‘WHERE THE HELL is Great Notley?’ demanded the SIO, the senior investigating officer, as they clustered round the message on the screen. The communication was curt; it gave the rendezvous Luke was to attend as a pub car park off the A131, just up from Chelmsford racecourse.

The Stage part of Operation Methuen was over, the mocked-up garage had served its purpose. Direction had now moved across the river to Thames House, the stolid 1920s building that served as headquarters for the Security Service. The entire joint ‘fusion’ team from MI6, MI5 and GCHQ had moved into the building’s Intel Ops Centre. When a fast-paced investigation reached its critical stage, as everyone now believed they were at, it was always here that an operation was run from, in close coordination with the Metropolitan Police.

‘Great Notley?’ repeated one of the surveillance analysts. ‘My wife comes from there. It’s just south of Braintree in Essex.’ Within seconds a rolling map of the area was up on the wall screen and a route was being mapped out for Luke.

‘Options,’ someone said. ‘It looks like he’d best take the Tube. Quickest way to get across London at this time on a Sunday. Okay, here we are,’ he said. ‘He can get the Victoria Line from Vauxhall, change at Oxford Circus, then take the Central Line all the way up to Epping.’ Luke was standing right next to the SIO yet somehow he was getting the old familiar feeling of being swept along by forces bigger than himself. The plastics team had made some final adjustments to his face, giving him a fuller, rounder jaw. Enough to pass scrutiny for twenty-four hours they’d told him, but don’t get too close to anyone. Now, as the tactical details of his mission were being discussed around him, his hand kept reaching up and touching the unfamiliar contours of his face.

‘Make sure we have one of our drivers ready and waiting to pick him up in a “random” minicab the moment he steps off the Tube at Epping,’ said the SIO, adding, ‘Is the jacket ready?’

The jacket. They’d already briefed Luke about this. It would be a tattered leather flying jacket with an inbuilt GPS and voice transmitter embedded and disguised as part of the zip. One of several options for field ops that the Security Service kept hanging on a rail in a long wardrobe on the ground floor. This would not only allow them to track him all the way to the source: it should, barring any jamming counter-measures, enable both MI5 and the Met to listen in on every conversation and judge exactly the right moment to move in. Luke was to be their human homing beacon.

‘So it’s ready? Good. Then we’re all set.’ The SIO was repeatedly driving one clenched fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘Let’s nail this, then. Oh, wait – Angela, you wanted to say something?’