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etched with deep worry lines, and there was a visible tension in his posture, as if he carried a heavy weight on his shoulders. The burden of responsibility was, it seemed, not an easy one to bear.
    Franklin glanced at Drake, and for a moment he saw a glimmer of warmth in the older man’s eyes. Franklin’s right arm moved a little as if to shake hands, but he quickly thought better of it and turned away, making for the far end of the conference table. He was almost able to make it seem as if the gesture had never happened. Almost, but not quite.
    ‘Good to see you again, Ryan,’ he said, though his words were as stiff and formal as his posture. ‘How have you been?’
    ‘Can’t complain,’ Drake replied, wondering how long it had been since they’d last spoken. He certainly hadn’t seen much of the man since his promotion last year, which he supposed wasn’t surprising. The Shepherdteams were just a small gear in the complex machine that was Special Activities Division.
    That seemed to satisfy Franklin. He gestured to the chairs running the length of the table. ‘Please, have a seat.’ He glanced at Frost and Keegan with a raised eyebrow. ‘I see your team’s ahead of you.’
    ‘We don’t stand on ceremony in this unit, sir,’ Frost replied innocently. ‘That’s the way Ryan trained us.’
    Drake shot her a sharp glance as he helped himself to a chair, but said nothing. Now wasn’t the time for petty reprimands.
    ‘I was just bringing Mr Drake up to speed, sir,’ Breckenridge said.
    Franklin gave a curt nod that made him look exactly like what he was – a senior executive impatient with trivialities. ‘Then don’t let me stop you.’
    Breckenridge coughed, clearing his throat, and turned his attention to the wireless keyboard in front of him. A few keystrokes and mouse clicks were enough to bring up an image on the big flat-screen television at the far end of the room.
    The image was a personnel photograph of a man in his mid-fifties. With a greying beard, dishevelled hair, strong and severe features, and a nose that looked as if it had been broken at least once before, he was a serious-looking customer. The hard, penetrating look in his eyes told Drake that the man was a field operative.
    ‘This is Hal Mitchell, one of our case officers based in Afghanistan,’ Breckenridge began. ‘He’s been with the Agency nearly twenty-five years now, and he’s an expert in that theatre. A good man.’
    Drake would take his word on that one. ‘Smashing. So what’s the problem?’
    Breckenridge shot him an impatient glance, as if hewas a magician whose trick had been spoiled at the crucial moment. ‘About twelve hours ago, Mitchell boarded a Black Hawk chopper heading for one of our firebases about fifty miles east of Kabul. He never made it back.’
    He brought up another image, this one showing the charred and blackened remains of what might once have been a helicopter airframe. Drake could only assume the fuel tanks had gone up, because the entire thing looked as if it had been blasted apart from the inside. The metal skeleton was warped and twisted by the extreme heat.
    ‘His chopper was brought down by some kind of surface-to-air missile while en route to Bagram,’ Breckenridge went on. ‘By the time a search-and-rescue team arrived on site, well, there wasn’t much left to recover. Five men were killed in the attack – the pilots, plus three army passengers.’
    ‘What about Mitchell, sir?’ Frost asked. Something about the way she said ‘sir’ held a note of contempt – a fact that was not lost on Breckenridge.
    He looked at her for a few moments, seemingly on the verge of rebuking her, then thought better of it. ‘About an hour ago, we received this.’
    A couple of mouse clicks, and the display changed as a video file started to play. Drake once again found himself looking at Hal Mitchell, only this time he was looking very different from his file photo.
    This time the man was duct-taped