“It’s quite common,” Lockhart says, his expression uncharacteristically distant and thoughtful. “It’s why going native or falling in love with a source is such a big no-no on a HUMINT op. It blinds you to other aspects of their personality. You don’t get to see their feet of clay when your head’s in the clouds.” I blink and do a double take: he sounds as if he’s speaking from experience.

“Well, I’ll grant you I had an unusual perspective on her. But what are we going to do now?” I ask.

Jez turns back to the whiteboard and sketches something that, after a moment, I recognize as a box. Then she writes a name on it: MHARI. “We put her in a box,” she explains. An arrow points at the box: INPUTS. Another arrow leads out of the box: OUTPUTS. “Assuming she’s trying to run something on us, we feed her a barium meal and see what leaks, yes? And for now we let her think her insertion phase succeeded.”

“Hey, wait a—” I’m ahead of her, but only just.

“Bob, you’re the sacrificial goat. We know she’s got a low opinion of you, and has very little idea of what you’re capable of. So we’re going to work to reinforce that. The official minutes of this meeting will not record us discussing Mhari’s timing. Nor will they mention your epidemiological research, the reason for the Code Blue, or your preparations. Instead they’ll focus on us dumping on you for calling in a spurious Code Blue and wasting resources—” She stops and looks at Lockhart. “Yes?”

Lockhart shakes his head. “Nothing relevant. Forget I was here. Redact my name from the minutes.”

We all turn to stare at him. “The Senior Auditor will sign off on everything if I advise him to,” he says, and the temperature in the briefing room drops five degrees.

“Are you sure?” Jez asks tentatively. (Mentioning our overseers is about as welcome as mentioning Old Nick at a funeral.)

“Let’s just say that I believe it would be unwise to attach my name to a document that Ms. Murphy might subsequently stumble across if she goes looking for it. She does not need to be aware that External Assets has an interest in this situation.” He glowers at me. “She does not need to be aware that Bob is involved in External Assets, either.”

“Well gee, thanks for the vote of confidence!”

“See me later, Bob,” he grunts, then turns back to look at Jez. I notice that Andy is watching our exchange with the still, silent fascination of a fly on the wall that is canny enough to be aware of the existence of swatters.