Ark Angel

the investigators and destroy all the tapes, files, scraps of paper, telephone records, computer printouts—everything! I could begin again with a completely clean sheet. The more I thought about it, the more grateful I became to the Americans for what they were doing.
    “Of course, it wasn’t going to be easy. Because, you see, the investigation was based in one of the most secure buildings in the world—the Pentagon in Washington. The place is nothing more than a huge slab of concrete—and much of it underground. It employs an anti-terrorist force that operates twenty-four hours a day. Every form of monitoring device you could imagine can be found there, and since 9/11, no commercial plane can get anywhere near. The Pentagon is thoroughly protected against chemical, biological and radiological attack. I know, because I considered them all. But even a brief examination showed me that any such approach was doomed to failure.

    “And now, if you’ll permit me, I’ll move on to the second problem that I mentioned. It may seem completely unrelated to the first. For a long time, I thought it was. But you will see in a minute how it all connects.”
    Alex said nothing. He was aware of Magnus Payne and the men who made up Force Three watching him.
    He was still wondering how they fitted into all this. And where was Kaspar, the man with the tattooed skull? Even now, nothing quite added up. Alex shifted in the chair, trying to get some feeling back into his hands and feet.
    “My other problem was Ark Angel,” Drevin went on. “Space tourism has always interested me, Alex, and when the British government approached me to go into partnership with them, I must confess I was flattered. I would benefit from the money they would put into the project. I would be at the forefront of one of the most challenging and potentially profitable enterprises of the twenty-first century. And it would provide me with the one thing I most needed: respectability! The Americans might view me as a criminal, but it would give them pause for thought when they saw that I was having supper with the Queen. It occurred to me that they might find it rather more difficult to drag me off to prison when I was Sir Nikolei Drevin. Or even Lord Drevin. Sometimes it helps to have the right contacts.
    “And so I agreed to become partners with your government in the Ark Angel project, the world’s first space hotel. It’s above us right now. It’s always above us. And I can never forget it. Because, you see, it has become a nightmare, a catastrophe. Even without the Americans and their investigation, Ark Angel could easily destroy me.”
    Drevin frowned and took a large sip of brandy.
    “Ark Angel is billions of pounds over budget. It’s sucking me dry. Even with all my wealth I can no longer support it. And it’s all the fault of your stupid government. They can’t make a decision without talking about it for months. They have committees and subcommittees. And when they do make a decision, it’s always the wrong one. I should have known from the start. Look at the Scottish parliament! The Millennium Dome! Everything the British government builds costs ten times as much as it should and doesn’t even work.
    “Ark Angel is the same. It’s late, it’s leaking and it’s lost any hope of ever being completed. The whole thing is falling apart. And for months now I’ve been thinking, if only the wretched thing would simply fall out of the sky. I could scrape back at least some of my money because, like every major project, it is insured. More than that, I’d be able to wipe my hands of it. I’d be able to wake up without having it, quite literally, hanging over my head. There were days when I seriously considered paying someone to blow it up.
    “And that, Alex, is when I had my big idea. It’s as I told you. Two problems that came together with one single solution.”
    Drevin leant forward and at last Alex saw quite clearly the madness in his eyes.
    “I wonder how much you know about physics, Alex. Even as we sit here now, there are hundreds of objects orbiting above us in outer space, from small communications satellites to giant space stations such as the ISS and Mir before that. Have you ever wondered what keeps them there? What stops them from falling down?
    “Well, the answer is a fairly simple equation consisting of their speed balanced against their distance from the earth. You might be amused to know that, theoretically, it would