“Come on, come on!” Nick muttered under his breath. Through a spotting scope filched from Firearms, he watched Grace begin her walk down the hill, cursing roundly when she stopped after only a short distance. Did she have no concept of the possible threat?
“What the hell’s she playing at?” Pollock growled.
“At a guess? Trying to give us all heart attacks.”
“Hang on, who’s that?” Pollock pointed. “Man in army uniform.”
Nick swung the glass up, adjusted the focus onto the figure who’d just appeared and was striding quickly after Grace. “It looks like Major Frederickson, sir.”
“What the heck is he doing here?” Pollock shook his head. “I don’t like this. I told them to stay back.” He turned, scowling, to a couple of the Firearms team who were hovering nearby. “Get them back down here, all of them. Do it now!”
The two men had just started to jog away from the gateway when there was a massive crump from the far side of the barn, so the fabric of the earth appeared to momentarily heave and buckle underneath their feet. He saw both Grace and Frederickson go to ground.
The grass around the barn flattened as if in a strong wind. Then a tongue of dirty orange flame shot high into the air, sending roofing flags half the size of a man cartwheeling lazily.
And at last came a tremendous booming thunderclap as the noise of the explosion finally reached them.