Relief spread over Stutz’s face. Tom described the ambush much as it had happened, with a few cosmetic changes. When he was done, Stutz’s expression softened into a grin. He stood up, came round the table and pumped Tom’s hand. ‘I knew I could count on you.’

That confirmed he had arranged it. How far had he expected Tom to go?

‘Kyle was loyal, but he was losing his edge. Good job you stepped up.’

‘You’ll look after his family?’

‘Oh, yeah. You can count on it.’

There was a pause while Stutz returned to the document in front of him. Evidently it was no trouble for him to digest the news about the loss of one of his closest lieutenants. But Tom couldn’t leave it there, couldn’t walk away from two corpses without knowing more about them.

‘So Jefferson was a problem for you – what had he done?’

‘Not what he’d done, what he was going to do. That’s what Skip’s software is all about, catching them before it’s too late.’

‘Who was his target?’

Stutz smiled. ‘Let’s just say he was a threat. Better you don’t know. It’s less complicated that way.’

There was an air of finality to his reply, and in the interest of keeping in with him, Tom changed the subject. ‘The presentation last night, the whole digital fortress concept, Skip really blew me away.’

Stutz grinned. ‘Drives me nuts, but the kid’s a god-dam genius.’

‘Other than taking them out, like we did Jefferson, what happens with all the others? When you’ve run your checks on the individuals you’ve decided are a potential problem.’

Stutz got up and indicated the huge picture window. Forty-five floors down, office workers criss-crossed the plaza, oblivious to the ambitions of the man looking down at them.

‘See those folk down there? We’ve not done right by them. We’ve spent their taxes on two expensive wars supposedly to protect them. We’ve failed to win either, and we haven’t made those people any safer. We owe them, big-time.’

Tom waited for him to go on.

‘What’s happening in Britain right now, the same could happen here, maybe even worse. But our government’s hands are tied. After Nine/Eleven we should have pulled up the drawbridge, built the fortress. Instead, we send our best people, men like you, like Kyle, God rest his soul, to risk their lives in yet more costly and futile conflicts we’re still kidding ourselves we’re gonna win – you get what I mean?’

He looked at Tom, to gauge his reaction.

‘Yeah, I follow.’