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had no intention …”
    Emily wasn’t going to let him finish. She delivered a furiously cold stare and without uttering another word, turned her back and slammed the door behind her.
    Darlene crossed her arms and said with a sly smile, “She seemed nice.”
    John started for the door but decided it was pointless. She’d never believe him. She knew all about his reputation and regularly chided him about it in jest. There wouldn’t be any levity tonight and no forgiveness. To be truthful, he didn’t even believe himself. For all he knew he might not have been able to tear himself away from Darlene’s fragrant curves. He slumped onto a chair, his face in his hands.
    Darlene pulled a throw off the sofa and covered herself as if suddenly ashamed of her skimpiness.
    “Jesus, John, I thought I’d never see the day.”
    “What day is that?”
    “The day you were actually in love with someone.”
     
     
    The Americans at MAAC called it game day, the Brits, match day. Hercules was a go and at five a.m. the car park was filling up with personnel for the ten a.m. initiation.
    John had arrived an hour before everyone else, parking in his designated director of security spot. From his above-ground office he kept an eye on the arrivals and when he spotted Emily getting out of her car he made sure he was walking across the lobby when she entered.
    “Hey,” was the best he could do.
    “I don’t want to speak with you.”
    She had avoided him the previous day and refused to pick up his calls or respond to texts. At the Hercules staff meeting where the go decision was made she had been sitting across the table from John for over an hour assiduously avoiding eye contact.
    He kept his voice low. Two of his men were on the reception desk.
    “I’ve been miserable.”
    “Good to hear. I’ve got to go, John. My mind’s far from you today.”
    “Can we talk later?”
    She brushed past.
    “I’m sorry,” he called after her softly, and she was gone. He knew how much today meant to her so he added “good luck,” under his breath.
    Back in his office John’s deputy head of security, Trevor Jones, came in for their scheduled pow-wow on handling the media scrum. Trevor was second-generation Jamaican with no trace of his parent’s island accents. He was a pure East-Ender with the kind of swagger you get from growing up as a street-savvy London kid. At twenty he had joined the Metropolitan Police as a constable and within three years he’d been promoted to sergeant and was well on his way to a fast-track career. Then 7/7 hit. He had been personally responsible for securing the bus-bombing scene. Then and there he decided he wanted to do something about it. He enlisted in the army and rose through the ranks to become a heavily decorated colour sergeant in the Royal Dragoon Guards. When John had looked to hire a deputy at the lab, Trevor’s application had glowed in the dark. The security function at MAAC was as tame as things got in the private sector but John trusted a man with his kind of experience. Trevor had tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan in hot spots where John had served his own tours as a major in the Green Berets. As far as John was concerned if you had the character to successfully command men in combat you could reliably be expected to manage security details at a civilian high-energy physics lab.
    Trevor was ebullient. “Everyone all set to kick some proton backside all ’round London today?”
    “The countdown’s still active,” John said dully.
    Trevor inspected him as if he were some sort of specimen. “You look like shit if I may say so,” he clucked, sitting down. “All right?”
    “Couldn’t be better,” John said unconvincingly. “Let’s review our protocols one last time, all right?”
    Trevor flashed his trademark sunny grin. “That’s precisely why I’m here, guv.”
     
     
    At T-minus-fifteen minutes, Emily was at her mission station in the cavernous underground control room with a