‘And we have a further problem,’ said Duggers. ‘Tomorrow afternoon China’s Minister of Commerce, Siew-Yong Peng, and a high-level Chinese delegation will be arriving into London. Peng is the President’s closest ally. She’s also the highest-ranking woman to ever hold office in China.’

I remembered reading about Peng. She had started out as a junior clerk in the People’s Congress and worked her way up, shouting down her more vocal critics and being the subject of scathing editorials every step of the way. Peng was undoubtedly impressive and a hopeful step forward for a country that had previously seemed to regard women as second-class citizens incapable of high office.

‘She’s over here representing the President and warming up UK-China relations with a potential new trade deal. From the twenty-four hours of access we had to the Tenebris Network, we learned that an Employer, most likely the powerful right-wing fringe group, the Chinese People’s Alliance, was advertising for information on Peng’s UK itinerary. It’s clear to us from the intel we have that they’re planning to have Peng assassinated during her stay here.’

‘Because it’s easier to get to her abroad than on home turf when she has full security,’ I surmised.

Duggers nodded. ‘Exactly. As soon as the Employer posted this request for information on Peng they were immediately matched with King666. He’s still active and a major threat. If Peng dies here, on our watch, due to a security leak from one of our people, we’re facing a major diplomatic disaster that would start by destroying the tentative exchange deal we have in place.’

China was currently arranging for the transfer back to the UK of the forty-six British Security Services operatives they had never officially acknowledged having, just as we had never officially acknowledged sending them. In exchange, we were opening up several lucrative trade contracts to China. Looking complicit in the death of one of their most high-level ministers would place us on China’s shit list for the foreseeable future and the forty-six would either be left not officially existing in a high-security, impossible-to-find Chinese prison, or would be executed.

Dugdale looked round at us all. ‘We have to face the possibility that there could be more than one Snake within the Security Services right now. We won’t know for sure until we tear Tenebris apart. Right now the only Snake we need to focus on finding is King666. He’s the only one that is a current active threat.’