mi5 headquarters, thames house, london,
6:57 a.m. gmt
“Sorry sir, I’ve been a little busy,” replied Nolan. As he drove, he was holding one of the sanitary napkins against his side. It was bleeding as badly as his leg, but the last thing he needed was to pass out behind the wheel from blood loss.
“Yes, son, we all saw.”
“You saw?”
“I had the Canadians put a Zephyr up earlier. I tried to warn you about the welcoming committee, but your phone was off.”
“Sorry about that, sir, but it tends to put a damper on things if the phone goes off at an inappropriate time.”
A new voice appeared over Nolan’s phone. “Good evening, Terrance. Very well done. So, what is the news about Lander?”
“Who exactly is this?” asked the agent.
“This happens to be the deputy prime minister,” the man replied, a little miffed.
Nolan paused before answering. “If you don’t mind, sir, it’s Terry. My mother only ever called me Terrance when she was mad at me.” There was laughter in the room, which made the agent a little pissed off. What the hell is this, pizza and a movie night at MI5? “As for Lander, he’s dead, the girl killed him.”
“Oh, how unfortunate. I thought the purpose of this evening’s little jaunt was to find out what Lander knew. Pity it’s been an abject failure.”
He was growing red in the face. Jaunt, fucking jaunt. I’ll give this asshole a fucking jaunt. Terry was about to explode when he heard K’s voice.
“Maybe I should take this off speaker for a second.”
Terry waited thirty seconds, his blood still boiling. Then K was back on the phone.
“Sorry about that, laddie.”
“You can tell that pompous son of a bitch I said to shove his little jaunt up his miserable ass. Why the hell are all those people there? This was supposed to be off the radar.”
“Thank you, Nolan, I’ll take that under advisement. As for why they are here, the prime minister wants them involved, so if you have an issue with that, I suggest you take it up with her. Now tell me, what happened?”
“You know what happened, you were watching. It was a bloody set up. They were expecting me.”
“How can you be sure they were expecting you? They could have just been lucky.”
“I’d usually agree, sir, apart from one little detail.”
“And what was that?”
“Lander, sir. He knew my bloody name, my real name. No doubt, no question, he knew it was me the second he walked out of the house.”
“Oh, hell!”
“You can say that again, sir. We have a traitor in our midst.”
“Could the girl have warned them?”
“One hundred percent no, sir. Those weren’t fake bullets Lander was firing at her and she took him out like a champ.”
“She trained?”
“I doubt that very much, sir. More luck than skill, I’d say. Plus, she could have taken me out or had a weapon on me numerous times. Sorry, sir, but she’s as solid as they come.”
“She could be playing the long game. We’ve done the same. Hell, son, you’ve done it in the past.”
“Never killed one of our own though, have we? Anyway, I’d stake my life on her being on the up and up, and if it turns out I’m wrong and she is working for the other side, I’ll eliminate her myself.”
“You already are, Nolan. Just be aware of that. As for her working for the other side, I expect you to clean up your mess.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So, in your opinion, it has to be somebody on our side of the pond. Shit! That’s not good.”
“I’d say not, sir, and it doesn’t help that every Tom, Dick, and Harry seems to know what’s going on over here.”
“This is now bigger than you and Shae, Terry, even the girl. We are talking a national crisis. Unfortunately, that means others need to be involved. Anyway, you’ll do what you’re told and leave the other stuff to me to sort out,” snapped K.
“Totally understand, sir.”
“Right. Was the deputy prime minister correct? The op was a total wash?”
“I think not, sir. Lander was delayed trying to make a run for it retrieving a case from his gun safe. I have it with me now. Seems to me there must be something important in it.”
“Well, what the hell is it?”
“Sorry, sir, but I haven’t had a chance to look in it yet. Kind of been more concerned about getting out of Dodge first, sir.”
“Yes, of course.”
“If you don’t mind, sir, can we keep the information about the briefcase under wraps for now?”
“I’ll make sure it stays between me, the prime minister, and C.”
“Thank you, sir, I appreciate that. One other thing.”
“What’s that, lad?”
“Somehow, we have to keep tonight’s events quiet. We need at least twelve hours, twenty-four would be better.”
“Not asking a lot, are you, Nolan? I’ll give the PM a call as soon as we finish. I guess she’s going to have to give the president a bell after all. Can’t promise anything, but we’ll try.”
“Thanks, sir. Oh, and can you have C’s boys do a deeper dive on Lander? I can’t put my finger on it, but there was something about him. Don’t ask me what, but there was just something.”
“Okay, Nolan, I’ll get them right on it. Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you okay? Physically?”
“Apart from being grazed by a bullet and a couple of broken ribs, I seem to be doing wonderfully, sir.”
“Jesus, Nolan, you should have said. I have an SAS medic on that chopper. I’ll have them back for you both in no time.”
“Thanks. Most appreciated. Thanks for the help at the house, sir.”
K smiled. “You are most welcome. Now let’s figure out a place for them to give you a lift.”