Nothing had been taken. His bag looked like it might have been opened. Kane checked the contents, then the window locks, and then he tried to clean up as much of the boy’s blood from the floor as possible. Finally he plugged his laptop into the phone, typed up a report of the night’s events, and sent it through to their secure dropbox. Most disastrous beginning to an operation ever. He should never have accepted it. He checked the list of military staff currently serving on the island, but there hadn’t been time to source photographs, so it was anyone’s guess who he’d just clashed with: his notes listed twenty-three British men, at least eighteen within appropriate rank and age range. Interserve contractors numbered thirteen, so it was a smaller group, but no more revealing.

Kane closed the laptop and stood in the front doorway for a moment, watching the stars. Then he scooped up ash from the ground and sprinkled it onto the hallway floor in a pattern that would be destroyed by any overnight entry. He put the lock back on, more for show than in the hope it would protect him. If someone wanted to kill him on this island, they’d probably succeed. They had a lot stacked in their favor.

5

There were several things Taylor didn’t need crashing into her schedule as Kane departed. An invitation to New Scotland Yard was high on that list.

An hour after he set off, Taylor got a message from MI6’s police liaison team saying the Yard had been in touch. A senior detective had been looking into Petra Wade’s case. Although four thousand miles away, the Ascension Island investigation was technically under the command of the Yard’s Specialist Crime Directorate, and while the officers stationed on the island had hit a wall, someone in London had taken an interest. From the cooler climes of SW1 they had seen reports from the US base suggesting police might take a closer look at Rory Bannatyne, and followed Rory’s cover until it hit unlisted phone numbers in governmental buildings. They had approached the various branches of the intelligence service, asking to speak to whoever had been in charge of him until finally Taylor’s name came up.

“Do you have any idea who he is?” the MI6 liaison officer asked her.

“Yes.”

“Are you in a position to speak to the police? No one else seems to know anything about this.”