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She had been left alone for a very long time.

But she wasn’t alone now.

A hand holding hers again. Vincent could feel it in his mind. His hand in hers.

He felt Justine’s loneliness like a twenty‐year headache that was suddenly gone. A rigid muscle unclenching.

Images of relaxation. Calmness and peace rushing out of Justine now. Rushing into Vincent.

Giving the power inside him no purchase, nothing to grip. Like a storm roaring over smooth stone. Nothing to pick up and throw. Nothing to smash with.

No way of destroying the project site.

Mulwray was standing in the mud at the bottom of the footpath, standing over O’Hara as he scrabbled for his gun. Mulwray was firing his own gun again and again. But nothing was happening. The firing pin had been disabled and nothing was happening. Mulwray had seen the boy and girl run towards each other, meet and embrace. In the following second he had expected the project site to be wiped out by a force like the wrath of God.

But it seemed the firing pin had been wrecked on that, too.

Now O’Hara had picked up his gun from the mud and he was rolling over, aiming at Mulwray and firing. Mulwray actually saw the bullet racing up towards his face, a dark blur like a fat bee moving with impossible speed. Straight up towards his eye.

He never heard the sound of the shot. He never felt the bullet go in. As his brain came apart the last thing he thought of was a small boy in a room full of toys, the boy’s face disappearing into a mist.

O’Hara climbed off the ground, wiping mud from his face with one hand. The other hand held the gun. He stepped over Mulwray’s body. He aimed the gun at Justine and Vincent, and then at the Doctor and Ace.

‘It looks as if your weapon is broken,’ he said.

‘Vincent,’ said the Doctor, speaking in an unhurried, conversational tone. ‘Let go of Justine. Let go of her now. And run.’

‘Stay exactly where you are,’ said O’Hara. But Vincent wasn’t listening. He was looking over Justine’s shoulder at the Doctor, listening to what the Doctor said. He turned away and began to run. He was weak from months in the barrel and drugs and captivity. He stumbled clumsily through the mud. O’Hara ran after him.

O’Hara was well fed and well rested. Muscled with years of exercise. He caught Vincent easily.

He grabbed the boy.

Locked a hand on to Vincent’s shoulder.

Contact.

‘Oh my God,’ said Ace.

* * *

Stephanie was in her suite of offices deep in the tunnel. Sitting across the desk from her was the chief electrician from the Korean technical team. He was a chubby, smiling man wearing a white paper hat and white overalls. From his personnel records Stephanie knew that he had once worked with the South Korean security services, on interrogation assignments. He would be the ideal choice for help with the current problem. There would no doubt be some more burials in the quiet woods up above O’Hara’s house, but first they would need to ask certain questions of the man called the Doctor and the two girls.

Stephanie had just begun to explain the situation when she heard the noise outside.

It was hard to believe it wasn’t some living thing howling up at the mouth of the tunnel. But the sound was too gigantic, and mixed in with it was the echoing tumbling sound of big objects being thrown around. The Korean was staring out the window, perplexed, but Stephanie recognized the sound from her Midwestern childhood. It was the sound of a prairie storm, but bigger. Considerably bigger.

The Korean electrician was opening the door of the hut. Stephanie wanted to tell him to stop, but it was too late. She wondered what could have gone wrong. She glanced out the window and just had time to hope that O’Hara was all right. The Korean had begun to open the door, but he only pushed it outwards a fraction before the door was caught by the wind and torn off its hinges. He had been holding on to the handle as the door went and his arm went with it, torn off at the shoulder. Stephanie was retreating to the rear of the office and she