Weaver led Thorsson a little way from the shack. He found the big Icelander a daunting presence. He was huge, with a physicality that was impossible to miss, but there was a calm confidence about him that was just as impressive. He had been recruited to the Group by Michael Pope after he had observed how Thorsson had gone about seeking revenge on the man who had killed his sister. He had assaulted a castle in Scotland and taken out an American financier and his colleague, the men responsible for sending a hired gun to murder the girl. Pope had provided Thorsson with the killer’s location at the same time he offered him a place in the Group.

Thorsson had killed the assassin and accepted the offer.

He had more blood on his hands since then.

Much more.

“Sir?” he said once they were out of earshot.

“Tell me about the hit,” Weaver said.

“It was simple enough. The intelligence was accurate. Six came alongside, deployed the mine and drove off. It took seconds.”

“And we’re completely deniable?”

“I believe so.”

“Good. Because discretion can’t be understated here.”

“I know, sir. You can relax.”

“It’s Control who needs reassuring, not me. She hasn’t been in post long. She needs to get a result with this, but if your involvement came out? That would not be good.”

Group Fifteen’s reinvigoration had not been without its challenges. The murder of Vivian Bloom hadn’t helped. The old man had held the disparate parts of the Firm together, but his death had removed some of the lubrication that had made things work. The new Control had been fighting hard to make the case for the old way of doing things. Weaver knew that there were people in the Firm—newer brooms, spooks with big ideas and no experience—who would have preferred that the Group be disbanded forever, and its functions taken over by nameless drone operators who would bomb the enemies of the state from Portakabins a thousand miles away from the target. Control had argued that they would always need to have agents on the ground, men and women able to gather intelligence and then take nuanced decisions based upon what they had found. She had won the debate for now, but she knew that she would need to demonstrate the continued utility of the Group until the case was unarguable.

Number One sensed Weaver’s disquiet. He nodded to the car where La Bruja was waiting for him. “She doesn’t come out of the shadows often,” he said. “There’s no reason why anyone would know who I really am, beyond her and Hector del Pozo and a couple of others. And if I get the impression that I’ve been compromised”—he shrugged—“well, I’ll make sure I leave everything nice and clean. My orders on that are clear.”