right—’ He waved her away and began grabbing things off his desk and slinging them into a briefcase.
‘What on earth is going on?’
He snapped down the catches on the briefcase and spun the combination lock. ‘Get your laptop and come with me.’
‘What for?’ she asked, relieved to turn her mind to more impersonal matters.
‘Just do it, OK?’ he said impatiently.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll find out when we get there—like all the rest.’
There was safety in numbers, she reminded herself. ‘Are we going to be away long?’
‘Probably.’
‘You’re going to leave Bettina in charge of the office for the whole day?’ was her first appalled thought.
‘Anna’ll keep her in line. Now can you get a move on? Everyone else is waiting…’
He hustled her into the lift and pressed the button for the top floor.
On the windy roof Kalera stared in dismay at the helicopter being loaded up by Bryan and his four coworkers, all of whom, she noticed ominously, had roll-bags or suitcases of personal gear.
‘Exactly how long is long?’ she demanded as Duncan added his briefcase and laptop to the load.
He shrugged. ‘However long it takes. Look—’ he tersely cut off her burgeoning protest ‘—your soon-to-be-ex-fiancé—’ the emphasis was crushing ‘—has suddenly started boasting about a speech-recognition program which bears a suspicious resemblance to ours, so I’m cutting off any possible source of information. I’m going to sequester this team in a leak-proof fortress and maybe, without any outside distractions, we can accelerate our final debugging and bring this baby home early enough to pre-empt a coup.’
‘Why take me and not Anna?’
‘Because Anna’s working on other priority programs and I’d rather have you where I can keep an eye on you…’
‘Are you accusing me of having something to do with the leak?’ She bristled up at him.
‘If I thought that you wouldn’t have a ticket to ride,’ he said, throttling her doubt with a look.
‘Then how come everyone but me got more than five minutes’ notice?’ she said, pointing at the pile of suitcases.
‘Because I was able to contact all of them yesterday,’ said Duncan smoothly.
‘But I haven’t made any arrangements to be away.’ She chafed. ‘I haven’t even got a change of clothes! And what about my car—and my house? I have to cancel the paper!’
‘Anna is going to deal with all that for you. You can send her a message about what things to pack for you and we’ll send the helicopter back to collect it.’ The wind had whipped his black hair into devilish quiffs.
‘I should at least let my parents know I’ll be away—’
‘Already done.’
She hesitated, twisting the burdensome ring on her finger, before admitting the root of her reluctance. It was no good—she couldn’t leave herself, or Stephen, hanging in limbo for an indeterminate length of time…
‘I need to make one phone call,’ she pleaded, hoping that Stephen would be in his office. ‘It won’t take long—’
The pilot had begun to rotate the huge blades.
