Devil’s Harvest Read Online Free PDF Page A

correspondence that interested him was immediately identifiable, the logo of the
Annals of Botany
embossed on the outside, or an overseas ‘return to sender’ stamp on the back. The rest was left to accumulate in a slowly toppling pile of discarded paperwork.
    Gabriel moved his mouse to wake his desktop from its slumber. The screen burst into colour, a magnificent close-up of
Arabidopsis
taking up the space. He clicked on his email shortcut and briefly scrolled through the cluttered list of unread items in his inbox. Nothing grabbed his attention and he minimised the window, letting the floral photograph return.
    One of his master’s students had given him a mug emblazoned with the phrase ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ in pink. This catchphrase from the war, resurrected by the prime minister at the time of the London bombings, had attained cult status, copied and manipulated in a thousand ways, printed on T-shirts, bags, mugs, fridge magnets. He’d seen ‘Keep Calm and Make a Cup of Tea’, ‘Keep Calm and Roll a Joint’ and the obtuse ‘Keep Calm and Have a Cupcake’, which Gabriel suspected wasn’t as benign as it first appeared. He had made the mistake of commenting positively about the phrase’s encapsulation of British resolve. His student had explained that it was in fact a statement about all that was wrong with the country, a mocking lament of isolation and alienation.
    He touched his cheek. Stoicism was not the same as detachment. It was the product of strength and resolve. The qualities that would keep Britain great.
    He leant back in his chair and tried to concentrate on the morning’s events. Had he been mugged? Attacked? What should he call it and should he even mention it? Everyone spoke about the ‘unrest’, expressed their disquiet at how the police were handling events, how violent the youth had become, tut-tutting about the looting. But they had all only ever witnessed it as clips on the evening news, the familiar scenes of washed-orange lights and dark figures running across rainy streets. Occasionally, there was an interview with a belligerent teenager or a police commissioner, but they just mouthed off the first threats or platitudes that came to them. Gabriel rarely listened. It could just as easily have been Birmingham. Or Mogadishu for that matter.
    And now, while sipping his coffee on his way to university, on a placid Tuesday morning, it had suddenly included him.

Chapter 2
    RAF WADDINGTON AIR FORCE BASE, LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND
    The station’s operations room had been cleared of all personnel, save for three men who were watching the small video screen attentively. The first was the flight lieutenant, a former Tornado pilot, now assigned to 39 Squadron and the ministry of defence’s ISTAR programme. He was normally a talkative man, given to pranks and lewd jokes, but the presence of the two senior officers in the room kept him in quiet unease. Them and the trajectory set on the global positioning system on the screen.
    The first senior officer stood, legs astride, behind him, watching the screen over his shoulder. Group Captain Frank Richards was a towering man with cropped sandy-coloured hair and a massive chest. He was notionally the mission coordinator for the flight, although protocol required that the coordinator not be an aircrew officer. There was also no forward air controller for the mission. Together this constituted a material deviation from the rules of engagement and would be considered irregular by the station commander, and subject to disciplinary measures, but for the presence of the third man in the room: Air Marshal George Bartholomew.
    Bartholomew stood a little distance away from the other two, his hands clasped behind him, watching the GPS figures tick over at speed. RAF Waddington was the hub of ISTAR – the Royal Air Force’s Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance programme – and Air Marshal Bartholomew was its primary representative