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Team and Karl?”
    “This takes priority. It’s an urgent collection and delivery. And let’s keep this between ourselves — just like your personal appointment today.”

Chapter 5
    There was a time when he’d enjoyed attending Sir Peter Carroll at Whitehall. Those occasional summonses, from the Director General himself, used to make him feel valued.
    Things were different now. Ever since Karl and circumstance had opened his eyes, he viewed the interaction more as an audience, albeit complicated by Sir Peter now answering to Karl’s people, whoever they were. It didn’t pay to think too much about it.
    He jumped the Tube at Liverpool Street and threaded through the underground network to surface at Westminster. This time, as he approached Main Building, he felt something different: a sense of foreboding. Could he really trust the DG anymore? He smiled to himself — answers on a postcard.
    The guard at the front door eyed him up as he entered the foyer — nothing new there. A sign showed the building’s alert status as black, which matched his mood. The security desk received his ID card with thinly veiled contempt — this was another place where floaters weren’t welcomed with open arms. He’d never quite figured that one out. Was it because the SSU only came into being at the time of The Falklands War, twenty years or so ago, lacking the pedigree of the other departments? Or maybe it was the belief that the SSU was a dumping ground for anyone who couldn’t hack it anywhere else in the service.
    A quick phone call and a scan of his hand, and then it was the familiar stand-and-wait routine while an escort came to fetch him. Meantime, he counted the seconds. To think he used to be impressed with all this. The seat of power — what a joke! In the last few months Karl had educated him about a power struggle across Europe that had nothing to do with governments. A Shadow State whose tendrils reached into the military, multinationals and so-called democracies. Even though he didn’t subscribe to a ‘United States of Europe’ conspiracy, unlike the nutcase websites Karl had directed him to for fun, there was definitely something to it. Everything always came down to money and power.
    His escort arrived and she chaperoned him to the lift for the top floor. Sir Peter Carroll, always the man at the top.
    “I’ve not seen you before, Mr Bladen?”
    Her voice startled him and he smiled. She was from the northeast — a Geordie by the sounds of it.
    “I’m not a regular here. This is more of a command performance.”
    She let loose a three-second smile and visibly relaxed.
    “Congratulations, by the way.” He nodded to her engagement ring.
    “Well-spotted. Aye, only a couple of months to go now,” she confided. “Best day of a girl’s life, apparently.”
    “Your other half must be bricking it.”
    “I reckon he is!”
    Out of the lift it was back to business. He led the way, noting that the CIA liaison office had moved three rooms along since his last appearance. He stood aside to let her knock on Sir Peter’s door, already ajar.
    Sir Peter looked up from his desk, large as life and twice as ugly. “Ah, Thomas! Do come in; I’ve been expecting you.”
    He smiled to himself. Same old shit. He took the empty seat.
    “I’ve rung for coffee.”
    Thomas didn’t have much to say; the history between them filled the silence. “You sent for me?” It came out a bit chippier than he’d intended.
    Sir Peter flustered a little. “Yes, Thomas. I need someone I can rely on to obey instructions implicitly.” Subtext: know your place.
    He nodded, a reflex action, and let his attention drift to the familiar painting of Churchill on the wall behind the desk. If that piece of art could talk.
    “ . . . So, as I say, it is a small matter and I need it done today.”
    A brown envelope slid across the desk. “Collect the package from room 402 on your way out.”
    A knock on the door interrupted them. Thomas