Liz Carlyle - 05 - Present Danger Read Online Free PDF Page A

yourself.’
    ‘Thanks,’ said Dave. ‘I think that could be very useful.’

5
     
    When the tyre blew, Liz’s car suddenly veered right at a forty-five-degree angle. She knew that at fifty miles an hour things could go either way – the car might go out of control and there would be nothing she could do but hope, or there was just a chance that she could manage the situation if she acted forcefully and immediately.
     
    Instinctively Liz hooked both hands through the steering wheel and braced her forearms, struggling to hold the steering wheel as it fought her with enormous torque. The car slewed across the slow lane, cutting in front of a black van, which braked with a squeal, then honked furiously.
    She used all her strength now, and the skidding car just missed the concrete barrier on the road’s hard shoulder; then, as if it had a mind of its own, the vehicle moved right, back out into the road. Narrowly avoiding a sports car that swerved and accelerated past, it headed this time towards the central barrier, but just before hitting it at speed, the steering wheel slackened slightly. Liz managed to turn the car away sharply, then rode the resulting skid once, twice, then three times, weaving through the lanes as other cars swerved desperately to avoid her. At last the vehicle slowed down, like a runaway horse recognising it’s been caught, and Liz brought it to a sudden stop back on the hard shoulder.
    She sat for a moment, trembling violently, waiting for the drum roll in her heart to slow. Then she got out, and inspecting the damage she saw that one of the rear tyres had virtually disintegrated, its vulcanised rubber now hanging in shreds from a black lump around the metal wheel. She was quite capable of changing a tyre – her father had taught her as a teenage girl before he let her drive alone – but the warped mass around the wheel was going to require more than the jack stowed in the boot.
    As her fear subsided, it was replaced with anger. The car had been left for her to pick up at the airport by her new colleagues in the Palace Barracks office. What the hell were they doing, leaving her a car with dodgy tyres? She grabbed her mobile phone and dialled Michael Binding’s secretary. As she punched in the numbers she looked down the road and saw a sign facing the traffic. Its cheerful message read, Welcome to Belfast .
    Seven days before, Liz had sat in Director B’s office in Thames House. The low winter sun had glanced through the windows; she could see, half a mile down the river, the postmodernist headquarters of MI6 bathed in golden light.
    Beth Davis had been friendly, praising her recent work, but then she had dropped her bombshell – Liz was being posted to the MI5 headquarters in Northern Ireland. ‘We need you there to take charge of the agent-running section. You’ll have much more responsibility, Liz. All the agent runners will be reporting to you. They have a big job to do – there’s a lot still going on over there – and we need someone with your background to decide where the priorities lie. They’re all enthusiastic, but some of them haven’t been with the service very long; they do need guidance.’
    She continued for a few minutes, couching her words carefully, but Liz found it hard to understand why she had been chosen. She knew that of all the service’s new regional offices, Belfast was the most important, because it was going to act as a backup HQ in the event of a terrorist attack on Thames House in London. But even though she’d done short stints on the Northern Ireland desk when she’d first joined the service, she’d never actually been posted there, so she couldn’t see why she had been chosen for this job.
    ‘When do I start?’ she asked, thinking of the arrangements she’d have to make. If she were going to be there any time, perhaps she should think about letting her flat.
    ‘Michael Binding’s expecting you next week.’
    Oh God, thought Liz, trying not to