The man had asked whether she had a name in mind. She didn’t know the name of the child, but Koralev had mentioned Phoenix. Was that her name, or the name of the program that Koralev had been involved with? There was no way of knowing. Beatrix had found her thoughts drifting to her grandmother, a steady presence through a difficult childhood. Her grandmother had been called Isabella—a throwback to the French blood that had always been reputed to run through the family—and the name seemed appropriate.

When the stringer had finished preparing the passports, Beatrix had taken them, turned to the child’s and flipped through to the picture page at the end. She had taken the photograph herself, the baby gazing solemnly into the lens of the digital camera that the man had had in his workshop. The details recorded her as a British citizen, noted her date of birth as nine months previous, and noted her name along the bottom.

Rose, Isabella.

It was as good as any.

Acknowledgments

I was assisted by these people in the preparation and publication of PHOENIX. I am grateful to them all. My thanks to:

My professional team, who waived their fees: Stuart Bache, Jennifer McIntyre, Pauline Nolet, Stuart Grant, Jason Anderson.

Team Milton, for their usual sterling editorial work, especially: David Turrentine, Barb Harris, Tom Ray, Gus Philpott, Ann Keeran, Eric Taylor, Chuck McKibbin, Tim Corwin, Martin Fraser, Rob Thesman, Angela Herron, Billy, Nick Isaac, Christina Mansour, John W., Dave Vincent, Mark O’Neill, Pete Smith, Hugo Ernst, Jonathan Rigby, Georgette Lamy, Jim Lockard, W David Walls, Linda Bergeron, Peter Hurst – and anyone I’ve forgotten.

The authors who emailed their readers.

And friends at Apple, Kobo, Robin Reads, Freebooksy and BookSends for helping to spread the word about the book and the campaign.

A Word From Mark

Thank you for reading PHOENIX. All proceeds will be given to Emma Johns so that she can continue her fight against cancer.

If you enjoyed the story, and you’d like to follow the rest of Beatrix Rose’s adventures, I would recommend GHOSTS.

Beatrix and Milton meet again in an adventure that takes them from a botched assassination in London to the freezing steppes of Russia, and sees the unravelling of a mystery that will have a profound effect on Beatrix’s life.

CLICK HERE TO GET GHOSTS

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