At the exact moment that Kadunov was being placed under arrest in Vilnius, five hundred miles to the east, Colonel Arkady Petrov was having an encounter of a very different kind. Summoned at short notice to the second-floor offices of the Kremlin, he was not entirely sure which way this meeting would go until he stepped through the door. Then came the smiles and the handshakes, the slaps on the back and the clink of multiple vodka glasses. The GRU and his unit had distinguished themselves, they told him. He was to be congratulated. There would be a promotion after this, and medals for all of his team. The intelligence gleaned from Jenny Li on the UK’s chemical and biological weapons research, during those precious few hours while they had her under artificial sedation at the Ivanovsky Institute, had been most instructive. And the best of it? They laughed at this one. She would remember nothing of what she had told them. Nothing at all.

*

Luke was back in the flat, the one he shared with Elise in Battersea. For a long time they simply held each other and said nothing. Around his shoulder and upper arm there was a neat new bandage where all the shotgun pellets had been safely removed and they had taken the precaution of pumping him full of antibiotics. His other hand rested lightly, almost protectively, on Elise’s midriff. There was still an awful lot they needed to talk about, but now was not the time. Luke had been through hell and so had she and this, in a way, had brought them back together.

He glanced out of the window at the river traffic going past and a dark thought crossed his mind. They still had not discovered who the mole was, the informant, the secret source giving tip-offs to WaffenKrieg90.

But now he was beyond tired, exhausted in fact, and he could feel an aching in his glands. It was only later that morning, just as he went to take that well-earned nap, that Luke Carlton felt the beginnings of a real killer headache coming on.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to my tireless and meticulous editor, Simon Taylor, and the team at Transworld/PenguinRandomHouse. This is the fifth book of mine that Simon has had to read through and yet miraculously we are still friends.

To my calm, clever and well-connected literary agent, Julian Alexander at TheSohoAgency. We have come a long way together since I first waved a manuscript at him from my hospital bed in 2004.

To my lovely Elizabeth, for listening so patiently while I read out numerous passages, and for offering me advice and encouragement throughout.

To my daughter Sasha for all her help, hard work and advice with the proofreading. Nothing, it seems, escapes her notice.

To the brilliant Dr Nigel Lightfoot, for all his professional advice on virology, Russia and the crisis machinery of Whitehall.

To ‘E’, for pin-sharp advice on professional jargon.