Now, the organisation’s inaugural conference in London was just three days away. The main event would, of course, be mostly a show. A chance for heads of state to posture and have their pictures taken. But Holland had made it clear to every department head in MI5 that the conference needed to be a success. Politically, it gave Britain a much-needed platform in the nascent new world order—a way to align itself with America but with the buffer of a grand international project firmly rooted in Europe, which would hopefully also stop the continent from falling into another war no one could afford. And from an information-gathering perspective, while the politicians were enjoying their receptions and photo opportunities, their London embassies would become the world’s most tantalising intelligence targets. This was because the OECD delegates included the most senior members of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, set up to coordinate and consolidate the West’s opposition to the threat of Soviet Russia.

Everyone wanted to know whose egos needed stroking, whose noses had most recently been put out of joint, and what intrigues and stratagems were being hatched against friends and foes. MI5 had toiled for years to gain its home field advantage, creating and refining the Pipistrelle devices, then installing them in embassies, hotel rooms, and conference facilities all over the capital.

If Bianchi and Moretti had found a way to replicate them, and someone else was able to listen to what was being discussed behind closed doors, all of MI5’s hard work would be undone. It also, in Knox’s mind, shortened the list of the Italians’ potential killers to three possibilities: someone they were working with who didn’t want them working with anyone else, someone who knew about their discovery and killed them when they wouldn’t hand it over, or someone who was scared of being exposed by it.

As for the passports, Knox had seen a lot of forgeries in his time, and these ones were good. Very good. So good, in fact, they could only have come from either an expert and expensive forger, or from a source that regularly produced high-quality fakes, like a security service. He had no proof that they’d come from MI5. They could just as easily have been made by MI6, the CIA, KGB, SDECE, or any of the other acronymmed agencies with a presence in London who used identity documents like currency. But he also couldn’t say for certain that someone in the Service hadn’t produced them.

By the time Knox reached the fifth floor, Manning’s secretary was waiting for him. Rachel Taunton had worked for Manning even longer than Peterson, and, just like everyone else close to him, was enjoying her recent rise to the Service’s highest echelon.

She let Knox step out of the lift, but blocked him from getting any further.

‘I’m here to see Manning.’

‘The director general’s busy.’