The metal room spun around me. Shooting pains ran through my calves, thighs. It was hard to think straight. There had to have been a security breach. That much seemed obvious. But if the message on the banknote had anything to do with me, then it wasn’t a leak: it was a tsunami. UKN was an entirely black outfit. And Max McLean didn’t exist. I was a creation with no birth certificate, no queen’s commission and no past. A nowhere man with no way of being traced. If London really was out of the loop, then the only way that either Connor or the shooter could have been waiting for me, specifically, was if they knew that Frank would send me. If that was true, if Arkhangel was meant for me because it meant something to me, then UKN had been blown wide open. There was only one possible source for a breach that bad: Commander Frank Knight himself.

So, Max, I asked myself as the metal box spun around me, how well do you know Frank?

He’d apparently never let anything slip. Not once. But Frank knew me better than I knew myself. That much I’d learned in the twenty-four years we’d worked together. I considered the last word he’d said to me at Doc’s.

Run.

But if he was setting me up, why tip me off? As warped by digital encryption as the voice had been, only Frank had that number. Only Frank had ever had my number. It didn’t sound like him. But it had to have been him.

It wasn’t just me who’d been tipped off, though. The Gardaí had known exactly where I was and had come prepared: they knew what they were going up against.

The most palatable explanation was not treachery but technology – though separating the two was nigh on impossible. I’d been very careful with my communications. If the shooter had followed me to Doc’s by tracking my cell phone – or if Frank’s phone had been hacked – they would have needed serious help to do it. Our comms were so protected that even the geeks at Cheltenham weren’t supposed to be able to tail me or monitor our conversations – and purposefully so. UKN is supported by MI6 but operates outside its control – a failsafe that keeps us protected, and them in check. If the shooter – or whoever he worked for – had managed it, they must either have been helped from inside our firewall, or have been unnaturally brilliant. Neither prospect filled me with joy.

And anyway, who’s that good?

I opened my eyes as the logo of the Russian railway swept past.

Maybe the Russians were behind it.