‘I believe you. Can you just move it out of my face?’

‘I’m calling this in, Tom Buckingham – if that’s even your name. You just booked yourself a long-stay cell in Huntsville.’

Tom had never heard of the place but he was pretty sure it didn’t have sun loungers and a pool. He adjusted his sore leg. She raised the weapon again.

The thought flashed through his mind that this was another test, commissioned by Stutz, but the badge and the wallet looked like the real thing, as did the way she handled the weapon.

‘Can I at least straighten up a bit?’

His head was wedged half under the table and his zapped leg was smarting unpleasantly.

‘What do you know about Zuabi?’ She took a half-step back.

‘What’s that?’ Tom tried to straighten his legs.

‘You don’t know? How long did you say you’d been under cover?’

He gave her the heads-up on the mystery mullah.

She listened, saying nothing, which suggested that it was all new to her. Since he had her attention, he went on: ‘What’s in this for Stutz? Seemed to me his thing is sending people like Zuabi back where they came from.’

She sighed, her patience running on empty. ‘Okay, you’re still fucking with me, Tom. You need to get your-self a better scriptwriter.’

‘Syrian refugee builds mega-mosque in downtown Houston. Nazi nutter plans to kill him. Stutz sent me with Kyle. What else could I do? You know the score. Under cover, you get to do all kinds of surprising stuff – like being filmed by Skip, yeah? How does that feel?’ He thought he had crossed a line but she didn’t rise to it. ‘He was testing you. That’s what he does.’

‘Then I guess I passed.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed, keeping the Glock trained on him, not letting down her guard, but at least she was responding. Tom pressed on.

‘MI5 think Invicta is deliberately provoking the unrest in the UK. They put me in to see if I can join up some of the dots. The dots led to here.’

‘And a lot of collateral.’

He shrugged. There was no point debating that. ‘Okay, I showed you mine. How about you show me yours?’

She shook her head in mock-disbelief. ‘Jeez, you Brits are something else.’

‘Well, go on. Why have the FBI got you running around for these creeps?’

‘That’s none of your fucking business.’

‘But maybe what I have is your business.’

She shook her head again. It was getting to be a habit. ‘I just don’t get it, what are you trying to do here?’

‘We can help each other.’

Her eyes narrowed.