CHAPTER TWO

‘Bradley – stop feeding your face. I need your help.’

Bex Wilson reached up and tapped the button on the side of her sunglasses, wondering if she’d accidentally managed to turn the volume down while brushing her hair out of her eyes. Or maybe a trickle of sweat had got into the electronics and short-circuited something important. She wouldn’t be surprised – the kit was meant to be military-grade, hardened against environmental and climatic conditions, but accidents happened, and the heat here in Mumbai was more oppressive than anything she had ever experienced. It was like something you’d feel if you opened an oven door after you’d been baking a potato for an hour. The humidity was just as bad: so much moisture hung in the air that her sweat had nowhere to go, so it just stayed on her skin. What with the heat and the humidity combined, Bex felt as if the entire atmosphere, in a column from where she stood all the way up to the edge of space, was pressing down just on her.

Glancing around the open space outside the hotel, she wondered why nobody else seemed to be feeling it. Or maybe they were, but they just weren’t showing their discomfort. Maybe, once she got used to it, she would be all right. She wasn’t putting any money on it though.

She was sitting on a stone bench on the edge of an area of paved ground with a can of cola in her hand. Behind her the ornate and impressive Victorian edifice of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel rose up, where rich tourists stayed in glorious, air-conditioned luxury. Ahead of her sat a massive square basalt building with an arch in the centre that Bradley had told her was called the Gateway of India, and beyond the arch the grey water of Mumbai Harbour rolled greasily.

The sky above her was grey as well – dark clouds swelling like dirty sheets hanging from washing lines high above.

Bradley had warned her about that water. Don’t swim in it, he’d said. Don’t even touch it. Apparently it’s like raw sewage.

That’s why she had Bradley on the end of a virtual line – to provide information like that. And, of course, to get her out of trouble.

The area in front of the arch heaved with people. Some of them were tourists from abroad wearing backpacks and holding cameras or guidebooks. Some of them were tourists from elsewhere in India, wearing saris or baggy linen shirts and trousers, and with two, three or four kids running around them. Some of them were locals selling cans of drink, cheap sunglasses, postcards and maps. One of them – Bex – was an undercover intelligence agent. And every single one of them seemed to be ignoring the fact that it was so hot that they could all have cooked eggs on the paving slabs.

Bex had spent a lot of time in America, from Death Valley to Florida, and she’d thought she knew all about hot weather. This, however, was nothing like anything she had ever felt. This, as her gaming friends would say, was a level up from her previous experiences.

Speaking of gaming friends, she tapped her earpiece again in frustration. As far as anyone looking was concerned, she was just making a call. Which, in effect, she was. ‘Bradley? Are you there? What’s going on?’ She didn’t make any attempt to disguise the fact that she was talking to nobody – everyone in the world these days knew what Bluetooth and Wi-Fi were. It wasn’t suspicious.

For a moment she heard nothing but the seashore-hiss of background static, but then a tentative voice said: ‘Hello?’

‘Bradley?’ she asked. It didn’t sound like him.

‘No, my name’s Kieron.’

She frowned. She and Bradley had never noticed any interference with their communications before, but she wasn’t that experienced with the technology and she supposed there had to be a first time for everything. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said politely, ‘I think we’ve got a crossed line. Can you cancel your call and try again? I’ll do the same.’

‘Wait,’ the voice in her ear said urgently, ‘I need to ask you something. Are you looking at a massive arch thing made of stone?’

‘Ye-es,’ she said.

‘And have you got a can of cola in your hand?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not a game, or something?’

‘No. Are you saying you can see the arch and the can too?’

This was wrong. Somehow this Kieron had accessed her encrypted communications with Bradley. Maybe he had even hacked it. Instinctively her hands rose to her sunglasses. Making it look like she was just pushing them back on her nose, she covered up the miniature cameras on each side, just in front of the hinges where the arms met the lenses.

‘Hey,’ he said, ‘it’s gone dark! What happened?’

So he was seeing what she was seeing. This was wrong. She had to tell her bosses in SIS-TERR – the Secret Intelligence Service’s Terrorist Technology-Enhanced Remote Reinforcement team – but first she had to find out what had happened to Bradley. Maybe he was trying to get through to her on another channel and finding it blocked. She hoped so, anyway.

She lowered her hands before it looked too odd.

‘Are you wearing something like those cameras you see on cyclists’ helmets?’ the kid asked.

‘Something like that,’ she replied noncommittally. ‘Look, kid, you need to disconnect now, OK?’ She tried to pitch her voice like an air stewardess telling a passenger that they can’t have another glass of wine. ‘It’s a protected link. You could get into trouble.’

‘I think trouble’s already happened,’ the voice said. He sounded young. Maybe just a kid. Not that she was much past her twentieth birthday herself, but she felt older. She’d lived through a lot in the past couple of years, even if most of it had been training and simulations.

‘What do you mean?’

‘This bloke – he got taken away. He left his stuff behind. I’m using it now to talk to you.’

Bex felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured all over her. It was like stepping into an ice-cold shower. For a second she shivered, but then the Mumbai climate enveloped her again like a warm, wet duvet. ‘What bloke?’ she asked urgently. ‘What did he – I mean, what does he look like, the man you’re talking about?’

A pause on the other end, then the kid – Kieron – said: ‘Early thirties, long blond hair and a beard. I’d say he was wearing thick glasses, but I’m wearing them now and they’re just plain glass. Not prescription lenses at all. Dressed like someone’s hipster dad – chinos and an ironed shirt.’

‘You’ve got his glasses and his earpiece?’ Bex asked urgently.

‘Yes, that’s what I’m saying.’

Oh, this was getting worse and worse.

‘Where are you exactly, right now?’

‘I’m in the basement of a shopping mall in Newcastle.’

Newcastle. She felt a sick feeling welling up in her stomach. That was where Bradley had been operating from. There was some connection between her mission in India and that city, but it wasn’t clear what the link was. Bradley’s job had been to investigate that link when he wasn’t providing Bex with support.

‘Tell me exactly what happened.’

‘He was just sitting here, when two men came over and grabbed him. They dragged him away, down to the car park. They threw him into a van and drove away.’ His voice rose in tone while he spoke, as if he was reliving the events and feeling shocked all over again. Bex had been trained in listening unemotionally to people’s voices and picking up undercurrents of emotion and meaning, but now she was feeling shock along with this Kieron.

‘And he just left his kit on the table?’ She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘It fell off.’ He sounded defensive. ‘I just picked it up and, you know, kind of tried it on, and realised I could see, like, a high-def 3D image projected on the lenses somehow so I can see what’s happening here but I can see what’s happening there as well. That’s some really sick technology.’

‘What about security? Didn’t anyone try to stop them?’

‘Nobody noticed.’

Bex thought she heard a voice in the distance saying, ‘Or cared!’ For a moment she thought it was someone near her, but she realised that it came from her earpiece: another boy’s voice. Kieron had friends. Or a friend.

She took a deep breath. She felt a flutter of panic in her chest that she couldn’t seem to get rid of, like a butterfly that she’d accidentally swallowed.

She was about to say something, although she wasn’t entirely sure what it was going to be, when the kid said: ‘So, should I call the police or something?’

‘No,’ she said quickly. That wasn’t a good idea. SIS-TERR should be handling this, not the police.

She had to think. She looked around, seeing the tourists and the hawkers of maps and gifts but not really focusing on anything; letting it all blur together while her thoughts raced. The problem was that it would take time to get through to SIS-TERR and brief them on what had happened, and then even more time for them to arrange to have her transferred to another agent handler – probably one she’d never even met before – and get the mission back on track. And by then there probably wouldn’t be a mission any more.

She felt sick. She and Bradley were independents, working under top-secret contract to the Secret Intelligence Service. Up until now they’d successfully handled every mission that had been thrown their way, but if they screwed this one up then the chances were they’d never get a contract again.

‘Are you sure this isn’t a game?’ Kieron asked suddenly.

‘This is definitely not a game.’ She thought she detected something strange in his tone of voice, despite the thousands of miles that lay between them. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because a little box has come up in the top of the picture. It says “Security Alert – Threat Detected”.’

Somebody had turned that ice-cold shower back on again. ‘Where? Tell me!’

‘Look,’ he said, ‘this is getting too weird. Really, it is. I’ll just hand the stuff in to the Information Point here at the mall, assuming there’s anybody there, and we’ll call it a day, OK? You can pick your friend’s stuff up there.’

Her gaze flickered across the open space, resting on faces for a moment before checking out body postures, looking for something she recognised or something that screamed threat! but nothing stood out. ‘No, wait. Kieron – it was Kieron, wasn’t it? – just tell me: is there a thin yellow line leading from the corner of the box and pointing at something?’

‘Yeah. It’s pointing at some bloke.’

‘Describe him for me.’

‘Medium height, Indian by the look of him, standing with his back to the arch and staring kind of past your left shoulder. He’s got a camera in his hand. One of those old-fashioned ones, with the chunky lenses. Not a smartphone or a tablet. When he moves, the box moves with him.’

His description was spot-on. She quickly isolated the man she thought he had described. ‘Thin moustache? Sideburns? Blue shirt?’

‘Yes.’ A pause. ‘Who is he? Why is this thing labelling him as a threat?’

‘You tell me,’ she said.

‘I don’t know!’

‘OK, listen to me. This is important. Raise your right hand and touch the air where the threat box has appeared.’

A pause, then: ‘Oh wow! This thing has gesture recognition built in, as well as facial recognition? What kind of processor is running the code?’

‘Focus. Tell me what’s happened.’

‘Another box appeared. This one says: “Shakeer Saryadhi – minor agent – Indian Counter-Terrorism Centre”, and underneath it says: “Possible surveillance threat”.’

Unlikely to be a threat to my mission, she thought, relaxing slightly. The Gateway of India was a prominent landmark in Mumbai. It would be more than likely that India’s top counter-terrorism organisation was maintaining ‘eyes-on’ the location: Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist group based in Pakistan, was still active, and relations between India and Pakistan were still highly unstable. If this was a surveillance operation then it wasn’t directed against her. The Indian Counter-Terrorism Centre hadn’t been told that she was there.

‘Hey,’ Kieron’s voice said, ‘this thing is like Wikipedia! I can click on words and it’ll give me more detail.’ He paused, then: ‘You’re in Mumbai? In India?’

‘Yes.’

‘So this thing is communicating via satellite? With no lag? Sweet.’

He sounded intelligent. ‘Kieron, be quiet for a minute. I need to think.’

She thought she heard him having a muffled conversation with the boy who’d spoken earlier, but the majority of her mind crunched through facts, assumptions, speculations, predictions, options and courses of action. OK: fact one – her controller, Bradley, had been taken captive by bad guys of some kind. This of course was based on assumption one – that this Kieron was on the level and telling her the truth about what he’d seen. Fact one also led to speculation one – that Bradley’s kidnapping was connected in some way to their joint mission, otherwise why take him there and then, in a shopping mall? That then provided her with prediction one – whoever had taken Bradley would be coming back for his glasses and his earpiece when they discovered that he hadn’t got them on him. The tech – known as Augmented Reality Computer Capability, or ARCC – was new and secret, based on Google Glass, Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive but way in advance of those commercial applications, but rumours got around fast in the intelligence and terrorist communities. These particular bad guys would know that he had some way of communicating with her, and would want to get their hands on it. ‘Kieron,’ she said urgently, ‘you need to get away from wherever you are! The people who took … my friend … might come back looking for the tech kit you’ve got!’

‘Already done,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Sam suggested we relocate to somewhere a bit more secluded. I’m walking and talking at the same time.’

‘Good thinking.’ Sam – that must be his friend.

The heat of the sun, soaked up by the stone bench on which she sat, made her legs itch. She put her can down and shifted to a more comfortable position. While she thought, she let her gaze wander across the various sights and sounds of the bay area she was in: the tourists, the locals, the boats and the spectacular architecture. Her gaze caught on a man standing off to one side: black hair and neatly trimmed black beard. He wore a three-piece pinstriped suit, which seemed odd considering the temperature. Maybe he was a businessman, there for a meeting. He turned and met her gaze, somehow aware that he was being watched. Bex smiled at him, and looked away.

Speculation two – the bad guys would keep Bradley alive while they worked on getting his communications link, and using it to trace her. Not a fact, of course, just a speculation, but she had to believe they would keep him alive otherwise she would be pitched into despair.

Two options – continue with the mission if possible, without Bradley but making sure she got Kieron out of harm’s way and stopped the kit falling into enemy hands, or pause the mission and notify SIS-TERR of events.

Fact two – her mission in Mumbai, guided supposedly by her handler Bradley back in Newcastle, was time-critical. Hence prediction two – if she paused to seek help from SIS-TERR then things would rapidly go pear-shaped, and they might lose their contract, and all further work.

It was pretty clear what she had to do. She couldn’t go on by herself, without a handler, and she couldn’t involve this kid, Kieron. She had to notify SIS-TERR and let them make the call on scrubbing the mission.

She was just about to tell Kieron to walk away and leave the kit at the information desk as he had suggested when he came back on line.

‘I forgot to say – I wrote down the licence plate of the van that took your friend away.’

That would be something to give Control. ‘Good work,’ she said. ‘If you raise your right hand, can you see a blue button appear in your field of view?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I know it’s not there, but make out like you’re pressing it.’

‘An empty box appeared. Oh, and a virtual keyboard beneath it.’

‘Either type the licence plate into the virtual keyboard, or just say “verbal input on”, then say the licence plate out loud. The microphone’s pretty sensitive. It’ll pick up a whisper.’

‘OK.’ A pause, while Bex held her breath. ‘Right – I typed it in. There’s a little icon like a brain that probably means it’s thinking. What is this – like an eighth-generation chip or something?’

‘Don’t worry about that now.’

Bex heard the other voice in the background again, then Kieron said, ‘Sam wants to know how the chip keeps itself cool? Oh, hang on, the brain icon has vanished, and there’s a box that says: “Mitsubishi Delica Stargazer, registered owner Three Cornered Square Communications Ltd”. Does that help?’

‘Not really,’ she said bleakly. A leaden lump sat in her stomach. It hadn’t been there a few seconds before. Unfortunately, she knew the name ‘Three Cornered Square Communications’. It was a shadow company, owned and run by SIS-TERR. It was one of the ways they could register vehicles and properties and pay wages without anyone being able to trace it back to them. Except that Bex had seen that same company listed on top-secret accountancy spreadsheets.

Bradley had been taken by SIS-TERR. Or by someone working for SIS-TERR. But that didn’t make any sense.

Maybe the bad guys were trying to make it look like Bradley had been taken by his own employers in order to destabilise Bex, put her off her stroke. Or perhaps there was a traitor, a double agent, supposedly working for SIS-TERR but actually working for the terrorists, or for an inimical nation. There were a whole load of assumptions and speculations right there, but she didn’t want to think about them right now. The only thing she knew was that, right now, reporting back to SIS-TERR wasn’t really an option.

But she had no resources, nothing to fall back on.

Despair rooted her to the spot and infiltrated its tentacles through her mind, stopping her from thinking properly.

‘What’s your name?’ the boy back in Newcastle asked. His voice had an undertone of concern.

‘Bex,’ she said automatically. ‘Short for Rebecca.’

‘And you’re what? A secret agent, on an actual mission in India?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And this guy Bradley, who has been kidnapped, is looking after you – feeding you information, analysing stuff and identifying threats while you pretend to be a tourist?’

‘That’s pretty much it.’

‘And now he’s gone, you’re on your own and you don’t know who to trust?’

‘Exactly.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘You’ve got a pretty analytical brain, Kieron.’

‘I read a lot. Oh, and I’m teaching myself programming, which is all about breaking a problem down to a series of steps and solving each step, one at a time.’

Bex had started to feel strangely protective of this kid. He’d fallen into something much bigger than he was used to, and she felt as if she had to shield him from any dangers that might arise.

‘Have you changed location, Kieron? Where did you go?’

‘We walked up two levels in the mall to the ice-cream shake place.’ He paused. ‘I’ve got a “Super Salted Caramel” and Sam’s got a “Very Berry Explosion”.’

Bex felt a sudden and unexpected sob welling up in her chest. It was all so normal, so ordinary. Bradley would do that when he was talking to her – tell her what he was eating, or give her a running commentary on what the people around him were doing. He would also randomly tell her that there was a cafe nearby that sold the best lassi, or whatever local drink was appropriate, or that some famous person had stood exactly where she was standing: details gleaned from the computer processor in his glasses. Yes, it kept her grounded, kept her from getting sucked into the detail and the tension of the mission, whatever it was, but that was his character. That was what he did. Or had done.

‘How old are you, Kieron?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Old enough,’ he said guardedly.

‘What colour is your hair?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m telling you all kinds of things that I shouldn’t, and I realised that I don’t have a mental picture of you. Tall or short? Sporty or academic?’

After a pause he spoke again, sounding suddenly tense. ‘I’m nearly six feet tall, I’ve got black hair, and my skin looks like I’ve got a tan. I haven’t – my dad’s from Mauritius – but that’s the only thing about me that looks Mauritian. Everything else I get from my mum. I identify as a greeb, but looking at me you’d say I’m an emo or a goth.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Goths are attracted to the darker side of things, but they’re not necessarily depressed or suicidal. They dress mainly in black, or purple if they’re girls. Emos are really sensitive and depressive – they overreact to anything that happens, and they deal with it by self-harming or locking themselves in their room, curling up into a ball and listening to really loud music. Greebs reject any fashions or trends, and that’s the difference between us, emos and goths. Being emo or goth is a fashion.’ He paused. ‘And the natural enemy of the greeb, the emo and the goth is the chav. They’re the ones wearing tracksuit bottoms tucked into their socks, new white trainers and baseball caps, and have plenty of bling around their necks and on their fingers and wrists.’

‘Sounds very tribal,’ she said, smiling.

‘I suppose it is,’ Kieron said in a quieter voice, ‘but actually that’s not important right now. I’ve just seen one of those two blond guys again. We’re sitting in the window of the ice-cream shake place on the second floor of the mall, and we’re looking down into the food area. We can see our table, and the table your friend was sitting at. The bloke who’s come back is looking around as if he’s dropped something.’ A pause, then, ‘Now he’s going across to the nearest rubbish bin. He’s opened up the flap and he’s looking inside. He probably thinks that one of the cleaners cleared the table and threw all the rubbish away.’

‘Don’t let him know you’re watching him,’ Bex said decisively.

‘We won’t. We’re two levels up, and there’s a window between him and us. There are four other people sitting in the window and looking out. He can’t tell that there’s anything special about us.’

‘He would have noticed you,’ Bex pointed out. ‘He would have been trained to spot everything around him.’

‘Not us,’ Kieron said. His voice sounded angry and frustrated. ‘Nobody sees kids like us. We’re invisible, except to chavs and old people.’

‘What’s happening now?’

‘He’s talking to one of the cleaners. He looks like he’s getting annoyed. OK, the cleaner’s turned away now and he’s trying to walk off. The guy has grabbed the cleaner’s shoulder, and he’s pulling him back. OK, he’s holding his hands up in an apology, and he’s taking a wallet from his jacket pocket. It looks like he’s offering the cleaner money, but the cleaner is backing away and shaking his head.’

Bex could visualise what was going on as if she was actually there. Kieron was a good talker.

‘You know how you got the information on the guy you saw here in Mumbai?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Try doing the same with the man you’re looking at. Raise your hand until your forefinger is over his face and pretend that you’re tapping a key on a keyboard, but twice.’

‘OK, I’m – wow! So I can get information on things I’m seeing as well as things you’re seeing!’

‘What’s happening?’

‘His face is outlined with a yellow border, and that brain symbol has appeared again. Right, the bloke has walked out of sight, but there’s a text box that’s just appeared in mid-air. This one is blue, not yellow like last time.’

‘What does it say?

‘“Searching for known terrorists”. Oh, it’s changed to “Searching for known terrorist associates”. That one’s gone now, and it says: “Searching for known criminals”. Ah, it’s found something. It’s saying: “Identified as Kyle Renner. British citizen; aged twenty-three. Convictions for grievous bodily harm and for assault. Linked to right-wing group Blood and Soil.” There’s a reference number and a whole series of links as well. Whoa, this guy is seriously dangerous.’ He paused, then said, ‘This thing isn’t just accessing the Internet, is it? This isn’t just Wikipedia. It’s checking government stuff as well – classified databases.’

Bex didn’t want to make the tech sound too attractive in case Kieron ran off with it, never to be seen again, so she kept quiet. She wished that she could access the information that he could, right now, so she could check him out. The problem was that field agents weren’t allowed to do that, only their handlers. Partly it was so they had access to information when they were undercover and couldn’t wave their arms about without attracting suspicion. Partly also it was so that secret information didn’t fall into the hands of the bad guys. Agent in the field; handler in a safe place. That was the rule.

‘Let’s say it accesses a whole load of data that isn’t generally available.’

‘I know – I just pulled up all the blueprints for the mall, just by waving my hands around and miming clicking on things. Alarms as well – where the alarm boxes are, where the cables are routed and information on the codes that will turn them off. This thing is incredible. Oh, hang on, I’ve got the employment records of the employees now.’ He suddenly sounded more muffled, as if he was talking to his friend – Sam. ‘That security guard was apparently dishonourably discharged from the Army for stealing a handgun and some live ammunition. And he’s on medication for stress – something called propranolol.’

Bex heard Sam say something like: ‘Get wrecked! That’s a beta-blocker. He wouldn’t have admitted that to his employers!’

‘No,’ Kieron agreed. ‘I followed a link and got access to his medical records. Does this thing access the Deep Web as well? I bet it does. And the computer systems of other nations? It’s wicked!’

‘Probably. It’s just a tool as far as we’re concerned.’ She thought for a second. ‘What’s this Kyle Renner doing now?’

‘He’s talking to the security guard who patrols the mall. It looks like he’s learned his lesson from what happened with the cleaner – he’s being a lot more reasonable now. Yeah, he’s offering the guard some money. They’re walking away together now.’

‘That’s bad,’ Bex said without thinking.

‘Why?’ Kieron sounded nervous. Bex couldn’t really blame him.

‘Because if I was Renner, if I knew something important had gone missing from a public place and I knew that it hadn’t been cleared away, then the next thing I would do is check the recordings from the security cameras.’

‘That’s not going to help,’ Kieron sniffed.

‘Why not?’

‘Because they’d all been turned away so that the table where your friend was sitting couldn’t be seen.’

Bex laughed in relief. She was impressed how the kid had been so observant. ‘You’re right. They are intellectually challenged.’

‘Does that mean we’re safe?’

‘Probably. For the moment.’ With the threat in the mall suspended, Bex’s thoughts turned back to her own situation. What could she do?

‘I don’t want to worry you,’ Kieron said suddenly, ‘but another box has come up at your end of the link.’ He sounded as if he was talking through a mouthful of ice cream.

‘What colour is the box?’

‘Green.’

‘That’s a mission-related one.’ She let her gaze roam around the plaza, just like a tourist. Nothing seemed to have changed: the crowds were still milling around the Gateway of India, taking selfies and looking impressed. ‘What’s it indicating?’

‘There’s a man over to your right. He’s wearing a suit. Dark-skinned, bald on top but long hair around the back of his head falling down over his collar. Middle-aged.’

She could see him now. He stood still, looking around as if he was expecting someone. He held a briefcase defensively in front of him. Local vendors and impromptu tourist guides approached him expectantly, but he just waved them away. ‘What’s the system saying about him?’

‘It says: “Target One identified – Fahim Mahmoud, Sub-Director, Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission”. So what’s the deal with him?’

‘I can’t tell you,’ she said. ‘“Need to know”.’

‘Never mind.’ Kieron sounded smug. ‘I’ve accessed a sub-menu. He’s meeting someone in order to hand over atomic information, isn’t he? You know, from phone intercepts passed to the UK by the American National Security Agency that he’s selling secrets to but you don’t know who or what for. You’re there to find out who he’s meeting. Terrorists is the best guess.’

‘I can neither confirm nor deny that,’ Bex said stiffly, but inside she felt a little glow of admiration for this kid she’d never met.

‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ Kieron added. ‘The phone intercepts weren’t between this bloke and his potential customer; they were between two numbers that couldn’t be traced, but they mentioned him and this meeting. The closest you could get to finding out who had been talking about it was that one of the numbers was near Newcastle.’

‘Again,’ she said, ‘that’s just pure speculation on your part. I’m not going to comment on it.’

‘But it says so, right here!’

As she watched, a man approached Mahmoud: Indian, young, with cheeks marked by smallpox scars. He had a rucksack in his hand.

The two men were shaking hands now.

‘Can the system identify the second man?’ she asked. As she said the words, the man with the rucksack turned his head to scan the crowd. To avoid meeting his eye and rousing his suspicions, Bex turned around and looked at the ornate bulk of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel behind her. She let her gaze scan across it idly while she counted to twenty.

‘The system doesn’t know who he is,’ Kieron said hurriedly, ‘but you’ve got a bigger problem to worry about.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A red box has just appeared, with a line pointing to the hotel’s roof.’

‘What does it say?’

‘Oh God! You need to get out of there! It says: “Danger! Retro-reflection from telescopic sight detected! Sniper on roof, preparing to fire!”’

Bex’s immediate reaction was an urge to whirl around and scan the roof of the hotel behind her, but she stopped herself. That would give her away to the sniper immediately. Instead she casually raised her camera as if taking a photograph. Keeping the camera pointed low, she peered over the top of it and let her gaze travel across the top of the building.

The roof of the hotel was a complicated mix of red tiles, little white spires and three large red domes – one on either end and a larger one in the middle. There was a lot to look at, and no immediate clue as to where the sniper might be located.

‘Give me a pointer,’ she said quietly to the kid on the other end of the ARCC kit, holding her camera in front of her mouth so nobody could see her lips move.

‘See that middle dome?’

‘How could I miss it?’

‘Look to the right of the dome – about twenty feet.’

She let her gaze wander away from the dome while keeping the camera stationary. Yes, there! A black shape in the shadow of one of those white spires. It was the only flaw in the Christmas-cake perfection of the hotel’s facade; like a fly on white icing.

‘Got them. Too far away for me to do anything.’ She lowered the camera and glanced back at where Mahmoud and the Indian man were now shaking hands warily. They separated, and the man said something to Mahmoud. The Pakistani man nodded, and held the briefcase up. The Indian man nodded as well, and slid the rucksack from his shoulder.

It looked like the exchange was about to take place: Pakistani nuclear secrets for cash. Bex’s instructions were to observe but not interfere, and to follow the person who took the nuclear secrets. Mahmoud was known to MI6; the person buying the secrets was not. Her job was to follow him to wherever he was using as a base and try to identify him. The problem was that the unexpected presence of the sniper confused the issue massively. Were they there to kill Mahmoud, or the Indian man? Or were they there just to watch, and kill anyone who tried to interfere with the exchange?

Or, Bex considered with a chill, were they there to kill her?

She felt a tingle right between her shoulder blades, as if a pair of crosshairs was already centred on her fifth thoracic vertebra.

If she moved, if she tried to hide or duck or get out of the way, then the two men exchanging nuclear secrets for cash would immediately know that something was wrong, and they would run for it. She just had to stand there, feeling like a spider was crawling around on her back, and pretend that everything was all right.

‘Turn around!’ the boy on the other end of the ARCC kit said in a panicked tone of voice; ‘I can’t see the sniper.’

‘More important things to think about,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve got a job to do.’

As Mahmoud took the rucksack in one hand and prepared to relinquish the briefcase with the other, the rucksack suddenly seemed to explode. In her earpiece, Kieron gasped in surprise. Scraps of cloth flew everywhere, along with a spray of brightly coloured banknotes that fluttered like butterflies in the hot breeze.

Mahmoud staggered backwards in shock, releasing the rucksack. It fell towards the ground. The other man, the Indian, gazed around in horror, trying to work out what had happened; how the secret meeting had suddenly gone so public and so wrong. He held the briefcase in both hands in front of him, like a shield, obviously worried that the next shots would hit him.

The crowd near them took a few steps back, the way any crowd did when something strange happened. Well, the entire crowd except for two people who actually stepped forward. For a second Bex thought they had spotted the falling cloud of banknotes before anyone else and wanted to get hold of some for themselves. Instead one of them grabbed the briefcase while the other took the Indian man by the back of the neck and squeezed.

As the Indian man fell to the ground with an expression of agony on his face the briefcase was wrenched from his grasp. The two people turned to leave. It was only then that Bex saw them clearly: young, one male and one female. The man had short blond hair while the woman had her blonde hair pulled back in a plait. They were wearing anonymous clothes of the kind you could get from any camping store: lightweight jackets and loose canvas trousers.

‘They look like the men who took your friend,’ Kieron said suddenly. ‘They could all be part of the same family.’

‘Or the same organisation,’ Bex said quietly. Her mind raced, sorting facts, possibilities and speculations.

The whole situation was in flux anyway, so she felt no compunction about turning around and staring at the hotel’s facade. Where previously she had seen something that might have been a person’s head, and possibly a gun, now there was nothing. The sniper had vanished.