‘I’d love to pat you down, but I could do without the broken arm,’ McCutcheon said. ‘It’s a pity really. I was wondering last night at drinks whether your devotion to duty and country might let me score a free blow job from Colonel Murdoch. Now we’ll never know. And don’t sweat the phone. I’m sure we can find some redneck genius somewhere to figure out how your cell works. Don’t be too hard on yourself, by the way. Some of it was just bad luck. It’s a small world these days.

‘We didn’t clue in to who you were right away. The boss just had a feeling that he knew of you from somewhere, and not as an air force wingnut. Me, I’d never heard of a Colonel Murdoch. And the USAF, especially these days, it’s a small town, let me tell you. It was when you said you’d been exiled in the UK for a couple of years that the penny dropped. The Governor remembered the wedding story. Just one of those things. If you hadn’t mentioned it, you might not have jogged his memory about good old Bret and the newly minted Mrs Melton. That’s some tough shit, eh?’

McCutcheon did love the sound of his own voice. She didn’t bother feeding his ego with a reply. The way he was grinning now, it didn’t look like he needed it.

‘Come on, Caitlin. We better go see the old man and figure out exactly how much damage you’ve done.’

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

He thought at first that it was his bedside alarm. Jed Culver groaned until he realised the ring tone was wrong. He had a phone call.

He wasn’t ruinously drunk or hung-over. But the brandy and bourbons lay heavy on his brow as he struggled up out of a fitful slumber. His indigestion came roaring back too, courtesy of the four-cheese pizza. For a second, he couldn’t understand why Marilyn wasn’t in bed, then he remembered she was back home and he was crashed out in the townhouse. The entirety of the evening came rushing back in on him. The unpleasant surprise of discovering Kipper knew of Colonel Murdoch and her mission in Fort Hood, thanks to Blackstone and the Federation’s special operators, who’d turned out to be anything but special.

Jed’s voice was so croaky and thickened with alcohol and sleep that he couldn’t even get the words out at first. He coughed to clear his throat.

‘Culver,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

As soon as he heard the Echelon’s Deputy Director of Special Clearances on the line, all of his grogginess sluiced away on an adrenaline surge.

‘It’s Wales Larrison, Mr Culver. We have a problem. In fact, we have two of them.’

*