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CIA officer Patrick, was already in the room, sitting on a chair facing three people on the other side of a large oak table. The room was nothing like the others in the sprawling headquarters: it had oak paneling on the walls, leather-upholstered chairs, and ornate oil lamps that emitted a flickering bronze glow through their tulip-shaped glass bulbs; on the table was a tea set and doilies that would have looked at home in the Claridge hotel. Alistair had been in this room twice before, once to talk in fluent Arabic to a visiting Arab prince who was young and charming and naive to the nastier ways of the world, and latterly to advise the head of the Agency that MI6 was certain the Chinese had recruited an employee of the NSA.
    On each occasion he’d been here, the room reminded him of the officers’ quarters on a seventeenth-century man-of-war ship.
    The slim, middle-aged controller was, as ever, immaculately dressed, wearing a blue three-piece suit, a French-cuff silk shirt with a cutaway collar, a tie that had been bound in a Windsor knot, and black Church’s shoes. His blond hair was trimmed and lacquered in the style of an Edwardian gentleman.
    Patrick looked similar to Alistair and was the same age. But today, the CIA officer had not opted to match Alistair’s immaculate look; he wasn’t wearing a jacket or tie, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal his sinewy and scarred forearms. Alistair knew from experience that his informal attire meant the CIA officer had contempt for the men opposite him and was pissed off.
    Alistair sat next to him and studied the three people on the other side of the table. Though he knew of them, he’d never met them in person before. The man directly opposite him was Colby Jellicoe, a former high-ranking CIA officer and now an influential senator who sat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, an oversight body that was tasked with ensuring that the CIA operated within the rule of law. Next to him were CIA director Ed Parker and senior CIA officer Charles Sheridan.
    Jellicoe spoke first. “The Norwegians got there before we could, and they’re saying there are dead American spies on their turf and they want to know why.”
    Alistair placed the tips of his fingers together. “Dead Americans? Oh dear.”
    “Yeah, well, they’ve been made to look like Americans, anyways.” The senator picked up a pen and jabbed it in the direction of Alistair. “We’re now at the diplomatic shit storm stage of a cluster fuck.”
    “What a delightful turn of phrase.” Alistair was analyzing Jellicoe. Probably mid-fifties, short, fat—no, fat in places, wrists were normal size, face was jowly rather than round, probably he’d lost and gained weight throughout his life, but he wasn’t naturally fat. What did that mean? He was a binger, yes, a man who at times couldn’t resist being a gourmand, a pig. That was decided then: Jellicoe was a pig. “I’m sure you can placate the Norwegian government with a little honesty and perhaps a reminder about the nature of false-flag operations.”
    Jellicoe looked over the top of his glasses with an expression of utter hostility. “That’s providing we want to try and placate anyone.”
    “Try to .”
    “What?”
    “Try to . Never mind.” Alistair smiled. “Let me guess—you’d like to use this . . . cluster fuck to enable your own agenda.”
    “And what might that agenda be?”
    “There are many possibilities, but I’ve not yet settled on one. But don’t worry, it’ll come to me. All I need you to do is to keep opening your mouth.”
    Jellicoe leaned back in his chair, huffed, and tossed his pen onto the table.
    Ed Parker picked up the reins. “You can’t protect Cochrane.”
    Alistair nodded. “Of course we can’t, because we don’t know where he is.”
    “You got a number where we can call him?”
    Alistair answered truthfully. “No. We had to have him completely off the radar in Norway.”
    “Has he called