There was a knock at the SCIF door, and Anthony Frasier walked in. ‘We’ve got Valley downstairs.’

They descended into the basement of the old fort, into an area where the detention centre occupied a small space not taken up by the armoury, engineers’ workshops and gym. The team walked into a room with nine chairs all facing a window—Jim Valley was on the other side of the glass, cuffed to a steel loop on the table in front of him.

Briffaut inserted a micro earpiece and pointed to de Payns. ‘Alec and I will do the interview. I need the rest of you fact-checking his bullshit and feeding it to me, okay?’

Valley’s face was a mess—fat lip, swollen eye socket, tape and bandage holding his left ear to his blood-encrusted head. The soldier looked up as Briffaut and de Payns walked in and sat down. ‘For the record, Templar hit me from behind. I did pretty well, considering.’

‘I don’t have a deal for you,’ said Briffaut straight up. ‘You know how the Company works—traitors are traitors.’

Valley nodded. ‘Sure, I know. But I served—I was following the orders of my commanding officer.’

Briffaut nodded. He wasn’t going to argue the point.

‘Anyone have a smoke?’ asked Valley.

Briffaut lit one and handed it to him. ‘No deals, but the small traitor who helps us grab the big traitor? That could only be a good thing.’

Valley scoffed, dragged on his smoke. ‘Actually, I’m fucked. Let’s get on with it.’

‘You were in deep with Manerie,’ said Briffaut.

‘Eventually, yes,’ said Valley.

‘Eventually?’

‘I was driving for him, riding shotgun, for a couple of years.’

‘Can you remember how that started?’

‘I served in a unit he commanded in Congo, back in the day.’

‘He brought you into the Company?’

‘Yeah, he did. I started with recon and support team work. But I knew Manerie wanted me in DGS. When the whole Murad bullshit started, that’s when I came into this stupid shit.’

‘What’s the Murad bullshit?’ asked Briffaut, lighting his own cigarette.

Valley stared at Briffaut and took a deep breath, like a man with some very big regrets. ‘There was a Pakistani rocket engineer who was apparently working for us. Manerie sold him out to a guy called Murad—sort of ISI, but also private.’

‘Manerie told you this?’

‘Manerie drinks,’ said Valley. ‘He’s not happy with some of his choices.’

‘So why were you brought in?’

‘Murad turned Manerie with money, but as soon as that engineer was blown, Murad started blackmailing Manerie—or at least telling him his career could be over.’

‘How did that go down?’

Valley smirked. ‘So, Manerie muscles up with me and starts making it clear that we’d worked dark in Africa and we weren’t to be fucked with. It became a bit macho.’