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  ‘Well, Manderson thanked Fanon-Khayat, paid him for his trouble, and called me and a couple of other people in. It was clear that Maxwell was a very loose cannon indeed. We could raid his safe and take the pictures, but that would probably just force his hand. We had to go all the way.’

  ‘The SBS guys,’ whispered Slater, amazed. ‘You mounted a hit using the SBS guys. My predecessor – what was his name, Bernie – was one of the pair who took out Robert Maxwell. That’s unbelievable.’

  ‘Believable or not, we did it. We eliminated Maxwell, removed the material from the safe, and covered our tracks. A classic Cadre operation.’

  ‘And let me guess,’ said Slater. ‘Fanon-Khayat made a copy. A few years later he’s in trouble and decides to throw in his hand with the RDB. Doesn’t hand the pictures over, just tells them he’s got them, suggests they can use them to negotiate with MI6 . . .’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ridley. ‘And the rest you know. I’m sorry we used your loyalty to the SAS to persuade you into action, but at that stage you were still . . .’ He smiled. ‘Let’s just say that at that stage we didn’t know you as well as we know you now.’

  Slater shook his head, trying to absorb all that he had been told. They had reached a stile between two of the rain-sodden fields, and he came to a halt. ‘There’s something I still don’t understand.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Ridley.

  ‘Four years ago, or was it five, you sent Ellis out to investigate Fanon-Khayat and she reported that he was clean, that things weren’t going so well for him but he was still our man. So why did Fanon-Khayat have Ellis killed? And how was Ellis – a highly switched-on agent, by all accounts – lured into a car-park and whacked by a bunch of hired Parisian thugs? What happened?’

  There was silence. Ridley glanced at Eve.

  Slater looked from one to the other of them – from the visibly frail figure of Ridley to Eve, who was staring regretfully and without focus over the brimming river – and a cold certainty gripped his heart. ‘You set her up, didn’t you? She thought she was coming to that car-park to meet a friend – to make a report or to be pulled out – and instead . . . No wonder they got the jump on her. And no wonder her killers were all taken out afterwards.’

  Slater’s head swam, and he reached for the wet timbers of the stile. ‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ he said. ‘You had Ellis killed.’

  Eve said nothing.

  Ridley frowned. ‘Fanon-Khayat told Ellis about my former life – trying to impress her, I suppose – and she just couldn’t deal with it. She met Manderson in Paris and told him she wanted to leave, that it had all become too much for her. She could no longer handle life in the Cadre, she said, and she intended to go public with the reasons why. In many ways, for all her professionalism, she was a very naive woman.’

  Slater stared at him, incredulous. ‘Just where do you people draw the line, for fuck’s sake? Ellis was a Cadre member. She was one of your own.’

  ‘Oh, please!’ said Eve irritably, forcing her hands into the cartridge-pockets of her Barbour coat. ‘Let’s get real. We had no choice in the matter. We were at war. We are at war, and anyone who threatens our survival is the enemy.’

  ‘Manderson will be retiring shortly,’ Ridley continued, ‘and Eve will be taking over the Cadre.’ He placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. ‘I suspect she would be very glad to have you at her side.’

  ‘I would,’ she said.

  ‘You killed Ellis,’ said Slater quietly. ‘When would you kill me?’

  ‘Neil,’ she said gently. ‘You are one of us – a soldier and a true believer. You made your choice long ago – long before I met you – and you confirmed that choice the night you rang me. “I am what I am”, you told me.’

  Neil Slater looked around him. Swallows dipped and swooped at the flies that danced over the river’s surface. A faint vapour hung over the rain-heavy fields. Beyond them, he knew, waited only the Darklands and the crowding ghosts of the men he had killed. Was that Joey Delaney there, with his child’s eyes and half his head shot away?

  He was who he was.

  ‘Let’s talk about replacing Andreas,’ he began.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also available by Chris Ryan

  Hit List

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen