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'So what's going on?' asked Liz.

'It has been bothering me ever since the intelligence reports suggested that this facility was a mine,' admitted Shuskin. 'I am sure there is nothing here to extract. Believe me, we would be doing it if there were.' She paused, deep in thought. 'I once saw

American cowboy film. One group were defending a fort, but were short on manpower. So they made dummies, and placed t hem up on the ramparts as if they were soldiers.

That film taught one that psychology is vital in warfare.'

But why the false mine?' asked Liz. 'It's not as if the Waro are short on numbers.'

'No,' said Shuskin. 'But they wanted this location to seem more important than it really is.' She turned away from the Waro complex, her voice bitter. 'Hundreds of good Soviet soldiers have died, just to find out that there's nothing here.'

CHAPTER 15

It was a strained meeting, neither side fully trusting the other, yet Houghton and Lethbridge-Stewart were both aware that each was potentially talking to his only ally in a macabre game of chance.

The Brigadier sketched in the background of his trip to Geneva, and the convoluted and bizarre path that had led him to this location. Houghton, who revealed that he had gone through basic training with the Brigadier's old friend Jimmy Turner, seemed anxious to reassure Lethbridge-Stewart that he and his men were innocent of any duplicity.

All of the men, except two who had been posted to guard duty at the warehouse door, stood behind Houghton, in more ways than one. They would have gone to hell and back for the Major.

'What are you doing here?' asked the Brigadier after a discussion about 'the security of the realm' had done little but take them round and round in circles.

'There is,' said Houghton, 'a conspiracy within UNIT It extends to the highest level. I really don't know who to trust any more. You may be part of this, in which case I'm a dead man. But I might be already anyway. Certainly if you were sent here to kill me then they know about us'

'They? Who are "they", man?' asked the Brigadier.

'The great they who are in charge of the eternal whatsit,'

Houghton said with a cynical snarl. 'If I knew who "they" were I'd kill them myself and face the consequences. But how do you fight shadows?'

The Brigadier turned away from Houghton and stared out of the window and down towards the heaps of plastic bags in the centre of the warehouse. 'And those?' he asked.

'That material has been "borrowed" from UNIT HQ,'

replied Houghton. 'Personnel files, official communiqués, internal memos... Anything we could get out hands on. You're welcome to look at it. Our only wish was to try to find out who the traitors are. And what their plan is.'

'We'll worry about that later,' said the Brigadier, who suddenly realised that he and Houghton shared the same goals. Almost despite himself, he trusted this capable young soldier who was placing his career and probably his life on the line. 'I'm prepared.' said the Brigadier at length, 'to take over responsibility for this operation. As the senior officer here it will therefore be under my orders that these investigations are carried out' It was an astonishing offer, and Lethbridge-Stewart was amazed to hear himself make it. He was giving the men a lifeline they thought they would never have, a simple reply to the questions they would be asked if captured. An opportunity to say that they were just following orders. The Brigadier was, in effect, taking the pressure of a firing squad away from the men and, in doing so, placing a noose around his own neck.

'I can't let you do that, sir,' said Houghton, both relieved and horrified to hear the Brigadier's proposal.

'It wasn't a request, Houghton, it was an order. You do still remember how to follow orders, don't you?'

'Yes,' said Houghton. 'But I think you're being a complete pillock. Sir.'

Lethbridge-Stewart grinned. 'I'll be the judge of that,' he said. 'Now, if "they" led me here, it's imperative that we leave this