The corridor was in darkness. The motion sensors were sleepy, and wouldn’t kick in until she stepped outside. Even then they allowed a second or two’s grace, as if they needed convincing that they weren’t rousing themselves for someone of no consequence. For a mouse, creeping its night-time way along an empty hall.

Rather than a spy. An agent on a mission.

“Trying not to make the lights come on will only stress you out,” Harvey had said. “It can’t be done. You have to move to get where you need to be, and the sensors will do the rest. So don’t worry about them. You can’t control the things you can’t control.”

It was nice that he was confident she could control the other things.

“Maggie, Maggie,” she chided herself again. Here was the equation: if the lights were off, the guard wasn’t on this floor. And if he wasn’t on this floor, he wouldn’t see the lights coming on.

Which meant it was safe to step out into the corridor.

But before she could do so the lights flickered and the door to the lobby clicked shut, and then—loud as a lion—she could hear the breathy whistling of the security guard as he rounded the corner, heading her way.

“I wish this were like the films,” Harvey had said, “where you have an earpiece and a radio mic, and we’re synchronised to the nanosecond. And I’d be hacked into the security system, so I could tell you when it’s safe to walk down a corridor, and when to shelter under a desk. But life’s not like that, Maggie. This business isn’t like that. We’re a lot more . . . We’re less James Bond and a lot more, I don’t know, Mr. Bean or someone. We have to use what’s at hand. And I wish I didn’t have to ask you to do this. If I could do it myself, I would. If there were any other way . . .”

He had not finished his sentence. He hadn’t needed to.

“And let me say this. You’re a brave girl, a tremendous girl, and I couldn’t be prouder of you. But if you want to back out, do it now. Because from here on, it’ll be too late.”

“I don’t want to back out.”

She did, though.