Jake had been my partner since I started as a Rat. Our history had been complicated: a veritable mess of sex and slaughter and blurred lines. A certain clarity was reached when I married Will – I took my marriage vows seriously. But there was always a question mark. And then a couple of years ago everything came to a head when Sandy White, our long-time unit leader, betrayed us all. He turned out to be a Snake, a traitor of the highest order, a turncoat, a disloyal fuckwit. On the take from the Russians and hired to tank our latest mission, Sandy had enrolled Nicola Adams, our Tech Support, to help him and together they tried to frame me and then kill me. Jake helped me stop them and it only took nearly dying for me to finally confront what was between us. The lines were now crystal clear. Partner. Colleague. Friend. Godfather to Gigi.

Sandy and Nicola’s traitorous actions could have torn our unit apart. But there was no in-fighting or finger-pointing for our combined failing to spot the signs. Their betrayal brought the remaining four of us closer together. We had all been subjected to a series of intense interrogations and prolonged close monitoring. Not to mention the whispers from colleagues we had worked alongside for years looking at us and wondering if we too were dirty. Together we had had the gratification of being cleared of all wrongdoing and heralded as heroes for crushing a plot that would’ve given Russia an upper hand in cyberspace and beyond and taken decades to recover from.

Both Jake and I had been offered the vacated role of unit leader. Both of us had turned it down.

The broad six-foot-seven black man with the salt and pepper beard currently standing at the head of the dining table was the one who had said yes to the position. He was, as always, smartly attired in chinos and a shirt with a grandfatherly grey cardigan. The only nod to casual comfort were weathered size sixteen Nike trainers.

Hattie Goodswen had started out as a Rat thirty years ago, before moving into the army to an undisclosed position. I couldn’t ever imagine he was the type of agent who would be able to simply melt unobtrusively into the background.