Skydancer by Geoffrey Archer Page B

hugged her arms tightly round her chest in an effort to hold herself together.
    She heard him rustling through her private papers, which were stuffed inside the cubby-holes of the bureau. Suddenly the rustling stopped, and she assumed he had found what he was looking for. Inside a tattered brown envelope were the snapshots she had taken during her two-year affair with Peter Joyce, together with the three letters that he had written to her during their relationship.
    She flinched as she felt John Black’s hand on her shoulder.
    â€˜Don’t you think the time has now come, Mary, for you to tell me about Peter Joyce?’
    It was after midnight when John Black eventually left the garden flat in Chiswick. The air smelt of fog, and the street lamps looked like orange-headed sentinels glaring sullenly down through the mist. Black sniffed at the air, finding it curiously refreshing after the despair-laden atmosphere he had just left.
    He was not proud of the methods he had used to make her tell him what he wanted to hear, but he knew no other way. He shivered in the cold air, hurriedly climbed into his car, started the engine, and set off for home. He failed to notice the large Mercedes parked on the other side of the road.

Chapter Three
    MIDNIGHT IN LONDON was seven o’clock in the evening Florida time. The sun was low in the sky and painted the endless beaches with a wash of golden orange, as the RAF VC10 banked for its final turn over the coast and settled smoothly down towards the runway of Patrick Air Force Base. Beyond Patrick, a few miles to the north, the pilot could see the towers and gantries of the Kennedy Space Center pointing challengingly at the stars.
    Peter Joyce looked down at the long oblongs of the cars cruising slowly up and down the coastal boulevards. The pilot had sent back a note to say the temperature on the ground was a humid seventy-five degrees. It certainly looked hot down below, and Peter was grateful he had remembered to wear a lightweight suit.
    Jill Piper’s face was glued to the window, her eyes drinking in their first sight of the USA. Suddenly Peter remembered he had meant to warn her of something. He glanced down to check, and cursed himself. The girl was wearing a skirt.
    â€˜Christ, Jill! Have you brought a pair of trousers with you, by any chance?’ he enquired, embarrassed.
    She turned from the window, a knowing smile on her lips.
    â€˜For the submarine, you mean? Don’t worry, I was warned! A friend of mine went on one last year in a skirt, and had ten sailors round the bottom of each hatchway looking up at her as she came down theladder! I’ll change as soon as we’ve landed.’
    Peter smiled; the girl was quite sharp. He was very tired, but satisfied that they had managed to complete the writing of the new programmes. It had been a full eight hours’ work, but he was as confident as he could be that the deception plan for the missile test would be convincing.
    The plane bounced once as it touched the tarmac; then the nose levelled out and the four engines shook and roared as they went into reverse thrust. Peter glanced across the aisle to check that their microcomputers, packed away in their boxes, were still firmly strapped in the seats and cushioned against the force of the landing. When the plane stopped moving, he left Jill on her own in the compartment to change.
    As they stepped out on to the steps the warm air enveloped them. The naval officer standing below was wearing a crisply starched white shirt and shorts. He looked up at Peter with recognition.
    â€˜Good evening, Mr Joyce, and welcome to the US of A,’ he smiled. ‘Phil Dunkley. We met last year.’ He extended his hand. ‘I’m the PSO, the Polaris Systems Officer from
Retribution
.’
    Peter was grateful for the reminder, but pretended he did not need it. ‘Of course. I remember you well. Nice to see you again.’
    The smile on the Lt.