The DVD was of a current affairs panel discussion programme that Bud Richmond had participated in three months earlier. Slater couldn’t stop watching it.

The programme had been a great PR builder for Richmond. Slater had paid plants in the audience to fire tailor-made questions at the Senator, and he’d written all of Richmond’s responses himself. It was all going smoothly to begin with. Richmond had been in fine form, and Slater had been congratulating himself. The combination of the jackass’s sincere belief and Slater’s own smooth and witty script made for a great show.

But then, two minutes from the end and just when they were almost home and dry, some damn long-haired student in the back of the room had stuck up his hand and asked the fatal unscripted question out of the blue.

Watching the screen, Slater aimed the remote and skipped ahead to that terrible moment.

The student put up his hand. The camera panned across and zoomed in. ‘Senator, many scholars have doubts about the legitimacy of the Book of Revelation as a Bible text. What do you think about that?’

Cut to camera two, and Richmond filled the screen. ‘I’ve read all they have to say,’ he replied calmly. ‘But my faith remains solid and sure.’

The student had more to add. ‘But if someone could prove that St John hadn’t been the author – that Revelation wasn’t the true Word of God – would that not undermine your faith in it, sir?’

Watching the programme on live TV, Slater had been gripping the edge of his chair.

Richmond had hesitated a second, then nodded solemnly. ‘OK,’ he’d said. He’d inched forward across the table on his elbows, fixing the student with that fervent look of his. ‘Let’s say some scholar came up with real, concrete evidence that St John did not really write that book,’ he’d said. ‘Let’s say they could actually prove that the prophecies in Revelation were not truly based on the Word of God?’ He paused again for dramatic effect. ‘Then I would have to revise my belief in it. But I would also take that as a sign from God, telling me that I had to move in a new direction.’ Then Richmond had smiled broadly. ‘And I have to tell you,’ he added, ‘I’d be darn relieved, knowing we didn’t all have to go through the Tribulation.’ The crowd had laughed.

At the time, the sense of unease that Richmond’s ad-libbed answer had instilled in Slater had only been slight and temporary. He’d soon forgotten about it.

But then disaster had struck. When the surveillance team watching Clayton Cleaver in Georgia had informed him that Cleaver was under fire from a blackmailer, Slater had realised that in the light of Richmond’s comments all their careful plans were in serious trouble.

He’d never heard of any Zoë Bradbury before. When he Googled the name he began to worry even more. This was a legit Bible scholar with a high enough profile to blow everything apart. If what she was saying was true, and if she could give the critics the evidence they needed to prove that the Book of Revelation hadn’t been written by John the Apostle, that its very legitimacy as a New Testament text was in question – that the book was a fraud, for Christ’s sake – the End Time Stratagem was dead in the water. Revelation was the central pillar holding up the End Time roof. To undermine its authority would shake the whole movement down to its roots. Not only that, but Richmond was now saying he’d be happy to walk away from it if he thought it had lost credibility. His standing with the evangelical voters would deflate like a punctured football – and with it Slater’s visions of the White House.

Slater was a businessman, and his mind worked pragmatically. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out the options.

One. Buy her off. She wanted ten million from Cleaver, but why should she care where the cash came from as long as she got rich? He could double that figure to make her go away. But what if she kept coming back for more? What if she went ahead and spilled the beans anyway? How could she be trusted?

He’d preferred option two. Grab her and make her lead them to the evidence. They’d destroy it for good, and then they’d bury her along with her claims.

So Slater had called on his contacts. His chief associate within the CIA had delegated the task to his man Jones, who in turn had sent a team to Corfu to snatch her. Now Bradbury was in their custody, somewhere nobody would ever find her. But there were too many problems and complications. He couldn’t afford to wait. It was time for decisive action.

He turned off the DVD playback and sank back in the soft armchair, massaging his temples. On the low table in front of him was a hardwood bowl filled with chocolate bars. He grabbed three of them, tore off the wrappers and swallowed them voraciously.

Gulping down the last of the chocolate, he snatched his phone from the arm of the chair and stabbed the keys.

His associate’s voice answered on the second ring.

‘We need to talk,’ Slater said. Pause. ‘No. You come here. I’m alone. I sent the jackass on vacation for a few days.’

‘Give me three hours,’ his associate replied.

‘Be here in two.’

Montana

The previous day

Dr Joshua Greenberg pulled the rental Honda in off the highway and into the parking lot of the roadside diner. Grabbing his briefcase from the passenger seat, he climbed out and groaned. He’d been on the road a long while. He stretched and rubbed his eyes.

A Freightliner truck roared past with a blast of wind and a cloud of dust and diesel fumes. The doctor turned towards the diner and slowly, stiffly, climbed the two steps up to the entrance. The place was quiet – a few sullen truckers and a couple of families taking a late lunch. He took a booth in the corner, settled on the red vinyl seat and ordered coffee. He didn’t feel like eating. The brown liquid that the waitress shoved under his nose wasn’t really coffee, but he sat and drank it anyway.

He sat there for thirty minutes, staring at his hands on the table. He should be moving on. They’d be expecting him back at the facility, to deliver the package to Jones. It was still two hours’ drive away.

He gave a short, bitter laugh. Facility. That was a fine word for a semi-derelict hotel in the middle of nowhere that was being used as an illegal detention centre for a kidnapped innocent young woman.

He glanced down at the briefcase next to him on the seat. Reached across, unsnapped the catch, dipped inside and came out holding the little bottle. He set it down on the table in front of him. It was amber glass and held just under 100 millilitres of clear, slightly viscous fluid. There was no label. It looked innocuous enough. It could have been anything, some kind of innocent herbal remedy even. But he knew that if he were to empty the contents into the bubbling coffee pot behind the counter, every cup served out of it would make its drinker a candidate for the nuthouse within a day.

First they would become unusually chatty and uninhibited, happily revealing even the most intimate secrets about themselves. Then the drug would go to town on the unconscious mind, liberating every shred of darkness from inside – every repressed fear, every angry or bitter emotion, every disturbing or violent thought. It would all come flooding out, overwhelming the conscious mind in a wave of rage and paranoia and grief and terror, the whole spectrum of the most extreme emotions a human being could experience, all at once, relentlessly, for hours.

There was no stopping the feedback loop. Madness was the inevitable result, and there was no antidote.

He shuddered. And he was on his way to hand this over to Jones to give to an innocent young woman. To ruin her for ever.