By the time she reached his desk and they both focused on the screen, two more drones could be seen from the windscreen cameras. Rear and side cameras revealed it was surrounded by even more.
Dominique tapped her earpiece and spoke into it and within moments, they were joined by her three superiors. Dalgleish had caught glimpses of the two men and a woman entering other offices in the same building but had never conversed with them. He felt self-conscious as they huddled around his desk behind him.
‘Are everyone else’s vehicles safe?’ Dominique asked across the room and received a series of yeses.
‘Holy shit, what’s that?’ Dalgleish asked, his surprise making him forget the company he was in.
From the cab camera, a dark shadow was beginning to block the outside light. He switched to another device attached to the roof and rotated the lens so that it viewed above. What they saw was the underside of a helicopter, its rotating blades sweeping above it.
‘We’re under attack,’ one of Dominique’s superiors said, watching closely as three figures using ropes landed on the lorry’s roof. The shadow lifted as the helicopter moved up and out of sight. ‘They know what we’re transporting.’
‘How?’ asked Dalgleish but his question was ignored. ‘What should I do?’ he said instead.
‘You wait until I instruct you.’
The room fell silent as they watched the trespassers remove a cylindrical device from a backpack and clamp it to the trailer’s roof. They moved as if walking on the moon and Dalgleish assumed magnetic footwear was preventing them from losing their balance.
‘They’re not trying to hijack it, they’re going to steal from it while it’s still moving,’ Dominique exclaimed. Suddenly there was a cloud of smoke and a gap the size of a manhole cover appeared in the roof.
‘What’s the road’s status?’ a second nameless superior asked.
‘The lorry is on the M90 and about to join the Queensferry Crossing Bridge, approaching the first of the three towers that supports it,’ said Dalgleish.
‘And traffic?’
He scanned the motorway APR cameras. ‘Moderate, no delays.’
‘Collateral damage?’
Dominique scanned her tablet. ‘Low if we act now.’
Dalgleish could smell sweat beneath the aftershave of the man as he leaned across the desk and tapped furiously into the keyboard. A box appeared on a separate screen where he then inputted a long code before placing his fingerprint against it. A projection of a button appeared on the desk below. He turned to Dominique.
‘Are we in agreement?’ he asked. She looked to the screen just as the first assailant disappeared inside the hole in the roof.
‘Yes. Red alert,’ she replied.
They waited until the third figure entered before he pressed the button.
Flames and smoke shot out of the hole and the lorry began to veer left. It remained on the road and continued past the first bridge tower, gradually picking up pace until, at 78 mph, they watched in silence as it ploughed through the metal safety railings and plunged over the side of the bridge. More than 200 metres later, it was engulfed by the depths of the river Forth below.
PART ONE
** CONFIDENTIAL **
TOP SECRET: UK EYES ONLY, CLASSIFIED ‘A’
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
MINUTES OF JOINT CYBER-ESPIONAGE / INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE ASSESSMENT MEETING 11.6
‘THE ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO STORAGE OF CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS’
** Please note this is an account of the minutes taken from the above meeting. Portions of text and certain participants have been redacted to prevent threats to security. **
LOCATION:
MEMBERS PRESENT:
