He felt sorry for the coppers. They were out of their league, having stumbled right into something that rose far above their pay grades. If they were smart, they’d keep their traps shut, their heads down and do their jobs.

  The information they had unknowingly brought to the team at the airfield blasted a hole in the middle of the operation, sending shockwaves back through the British and American intelligence services. Miles had no doubt that phones were ringing in offices all over Whitehall and Washington DC, as people scrambled to catch up with the unfolding clusterfuck that the al-Amal rendition had become.

  More than anything, he needed someone out of Six, someone senior to him, to step in and take over. But so far that hadn’t happened, and he remained the man on the spot, the only British intelligence officer in the midst of this mess. It was a responsibility he did not want.

  Sooner or later, someone would catch up to the fact that Miles was only a driver, a low-tier field officer, and kick him aside. But that hadn’t happened yet, and part of him wondered if it was deliberate. If tonight’s work ended badly, a nobody like him would be the perfect person to pin the blame on.

  That bleak thought dissipated as he heard fast, heavy footsteps coming up behind him. Miles twisted to see Knox coming his way with his pistol drawn and a face like thunder.

  ‘You!’ The American aimed the gun at Miles’s chest. ‘Show me your hands, do it now!’

  ‘What?’ He took a step back but did what he was told, slow and steady. Behind him, the PMC who had been on guard reacted by raising his own weapon, covering Miles from another angle. ‘OK, hang on a sec—’

  Knox came at him, and with fingers like iron talons, he grabbed Miles by the shoulder and pulled him back toward the SUV. ‘What the fuck are you limey assholes doing?’

  Miles shook his head, bewildered. ‘I have no idea what you’re on about mate!’ The PMC stood right behind him, eyes darting nervously left and right.

  ‘You got some explaining to do,’ said Knox, who gave him an artless shove toward the open door of the mobile operations unit.

  Inside, Miles saw the CIA’s tech working at a laptop, the screen before him filled with sonic waveforms. He looked up and warily met the other man’s gaze. ‘There’s been a development on the flight.’

  ‘Run it for him.’ Knox gestured with the pistol.

  Chester nodded, tapping a key, and a speaker inside the SUV played a snatch of crackling audio. Miles heard muffled voices, one of which definitely sounded like Finn’s, but he couldn’t pick out the words. Then there was a clutter of echoing noise and a flat crack, like a piece of glass snapping in two.

  ‘That’s a weapon discharge,’ said Chester. ‘Acoustic sig-nature matches a nine-millimetre round, subsonic, close range.’

  Miles shook his head, a denial forming on his lips even as Chester let the playback roll on.

  The next thing Miles heard was Breeze shouting out a desperate warning. ‘Finn’s been turned!’ Then another glass-crack report, then dead silence.

  He met Knox’s hard gaze. The CIA operative had his pistol aimed at a spot on the ground between them, but Miles knew if he so much as twitched, the black muzzle would be right in his face.

  Chester played Breeze’s cry of alarm again and again, until Miles waved him off. ‘All right, all right, I heard it!’

  ‘Two shots fired,’ Knox said darkly, ‘the aircraft under the control of a rogue pilot, your man Finn called out by one of ours. And we just lost the tracker signal from Breeze’s blackphone. You want to tell me what the actual fuck MI6 is doing up there, son?’

  Miles swallowed hard. His mouth was desert dry. ‘This . . . I don’t know anything about this. I’m the bloody driver! Mission mobility, urban operations, that’s my gig. Finn pulled me off the transport rota to drive tonight, so I drove! If he’s up to some shit, I know nothing about it, swear down!’

  Knox glared at him like he was staring right into Miles’s soul, before finally turning his head to spit. ‘Sounds like your guy is a fucking traitor.’

  ‘You don’t know that . . .’ Miles started to argue, but the words came out weakly and he couldn’t finish the sentence.

  He dredged up what little he knew about Thomas Finn. It was barely anything with depth; a few comments from some of the other ground-level team members about the bloke. He was considered competent, if regarded as something of a twat, but given the character of many of the privately schooled chinless wonders who populated much of MI6’s mid-tiers and higher ranks, that wasn’t uncommon.

  But was Finn the kind of man who could cold-bloodedly betray his country and its allies? It galled Miles that he really didn’t know enough about him to be certain.

  The full import of what he had heard on the audio recording landed hard and Miles stiffened. ‘I have to call this in to Control.’ He reached for his own cell phone, but off a nod from Knox, the PMC jabbed him in the back with his weapon and took the device from him.

  ‘You’re not gonna talk to anyone unless I say so,’ said the American. ‘This is a CIA operation now. You Brits have zero credibility from now on, you read me? Count yourself lucky I don’t bag and tag you just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘You can’t do that!’ Miles stepped forward, but the mercenary prodded him again.

  ‘It’s done,’ snapped Knox, turning his back on the other man. He gestured to Chester. ‘I need a direct feed to the SAC. We gotta make a Third Option call, right now.’

  ‘No!’ Miles raised a hand, a crawling chill running up the back of his spine. SAC meant the Special Activities Center, the division of the Central Intelligence Agency responsible for what were euphemistically described as ‘kinetic’ operations. These were the so-called Third Option that Knox referred to. By any other name, that meant blowing things up and killing people. ‘Look, we need to take a breath here, not immediately go for the cowboy shit, yeah?’

  Knox didn’t bother to reply, or even look in Miles’s direction. He addressed his next words to the mercenary. ‘Keep him out of my way.’

  ‘Move back.’ The PMC prodded Miles a third time, and he jerked away from him.

  ‘All right, back off big man!’ Miles snarled at the merc and retreated a few steps from the SUV, but not so far that he couldn’t watch Chester working at his screen.

  The tech gave a nod and Knox picked up a headset. Pressing it to his ear, he listened intently for long moments before speaking again. ‘Copy that. Be advised, I am requesting green light authorisation for an airborne intercept. Location, western Mediterranean Sea. Expedite immediate.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Finn. ‘Get back to work.’ He waved his pistol in the direction of the Hawker’s cockpit, but Kate only rose to her feet, standing her ground.

  ‘Or what?’ She jutted her chin at the gun. ‘You’ll shoot me too?’

  He sighed theatrically. ‘Must you be so difficult? You know it’s not you who’ll suffer if you cause problems.’

  Kate stiffened. ‘I want to talk to Alex. I want to know he’s all right.’

  ‘Who?’ Finn frowned, then caught up quickly. ‘Oh. The boyfriend, yes? Well, no. I’m not at liberty to provide that. We’re going to keep communications with the outside world to a minimum for now.’

  He nodded toward the table, where the broken remains of Breeze’s satellite phone and Kate’s more ordinary handset lay in a pathetic pile of glass and plastic fragments. Finn had methodically destroyed both devices, smashing them with the butt of his semi-automatic until they were broken and useless.

  ‘Speaking of which . . .’ Finn reached into his pocket and removed his own sat phone, waking it with a press of the thumb. He laid the device down on the table in front of Yusuf, who eyed it warily.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘I’m doing what I was paid to do,’ Finn told the prisoner. ‘I was told a detainee would be transferred tonight. I made certain I was in charge of the detail. I picked the team. I set this up.’ He indicated the phone, then produced a lock knife and used it to cut the ties securing Yusuf’s wrists. ‘My employer expressed a desire to speak with you. Just give it a minute.’

  ‘You never contacted MI6 about Price, did you?’ said Breeze.

  ‘No. That was an unexpected hiccup, I’ll admit, but it’s been managed. I imagine there are a lot of people at Vauxhall Cross running around like headless chickens right now.’ He smirked. ‘Shame to miss it, really.’

  Breeze hauled herself up to a sitting position and wiped a film of sweat from her brow. ‘Don’t keep us in suspense, hipster. Tell Katie here why you decided to betray your oath to King and country.’ She panted out a shallow breath, delivering a weak but pointed addendum. ‘You lousy dickwad.’

  Finn’s eyes narrowed. ‘I haven’t killed you outright because you might actually be worth slightly more alive than dead,’ he snapped. ‘But don’t tempt me.’

  Breeze snorted and glanced at Kate. ‘You get it, don’t you? You know what he is.’

  Kate gave a slow nod, looking back at Finn, seeing the facts of the man with clarity for the first time. ‘You’re not some believer. Not doing this for a cause. You’re a hireling.’ She sneered at him. ‘You sold out for money.’

  A nerve twitched in Finn’s jaw and Kate knew she was on the mark. He gave a shrug. ‘In fairness, it is an extremely good payday. Much better than the pittance I was getting from the penny-pinchers in the Ministry. And ideology is such an outdated concept.’

  ‘Do you even know why you’re doing this?’ Kate pushed harder.

  ‘I didn’t ask,’ said Finn, ‘because I genuinely don’t care.’ He indicated Yusuf. ‘I don’t know if this man is somebody or nobody. I don’t know if the men paying me want to rescue him or slit his throat. I don’t care.’ He smiled, finding his stride. ‘I’ve had enough of working for a bunch of feckless, self-serving idiots. I’m cashing out with a decent jackpot.’ As he spoke, the phone on the table began to vibrate, moving across the surface in little jerks of motion. ‘Here we go. Right on time.’

  Yusuf stared at the device, rubbing his wrists where the ties had cut into his skin, and at length he reached out and put a finger on the phone. The answer tab lit up, and a voice emerged from the speaker grille.

  ‘I want to speak to my brother.’ It was a man, his timbre deep and rich, with a Middle-Eastern inflection to his words. ‘Are you there? Do you hear me? This is Nasir. Will you speak to me, Hamid?’

  ‘I thought you said his name was Yusuf,’ said Kate, struggling to keep up.

  ‘Hamid.’ From behind her, Breeze said the word like it was the darkest, foulest curse the woman could ever have uttered. ‘You sneaky fucking bastard!’

  The man seated at the table gave Kate a sideways glance, and it was as if he had instantly become a different person. The mask of panic he’d worn from the first moment she saw him dissolved, and in its place rose an icy, affectless expression. Absent of malice, absent of fear, absent of anything.

  ‘Brother,’ he said, picking up the phone. ‘As-salamu alaikum.’

  SIXTEEN

  As it had been with every turning point in Hamid’s life, the circumstances he now found himself in sprang from a violent death.

  He could measure the arc of his existence with grave markers, one after another, stretching back along the horizon line of his life. Hamid came into the world on death’s hands, his mother perishing in childbirth after terrible complications and an under-equipped hospital collaborated to leave him with a father who would always resent the boy. His older brother Nasir was the only light throughout his younger years, the two of them growing up as an inseparable pair amid poverty and dust, each a bulwark for the other against an indifferent, uncaring world.

  Life was hard for them in Saddam City, one of the poorest districts on the edges of Baghdad despite the grand name bestowed by their country’s bellicose president. The crushing, day-to-day grind of living in that milieu took their father soon enough, the man run down by a speeding army truck that did not stop after the fact. Rootless and orphaned, Hamid and Nasir found another family among other lost youths. The firebrand imam who took them in, preaching rage and fury, became their new father figure.

  Hamid killed his first man at the age of sixteen, a junior officer in the People’s Army extorting protection money from one of the mosques. He committed the act with a butcher knife – more with anger than accuracy – and he did it telling himself that the officer had been the driver of the truck those years before, as if his need for revenge made the deed permissible.

  But on reflection, Hamid found he didn’t really need that justification, not for that murder, or the next, or the next, or any of those that followed.

  His whole life justified it. Sentenced by circumstance to live a stunted existence in neglected, crumbling ruins, while the ruling caste enjoyed their lavish lifestyles and their casual cruelty, he had hate enough to fuel him. The officer, and every man like him, they were an affront to God. The imam let Hamid find his way to that realisation, that permission, until he walked the bloody path he had been destined to follow.

  Hamid was born to be an equaliser, a force to balance the injustice of the world. At first, his targets were the Ba’athists in power and their lackeys. In time, the scope of his work grew wider, expanding beyond the borders of Iraq, spilling over the nations of the Middle East and growing to encompass the West. He mined a rich seam of hatred for all of them, finding like-minded others who needed righteous warriors with that kind of fire in their hearts.

  But even that new brethren paled at the ruthlessness of Hamid’s actions. He had no qualms about spilling the blood of women and children, or killing believers in numbers equal to infidels, if that was what was required.

  It was the first lesson life had taught him, and he saw it as his duty to teach it again and again to those who required instruction. Only death gave life meaning, and if the world had to drown in a sea of crimson for its balance to be restored, so be it.

  He heeded Nasir’s voice burbling away from the sat phone in his hand, muttering platitudes and making promises. Hamid listened with half an ear, staring into the sightless eyes of the corpse slumped across from him, against the wall of the jet’s cabin. The dead man had seen Hamid’s truth in the last, fearful seconds of his life. He had understood.

  And as much as Hamid could care for his older brother, he knew Nasir did not understand. He wasn’t capable of it. He lacked the vision, which was why the younger sibling had risen to eclipse the older back when they were still teenagers. The closeness they had once shared slowly dissolved and Hamid’s brother gradually become a stranger, meaning little more to him than the other fighters in their organisation.

  Nasir could plot and he could scheme with the best of them. He saw the warp and weft of connections between people, and he knew how to exploit them. But compared to cunning, savage Hamid, he was inert.

  Hamid led from the front. He got his hands bloody. Rather than hide in caves and make plans, sending other men to do the work, he steeped himself in the game of it. Hamid took on cover identities for months at a time so he could get close enough to a target to end them in a single, pitiless instant.

  This was how al-Sakakin, the knives, had come to be. Playing the pliant, complacent soldier to the hilt, Hamid had waited for the right moment to murder his superior and forge his own group of warriors for the long war of jihad. That man – the old imam – had been a brute, but he was artless and short-sighted with it. And ultimately, too great a coward to dare antagonise the powers of the foreign nations who constantly meddled in the affairs of their people.

  His mother bled to death. His father crushed into the highway. The officer stabbed a dozen times. The imam’s skull burst by a bullet. Each one a marker among countless others on Hamid’s lengthy path, joined only days ago by Yusuf ibn Saleh ibn Kalb al-Amal.

  He looked at his hands, paying no attention to Nasir’s words, remembering the weight of the heavy glass ornament he had used to stove in the honey-seller’s skull. Hamid was here because of Yusuf’s foolishness and ineptitude – and perhaps, if he was willing to admit it, because of his own desire to make a point. There had always been a plan to kill Yusuf, right from the start of their association. That was inevitable, given the honey-seller’s weakness of character and obvious shortcomings. Al-Sakakin had not decided on when that time would come, instead using the man for his business connections and the cover of his international dealings in Europe. But with plans under way to commit a strike against the United States, he was becoming a liability.

  Hamid felt the moment was close. That was why he had travelled to Amsterdam on a fake Qatari passport, meeting secretly with Yusuf to gauge exactly how much usefulness the man still had for the organisation.

  They met late in the evening at Yusuf’s townhouse in Nieuwmarkt, a well-appointed building filled with dark wood interiors warmed by an open fireplace. Hamid’s host was pleasant enough, for a timid fool. Outwardly, the two of them were alike in many ways, similar in build and features, enough that someone might mistake the men for siblings. But any likeness ended at the surface.

  As Hamid gently interrogated Yusuf, he found his faint-heartedness repellent. The other man lived with his head buried in the sand, willing to let al-Sakakin use his network for their ends but too content with his wealth and comfort to risk more. Yusuf lied to himself, pretending he was a good man, untouched by blood. He desperately wanted to remain an innocent, but he could not see that no such thing existed. No one was innocent, not even the newborn who had ended his mother’s life coming into the world.

  Hamid recollected the cold, ghost-weight of the glass ornament as his fingers closed around it, pulling it off the shelf above the desk in Yusuf’s study.

  ‘It is an award,’ the other man had said, delight in his eyes. ‘For my business acumen.’ He was so pleased with it, proud like Hamid imagined a parent might be.