As the small plane approached Svalbard, the landscape was not what Friday had expected. She had anticipated the snow and the isolation, but she hadn’t imagined the mountains. They rose up out of the sea like angry ancient volcanic events. The ground was either black stone or smothered in white snow. There was very little plant life. The bright blue of the sky and the deep blue of the sea, both bathed in the glow of autumn sunshine, should have been cheerful. But there was something dark about the stony snow-covered mountains. Friday felt like she was flying into a scene from The Lord of the Rings, and an army of goblins or elf people might stampede over a hilltop at any moment.

The buildings of the small town near the airport were all painted in different bright colours, but the squat timber architecture seemed to huddle into the mountainside, braced for any onslaught from the weather . . . or goblins.

‘There’s the Seed Vault,’ hollered Binky. He had to talk in a raised voice to be heard over the propeller engines.

Friday peered out at the mountainside. All she could see was snow and rock. She knew the Seed Vault had a rooftop artwork that lit up like the northern lights at night, but it wasn’t night.

‘The concrete rectangular thing there,’ said Binky, pointing to a spot on the slope.

Friday saw it now. It looked more like a mining building, which made sense, because the Seed Vault had originally been a coal mine. But this big, geometric lump of concrete built into the side of a desolate snowy mountain did not look as impressive in real life as it did in photographs. It was hard to believe this was the building that would save the world in the event of an apocalypse. It looked more like a 1970s toilet block.

Friday turned to speak to Melanie. She was asleep. Friday nudged her. ‘We’re here.’

‘Already?’ said Melanie. She leaned forward to look out the window. ‘So we are. It looks very pretty.’

‘It looks cold,’ said Friday.

‘I like the cold,’ said Melanie. ‘People are less judgemental about staying in and napping.’

From the airport, Friday had expected to swap to cars, but snowmobiles were the fastest way to get about on the island. They were soon riding up the service road to the vault. Friday had never been on a snowmobile before. It was a little disturbing. It reminded her of a ride-on lawnmower, and the only time she’d been on one of those was when she was being kidnapped by an escaped criminal. Although, the snowmobile was a lot faster than a ride-on lawnmower, which seemed extra super-fast with the bitingly cold wind blasting into her face.

Binky was going to immediately relieve the soldier on guard duty, so they left him at the guard post by the entrance to Seed Vault. They all had to leave their mobile phones there too. For security reasons, no one was allowed to take photographs inside. The depositors were protective of their seeds.

Once they passed through the entrance, Binky shut the huge steel doors behind them. This was important to maintain a constant temperature inside. Normally, the sound of steel doors clanging shut would have been unnerving. When Friday had been in juvenile detention, the doors had been like that. The sound of metal slamming shut and a steel bolt sliding into the lock were horrible sounds to her. Friday had braced herself for a claustrophobic reaction, but it was such a relief to be inside, out of the cold wind, that the panic didn’t come and she was soon able to breathe easily.

Dr Finsberg officially greeted them. ‘Hello, and welcome to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault! We are so remote from the rest of the world, we do not often get visitors here. It will be a pleasure to show you around our facility.’ His words were belied by his sing-song tone. He was clearly bored with the speech he had given many times before.

‘I thought the vault was meant to be cold,’ said Minister Mendoza. ‘It feels warmer in here than outside.’

‘Yes, it feels that way, but it’s not,’ said Dr Finsberg. ‘The vault is a constant minus eighteen degrees centigrade. It’s only minus twelve outside today, but out there the wind chill factor makes it feel colder.’ He led them into the long, round tunnel. It sloped down as they went deep into the mountain. Dr Finsberg kept talking. ‘The vault is actually refrigerated to maintain the optimum temperature. But if power was lost, the temperature would only rise to minus three degrees, because that is the temperature of the permafrost one hundred metres under the ground.’

Friday slipped on the icy floor. Her feet flew out from under and she braced for impact, but someone had grabbed her elbow. She looked up. Of course, it was Ian.

‘Are you avoiding me?’ he asked.

‘Me, why?’ asked Friday.

‘I’m guessing fear of commitment,’ said Ian.

‘What commitment?’ asked Friday.

‘Being in the same room as me appears to be too much commitment for you at the moment,’ said Ian.

‘You’re undercover as someone else’s boyfriend,’ said Friday. ‘I’m ignoring you for professional reasons.’

Ian smiled. ‘So you are going to take the job with the agency?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Friday.

‘You’ve got cold feet,’ said Ian.

‘Well, we are standing on permafrost,’ said Friday.

Ian smiled at her lame joke. ‘What’s holding you back?’

‘I’ve been busy,’ said Friday.

‘There’s always an excuse,’ said Ian.

‘It’s a big decision,’ said Friday. ‘I’m more comfortable with small incremental decisions that add up to a big decision.’

Dr Finsberg had reached the end of the tunnel. He raised his voice to address the whole group. ‘When we’ve all passed through the climate-controlled chamber, we will be able to enter the actual vault.’ This was his passive-aggressive way of asking the stragglers to hurry up. Friday and Ian increased their pace to join the rest of the group.

Dr Finsberg shut the second double door. The room they were in now was small. It looked like they were standing inside a giant freezer. There was ice on the walls and around the door. A flat-screen TV showed CCTV footage of the corridor they had just walked down.

‘Now that we’re all inside, we can open the door into the vault,’ said Dr Finsberg. He turned the handle. They could hear ice scraping as he pushed the door open. ‘People don’t often come in here, as you can imagine. Once the seeds are catalogued and stored they require minimal maintenance.’

They stepped into the vault. There were rows and rows of sturdy steel shelves. It looked almost like a library, except there were no books, just large plastic storage bins. Each carefully labelled to identify the origin, the contents and when the deposit had been made. It was like Aladdin’s cave, if Aladdin’s cave had been full of immaculately organised agricultural seeds.

‘Can we see Spain’s deposit?’ asked the minister.

‘Of course,’ said Dr Finsberg. ‘Follow me. It will be in row forty-three. The countries are stored alphabetically. So Spain will be after Sardinia and Senegal but before Sweden and Swaziland.’ The group ambled after him.

Friday looked down each aisle. The scale of the operation was impressive, but even to a science nerd like her it wasn’t terribly exciting. She could get excited by seeds as perfect genetic storage systems, but she couldn’t get excited about looking at the plastic boxes storing them.

‘Here we are . . .’ began Dr Finsberg.

But suddenly, the lights went out. It was absolutely pitch black. Not like in a house at night, where the dim glow of stars or electrical appliances always sheds some illumination – this was totally black.

‘Aaaaggghhh!’ someone screamed.

‘Melanie?’ called Friday. She reached out to try and find her friend. Someone grabbed Friday’s hand. She couldn’t see her hands. She couldn’t see her own nose. And yet, she just knew that the person holding her hand was Ian.

He squeezed her fingers. She squeezed back. They didn’t speak. They were both trying to listen to figure out what was going on.

‘Don’t panic,’ said Dr Finsberg, although he had an emotional edge in his voice. ‘The back up generator will kick in soon and the lights will come back on.’ They could faintly hear the distant sound of muffled shouting. Then suddenly – there were three very loud, explosive pops. It was a distinctive sound.

‘That was gunfire,’ said Ian.

‘The vault is being robbed!’ said Ingrid.

‘Why?’ said Friday. ‘It’s not a bank vault. There’s nothing here worth stealing.’

‘The seeds are essential for the genetic survival of crops,’ said Melanie.

‘But the vault is a backup of a backup,’ said Friday. ‘There hasn’t been an apocalypse. The countries can just redeposit.’

BZZZZZZZ.

Now they could hear a power tool.

‘That sounds like a circular saw,’ said Friday.

They could hear tearing metal as the saw was put to work.

‘They’re cutting through the doors,’ said Ian.

‘What do we do?’ asked the minister.

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ said Ian. ‘Except wait.’

They didn’t have to wait long. They soon heard the doors crash open. Then suddenly they were being yelled at in English, but heavily accented English.

‘GET DOWN! GET DOWN! GET IN THE CORNER!’

‘STAY BACK! THAT IS AN ORDER,’ barked Magnus. There was a sickening thud – the distinctive sound of something hard being slammed into someone’s head. Then a heavy thump as Magnus collapsed on the ground.

‘Magnus!’ screamed Ingrid.

‘GET IN THE CORNER!’ They were being yelled at again.

‘Everyone, do as they say.’ This was Binky’s voice.

‘Binky!’ cried Ingrid.

‘Just do as they say,’ urged Binky, his voice sounding strained. ‘They aren’t afraid to shoot.’

Someone slammed into Friday. It was someone huge. Friday realised it was Binky. He had been pushed into her. Binky stumbled and Friday fell back against the wall as she struggled to help him regain his footing.

‘Are you okay, Binky?’ asked Friday.

‘Oh fine,’ said Binky. He sounded very distracted. ‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘Why is your arm wet?’ asked Friday.

‘Just a scratch,’ said Binky.

‘Binky,’ said Friday, ‘have you been shot?’

‘Maybe a little bit,’ conceded Binky.

Friday let him sink to the floor. She took off her scarf and tied it tightly around Binky’s wet bicep.

‘Ow,’ said Binky. ‘Sorry to get emotional, but that really does hurt like the devil.’

‘IN THE CORNER! GET IN THE CORNER!’ barked the intruders.

These instructions were particularly stupid, because the hostages couldn’t see anything, so they had no idea which corner they were supposed to go to, but they soon worked out what direction they were supposed to be moving in when the intruders started jabbing them in the ribs.

Friday was shoved to the floor, where she banged into someone else.

‘Friday!’ said Mel. ‘I’d know that clumsy stumble anywhere.’

‘SHUT UP!’ yelled one of the attackers.

It was weird, being caught up in a flurry of activity in complete darkness. They could hear the thieves ripping boxes off shelves and opening them up. They could hear things spilling on the floor. But there was nothing to see to give a sense of movement.

‘What are they looking for?’ whispered Ian. ‘The boxes are all clearly labelled.’

‘Something that’s not on the label,’ said Friday.

‘But how can they see?’ asked Melanie.

‘Night-vision goggles, I expect,’ said Friday.

‘I’VE GOT IT,’ yelled one of the men. The sound of searching stopped.

‘Let’s get out of here!’ This was a woman’s voice. She was apparently the leader, because the others hurried to follow her instructions. ‘Grab the princess,’ she snapped.

‘Noooo!’ bellowed Binky. Friday was bumped to one side. The hostages were all clumped together and Binky’s sudden movement caused them to bash into each other like bowling pins. Friday caught herself on her hands before her face could smash into the ground. Someone grabbed the back of her coat and pulled her up.

There were the sounds of fists thumping into people.

‘Get off her!’ yelled Binky.

‘Urgh,’ groaned the person he’d hit.

The attackers were leaving. Their boots echoed as they ran back up the corridor.

The emergency lighting came on.

‘I found the light switch!’ said Melanie. She was standing by the wall with the switch still in her hand.

The emergency lighting was lower, designed to use less voltage, but they could see each other, and they could see the mess the thieves had made. There were sachets of seeds strewn everywhere. Ian was writhing on the ground, clutching his nose. Binky was standing in front of Ingrid as he pinned her to the wall, protecting her from assault. Magnus was unconscious but alive.

‘Who hit Wainscott?’ asked Binky.

‘You did, you idiot,’ said Ian.

‘But why did you lunge for Ingrid?’ asked Binky.

‘To protect her,’ said Ian. ‘They said they were going to take her.’

‘Oh, that’s jolly nice,’ said Binky. ‘Thanks, Wainscott, sorry about the blood nose.’

‘They’ve stolen Spain’s deposit!’ exclaimed the minister. He was holding the empty plastic storage bin.

Cassandra looked at all the seed sachets spilled on the floor. ‘No. Or at least they can’t have stolen much of it. There’s so much here.’ She crouched down and started picking up the sachets and putting them into the box. ‘Dr Finsberg will need to audit them to find out what’s missing.’

The minister looked about. ‘Where is Dr Finsberg?’

‘Speaking of people who are missing,’ said Melanie. ‘Where’s Friday?’

Everyone looked about, assuming she must be somewhere, perhaps unconscious on the floor.

‘She’s not here,’ said Cassandra.

‘She was wearing my clothes,’ said Ingrid. ‘They must have thought she was me!’

Ian didn’t say anything. He just took off running back up the corridor.