Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t that. Russell Square, Bloomsbury: traditionally home of intellectuals, now split between tourism and academia. She’d spent a happy postgraduate year at the University of London, but the address didn’t mean anything to her. On Street View it was a part of a gray stone terrace. Glossy black door, no sign visible. A prestige address, but unrevealing. Yet from Bower’s data, she knew that a computer there had had contact with a device on Ascension Island at eleven a.m. today, and with Percepta three times between midday and four p.m.

She searched through the rest of the data he’d sent for any other clues. As well as the IP address, he’d established a landline phone number at the Russell Square property. Last call made from the number was to Oman.

Kudus saw her staring.

“What’s the significance of Oman?” he asked.

The bare reality of that call was like a punch in itself. A punch from an anonymous attacker.

“Something I can’t talk about right now,” Taylor said. “What can we get on this address?”

Kudus ran a search.

“According to Land Registry, Nine Russell Square has been owned outright since September by a company called FSF Holding Limited, registered in Guernsey. Dead end, as you’d imagine. Not on any of our records. No idea what, if anything, FSF stands for. What do we do?”

Taylor needed to know who was there, why they were targeting her.

“Nothing,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I want you to step away from this.”

“Step away?”

“Let’s get a drink.”

The HQ’s Terrace Bar offered the possibility of a discreet conversation. It was also the only place you could smoke, overlooking the river, underused in winter.

“What are you having?” Taylor asked. “These are on me.”

He asked for a lemonade. She got one lemonade and one soda and lime. They took their drinks to a far corner of the outdoor terrace with a view of Parliament across the river.

“Not very wild, are we,” she said.

“Not in this way, I guess.”

“They used to make us drink on training,” Taylor said. “Tell us we had a night off, hand out free booze, then suddenly announce we had to do memory tests, things like that, see how we performed drunk. Did you have anything similar?”

“No.”

“I imagine they’ve had to tone it all down now.”

“Is there a problem, Kat?”

“Not with you, no. With everything else, yes. That’s the problem.”

“Can you explain?”

“Rory shouldn’t have gone to Ascension. I made a mistake, and it’s caused a lot of complications. There’s trouble behind the scenes—trouble for me—and I want to keep you out of it. It’s not your fault, and it shouldn’t have to damage your career.”

“What’s happening?”