Wade laughed. ‘You haven’t seen the best of it yet. Sally Williams is Bronze Commander for the day. And you’d better believe she’s taking this one seriously.’

‘So would you be, if your promotion was on the line. I’d better go and pay my regards.’

Leaving Wade to three-point the Merc, he found the uniformed Prot Bronze Commander standing beside her vehicle. Directly behind the hulking eight-tonne brute that went by the name of the Beast.

‘No time to talk, Michael. POTUS will be out of those doors in thirty seconds. Thanks for standing in; you’re in charge of the four-man support team in position fifteen. The Mercedes van being driven by Constable Harris.’

‘Yes, ma’am. I’m on it.’

As Mickey turned away she added a parting comment. Presumably having had a quick look around to check that POTUS wasn’t coming out of the big house behind her.

‘Oh, and Michael…?’

He turned back, half-guessing what was coming from the mischievous look on her face.

‘Ma’am?’

‘No exercising of your Tourette’s today please.’

Mickey resisted the urge to reply with a crisp “Fuck off, ma’am” to firmly cement his place in Prot folklore. Contenting himself with a raised eyebrow.

44

‘Operation Rampage’ was just about right. Straight from the automated random word generator it might have been, but the potential was definitely there. Routing a full-scale presidential motorcade through London? Mickey would have loved to have a word. Seriously. A twenty-vehicle convoy? In Central London? In New York, sure; close the streets off and drive a simple grid. Child’s play. Whereas in London it would probably have been lower risk to just put the bloke in a taxi. But at least he wasn’t in command of the whole bloody awful mess.

Jasmine Chen was Gold Commander in the LX Ops Centre. It being Mickey’s dearest hope that she was sweating bullets. Which was probably pretty much the truth. Because getting such a huge and unwieldy automotive leviathan into Central London was the easy part. And very soon now they would have to get it out again. At three in the afternoon, with the traffic getting heavier by the minute.

To be fair, all had gone well on the journey in. With the morning rush hour over, the journey from St John’s Wood to Clarence House had been smooth enough. With a path cleared by the Special Escort Group’s motorcycle outriders. Making the roads down into the city a relative breeze. Even Mickey could work that route out in his head. And he was nowhere near SEG’s legendary black cab level of London mastery.

‘Oi! Mickey!’