‘Cornell and Watson Financial Services, how can I help you?’

‘I want to book an appointment,’ he replied quickly.

‘I’m afraid we’re booked up for the foreseeable future, sir.’

‘How about Christmas Day?’

A pause. ‘What time sir?’

He sighed. ‘A minute past midnight.’

‘One minute.’

It was a necessary ritual. They were as much at risk of being exposed and destroyed by them; more so in fact, since their resources were dwarfed by those of their quarry. The agency was small, tiny in fact . . . a staff of no more than about thirty agents operating out of the rear offices of a discreet back-street firm in New York. The firm, seemingly, offered walk-in financial services, but never quite seemed to be able to fit an appointment in to anyone who might actually walk in off the street.

He heard a male voice. ‘Jesus! We thought you were dead! We’ve been trying to contact you since Tuesday!’

‘If you must know, Jim, I’ve been through a shitting war zone. My—’

‘No names remember.’

‘My fucking sat’ phone got blown to pieces on Tuesday, and I’ve been shot at God knows how many times since—’

‘We’ve had a breakthrough. A huge goddamn solid gold breakthrough.’

‘—this whole crazy thing . . . Breakthrough? What are you talking about?’

‘Our target, the one you’re with right now . . . he’s not who we want.’

‘Well I’m not with him right now, not any more. We got separated. I’m waiting for the military to find me space on a flight out of Turkey right now.’

‘It’s his daughter. It’s the target’s daughter.’

‘What? What the hell are you talking about?’

‘We think she could be able to identify one or more of them.’

He suddenly found his pulse racing. ‘You’re shitting me. What’s happened?’

‘She called him on his cell, Tuesday morning. Christ, you might have even seen him take the call.’

He tried to think back. Tuesday morning, they’d been fighting for their lives in that pink compound, all hell breaking loose. He couldn’t specifically remember Sutherland taking any calls, but then that whole day was a jumble of blurred, panic-stricken memories.

‘And listen, we think she saw several of them.’

‘Several? Several of the One Hundred and Sixty?’

‘No, better than that . . . several of the Twelve.’

‘My God!’ He looked anxiously around the communications tent. No one was close enough to hear him talking, no one was even watching. The soldiers were all too busy holding the razor-wire perimeter or hustling. He spoke more quietly all the same. ‘We have to find her.’

‘I know, we have to re-deploy very quickly. They may know what we know. They might even be closing in on her as we speak.’

‘We’ve got to try.’

‘Yes.’

‘She’s in England?’

‘That’s right, London.’

‘I can try and swing the next plane out of here heading that way. I’ll do it somehow. Can you get some more assets on the ground over there?’

‘It’ll be difficult under current circumstances. We might be able to fly a couple of men in to help you.’

‘Do it. Do it now.’

‘We will.’

Mike was about to hang up; the Marine colonel had said he had just a couple of minutes, no more.

‘What’s it like there?’

‘Here? New York? It’s shit. The place is falling apart, just like everywhere else. We get power for a couple of hours a day, and there are riots everywhere. Not good.’