Clouds hung low over the desolate slab of estuary which was the musketeers' destination. D'Artagnan looked around for railway tracks as they jumped out of the van, but saw none. If this was Bazalgette Station then it looked remarkably like a car park, the gritty, unofficial kind run by a bloke with a fibreglass booth and a handpainted sign promising All Day Three Pound Fifty. Grass poked between the stones. A string between two concrete blocks formed the gate.
The black van roared away as soon as all four were out, spraying damp grit on D'Artagnan's legs. The musketeers, who had spent the last ten minutes of the journey calmly applying weapons to their clothing, did not react. D'Artagnan would not ask.
He had no firearm. Athos had allowed him a baton - "For self defence only. Don't go clubbing people you may encounter."
"Unless they're a lethal threat to you," said Aramis cheerfully. "In which case, bludgeon away."
"Aramis is joking, of course," said Athos through gritted teeth.
"Yeah," said Porthos. "You'll be shot long before you get a chance to hurt anyone."
"Speaking of which," said Aramis, laying his hand on Athos' shoulder.
Everyone looked.
Two men emerged from a looming concrete building some hundred yards away. The structure looked like some wartime installation, maybe a gun emplacement. The men were heading towards the musketeers and the car park.
"All right," said Athos. "Looks like they've already done what they came to do. Let's collect them and persuade them to tell us where their employers are before the Cardinal's men get here."
"Time for a little light apprehenson of offenders," said Porthos, grinning.
"Stay back," said Aramis to D'Artagnan. "They're usually not very good with guns."
"Isn't that a good thing?"
"Not really," said Athos, pulling on his gloves. "Although it ultimately saves time when they blow their own heads off, it makes it a lot more difficult to get the confessions." He shot D'Artagnan a quirk of a smile and strode off towards the men, who had halted uncertainly.
"There's something I don't get," D'Artagnan said as Aramis led him in a wide arc towards the low concrete building from which the two strangers had emerged. "Why are they here?"
"What do you mean?"
"If the system is accessible remotely, why are the hackers at the station? They could be at home."
Aramis looked at him strangely. "The station?"
"Yes. Athos' message said Bazalgette Station."
Aramis lifted his hand for quiet as they approached the door to the building. The door, a dented steel affair fitted with peeling grey paint, had a shiny new brass padlock.
Aramis grunted, and reached into his pocket. D'Artagnan instinctively stepped back, expecting the explosion of a shot to the lock. "Please," said Aramis, and produced a small tool with which he rapidly picked the mechanism. "We may be the blunt weapons in the armoury of anti terrorism, but that need not mean that we lack subtlety."
There was a boom of gunfire. D'Artagnan flinched, but Aramis did not react. "So why are the hackers here?" D'Artagnan asked again. "Why couldn't they access it by hacking the station's old software?"
They entered a dim space where the air was so chill that it felt damp on his skin, and began descending shallow concrete steps towards a central well. Peering over the single hand rail, D'Artagnan saw a control station at the bottom, unmanned.
"You've misunderstood," said Aramis. "We don't go to the place which has been attacked. We go to the place it was hacked from."
"Oh," said D'Artagnan. "So this is-"
"Bazalgette pumping station. Disused," said Aramis. "Power and phone line, no passing traffic. A perfect place for a lair." He smiled dangerously as there came a rattle of gunfire outside. "There's no one here. Shall we join the others?"
The confrontation was brief. Athos and Porthos overpowered the hackers and D'Artagnan and Aramis disarmed them.
The men were on the ground and Porthos had handcuffed one with cable ties when a white van screamed up to the car park and slammed on brakes. Its side doors whistled back to release a clump of black-clad men cradling small semi automatic rifles.
"Here we go," said Porthos, tugging the first prisoner's ties tight.
"We must be civil," said Athos, moving to greet the arrivals.
Aramis looked up from his own prisoner. "I've never understood why. How will they get the message that we loathe them?"
D'Artagnan hung back, unsure. Porthos curled his lip, giving the newcomers a contemptuous look. "The CARDs," he explained. "So-called Covert Antiterrorism Response Division."
D'Artagnan was about to ask more when he glanced down at the second prisoner and saw the man's hand sneaking down towards his boot, drawing out a black object. D'Artagnan registered the grip of a pistol and cried out, but the man elbowed Aramis in the throat and scrambled to his feet, pointing the gun at Athos.
Porthos leapt for him but D'Artagnan was nearer. "Drop!" he yelled and knocked the gunman's arm upwards.
The shot went high, and Athos was on the floor, rolling over, weapons drawn, to face D'Artagnan.
The prisoners were now face down in the dirt with Porthos and Aramis flattening them, Aramis with a bruise blossoming on his neck. Athos rose with dignity.
He was alive, again. That was first. But second, today, was that he was relieved. There were, after all, things still to be done.
He gave D'Artagnan a cool, courteous nod and went to meet the Cardinal's men.
"It was our collar," said Porthos, spearing a piece of apple. He ate it from the point of his knife, glowering at Athos, while Aramis nodded agreement. "But as usual the CARDs just swooped in and grabbed the glory."
The musketeers and D'Artagnan were back at Carlton Place, eating lunch around a frosted glass table and grumbling about the team from Charles Ritchley's department making off with the would-be terrorists.
"And why?" asked Athos.
"Because they can't bear to admit that we do anything worthwhile," said Aramis.
"No," said Athos. "They had one key advantage." He glanced around.
"A million times more funding than us?" suggested Aramis.
"No," said Athos, and smiled. "Their van arrived before ours."
This drew scowls from Aramis and Porthos.
"Remember," said Athos, "we have a bigger problem to worry about. Let Ritchley's people wade through the paperwork for trespass, illegal possession of a firearm -"
"Breaking and entering," said D'Artagnan. "Squatting."
"Yes," said Athos. "Eventually they will get to the potentially terrorist element. Meanwhile we have other things to do. Such as working out if D'Artagnan's messages really do mean that there will be an attack, tomorrow, on a person or place connected with the word Brokenstone."
"Precisely," said a woman's cut-glass voice. D'Artagnan noticed the others drawing to attention, and straightened in his seat. The woman was honey blonde and somewhat regal, in a draped cream blouse and coffee-coloured trousers. Her hair was folded into a movie-star pleat at the back. She wore kitten-heeled cream sandals and her movements were sinuous. If she hadn't been at least thirty she would have been hot.
"Good morning, minister," said Athos. "This is D'Artagnan , ma'am," he added, presenting him.
"Anne Osterley," said the woman, and shook D'Artagnan's hand firmly.
D'Artagnan scratched any idea of her as a female: this was the boss. Now he looked again, he had seen her in the news. Something about North Sea oil. "So what's happening?"
Porthos gave him a Shut up! look, but Anne moved close to D'Artagnan and said, "Your messages give me more of a problem than just another few entries in our list of possible threats." She ran her eyes over his face as if she could see into his brain.
D'Artagnan swallowed. Up close, Anne Osterley was beautiful and intimidating. She turned away in a swirl of fragrance and said, "It means I now need to find the threat, and our security leak."
"We will remove any threat to this department," said Athos.
"And if there's a mole we'll find it," said Porthos.
Aramis said nothing. His hand went to his throat.
"You are aware that this department is regarded as a drain on public resources," said Anne. She swept her gaze across each of them in turn, and D'Artagnan was aware that his hastily-laundered jersey and denim compared poorly to the others' tough leather and workmanlike weaponry. Anne sniffed as she observed his amateurish attempt to appear cool. Porthos and Aramis got bare acknowledgement. Only Athos, statuelike, seemed to pass muster. "When we succeed we cannot brag about it because our methods must remain secret. When we fail, we risk closure."
She sighed, and walked around their table, dragging her pearl-painted fingernails along its icy surface. The sound was raw and mournful, like the cry of a gull for its mate . "We don't know what Brokenstone is, only that logically it will occur early tomorrow morning, if it follows the pattern of the message describing Anglezarke. We are vulnerable, gentlemen, and not only to this attack. Charles Ritchley would love to shut us down, and only my connection with the Prime Minister has thus far preserved us."
"The Home Secretary may not be aware of the full scope of our work," said Athos mildly.
Porthos snorted.
"I hope not," said Anne. "I prefer to manage my department without helpful suggestions from my rivals."
She moved to leave, then paused. "One more thing. It has come to my attention that the three of you have gained a level of notoriety."
Porthos, Athos and Aramis froze.
D'Artagnan cut his eyes at them in surprise.
"I have asked Constance to excise, once again, the I Heart Athos Facebook group," said Anne.
"Oh, the internet," said Porthos. "Thank god for that, I thought she meant - " Aramis elbowed him and he shut up.
"I trust this is the last time I find footage of your exploits covered in virtual kisses," said Anne drily, and stalked out.
D'Artagnan looked at Athos in amusement. Was he - blushing?
Constance breezed into the canteen, wearing a yellow tea dress and dotty red and black slippers. "Your pass," she said to D'Artagnan, looking at him closely. They had not spoken that morning and D'Artagnan had not had a chance to ask her how long he was expected to remain at her home. The unpleasant Kev had not been seen.
Constance had smudges under her eyes today, he noticed. A sleepless night, or accidentally smeared make up, he could not tell.
She placed a thick plastic card in his palm. It had his name and picture on the front, and on the reverse, in a complicated pattern of dots, the words LOUIS Special Permission. "I'm working on your security clearance now. This will get you more or less everywhere in the building," she said. "Don't thank me."
"Thanks," said D'Artagnan automatically, and she rolled her eyes and flounced out.
"Yes," said Porthos to D'Artagnan's infuriated grunt. "She is always like that."
"A fine woman," said Aramis, earning a snort from Athos. "Full of passion."
"Let's get to work," said Athos, tossing his apple across the canteen and into a bin. "If D'Artagnan is going to help us, he will need to be able to fight."
"I can handle myself," said D'Artagnan.
"Please," said Aramis. "If you're referring to your entry to the building yesterday, that was not handling yourself."
"That was suicide," said Porthos. "If we'd been armed -"
"We were armed," said Aramis.
"Yeah, but if we'd been allowed to fire -"
"Let's try to keep fatality to a minimum," said Athos. " D'Artagnan needs to know how we operate."
Athos seemed less wary today, D'Artagnan thought. Perhaps overnight he had overcome his doubts about D'Artagnan.
"Where are we going?" D'Artagnan asked as Athos led the way with light feet down several flights of stairs.
"Training suite," called Aramis, bounding away
Porthos ushered D'Artagnan thrrough a heavy steel door on one of the basements, and laughed at D'Artagnan's face when he read the warning notice. Live fire area. LOUIS only.
"That's right," he said. "We weren't made for typing."