Ninety seconds in she heard the magic words, “Target on visual. Prepare for breach.” This was the critical moment, where her own reputation was now in the hands of eight police officers with heavy-duty weaponry.
Scenario one: the breach and infil were clean. Nigel Marsh, and his colleagues Andy and Charlie, were caught unawares and surrendered immediately. Everyone’s a hero.
Scenario two: the breach and infil were clean, but Marsh and his colleagues were ready for them. Hostile contact ensued, resulting in one or more deaths. Acceptable, but not optimal. Andrea would face an enquiry, and the armed response officers would undergo counselling, but ultimately it would be written up as a success.
Scenario three: the breach and infil were clean, but one or more of the three targets wasn’t present. Those inside were captured, but the remaining target would still be in the wind. A good start, but too early for celebration.
Scenario four: the breach and infil were messy, potentially booby-trapped. There were enough AR boys that the ultimate result would likely match scenario two, but with additional casualties. Andrea would be hauled over the coals, and there might be a public enquiry. Nobody wanted that.
Wrinkles in each scenario brought the contingency count close to a dozen, but these four main scenarios were the ones Andrea had discussed with the Armed Response unit that morning. Through the earpiece, she heard the sound of the SignalAir door being smashed open with a battering ram, and the officers shouting, “Armed police! Lie down on the ground!” as they marched into the office. More shouting, a few calls of “Clear!” here and there. No shots fired. That was good.
Then silence, and a hissed whisper of “Fuck.” Not so good.
“Location secure, tango negative,” said the commanding officer to everyone listening in. “I repeat, location secure, tango negative. Ma’am, there’s nothing here. Looks like the place has been cleaned out.”
Andrea was already out of the car, striding toward the building entrance, with two of her Five colleagues behind her. Nobody there? Cleaned out? What the hell could that mean? The rear door of an unmarked van parked close to the entrance opened, and the co-ordinating AR officer looked out. “Tell them to bloody well stay where they are,” Andrea barked at him, and entered the lobby. The officers in the lobby stood down as she passed, heading for the stairwell. “Three foxtrot approaching by stairs,” said one into a radio, alerting the officers on the third floor. She took the stairs at a jog with her colleagues following, careful not to overtake her.
After three flights she marched into the SignalAir office, and stared at nothing. Nigel Marsh and his colleagues — alleged colleagues, Andrea corrected herself, quickly realising there was no evidence beyond Marsh’s word that they existed — were not only absent from the office, but so was everything else. The desks were empty, the bookshelves bare of the few binders they had, the filing and storage cabinets devoid of everything except stationery. Even the grimy kitchenette area had finally been cleaned, and very well, no doubt to reduce the chance of DNA collection.
All that remained of SignalAir was the inkjet mockery of a company plaque on the wall outside. ‘Nigel Marsh’, or whatever his real name was, had done a runner. Had he known they were coming? Or had her visit with Steve Wicker tipped him off somehow, and he’d cleared out as soon as they left? Andrea kicked herself for not putting Marsh or the company under observation, but at the time, it would have been difficult to justify.
Hell, it still was. All they really had Marsh on was ID theft, receipt of fraudulently obtained goods, and drinking with a man they now knew was former FSB — and whom Brigitte Sharp believed was connected to the Exphoria leak, but couldn’t confirm because she’d killed both the suspected leak and the Russian, before apparently losing the plot and going AWOL. Andrea still hadn’t decided if Sharp was a paranoid nut or a genius, and that particular jury would be out until this whole case was closed.
But the only way to achieve closure now relied on finding Marsh. If he really was involved, then as far as they knew he was the last surviving link in a chain of international espionage and potential terrorism. But there could be dozens more behind him, supporting and financing him.
On the other hand, he might not be involved at all, and Sharp’s instincts were simply wrong. Giles trusted her, but how much of that was departmental loyalty? What did he say behind closed doors? Did he even know where his golden girl was?
Andrea waved her hands to shoo everyone out of the office. “Nobody comes in until SOCO have been over this place with a dozen fine toothcombs,” she said, exiting with them. “If that smug posh bastard left a fleck of dandruff here, I want it bagged.”
71
“I don’t think anything here warrants aborting the demonstration, much less the whole project. Really, Finlay, is this all you have?”
Giles looked up from his briefing file and raised an eyebrow across the table at Air Vice-Marshal Sir Terence Cavendish. He’d expected resistance, but not outright dismissal. “Perhaps I didn’t explain things well enough, sir. The evidence we have in hand, including our officer’s first-hand account, suggests the entire source code of Exphoria may have leaked.”
“Suggests is all very well,” said Devon Chisholme, positioned at the head of the table, “but there seems a distinct lack of proof. Sharp made rather a mess over there, including two deaths and
