‘Uh-huh. Currently at mooring in the Sweetwater marina in Trinidad. Just a hop and a skip away in the family jet, for a nice little cruise around the Caribbean, whenever I choose. “I” being the operative term. Get it?’

Ben said, ‘You sound tired, Sis. I’d say you could do with a holiday.’

‘Oh, sure. But for how long exactly did you have in mind?’

Ben said nothing.

‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘You have no idea, do you?’ Sounding worried now. ‘Ben, is someone trying to hurt you? Are you in trouble? Is that why you’re trying to protect me?’

‘I’m dealing with it,’ he said.

‘I know you will, whatever it is. You always do. But if you need help—’

‘Just do this one thing for me. Please? I need time to fix this.’

There was a long pause on the line, followed by a weary sigh. ‘All right, I’m going to make you a deal. I’ll do what you ask. Get out of here just as fast as I can and go where nobody can find me. You can rely on that.’

‘Thanks, Ruth.’

‘But here are my deal terms. If I haven’t heard from you in one week – that’s exactly seven days to the hour, from right this moment – then I’m calling in the troops.’

‘What troops?’

‘Whatever troops are necessary to find out where you are and what the hell this is about. I have a lot of money and human resources at my disposal, and I’ll deploy them all if I have to. Deal?’

She was a hard driver, but she’d given him what he needed. He could worry about the timeframe later. He said, ‘Deal.’

‘And you’re still going to have to tell me everything.’

Ben was going to have a lot of talking to do when this was over. ‘Just as soon as I can, I promise we’ll spend some time together.’

‘If this is what it took for me to get to see you, maybe it’s worth it.’

‘Go,’ he told her. ‘Pack your bags and get out of there. In fact, don’t even pack. I’m sure you’ve got a whole wardrobe on board the yacht.’

‘A week,’ she said, and hung up the call.

Ben blew out a sigh of relief.

‘Sounds like one less thing to worry about,’ Wolf said. ‘All we have to do now is take down a whole secret cabal of psychopathic nutters and get out of it alive. Piece of cake.’

They sped onwards. Ben made another call, this time to check that someone would be there at the agency to meet with them. A male voice answered, somewhat testily as though Ben’s call was interrupting important business. Ben said, ‘Is that Andrew Laverack?’

‘No, this is Roland Seaward. How may I help you?’

‘I was returning his call on behalf of Mr Abbott.’