‘Not unless we can get eyes on the target. And right now we have none. Agent Monroe does have an extraction plan. Overwatch is attempting to open a secure comm channel to an effector, a Ranger non-com by the name of Milosz.’

‘Why can’t you get him now?’ asked Jed. ‘Surely he’s got a cell or something.’

‘I said we were trying to open a secure channel, Mr Culver. There’s no point telling Milosz to attempt a hostile extraction if they know he’s coming.’

Hostile extraction? Oh, sweet Jesus.

Jed tried to think it through. To calm the black panic gnawing at him. The situation wasn’t entirely bleak. Caitlin Monroe, it seemed, had done an extraordinary job. She had somehow obtained the entire contents of a computer used by Blackstone’s principal aide and delivered them safely to Echelon. Larrison’s people were going to be days unravelling the treasurer trove of data and documents, but already there were indications they had enough to charge Blackstone with everything from violation of federal occupational health and safety laws up to and including treason.

In that sense, it was all hookers and blow from here. Even the most shell-backed conservative could not support Mad Jack when they had a look at the New York files.

But it still left Culver exposed. He’d sought the dispatch of an Echelon agent on a mission for which the legal standing was questionable at best. More importantly, it was a mission the President had expressly forbidden. There was no parsing the language to obscure the fact that the Chief of Staff had disobeyed a direct order from James Kipper, and in doing so had probably broken enough laws to see him jailed until sometime after the heat death of the universe.

That wasn’t great. But even worse was the fact that with Monroe compromised, Blackstone was aware, at least to some extent, that he too was exposed. If he knew that Echelon had his files, he was entirely capable, in Jed’s opinion, of seceding from the union. If he wasn’t aware of what they had on him, he might try to cover it up by simply disposing of the woman and turning her presence in Texas back on Seattle. This was what a guy like Wales Larrison called ‘blowback’. The deputy director sounded calm, even sanguine, on the line from Vancouver. Jed supposed he was used to these things blowing up in his face. After all, he’d seen most of his network in France rolled up back in ‘03. Caitlin Monroe was the sole survivor of that betrayal.

Although the best outcome to the immediate crisis would be for Monroe to disappear, while leaving Jed with enough documentation of Blackstone’s villainy to destroy him at his leisure, the White House Chief of Staff knew he had to act quickly to maintain some semblance of control.