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  Crocker blew smoke, and, still standing, opened the folder. The contents detailed all aspects of Operation: Candlelight, from conops to implementation, everything that had any bearing on the mission. He flipped through the pages quickly, looking for Fincher’s after-action. It should have been at the top, the most recent addition to the file aside from Crocker’s own assessment, written in the small hours on Saturday morning, after Candlelight had wrapped up. Instead, he found Fincher’s report at the bottom, two double-spaced pages clipped together, as if shoved into the folder at the last moment.

  He read, and when he was finished reading, he swore, closed the folder, and all but threw it down on his desk. Then he stormed into the outer office, making for the door onto the hallway.

  “Get on to the Pit,” Crocker told Kate. “Tell Poole I want his after-action on Candlelight, and I want it right away. I’ll be in C’s office.”

  He was out the door before she could respond.

  “I think you owe us an explanation, Crocker.” Sir Frances Barclay was seated behind his very large desk, in his very large chair, his hands resting side by side almost on the desktop, his thin fingers barely touching one another. His voice was placid, friendly, and he blinked slowly at Crocker from behind the thin lenses of his glasses, and he even managed a thin smile.

  Seated to the left of where Crocker stood facing the desk, Alison Gordon-Palmer uncrossed and then recrossed her ankles, smoothing her long skirt.

  “It’s in my report,” Crocker said.

  “Your report and the report of your Head of Section seem to be at odds.”

  “Head of Section’s covering himself.”

  Barclay’s left eyebrow hitched itself higher a fraction. “Or you are.”

  “Colonel Dawson will confirm what I’m saying.”

  “He certainly confirms the firefight,” Barclay said. “He certainly confirms that his troopers followed your orders to engage the JI cell after you ignored Minder One’s recommendation to abort.”

  “Respectfully, sir, Minder One doesn’t have the authority to send an abort,” Crocker responded. “I do.”

  “It’s one of your responsibilities, yes.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Which in turn would make you responsible for what happened as a result,” Barclay said, and his smile vanished. “Six dead, another two wounded on the exfil, and the Malaysians screaming bloody murder about us interfering in their sovereign affairs. The G-77 have rallied around, and are making strenuous protest in New York and Geneva. Downing Street is embarrassed, the cousins are washing their hands of it all, and we look like a bunch of imperialist fools roaming Southeast Asia, spilling blood wherever we can find it.”

  “It was a Jemaah Islamiyah cell, sir,” Crocker replied, tightly. “That’s been confirmed. We have further confirmation, including radio and internet intercepts, that the same cell intended to hijack the Mawi Dawn as it entered the Straits of Malacca this morning, and then to drive the supertanker into Singapore Harbor.”

  “I don’t dispute any of that.”

  Crocker almost shook his head, trying to conceal his surprise. “Sir?”

  “D-Int, as well as CIA, confirms everything you’ve said. That is not at issue.”

  “Then I’m afraid I don’t follow you, sir.”

  Barclay sighed, glancing over toward the Deputy Chief. From the corner of his eye, Crocker watched Alison Gordon-Palmer again smooth her skirt. She was frowning.

  Barclay moved his gaze back to Crocker, and the smile reappeared. “How long have you been D-Ops now, Paul?”

  Crocker saw it then, saw it all unfurling like a banner into a breeze. He forced his jaw and his hands to relax. “Seven years.”

  “That’s quite a long time.”

  “I’ve had predecessors who remained for longer.”

  Barclay nodded sagely, accepting this. “Many of them too long, I daresay.”

  “Fincher had no authority to call for an abort, sir, and his actions jeopardized not only Minder Two and the troopers with him, but the entire mission as well. My response was appropriate, and necessary.”

  “Your response generated a political and diplomatic mess, Paul.” Barclay smiled again, thinly. “I find it rather ironic that, with all of the gamesmanship and arrogance you have exhibited in your time as D-Ops, what has finally brought you to your knees is nothing of your own devising, but rather an unfortunate sequence of events that could have happened to anyone in your position. I find that most ironic, I must admit.”

  Crocker glanced to Gordon-Palmer, saw that the woman was studiously looking away from Barclay, trying to conceal her scowl. Crocker felt perspiration rising to his palms, but was somewhat surprised to find that was the only physical response he seemed to be exhibiting, especially considering his now-burning desire to reach across the desk and strangle Sir Frances.

  He resisted the urge. He even managed to keep his voice civil, if not pleasant, when he asked, “What do you intend?”

  “I’m going to replace you, Paul,” Barclay said. “Colin Forsythe, I think, though I may tap Dominick Barnett—I haven’t truly decided yet. Both are capable, and neither will have me worrying that my D-Ops is skulking around behind my back. Honestly, it’s only a question of which of them I’d rather.

  “As for you, you will remain on as acting Director Operations until the end of the month, at which point your successor will be named, and you will vacate your office. If at that time you wish to continue in SIS, I’m certain we’ll be able to find an appropriate position for you somewhere in Whitehall. If you play your cards right and make this easy on me, I might even go so far as to see you posted to the States. There’s a JIC advisory position coming open at the Embassy in Washington. You would do quite well in the position, I think.”

  Crocker kept his mouth closed, concealing the fact that, for an instant, he’d had to bite his own tongue to keep himself silent. But even if he’d managed to keep his voice still, he had no doubts that Barclay was reading everything on his face.

  In return, Barclay’s smile grew a fraction.

  “I told you I would see you gone,” he said. “It took longer than I had anticipated, but here we are, at the end, and I have kept my word. More than you can say you’ve ever done for me.”

  “Not quite at the end.”

  “Two weeks from it, then. And don’t think for a minute that I shall let my attention wander from you, Crocker. No, my eye will be on you up until the moment you leave this building for the very last time, of that you can be certain. You may leave now.”

  Crocker left the office without another word.

  Alison Gordon-Palmer caught him just as he was stepping into the elevator, preparing to ride back down to the sixth floor.

  “Paul!”

  What he truly wanted then was to be alone, at least for a moment, so he could indulge the rage that was now roaring inside him. But the Deputy Chief was almost running, trying to catch him before the doors closed, and at the last moment Crocker thrust out his hand, so that she could enter and ride the lift down with him.

  “I’m sorry. You must know I tried everything to talk him out of it,” Gordon-Palmer told him after the doors had closed. “He’s had it in for you from the start, Paul. This thing in KL was the opportunity he’d been waiting for.”

  Crocker grunted in agreement. His history with Barclay stretched back to his days in the field, to when he’d been a young Minder Two during the twilight days of the Cold War. He’d gone to Prague to lift a KGB defector named Valeriy Karpin, and it had gone wrong, and Crocker had barely escaped with his life. Karpin hadn’t been as lucky, shot to death as he hung in the barbed wire on the border with Austria. Barclay had been Head of Station–Prague at the time, and it was Crocker’s belief, even now, that Karpin’s death was Barclay’s fault. Like Fincher, he’d lost his nerve when it had been needed most, and like Fincher, Frances Barclay had done an expert job of passing the blame for the failed operation onto another’s shoulders.

/>   Barclay, like so many other civil servants in countless bureaucracies around the world, had gone on to survive and even to thrive. When Sir Wilson Stanton-Davies, the previous C, had been forced into premature retirement as the result of a stroke, Barclay had assumed the position as head of SIS with a sense of entitlement that had made Crocker’s stomach turn. Barclay had also made it abundantly clear that he would do everything in his power to convince Crocker to step down.

  But before he had been D-Ops, Crocker had been a Minder, and more of that remained in his blood than Barclay had anticipated. Crocker had entrenched himself. While Barclay headed the Firm, Crocker knew his opportunities for advancement were limited, if not nonexistent. His intent had been to wait Barclay out. Eventually, he was certain, the current C would retire, and the sun would once more shine down upon the Ops Directorate. All he’d needed to do was outlast him.

  “Paul?”

  Crocker brought himself back to the moment, looking at the Deputy Chief.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “I’m thinking of firing Fincher, to begin with.”

  “He’ll file a grievance, say it’s politically motivated.”

  “He’s been a disaster since he started. He’s all but crippled the Section. If the job hadn’t been in KL, I would never have sent him.”

  “All the same, you fire him, you’ll lose. Which means that you’ll depart, but Fincher will still be here. Bad for the Service, certainly.”

  “Maybe I can find a job in Iraq that needs doing,” Crocker said. “Somewhere in the Sunni Triangle, perhaps.”

  Alison Gordon-Palmer allowed a soft laugh to escape her before shaking her head, amused. She was in her early fifties, slender, with shoulder-length brown hair that had about as much life to it as the bristles found on the average broom. She favored suits of brown or, rarely, a deep burgundy, and she avoided the use of makeup unless forced to walk the corridors of Whitehall on SIS business. As far as Crocker was concerned, she was the second smartest person in the building—the first being Simon Rayburn, the Director of Intelligence—and, unlike the man she had replaced as Deputy Chief, Donald Weldon, appropriately aggressive for the job. Weldon had been, by his nature, cautious, and disinclined to the risks inherent in intelligence work. Alison Gordon-Palmer, on the other hand, understood that risk came with the territory.

  Crocker wondered again, not for the first time, how it was that Frances Barclay had settled upon her as Deputy Chief. He’d been certain the job would go to Rayburn, and had been surprised when she’d been named as DC instead.

  It was one of the very few decisions Barclay had made that Paul Crocker could find no fault with.

  The lift came to a halt, the doors opened, and Crocker and Gordon-Palmer stepped out, walking through a cluster of junior officers who parted hastily to let them pass. Their offices shared the same floor, and they walked through the maze of white corridors in silence. When Crocker made the turn toward his office, she stuck with him.

  “Do you want to stay?” she asked him suddenly.

  The question was unexpected, and Crocker responded before thinking. “Of course I bloody want to stay.”

  Gordon-Palmer nodded slightly, her lips tightening in thought. She waited until he had his hand on the doorknob to his outer office, then said softly, “Seccombe is going to call you.”

  Crocker stopped, looked at her curiously, waiting for further explanation. She shook her head.

  “I recommend you see what you can do for him when he calls, Paul,” the Deputy Chief said, and then turned away, heading to her own office.

  Leaving Paul Crocker to wonder what it was the PUS at the FCO could possibly want with him, and why the Deputy Chief seemed so certain he would be able to deliver.

  CHAPTER 6

  London—Whitehall. Office of Sir Walter

  Seccombe, Permanent Undersecretary and

  Head of the Diplomatic Service (FCO)

  13 February, 1559 Hours GMT

  Sir Walter Seccombe’s smile was wide and genuine, and he shook Crocker’s hand firmly, pumping it twice before releasing his grip.

  “Paul, good of you to come,” Seccombe said. “I’m afraid we’ll need to make this fast—I have to join my Minister for a Cabinet meeting at half past.”

  “I could hardly refuse the invitation,” Crocker said. “Certainly not after the Deputy Chief let me know it was coming.”

  “I trust she said no more?”

  “Only to expect your call.”

  “I’m grateful that you’re willing to indulge me.”

  Crocker shook his head slightly, bemused by the inversion. He didn’t know what Seccombe wanted from him, but he was certain there was very little he could offer the PUS in return. Seccombe smiled again, a second time, grandfatherly in his care, then motioned for Crocker to step farther into the office.

  It was a large room, and of a kind that Crocker had seen many times before, most recently that morning, in Barclay’s office. The décor, even the feel, of the space was designed to conjure the Britain of a century before, when empire was spelled with a capital E beneath a sun that never set. But where Barclay’s office was more effect than truth, Seccombe had the real thing, from the seventeenth-century globe resting in its mahogany stand to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, all loaded with leatherbound volumes with spines lettered in gold leaf. The carpet beneath his feet was certainly silk, certainly over two hundred years old, and Crocker became painfully aware that his shoes were still wet from the rain outside.

  Seccombe continued without looking back, motioning with his right hand toward the couch and chairs that marked the more social area of the office, indicating where he wanted Crocker to sit. As Crocker removed his overcoat, Seccombe moved to his desk, gathering a selection of papers there before returning to join him. Crocker took a position on the couch, and Seccombe one of the high-backed chairs opposite.

  “Would you like a drink, Paul?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You’re certain you wouldn’t indulge in a whiskey? Not after the morning I’m sure you’ve had?”

  Crocker shook his head. It didn’t surprise him that Seccombe knew what had transpired at Vauxhall Cross that morning. There was a very good chance that Seccombe had seen it coming well before Barclay himself had. As PUS, Seccombe tracked all aspects of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s operations, overseeing the work of no less than five Director Generals, who, in turn, guided everything from general defense and intelligence to political interaction and consular services. If the Foreign Secretary, as appointed by the Prime Minister, was the brains of the FCO, then Seccombe, in his position as the Permanent Undersecretary—emphasis here on permanent—was its nervous system. Quite literally, nothing happened in the FCO without Seccombe knowing about it, more often than not before it came to pass.

  Crocker knew him as brilliant, both as a politician and as a diplomat, as ruthless and calculating. He could hardly be otherwise and have survived in his position.

  Very few people frightened Paul Crocker. Certainly, Frances Barclay didn’t, not even with what had transpired this very day. But if someone came close, Crocker had to admit it would be Sir Walter Seccombe. It didn’t matter how friendly he appeared, how many drinks he offered, how many times he might invite Crocker to dine with him at his club, Crocker would always remain wary of the man. As an ally, Seccombe was priceless.

  As an enemy, he would be terrifying.

  Seccombe settled in his chair, rustling the papers he’d taken from his desk, and gave Crocker the smile for a third time before finally putting it away.

  “So Barclay’s finally going to get his wish,” Seccombe said. “No more Paul Crocker at his back.”

  “So it would appear.”

  “Do you think you could adjust to life in Washington?”

  “If that’s where I land.”

  “There’s a certain prestige to be found in a posting with the Americans. That holds no appeal? I could try to arra
nge things so that you were put to good use.”

  “I’m put to better use here.”

  “So you are.” Seccombe paused, tilting his chin upward, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Crocker. “I haven’t forgotten that business about Zimbabwe, Paul. You did me a good turn, and I appreciate it.”

  Crocker nodded. Roughly around the time Barclay had ascended to C, Seccombe had reached out to Crocker to vet a man named Daniel Mwama, who—according to Seccombe—had approached the U.K. seeking assistance in ousting Robert Mugabe, with an eye to taking his place. Seccombe had wanted Mwama checked quickly, and quietly, and had called upon Crocker to do it. Crocker, in turn, had tasked the Minders, at that time Tom Wallace as Minder One and Tara Chace as Minder Two, for the job. It had been a politically dangerous job for Crocker, not only because it had come during a changing of the guard at SIS, but also because it had required him to have agents active in England, something Crocker was strictly forbidden from doing. In the end, he had given Seccombe the information the PUS had required, and Daniel Mwama had been sent packing.

  Seccombe had gained the result he’d desired, and in return, had sheltered Crocker from Barclay’s initial onslaught. That protection had lasted until this morning.

  “I’m sure Alison asked you this, but for my own purposes, I’m asking again,” Seccombe said. “You wish to stay D-Ops?”

  “I had hoped to become Deputy Chief at some point.”

  “I don’t think Alison is quite ready to move on.”

  “No chance that Barclay is going to resign?”

  “Hmm.” Seccombe ran a finger across his mustache, smoothing it. “Not willingly, no.”

  “Then, yes, I’d say I’d like to remain as Director of Operations, Sir Walter.”