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forces connections, and the millions he had accrued? Money For Old Rope.
    Quickly Tristie checked the airport website. The flight to Newcastle was showing Closed. Pushed back from the gate. He’d be out of contact for the next seventy-five minutes at least. So she dialled up Ferret, told him carefully what she knew, and asked him to get to work. He would be the male voice that rang the bank, no point her trying. Only he could be Sir Dale Malham: transferring out chunks of £ 50,000. They’d agreed, keep ringing back until you exhaust the daily, weekly or monthly limit, or he simply runs out of cash. Allow two minutes between each call and you would be assured of a different person answering each time. All transfers to the Ward 13 account in the bank’s sister branch in Grand Cayman.
    Good luck, Ferret , she said, feeling guilty, hoping he understood that she had done everything possible to minimise the risk, short of making the calls herself. The pre-pay mobile he used was brand new. No history. Possibly, they could back-triangulate the calls to within fifty yards of where he was in Terminal 5, which gave them a pool of about five thousand suspects. There was much more of a trail leading to Tristie, but that didn’t stop her worrying that Ferret was carrying too much of the risk.
    She waited in the hotel car park. Laptop fired up, and the website set to www.openatc.com so she could watch the slow progress of Malham’s BA flight to Newcastle as it pushed north through England’s congested skies. The assumption would be that he’d make a call or get a message on his mobile as soon as the flight landed. Perhaps he would harangue his partner about her spending, discover in fact there was no birthday trip planned, maybe get a call from a supervisor at the bank, worried that an account had been flushed clean of cash. Seventy-five minutes was their time frame.

    The only thing to do was sit back. Look through her rain-spattered windscreen. Try and remain calm. The longer she waited, the more her mind grew accustomed to the idea of getting caught. At least they had a good shot at some publicity: the British love the idea of a noble failure. The girl with no parents, attractive, single, exciting but deeply classified army career, tilting at windmills. Maybe she could make some sort of celebrity D-list, surviving as a rent-a-quote security expert on TV and radio. She felt her nails dig into her palms at the thought . . . an awful reality.
    ‘Captain?’
    Huh? She jumped. It felt like only seconds later but Ferret was back in Tristie’s ear. Panicky, she glanced down at the laptop and gulped. Steady. Openatc.com showed Malham’s flight over the North Sea making its turn towards Newcastle airport. Take it easy. Deep breath.
    ‘Yes?’ She cleared her throat. ‘Things OK?’
    Ferret sounded way down. ‘He’s run out of money already.’
    ‘Oh dear.’ Instantly, Tristie was thinking about Plan B, how to keep Ward 13 alive, how much would she have to borrow. And where from. ‘How much?’
    Ferret sighed. And in her cold, boxy little rental car, she could feel his gloom wrap around her. How small was the amount they’d managed to scavenge? she wondered. Tell me it’s not too embarrassingly small . . .
    ‘A one and four zeros.’ Ten thousand pounds.
    Ferret’s disappointment was obvious. Yet a tiny, sneaky part of her was relieved. Look on the bright side, she felt herself wanting to say. It was a small amount, not what they needed as seed money, but at the same time not enough to set off an international manhunt. Perhaps, she had the words ready to say, she’d over-egged the opportunity. ‘I’m sorry, Ferret. I really am.’
    Quiet followed. And in that silence she searched for conversation, a female instinct, some meaningless words to soothe the sharp edge of male disappointment . . .
    Which was when Ferret erupted in a gale of laughter. Almostmaniacal. Then the quietest whisper. ‘One point two five million.’ He