‘None, and at the moment I don’t intend to.’ Fifeshire said emphatically. He didn’t like Ross at all, and referred to him, when he was out of earshot, as ‘the pogo-stick’. ‘If I tell any of those organizations, or the Canadians, I might as well send a copy of anything I say directly to the Russians. Besides, we do not know for sure that any of these countries are involved. I don’t want to go raking up a hornet’s nest that could blow our only chance of finding out what’s going on before it’s too late. If I feel we need their help, or if I find out something that they must be told, then at the appropriate moment they will be told. Until then, we must play this whole affair close to our vests and find out what we can ourselves.’ Fifeshire looked at the Director General of MI6, and Atling nodded pensively. It was rare that the two men ever communicated with each other, such was their mistrust for each other’s organization. MI5, under Fifeshire, and without the knowledge of any politicians of any party, had over the past fifteen years built up a formidable overseas espionage division – something quite outside the original sphere of responsibility for the internal security of Britain. Fifeshire maintained that internal security could not be effective without deep inside-knowledge of what was happening elsewhere in the world, and he did not trust MI6’s information. Similarly, Sir William Atling and his predecessors had always felt that an overseas intelligence network could not be run without an effective home intelligence network, and he did not want to be in the hands of MI5. So the two men ran their organizations independently, both doing similar work, spying often on the same people, Fife-shire with a slight edge in the United Kingdom, and Atling with the edge overseas. It was Fifeshire who had made the overture to Atling, because he felt that that edge, however small, might right now be needed.

‘Secrecy,’ Fifeshire continued, ‘is to be our major weapon. The Russians do not know we have Sir Isaac back. A corpse will have been found in the plane in the exact part of the hold where Sir Isaac was concealed. The Russians will have told the French that it is the body of one of the hijackers – a Jewish dissident—’

‘Won’t the French want proof of identity?’ interrupted Ross.