He wanted to know if Bennett felt more terrified now, or relieved that at least it was her own government bringing her darkest fears to life. He also wanted to know if Valera was pleased with what she’d helped unleash on the world. But those were questions he couldn’t ask either of them.

Knox got up, removed a bottle of ten-year-old Ardbeg single malt whisky and a crystal glass from the low teak cabinet that ran the length of his office, and poured himself a drink. Then he stood at his window as the whisky sat untouched on his desk, looked out over the roofs of the city, and wondered if someone high above was looking down on him.

Preview: A Loyal Traitor

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Chapter 1

It took a full minute of polite hammering to rouse Richard Knox from his deep, dead sleep.

He had no clue who wanted him so urgently, or where he was. But, as he slowly let the increasingly loud knocking wake him up, he started to remember.

He recalled the long journey back to London a week ago from the joint intelligence conference with the Americans and Australians about the Venona Project in Sydney. Then the three rushed days in Leconfield House, MI5’s headquarters on Curzon Street in Mayfair. A flight across the Atlantic to Ottawa. His meetings with the Canadian Directorate of Security and Intelligence. And two more flights that took him first to Vancouver and then to Victoria, the tiny capital of British Columbia nestled on the southern tip of Vancouver Island.

‘Okay, I’m coming,’ he shouted at the door as he rolled across the expansive bed he’d been lying on, face down and fully clothed.

He looked at his watch—a 1956 Omega with a silver body and tan leather strap—and his disorientation immediately turned to anger.

Knox had arrived at The Empress, the grand chateau-esque hotel that dominated Victoria Harbour next to the British Columbia Parliament building, after 1 a.m. He’d asked the night manager for a wake-up call at 4 p.m. His body was exhausted from all his recent travelling and he needed to give it some time to recover. But he also had an appointment to keep. His watch said it was ten past seven. Could his jet lag really have made him sleep for almost eighteen hours?

He threw open a set of heavy brocade curtains, wincing as light flooded through the windows and lit up the room. Knox hadn’t paid much attention to the small suite when he’d checked in—he’d been too tired to notice anything but the bed—but he now saw that whoever had decorated The Empress’s bedchambers had seen fit to cover every surface in them with rich patterns and clashing embroidery. He didn’t like it.