Finally, the US had to sit up and take notice. The UK would be standing shoulder to shoulder with them, and sharing blood. That blood, of course, was going to be mine if I fucked up. From swanky executive suites in Kensington to high-profile defectors larging it in Washington, the operation had now come down to Cody munching doughnuts in Nevada, and me sitting in a dingy hotel room checking my watch.
In exactly fourteen minutes, a bright flash would light up the night in the distant desert, followed by the sound of thunder that would signal Armageddon.
3
I plugged the laptop into the wall socket, let it sort itself out, and unfurled the umbrella. I extended the handle, pulled off the small plastic knob at the end and lifted the cap beneath it to reveal a USB slot. I placed what was now a satellite dish on the floor by the open window.
Six floors below me, giggly Brits headed back to the hotel against the hum of traffic. Long fluorescent tubes dangled outside a line of shops to show off the goods on display. Above me hung a huge blanket of stars. In the middle distance, between the stars and the city, lay the inky blackness where the desert took over. Out there somewhere, oblivious to what was on its way, was al-Kibar.
The 200mm zoom lens was much heavier than the others. It housed a lithium battery that could power the device on its own or become an instant backup if the local grid cut out. I ran a lead from it into the USB slot in the top of the umbrella. Another USB wire ran from the camera to the laptop. Its screen was now displaying thumbnails of the hundreds of pictures I'd been taking to make my cover story stand up.
I hit the blue circle icon to open the programme.