The following day, Bill White found himself back in Downing Street.
"No foreign secretary today?" he asked.
"No, I sent him to his constituency to make it look as if there's nothing important happening today. He'll appear on the news tonight cuddling orphans or stroking autistic donkeys or something. Although if any of this becomes public, it will look really bad."
"If it becomes public no amount of PR will save you," said White matter of factly.
The PM let that go unanswered.
"Right," he said, picking up a clutch of papers from the sofa, "here it is. Our best guess for the number of CIA agents who have travelled here over the past few weeks is seventy three."
White's normally unflappable exterior wobbled slightly. He found himself gripping the arm of his chair.
"Some of them stayed for a few days and went back. In short, we believe that fifty is about right for the number still present on our shores."
"And their intentions?" asked White none to hopefully.
"All we've been able to establish in this short time is that there is no official policy to account for this fact. It seems likely that even most of the CIA don't know about this operation, whatever the hell it turns out to be."
"Okay, so we don't know their intentions, do we have anything at all on their location or resources?"
"A lot of this is speculative deduction at best, Bill, but it does seem that groups of them are staying at locations consistent with checking out your five facilities."
White hadn't told the PM about the red herring he'd used and saw no need to mention it now, merely made a mental note to strengthen the surveillance there.
"There are some rental properties taken out by Americans a few miles from each one of the five. MI6 are watching all of them now."
"I don't mean to pull rank but if they're all as well armed as the ones we killed then surely MI6 can't cope with that?"
"I agree," said the PM, "I've told them to keep their distance for now and report directly to me. I really don't know how to play this, Bill. Do we storm in and round them all up, alerting them to the fact that we've rumbled them, or let them reveal whatever their plans are?"
"My agents have all the establishments secured," said White, "and we're working as quickly as possible to reinforce the main target in Cambridge." He hesitated, measuring his words carefully. "I won't go into details but I believe I have a way of drawing them out in Cambridge. I intend to spring that trap on Monday once we have made the labs themselves stronger than a nuclear bunker. The belief in T14 is that they will attack, if that is their intention, during the night when the building is unoccupied. Even the CIA isn't arrogant enough to launch an attack on our soil in an overtly public manner. I know their president is as thick as a ton of thick cut potato chips but congress wouldn't put up with their agents making headlines in such a manner."
"Leaving aside that totally justified smear on his character, I agree - he may be an utter chimp but he can always withdraw their funding. Speaking of which, I hate to bring up such petty matters, and I know that our entire economy is at stake, but I can't fund this operation indefinitely."
"I understand that, sir. The reinforcements at Cambridge were long overdue anyway and will last fifty years at least, they represent excellent value for money in the long term. If the result of this is that we also refit the other establishments then we can attain similar long term security without the need for any serious personnel deployment."
"I agree," said the PM, "I wasn't questioning that. I meant we can't have hundreds of troops and agents on high alert for months on end."
"No, of course not. I don't have the numbers to maintain this operation for long anyway without compromising our usual work."
"Yes, that's another factor. I have to visit a lot of families over the next few weeks and assure them that the events of ten years ago could never be repeated. Those assurances will look more hollow than a super-model's novel if a foreign power comes over here and blows up one of our top research facilities. But this goes beyond politics, Bill. I see this operation as an extension of your usual responsibilities. You were set up to keep this country safe from terrorism and that's exactly what you're doing."
"Just out of interest," said White, "how will you play this publicly? Assuming we are successful, in which I have full confidence, will you make any announcement at all? Will you inform the president?"
"That will have to be decided afterwards, in conjunction with the foreign secretary. Anyway, you have enough to be worrying about. I think you should spring your trap as soon as possible."