He directed them into a conference room with glazed glass walls and a long table set with sparkling water and pens. At one end of the room was a projection screen. Bower shut the door, dropped his belongings at the head of the table, plugged a cable into his laptop. In Kane’s experience, men who had built a career in the shadows were either predictably pallid or, like Bower, they acquired a proud flush as if swollen with secrets and the status this bestowed. Kane glanced at the paperwork he’d dropped, saw his own signature.

“Formality first,” Bower said. “Wanted to be double sure—you’re read into Echelon, is that right? Strap 3 clearance?”

Echelon was the data interception program that spied on the world’s communications. Strap 3 clearance meant that you knew the access points at which GCHQ tapped into the global fiber-optic system, one of the most classified projects they ran.

“That’s correct,” he said.

“Inducted 2014.”

“Yes.”

Bower studied Kane’s authorization again.

“You worked with Kathryn in Oman.”

“Briefly.”

“A great success.”

Taylor shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Even without the eventual complications, these things were never straightforward. But the tap got put on the cable, and, for all Kane knew, it was still whispering secrets into ears within this very building. And from the point of view of those individuals at their workstations, no doubt it was a success.

“I’m glad you think so.”

“It’s that background that made us think you might be able to help.”

Bower opened the laptop and clicked. A map appeared on the projection screen. Kane thought it was the Isle of Wight at first, then saw military bases marked.

“Ascension Island,” Bower began. “Familiar with it?”

“South Atlantic.”

“That’s right.”

Familiar would have been an overstatement. Kane knew it as an obscure bit of UK territory, a surviving outpost of empire: one of Her Majesty’s rocks in the middle of nowhere. It had been a military stepping-stone during the Falklands War, and housed a joint GCHQ-NSA listening station. That was the extent of his familiarity.

“One of the most remote inhabited islands in the world,” Bower continued. “Roughly halfway between Africa and Brazil. Been ours since 1815. The airbase is rented out to the Americans, but there’s a few RAF around as well. We share its signals intelligence facility with the NSA, and there’s a BBC Relay Station. That bit’s ours.”

“Busy little island.”