Taipei, Taiwan
THE DOBERMAN HAD HIM by the throat, or was it a German Shepherd? It was clamping its jaws around his windpipe. Another was attacking his shoulder. Luke lashed out with both arms and sat bolt upright.
‘Jesus, man! Take it easy! I was only trying to wake you up.’ Leach stood back, nursing his arm where Luke’s fist had collided with it. Jenny was across the room, watching him as she cradled a cup of tea.
‘Sorry,’ Luke said, rubbing his eyes. ‘I was out for the count. Must’ve been having a bit of a nightmare there.’
‘I can see that,’ Leach replied. ‘And not surprising, given what you’ve been through. Right. Do you want to come next door? This is pretty bloody momentous, I can tell you. Perhaps we should send a car to fetch Hannah. She deserves to hear this, at least some of it.’
Hannah Slade. The collector. The bravest person in this whole fiasco and she wasn’t even a serving intelligence officer. She was a civilian, a willing volunteer from the world of academia. Luke and Jenny had had only the briefest of exchanges about her since that fateful moment when they’d abandoned her in the forest. But they couldn’t put this off much longer. They were going to have to explain her absence somehow. The question was, how much should they say?
‘I think we should leave Hannah where she is,’ Jenny said, grasping the situation with both hands. ‘There’ll be classified intel on this drive and she doesn’t have the right clearance. Let’s go next door.’
Singapore station had sent three people. Two women, one man. They were standing almost to attention beside an array of desktop, wires and techie apparatus that Luke didn’t recognize.
‘It took us a bit of time to do the decryption,’ one said, ‘but we got there in the end.’
‘And?’ Luke asked.
‘And it’s a gold mine.’ She beamed. ‘It’s given us everything from China’s operational plans for an imminent maritime blockade of Taiwan to their cyber strategy: cutting the place off from the internet, isolating it entirely. And there are names on there too – all of Beijing’s agents inside the Taiwan military, people China has on its payroll. Oh, and access codes for their ballistic missile launch sites. I mean, it’s just incredible. If this checks out there’s enough in here to stop any invasion in its tracks. The guy who leaked all this must be seriously pissed off with his government.’
‘Was,’ Luke said.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Was, in the past tense. He’s dead.’
‘Oh. I see.’ Although the news didn’t appear to take the wind out of her sails. ‘Well, he deserves a posthumous medal, then. Anyway, we’ve sent it all to Cheltenham and Vauxhall and they’re preparing an assessment now for Cabinet Office.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Should be just in time for PMQs in the Commons.’