Nano by Sam Fisher

puncturing the night like pin pricks in a blackout curtain. Below lay the roofs of Tintara’s buildings. From here, the place looked deceptively small, a scattering of flat metal roofs painted with Camoflin, a special material that had the ability to confuse any form of scanner or camera that took an interest in Base One from a plane or a satellite. Beneath these buildings, the bulk of the base was spread over 17 floors, descending almost 100 metres underground. Each level covered more than two acres and housed administration, control, comms, accommodation, storage and maintenance facilities, with a workforce of 1816 men and women.
    â€˜Okay, guys,’ Mark said from the flight deck of the Big Mac. ‘As you all realise, Dubai is one of the furthest points from here, a shade under 14,000 kilometres as a Silverback flies. Your flight time is 1 hour 27 minutes, so your ETA is 10.58 am local time. At Mach 6, Dimitri and I will be 32 minutes behind you in the Big Mac, ETA 11.30 am. I don’t need to tell you, a lot can happen to the people in that tower before we get there, so speed is of the essence, but so is our safety. We can’t save people if we’re in trouble ourselves. So care and speed, yeah?’
    The Silverbacks hovered for another second, then Steph, Mai, Pete and Chloe engaged vertical ascent at maximum thrust. The four planes shot upward at 930 kilometres per hour, reaching 7000 metres in 17.2 seconds. Beneath them, the roof of Hangar B slid open and they could see the Big Mac begin to climb up above the building. It hovered before Dimitri engaged its own vertical thrusters and the plane climbed with staggering speed through the darkness.
    Twenty seconds later, the Big Mac had drawn parallel with the Silverbacks.
    â€˜Okay, guys. Bon voyages,’ Mark said and the five aircraft shot away into the night, heading northwest in a direct flight-path to Dubai . . . and the unknown.

19
    72 metres beneath the English Channel, 7.50 am local time
    He was in position precisely on time. Everything had been calculated to the second. It had been rehearsed and practised.
    The bomb did not have to be powerful. It needed to be just potent enough to do its job. He glanced down at the device. A simple contraption – a timer, a trigger and a small knot of explosive.
    He flicked on the trigger mechanism and watched the lights come alive and flash green . . . one, two, three, then an orange bulb lit up and started to pulsate in the dark.
    Next he turned to the timer – an iPhone on the alarm clock function. He checked his wristwatch and nudged the controls on the phone, setting the timer to precisely 9 minutes 30 seconds. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the alarm ‘on’ and flicked another switch on the trigger. The orange light turned green.
    He pulled himself upright and swung around his torch, sending a patch of white across the walls of the tunnel. Taking a step back, he crossed a set of rails and strode about 20 metres back along the tracks towards the hatch in the side wall.

20
    She had never felt so excited in her life. This was better than any sex, any drug. In her hand lay a tiny phial containing an innocuous-looking colourless liquid. She lowered herself onto her haunches and held the torch over the box of tricks at her feet. It was a relatively plain looking metal case.
    She lifted the lid. Inside, she could see the row of switches and the red light blinking. Next to the light was a circular plastic cover. She prised it up and placed the phial into the hole and closed the cover. It clicked as the plastic slotted into place.
    She turned to the timer. Checking her wristwatch, she set it to 10 minutes 30 seconds and flicked up the row of switches in quick succession. As the last switch slid into place, it completed a circuit inside the metal box. The red light turned green. The timer started to count down.
    She straightened, looked around the tunnel, the wall lit up by her