Page 65 of Carbon

“Will it be busy?” I asked.

The idea of dealing with a room full of people made me feel quite ill.

“One o’clock on a Thursday? Half the people will have gone out for lunch.”

Thank goodness. The lift doors opened into a large, open-plan room filled with rows of desks and the occasional coffee table with chairs clustered around it. Only a quarter of the seats were occupied, and I garnered a few curious glances as I followed Nye to a glass-fronted office in the corner. Before we could go inside, a small black lady sitting at a desk next to it waved him down.

“They’re setting up on the fifth floor.”

“What the hell? How does this warrant being a fifth-floor job?”

She shrugged. “Above my clearance grade. Is this Augusta Fordham?”

Nye nodded and introduced us. “Janelle, this is Augusta. Augusta, meet Janelle, my assistant. If you need anything, just ask her.”

“I’m so sorry about your sister,” she said, reaching out to grasp my hands.

“Me too.”

“Would you both like some lunch?”

The butterflies in my stomach turned their noses up at the thought of food, but I’d skipped breakfast in favour of mid-morning television, so I needed to eat something. “Maybe a small snack?”

“Can you bring some sandwiches up?” Nye asked. “Who else is there?”

“Luke just arrived, and Dev too.”

Nye led me back to the lift. “Who are Luke and Dev?” I whispered as he passed a fob over a panel at the side and pressed the button for the fifth floor.

“Luke’s a computer guy. He doesn’t officially work for Blackwood, but we often use him as a consultant. Dev... Dev works on some of our more challenging jobs.”

“What did you mean about it being a fifth-floor job?”

“They run the more unusual projects from there. I’m just not sure how this falls under their remit. We’ve worked hundreds of similar cases without the directors doing more than signing off on my monthly report.”

As we alighted from the lift, an older lady sitting behind a sleek grey desk pointed at a conference room in the corner. She looked like a receptionist but behaved like a sentry.

The door was closed and remained that way until Nye pressed his thumb on a pad to the right of it, below an electronic plaque designating it as the home of Project Carbon. I’d barely had time to puzzle over that when the door slid to the side with a soft whoosh.

Inside, a man with dirty blonde hair sat behind a laptop, a steaming mug of coffee resting beside him on a coaster. Luke? I put him in his early thirties, but with an air of authority I could never hope to possess.

A second man lounged on a padded black leather chair, his boot-clad feet resting on the polished table. Like Luke, he wouldn’t have looked out of place in a magazine shoot, with light brown skin so smooth he looked airbrushed. He must be Dev.

Luke glanced up at us, then carried on typing, but Dev raised an eyebrow.

“New assistant?”

“This is Augusta. Her father’s our client on the Davies case.”

“You know what’s going on with it?”

“Not a clue. I take it from that question that you don’t either?”

“Nope. But it’s important enough that Black’s running the project personally, and he’s called Emmy in to help him. She’s due to fly back from Morocco at one thirty. Plus Logan and Xavier are coming too.”

“Bloody hell. What’s this guy done?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, but I wouldn’t want to be on the run with that team after me.”

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