“You’ve made more noise than I expected,” Pope said as she took the seat next to him.

“I wasn’t in a particularly subtle mood.”

The pain had flared up as she drove south to the airport, and she had already taken as much morphine as she felt comfortable taking. Pope still did not know about her diagnosis. The only other person who knew, other than Mohammed, her housekeeper in Marrakech, was John Milton, and there was something about his stolid dependability that said he would keep her secret.

“I might have what you need to go after Duffy,” he said.

She felt the familiar tightening in her stomach as she sipped her coffee and waited for him to continue.

“We need to discuss it first. I’ve given you Joyce and Chisholm. No questions asked.”

“What do you want, Pope?”

“There needs to be a little quid pro quo with this one. You scratch my back . . . you know how it is. The intelligence . . . well, it’s very sensitive, and I was only able to get it by promising that we would help iron out a few problems that Manage Risk and Duffy have helped to cause.”

“Whose problems?”

“The government’s.”

“That sounds like you’re making this conditional,” she said.

“No . . .”

“And I thought we agreed that this was going to be unconditional.”

“It is. By and large, anyway. You don’t have to do it this way.”

She nodded. “I could do it myself.”

“You could. They know that. And they know you could release the evidence on Control. Don’t think they’ve underestimated the trouble that would cause, because they haven’t.”

“So what do they want?”

“A bit of history first.” He took out a folded printout from his pocket. It was a map. “You know where he is. Joyce told you, didn’t he?”

“Iraq. Chisholm confirmed it. But I don’t know where.”

“There’s an enormous oilfield at Rumaila. The biggest in the country and they think the third largest in the world. The Iraqis say there could be eighteen billion barrels. It’s worth a ridiculous amount. The oil ministry auctioned the contract off six months ago, and they had Exxon and Mobil bidding on the one hand and a consortium of BP and the Chinese on the other. The Americans won, which didn’t make the government particularly happy, as you can imagine. The treasury revenue on this is enormous. And frankly, we could do with the money.”

“What does this have to do with Duffy?”

“I’m getting to that. It goes without saying the area isn’t safe. The Americans lost three executives when they went down to spec it out. The insurgents didn’t take too kindly to them and had them shot. So the companies invested in better security. Our friends, Manage Risk, tendered and won the contract. They’ve been supplying ex-Spec Op guys, SAS, SEALs and Rangers, and they’ve kept a lid on things for the most part.” He stabbed a finger on the map. “Rumaila. Twenty miles from the Kuwaiti border, just south of Basra. Sunni territory. It was discovered in 1953 by the Basra Petroleum Company, but then it was confiscated by the Iraqi government. The Sunnis have always maintained a claim to it.”