Skydancer (2 page)

‘Good God!' he exclaimed under his breath. ‘That's the Atomic Weapons place.'

A small group of protesters had been camping outside the gates of Aldermaston Research Establishment for several years now, on and off. Banners denouncing the evil of nuclear weapons hung on the chain-link fence – next to the camp washing.

Every morning and evening, the protesters' numbers were augmented by a dozen or so local women, who came to wave their placards and to stare in stony reproach at the thousands of Aldermaston employees entering or leaving the establishment. These protesters saw themselves as part of an international sorority struggling to save the world from nuclear destruction. From time to time their activities would feature in the national newspapers, and though the reports were frequently insulting, this only served to strengthen their sense of alienation from the Establishment.

Peter Joyce drove up to the gates of Aldermaston soon after eight o'clock on that particular October morning. He had taken to making an early start in recent months, to cope with the colossal workload that
had built up for him. Joyce headed the project to which most of the Aldermaston's extensive facilities were currently devoted – the creation of an advanced new nuclear warhead for the Polaris missiles that Britain had maintained operational for over twenty years.

The design team had been assembled almost overnight two years ago, following a dramatic Government decision to cancel plans for replacing Polaris with the much larger and more sophisticated American Trident missiles. Faced with the danger that new Soviet Ballistic Missile Defences might make the ten-billion-pound Trident obsolete early in the next century, the Government had suddenly decided to save money by modernising Polaris instead.

Peter Joyce was a physicist by training and had developed a knowledge of military electronics that was unequalled in Britain. In his late forties, he looked fit and energetic. His square jaw gave him the appearance of a 1950s cricketer. Several major armaments manufacturers both at home and in the USA had tried to buy his talents over the years, but he had always resisted them. Working for the Government at Aldermaston did little to swell his bank account, but it gave him access to the most advanced technology in the world, the ‘cutting edge' of research, with the use of vastly more comprehensive scientific facilities than any commercial arms manufacturer could afford to maintain.

Hundreds of millions of pounds had been spent on buying the most powerful computers in the world, including the massive number-crunching Crays. They had been worked around-the-clock to fulfil the Government's latest requirement: to develop a deception system that would enable the Polaris warheads to penetrate any defences the Soviet Union could devise this century.

It had been no easy task; packing the advanced electronic deception systems into the small nose-cone of a Polaris missile was ‘like squeezing a Rolls-Royce engine into a Mini', as Peter muttered to his colleagues whenever the problems seemed insurmountable. But that task had now been nearly completed; unarmed warheads together with their decoy systems were about to be fired off in a Polaris test rocket, for the first time later that week.

Countless times each day, as the test launch drew nearer, Peter ran through his mental checklist, for fear some vital component of the system had been overlooked. To him the development process had been like a chess game, using his brainpower and ingenuity to outwit his Russian opponents. The weapons that he was developing may have the ability to slaughter millions of people, yet for him the exercise of designing them had been almost academic. It was inconceivable, he felt sure, that human beings would ever be mad enough to actually use them.

As he drove in through the gates of Aldermaston, the few dozen placard-waving protesters on the roadside had a rather less optimistic view of human nature. Few of those watching knew the identity or particular importance of the man behind the wheel of the grey Vauxhall. But one woman certainly did – she was his wife.

Sharp at nine o'clock, the Permanent Undersecretary at the Ministry of Defence was at his desk on the sixth floor of the bleak, grey military powerhouse in Whitehall. Sir Marcus Beckett was a punctual man, steeped in the ethic of professionalism and academic excellence by which the British Civil Service likes to think it is characterised.

He was a short man, not quite five feet nine inches in his socks. Self-consciousness at his stature had fuelled his determination to succeed in a career where a height of more than six feet seemed a requisite for rapid promotion.

His last job had been at the Treasury, and he had arrived at the Defence Ministry fired by determination to cut the ever-growing cost of Defence, undaunted by the limited success his predecessors had enjoyed in that same task.

The phone rang just as he was saying ‘Good morning' to his secretary. The caller was an anxious clerk in the main reception area downstairs.

‘She says there's a retired general called Twining standing at the desk,' the secretary whispered to the PUS, covering the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand. ‘He insists on talking to you personally; says it's a matter of national security. She's checked his ID, and he seems genuine.'

Beckett frowned. The country seemed to be full of retired generals, and his own connection with Defence had been too short to give him any memory of a man called Twining.

‘Better get him escorted up here,' he muttered eventually, but added sharply, ‘Be ready to have him thrown out if he turns out to be a nutter!'

Three minutes later, as General David Twining was ushered into his office, Beckett scrutinised him critically, concluding that the man certainly looked genuine. In two short sentences, the general summarised his military career by way of introduction, then, with a distinct sense of drama, he placed on the civil servant's desk the buff-coloured folder he had found that morning.

‘I found this in a rubbish bin on Hampstead Heath.
Parliament Hill to be exact,' he intoned, narrowing his eyes to observe Beckett's reaction.

The civil servant frowned as he opened the folder and stared at the single sheet of paper inside. Suddenly his eyebrows shot upwards in undisguised horror.

‘Good Lord!' he exploded. ‘In a rubbish bin? Are you sure?'

Twining looked affronted.

‘Well of course you're sure. Otherwise you wouldn't be here!'

Beckett swung round sharply to press the switch on his office intercom, asking his secretary to send immediately for the head of security.

‘Sit down. Sit down please, General,' he gestured to a chair, while taking a longer and closer look at the document. After a moment he groaned softly. ‘This does
not
look good.'

He put the folder down again.

‘Anyone else know about this? Was anyone with you when you found it?'

Twining shook his head. ‘Only my dog.'

Sir Marcus winced.

There was a respectful tap at the door.

‘Come in!' Beckett yelled. ‘Ah, Commander Duncan! We've got some work for you, I'm afraid.'

After brief introductions Sir Marcus slipped the buff folder across his desk towards his head of security.

‘What, er . . . what do you make of that then?' he asked, after allowing the commander a few moments to study it.

‘Well, sir,' Duncan answered grimly, ‘I know what it is, and I know which security vault it's come from. What I don't know is what it's doing up here.'

‘
He
found it! This morning! Lying around on Hampstead Heath! General Twining here!' Sir Marcus
spluttered in his anger and concern. ‘How could it have got there, Commander?'

Duncan looked uncomfortable.

‘There's clearly been some sort of lapse . . .' he began lamely. ‘Clearly a major breach of security. And er . . .' – glancing uneasily towards the retired general – ‘I think it's something we should discuss in
private,
if you don't mind, sir.'

‘Yes, of course,' Beckett nodded. ‘General, would you like to explain to Commander Duncan just exactly what happened this morning, and then we won't need to detain you any further.'

The security man pulled a pad from his pocket and began to take a careful long-hand note of Twining's description of events. Then, with a request that the general keep himself available at home to help investigating officers later, Sir Marcus shook him warmly by the hand and thanked him profusely for his discretion in bringing the document to the Ministry directly.

‘Right! Tell me the worst!' Sir Marcus barked as soon as the door had closed behind their elderly visitor.

‘It's project Skydancer, sir. Here's the identification code in the bottom right-hand corner. This paper is one of a set of engineering plans – classified “top secret”. This is probably a photocopy, but the originals are under the custody of the Strategic Nuclear Secretariat, down on the fifth floor. Must be only a handful of people with access to such a document.'

‘Bugger!' Beckett exploded. ‘How the hell could this one have got loose?'

Commander Duncan felt a prickling at the back of his neck. By his tone the Permanent Undersecretary almost seemed to be blaming him for it.

‘I don't know, sir. Give me a little time and I'll try to find out,' he answered as coolly as he could.

Sir Marcus paced over to the window and stared down at the passing traffic.

‘We'd better call a conference, right away,' he decided, turning back towards his desk. ‘The key people in Skydancer – I'll get them here, so we can evaluate the seriousness of this business. I mean . . . God Almighty! The whole bloody project might be compromised! It has to be the bloody Russians!'

Peter Joyce squealed the tyres of his car as he turned through the gates of Aldermaston in his hurry to reach the motorway for London. The gaggle of protesters had dispersed by now. The permanent residents of the ‘peace camp' were settling down to their morning chores, while the other protesters – including his wife – had gone off to their daily work.

On the insecure telephone line from the Ministry of Defence, Sir Marcus Beckett had been understandably vague about the exact nature of the security breach. But his voice carried an edging of ice which had made that vagueness additionally disturbing.

The road from the atomic weapons plant wound through picturesque villages and over bridges, which were a pleasure to pass on any normal day. But Peter cursed them as he struggled unsuccessfully to overtake a slow-moving lorry. Eventually, with a surge of relief, he swung his car on to the motorway and, pressing his foot to the floor, raced towards the capital. He leaned forward in his seat, concentrating on the road ahead, his dark eyes focusing far in front. Occasionally he lifted a hand briefly to push back the hank of straight brown hair that fell across his forehead.

In less than two hours he had reached the Defence Ministry in Whitehall. In the PUS's office he found
himself joined by Alec Anderson, the civil servant at the head of the Strategic Nuclear Secretariat. Unsuspectingly, Anderson had arrived a little late for work that morning, and now looked shocked and confused. He was a policy man, not a technician, and like Sir Marcus Beckett was waiting anxiously for Peter Joyce to reveal whether General Twining's discovery was as significant as they feared.

Several pairs of eyes focused on Joyce's tall figure as he scanned the page of secrets.

‘Christ Almighty!' he breathed after the first glance. ‘This
is
a page from the Skydancer plans. Shows the re-entry vehicle separation mechanism. The full set describes precisely how the decoy system works, how it can defeat the Soviet defences. This page on its own is sensitive enough, but if someone's given the Russians the full set . . . it'll be a disaster!'

‘Well let's not jump the gun,' Beckett countered hurriedly. ‘It may not be as serious as that.'

As a personal friend of the Prime Minister, the civil servant was dreading the public outcry and political uproar that could result from a full-blown security leak in his Ministry. The previous government had been brought down by a top-level Soviet infiltration of the security service MI5.

‘Commander Duncan,' Beckett turned hopefully to his security chief. ‘What have you been able to find out?'

‘Well, sir, I checked in the documents register and I've found there are only two sets of these papers in existence, one kept here and the other at Aldermaston. While Mr Joyce was on his way up here, I took the liberty of ringing George Dogson, head of security at AWRE, and got him to check the vaults. Hope you don't mind, Mr Joyce,' he added, looking across.

‘Of course not. What did he say?'

‘All in order. Nothing missing there. Now, as for the other set, the ones here in MOD, they are kept in a strictly controlled security room, but a room to which dozens of people have access. All of them with top-level clearance, of course. But the nuclear papers are kept in a special filing cabinet there, and the only people with keys to that cabinet are Mr Anderson here and his secretary Miss Maclean.'

‘Well.' Alec Anderson felt sweat breaking out on his forehead. ‘We'd better go and look, hadn't we?'

Now a deeply unhappy man, he led the commander down to his office, to check the file. Mary Maclean, an attractive dark-haired woman in her late thirties, looked up in surprise at the sight of her principal being escorted into the room by the stern-faced security chief. She blanched when Anderson asked her to collect the Skydancer technical file from the secure room. Closing her eyes momentarily, she seemed to hesitate as if struck by some painful realisation.

The two men watched closely as she slowly opened her desk drawer, took from it a key, then stood up and walked rigidly from the room. Anderson and the commander looked at one another with silent alarm.

‘Do you always keep that key in your desk drawer?' the policeman asked her icily when she returned with the file.