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Clancy and Trident were waiting for them, but the jet’s engines weren’t running. Clancy said, “There’s a major power outage in London. We’re grounded temporarily. We can’t fly in. Air traffic control is in emergency-operations mode, trying to get the planes in the air onto the ground without proper communications. Even with generators, the entire airspace is messed up.”
“Do we have any way to communicate with Nicholas?”
“We can encrypt a call through the plane’s system and give it a try. Though if there’s no power, there’s no cell service, and the landlines will be out, too.”
“How did the power go out?”
“No idea. Radio traffic said it all went black, and—”
There was a squawk from inside the plane. “There’s good news. Someone’s trying to reach us.” They ran up the gangway, and Mike watched Clancy sit in the pilot’s seat and put on the headset.
“It’s Nicholas. He’s asking for you, Mike.”
He gave her the headset. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Nothing much really, only a minor glitch. Adam and I may have melted down London’s grid, but we’re back up and running now.”
Mike burst out laughing. “You’re the reason London has no power? Why does this not surprise me? Those hoots and laughs you hear in the background is the team laughing at you.”
Nicholas called out, “All right, you baboons, why don’t one of you guys try to single-handedly—well, okay, double-handedly, since I have to include Adam—restore the Internet to a pristine state? Mike, I’ll explain it all when you get here. Our comms are now officially secure. We purged MATRIX off MI5’s servers entirely. Plug in your mobile and get back here right away.”
“If this is a secure line—”
“It is.”
“We found a massive cache of weapons. It appears Vittorini was running arms.”
“Was she now? My father will be interested in this news. Come on home. I’ll meet you at the house. We have all sorts of things to discuss.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
MI5 Headquarters, Home Office
Thames House
12 Millbank
Westminster, London
Harry Drummond was packing his briefcase to head to Clapton House, the flat he kept in Bayswater, when a knock sounded on his door, and an old friend’s face appeared.
“Harry, how are you? Do you have a moment?”
“Corry, I’m fine. How are you? How is June?”
“She’s bursting with health, as always. In Cornwall, at the manse. Mitzie?”
“At home, as well. Say, you look a bit peaked, are you coming down with something?”
“No, no, all’s well. What a few days. Terry Alexander, Chappy Donovan? Who would have thought they were capable of getting on the bad side of someone? Now Hemmler I never liked, he was a bad man, so I hear. But Alexander and Donovan? Ah, it’s scary times we live in, Harry.”
“And now Paulina Vittorini was killed up in Scotland, in Glasgow, at her shipyard—”
“What?”
Harry grabbed Corry Jones’s arm. “You hadn’t heard? So you knew her?”
