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softly, and there was muttered assent around the room. Kids, dammit. Wasn’t anything sacred to these people anymore? Was nothing out of bounds?
    ‘Are we going to do anything more proactive?’ asked Dorrell. ‘Help out our British friends more directly?’
    Abrams managed not to look at Olsen, or Catalina Dos Santos, Director of National Security, before she answered. ‘That’s something for discussion,’ she replied, knowing that Mark Cole had already been called in for a meeting that would directly follow this one. ‘But let’s just say that right now, all options are on the table, and we’re not going to let our friends down.’
    ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Dorrell answered with his first smile of the morning, ‘I know we won’t.’

3
    The president had wanted him there fast, Cole considered as he sat in an anteroom for the meeting to finish, and that was for sure. Once she’d found out where he was, she’d ordered a Secret Service detail to leave their duty station at the Vice President’s residence at the nearby United States Naval Observatory to pick him up and race him through early rush-hour traffic to the White House.
    To most of the people here, he was known as Doctor Alan Sandbourne, expert in international affairs at the Paradigm Group and a key intelligence adviser to the president. As such, his presence there didn’t seem at all out of place.
    It wasn’t long before he was called in by the president’s secretary, and he was greeted with a cup of strong black coffee waiting for him on the small table which sat in the center of the cozy study.
    Abrams, dos Santos and Olsen greeted him warmly but – after only a modicum of small-talk – got straight to business.
    ‘I know we’re taking things slowly with Force One at the moment,’ Abrams said, ‘and we don’t want to rock the boat while Miley’s still out of action and Jones is at JSOC.’
    Cole nodded his head; the only operations he had ongoing at the moment were long-term deep cover ops which had already been well established. Jake Navarone in Moscow was one of these, and his work insinuating himself into the machinery of the Russian government was just about to start bearing fruit; but direct action missions had been curtailed for the moment, while Cole’s organization rode out the current storm.
    ‘However,’ Abrams continued, ‘we need someone we can trust over there, to keep an eye on the investigations and report back to us in real time what you find out.’
    ‘“You”, as in “me”?’ Cole asked, eyebrows raised.
    Abrams nodded her head. ‘Yes Mark,’ she said, ‘you. I know we can trust you, and that’s really the most important thing here. You’ve worked in London before, you know the place.’
    He did indeed – the last time he was there, he’d been forced to escape from the Met police, MI5 and a hit-team of US killers ordered by his corrupt ex-boss. He knew the city all too well.
    ‘I think I’m still wanted there,’ Cole said jokingly.
    ‘All in the past now,’ dos Santos said. ‘Besides which, they never even had any idea who you really were.’
    ‘My cover?’ Cole asked.
    ‘Mark White,’ dos Santos said, ‘FBI international liaison officer, all set to be plugged straight into Scotland Yard and MI5.’
    ‘Does Graham know about this?’ Cole asked.
    ‘He’s on board,’ Abrams answered, ‘he’s already spoken to his counterparts at MI5, got you an in with their investigations team.’
    ‘Me as in me, or me as in Mark White?’
    ‘White,’ Abrams answered. ‘Noah’s got thirty-five thousand people under him, he’s got no idea who’s who. We plugged in a name, he authorized it.’
    ‘You’ll meet a few other Feds in London,’ Olsen warned him, ‘stationed there as liaisons, training officers and the like, so make sure you know what you’re talking about when it comes to Bureau business. You don’t want anyone asking questions.’
    ‘But you’re there – or rather, Mark White – is