Beatrix flew Air France to Caracas, changing at Charles de Gaulle. The Group’s Op Support desk had put together a comprehensive legend so that she could go about her business in Venezuela without drawing undue attention to herself or to the true reason for her visit. She had transferred the details to her laptop and, settled safely in business class with no possibility that she could be overlooked by her fellow passengers, she opened the files. She was fastidious about preparation, and, even though she had already absorbed the information, she decided to review it all again. And, more than her desire to be prepared, throwing herself into her work would be a distraction from the riot of thoughts that she had struggled to contain since the meeting at the clinic that afternoon.

And so she read. Her name was Rebecca Smith. She was married to John Smith, and the two of them—husband and wife—were the proprietors of Boutique Getaways, a travel agency that specialised in providing well-heeled travellers with expensive holidays to unusual parts of the world. Meetings had been arranged for the Smiths with hoteliers on the Isla de Margarita, a destination in the Caribbean about forty kilometres to the north of the mainland. There was a page of notes extolling the virtues of the island, and Beatrix spent time memorising them: the two peninsulas linked by sand and the mangroves of the Parque Nacional Laguna de la Restinga, the fifty sandy beaches, the fabulous surf off the Playa El Yaque and the boat trips into the mangrove, where pelicans and flamingos could be observed.

By the time Beatrix was au fait with the detail, she was tempted to return with Lucas so that they could enjoy the facilities for themselves. She knew, of course, that that would not be possible. For one, they wouldn’t be able to afford it. And the meetings would not go ahead—an excuse had been prepared—and ops would handle the follow-up correspondence. Boutique Getaways was a real company, with a website and real customers who had no idea that their patronage was contributing to a front that allowed Group Fifteen agents to move about the world under a cloak of fake legitimacy. It was likely that Margarita Island would feature among the company’s future destinations. The deception was thorough and utterly credible. No expense was spared in making it so; no inconvenience was enough to prompt an easier path.