Ziggy Penn had set up his gear in the living room of the water villa that he had rented on Airbnb. It was near Sloten, ten minutes from the airport and twenty-five minutes from the city centre. The host provided two spotlessly clean bedrooms, two bicycles and high-speed fibre internet. It was the last amenity that had sealed the deal for Ziggy.

He put his phone down and tapped the keyboard to wake his laptop. He made sure that he had scrubbed the footage from the warehouse’s security cameras and, satisfied that all evidence of Hicks’s activity had been erased, he chose a camera that would give him the best view of the interior of the property. There was one just inside the entrance, and it showed how quickly the fire had already spread. Hicks had not been interested in hiding the fact that this was arson, and had doused the room with petrol. The fire had taken hold eagerly, with separate blazes feeding on the wooden pallets that were used to move the freight and on the plastic packaging that disguised it. The flames were starting to climb the walls and, in one spot, the ceiling had already started to burn. The Brandweer would be here soon to try to tackle the fire. It wouldn’t matter if they were successful; the contents of the warehouse would be discovered. Millions of dollars of Colombian cocaine would be lost and a criminal investigation would be launched. Ziggy had already left digital breadcrumbs that would lead the police back to López.

He got up to fix a drink, but had only filled the kettle when the laptop sounded a shrill alarm.

He hurried back to the table. It had nothing to do with the fire; the footage was still being transmitted, the conflagration growing larger by the second. The alarm had sounded because the tripwire that Ziggy had established to protect his own network security had been activated. He felt cold panic crawling up his back. He had dozens of tripwires set up, little pieces of code that would flag anything that needed his attention. This particular tripwire was set up with one purpose in mind: to detect any attempt to take over his machine.