‘In which case perhaps you’d better share your agenda – your full agenda.’

Rolt looked surprised.

‘Up to now you’ve let Invicta’s success speak for itself. You’re conspicuously absent from the PR messages it puts out. It’s almost as if you’ve shied away from any applause for what you’ve achieved. But in that TV interview you put down a marker.’

Rolt shrugged as if it had been no more than an unintentional aside.

‘And what you’ve said will send shock waves through Whitehall.’

He smiled. ‘That won’t hurt. They could do with a jolt.’

‘But if you follow your argument to the logical conclusion, what you’re talking about is a pretty extreme crackdown on potential terrorists that we don’t currently have legislation for. Critics will accuse you of advocating something like – well, ethnic cleansing.’

He waved Tom’s words away. ‘Look at you. You’ve risked your life all over the world in the War on Terror. I don’t know the details of why you’re suddenly back in Britain, that’s your business and I’ll respect your desire to keep it to yourself, if you choose to do so, but I’ll hazard a guess that you’ve risked your life – oh, maybe twenty, thirty times for this country, and what have you got in return for it? What has your friend Blakey got to look forward to when he comes out? Freedom from fear – is that such a big thing to ask?’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Okay, cards on the table. My people are loyal – in fact, they’d probably drive over their own grand-mothers if I asked them to. But almost all of them, one way or another, we’ve helped put back on the rails – they’re, well, to an extent a bit dependent. Men like you, in their prime, with a record like yours, are different. Be my ambassador, go to the US and get them to commit. With your track record, you’ll be the one to convince them. Think of it as just another mission, but with food, drink and hotels instead of warfare.’

He raised his hands almost apologetically. ‘I’m not asking you to sign up to anything. Just go and tell them your story.’

Tom knew this wasn’t a decision to be made on the spot.

‘Let me sleep on it, okay?’

Chapter 31

31

Doncaster