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US military and he wants to whistleblow on a number of American clandestine operations and projects.’
    Kingsthorpe gazed owlishly at Ibrahim, before his brows knotted and he whipped off the thick-rimmed glasses. ‘A whistleblower? Are you out of your tiny mind, Adel?’
    ‘This is huge, Alan. It could take us mainstream.’
    ‘It could take us to the bloody Uruguayan embassy, too. You want to bring down the same batshit craziness as Assange or Snowden on us? Or Kim dot bloody Com? Paraiahsville? There’s no way this makes any sense for 3Shoof.’
    ‘It could do for us what the Gulf War did for CNN, Alan. We’re ready to take this on, we’ve got a good, solid platform and a smart team. We can partner with a major to scale up resourcing and reach but this would make our name for all time. We’d be at the top table.’
    ‘You’d be on the way to the slammer and I for one won’t stand you bail, you crazy Arab bastard.’
    ‘Fuck.’ Mariam hadn’t intended to say anything and, having let that one slip, realised she had become the centre of attention in the messy room. She tore herself away from the inflammatory sheaves of printed emails and correspondence and peered at the two irate men. Kingsthorpe was furious and steely, Ibrahim wobbly and puce. ‘This guy handled information on a whole range of experimental projects in the Middle East. They used us as lab rats for new weapons, drugs, the lot. Like it’ll just blow up a few dirty Arabs if it works as we planned and if it doesn’t the drones can go in and finish them off anyway.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter, Mariam.’ Kingsthorpe’s voice was kindly. ‘It’ll just make a couple of headlines and then we’ll be their target. They’ll destroy us.’ He rounded on Ibrahim. ‘And it won’t matter how many times the world clicks on the stuff we publish, because you’ll be tied up sucking down doses of water through a flannel and screaming for your mother’s tit, not munching foie gras and quaffing Krug.’
    Ibrahim wet his lips. ‘It’s worth the risk. This is the big time, Alan. Global. It’s global.’
    ‘No. I won’t support this lunacy.’
    Mariam heard herself speak, a small voice belonging to someone else. Not hers, no way. She had enough trouble with a traumatised best friend and a new job to hold down. Let alone putting her own experiences as a hostage in a cellar outside Damascus behind her. The memories she didn’t allow hold her back or keep her down. There’s no way Mariam would seek anything other than a nice, quiet life in exile in London. Maybe find a nice English boy. Someone boring and dependable who liked his slippers warmed by the fire and perhaps impassioned chats about pointless British politics over a merlot under a gas burner outside an Edgware Road bar. Her voice tore it all apart, her treacherous mouth working as her mind screamed no at the very idea.
    ‘We need to do this.’
     
     
    Dr Lawrence Hamilton. A brass plaque on a panelled door. Robyn knocked, rewarded with muffled ‘Come’ from inside. She pushed against the heavy wood, a naughty schoolgirl once again. He strode from behind the desk, a sparse gantry robed in a three -piece suit. Precarious half-frame glasses breasted the great beak of his nose. She jumped as the door slammed shut behind her. Robyn grasped the extended hand, all liver spots, wrinkles and tendons. Hamilton’s grip was paper dry and warm. His cornflower eyes pierced in the frameless spectacles. Trimmed eyebrows and manicured nails. Robyn almost curtseyed.
    He swept her into a chair.
    ‘Come along in. I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, but sometimes I get so terribly behind. Here, do take a seat.’
    She smiled, nerves jangling as she lowered herself into the wooden-armed chair set aside the richly striated dark wood desk with its green leather and gold foil surface. The study was men’s club opulent; bookcases of bound volumes and a glowing fireplace with a brass fender and fire irons. There