She snorted dismissively. “They’ve been looking for a year, and there’s been nothing.”

“They’ll still find them faster than you will.”

“So I could work with you or do it myself. There’s another option. I could release the information I have.”

“They’re hoping you won’t think it’s necessary to do that. The loose partnership we’ve had so far has worked well for you. There’s no reason why it has to stop working now.”

She shook her head. She was tempted to ignore him and go it alone, but that would take much longer, and if there was one thing she did not have, it was time.

“Tell them I’ll do it,” she said.

Chapter Three

Beatrix flew British Airways to Marrakech. She was tired and in pain, but she had arranged a meeting with a particular contact who was difficult to pin down, and the only day he was available was today. She had placed a large order that was going to make him a lot of money. She was sure that he would be glad that he had made the time in his day to see her.

She had little in the way of luggage, just a carry-on bag with a few things inside it, and so at least she was reasonably unencumbered as she stepped into the car at the taxi rank and asked for the carpet shop that Abdullah used to front his other business.

The traffic was heavy, but the driver, mercifully, was silent. Beatrix was able to spend the time collecting her thoughts. She had made good progress. Oliver Spenser had been eliminated in Russia when she came to Milton’s aid. Joyce had been more difficult to reach in Somalia, but she had managed it. Chisholm had just been a case of good intelligence. She had been the easiest of the three. She had adopted another name, but she was still in the country, tangled up in the spider’s web of intercepts that ended at GCHQ, and it had been a matter of time before the signals were decoded and she was tracked down.

Three names had been scrubbed from her list.

Bryan Duffy would be more difficult. She had not been to Iraq for many years, but she knew very well how infiltrating a lawless state could present particular challenges. If Manage Risk was the same as the American security firms that had rushed in to gorge on the carcass of Saddam’s old regime, it would be the equivalent of a small and supremely well-equipped army in a country that was ill-equipped to stand up to them.

This would be the most difficult target so far.

The taxi stopped in a quiet side road. The shop catered to the tourist trade, touting rolls of carpet and Berber rugs for extortionate prices. Beatrix told the driver to wait and went into the shop through the back entrance. Abdullah was drinking mint tea in a large wicker chair. He was old, fat and lecherous, and Beatrix found him repulsive, but he had contacts and discretion, and that was enough for her to put up with him.