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they’d promised to meet again as soon as circumstances allowed.
    Since then they’d had three separate trysts – all involving coffee, followed by a walk, though never in the same place – and all the time they’d been moving towards this day. When they would finally sleep together for the first time. Michael had wanted to consummate their relationship at Cat’s apartment, but she’d explained that it would be impractical given that she shared her place with three other women, so they’d settled for the far more romantic destination of the Stanhope on Park Lane.
    Cat was dressed seductively in a simple sleeveless black dress that finished just above the knee, sheer black hold-up stockings, and black court shoes with four-inch heels. Usually she dressed far more modestly and, as she stopped and looked at herself in the room’s full-length mirror, she felt a frisson of excitement. She looked good. There was no doubt about it. Michael would melt when he saw her.
    If, of course, he turned up.
    She looked at her watch. It was five to four. He was almost half an hour late. And he hadn’t even called. She couldn’t call him either. She was under strict instructions never to call him. Too easy to get found out, he’d said, and then that’ll be it for both of us.
    Trying to hide her concern, she poured a glass of Evian from the mini-bar and took a long sip, contemplating breaking the law and annoying Michael at the same time by lighting a cigarette.
    If she had to wait, then she might as well make the most of it.

7
    16.00
    IF WE WANT to survive, then we have to operate like a well-oiled machine. That means obeying orders when they’re given.
    ‘Innocent people are going to die. There’s no getting around that. But that’s not our problem. They’re collateral damage in a war. Nothing more, nothing less. At no point can you forget that, or suddenly develop an attack of conscience, because if you hesitate about pulling the trigger, or refuse, then the penalty’s immediate death. No exceptions. We can’t afford for the machine to break down. If it does, we’re all dead, or worse still, in the hands of the enemy, which means the rest of our natural lives in prison. And I’m not going to let that happen. Are we clear on that?’
    Fox looked in turn at each of the four men facing him, watching for any signs of doubt in their eyes, but none of them gave anything away. All of them had worked for him in the recent past, and they had three things in common. One: extensive military experience in a combat role. Two: no spouses or dependants. And three, and most important of all: they were all disaffected individuals who harboured a rage against the many perceived injustices in the world – a rage that had manifested itself in the heady mix of violent extremism. There were other motives at play too which explained why they’d chosen to become involved – money, boredom, a desire to once again see real action – but it was the rage that was the most important, because it would be this that drove them to do what was needed today.
    There were two he considered totally reliable. One was Dragon, the ex-sapper he’d picked to drive the van bomb to the Westfield. He was currently on the run from prison, where he was being held on remand on a number of explosives charges. He’d run down and killed a ten-year-old boy in a hijacked car during the course of his escape, as well as seriously injuring a prison officer, and he was facing the rest of his life inside if he was recaptured. The other was Leopard, a short, wiry former marine who’d once come top of his group in the SAS selection trials, only to be turned down because apparently he didn’t have the right mental attitude. Leopard had ended up being court-martialled in Afghanistan for breaking the British Army’s ultra-strict rules of engagement by carrying out an unauthorized kill on two members of a Taliban mortar team. He’d served more than two years inside on