Inwardly, Caitlin was recalculating her chances. This loser obviously had no idea she’d successfully sent the data to Wales. She might well be better off leaving with Baumer. She had his measure.

‘So you’ve been protecting him since New York?’ she said, stringing out the encounter as she turned over all the options, working the possible angles and combinations like a Rubik’s cube.

She and Baumer exchanged another look of mutual loathing.

‘He has not been protecting me,’ said the jihadist. His voice was muffled by the injury and swelling. ‘He has been protecting himself.’

‘And what, you’re going to give up your hold on Blackstone for passage out of here with me?’

Baumer carefully constructed a grin from the remains of his face. It was a tenuous thing, held together by force of will. ‘Not just out of here, but out of America. With you, Caitlin. And with Mr McCutcheon, who will take possession of the New York documents when I am safe.’

‘Road trip.’ McCutcheon’s motor mouth was back. ‘Gonna be fun.’

‘You gotta be fucking kidding me,’ said Caitlin. ‘You got suckered by this whackjob in New York and now you’re trusting him again? Fuck me.’

‘Maybe later,’ replied Ty. ‘Clocks a-tickin’ right now, though. Governor?’

‘We’re not trusting him, Agent Monroe,’ Blackstone said, ignoring his aide for the moment. ‘But, yes, we are dealing with him. And he with us. Sometimes in war, you have to make alliances, however temporary, with one enemy while you face another.’

For a second or two, she was blank. She had no idea what he was talking about. And then . . .

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake . . . Morales? You’re still obsessing about that bean-eating fuckwit?’

‘Not obsessing, Agent Monroe. Preparing.’

She shook her head, convinced now beyond doubt that she was talking to a madman.

Blackstone started to respond but he didn’t get a chance. His next words were cut off by the deafening trip hammer of a machine gun fired from just outside.

Training and instinct took over as Caitlin rolled for cover behind a large leather couch. She heard glass shattering. Wood splintered. Men screamed and died in a storm of automatic fire. Ignoring the shrieking agony in her wounded leg, she crawled away from the sound of the gun, scuttling after Baumer, who had dropped, like her, at the first report. He was heading for the door of the library, towards the hallway. She moved slowly, constrained by the handcuffs and her leg wound. Even the grating of her cracked ribs added to the pain and difficulty.