The Protector: A gripping, action-packed spy thriller

and the girl in the room and came off the floor fast, his hands incapacitating the two guards simultaneously with fingers jabbed at pressure points. They were both armed and speed was critical. As they hit the floor, he turned to the girl, willing her not to point the gun she carried – but she was drunk on her own power, innocence as purely corrupted as only the very young can be. He jerked the gun clear from her hands as the first round went of, the muzzle blast scorching his elbow, and slammed his fist into her face in a millisecond of pure fear. Her head snapped back, her nose spewing a fountain of bright blood, and hit the wall with such force that her skull cracked and she fell dead to the floor. After that, Quayle had not hesitated. He’d simply grabbed the academic and pushed him through the window, out into the dark rubble strewn yard. It was four days until they got to the French Embassy. They saw many dead and maimed along the way.

Five minutes later, Quayle walked back into the living room. Holly sat on the floor on a magnificent silk Heraki rug, her legs crossed, her face shocked and pale.

“I told you to wait in the rocks,” he said.

“I thought you’d been shot,” she said, “so I came down to see if you were OK.”

“What? So they could shoot you to?” He bent and took her face in his hands. “This is not over, my girl. Whatever it is, it’s only just started. Now, if I tell you to do something, you do it. Your life may depend on it. OK?”

She nodded.

“Right. Go and pack a bag. Quickly now. We have to go. More will come.”

“Why Titus? What have we done? “ She trailed off  in a little girl’s voice.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

She stood and walked slowly through to the bedroom.

Plato the cat was left with Nico – who had the key to the house and would go up in the morning to patch and whitewash the bullet chips in the wall. He and his son would move the bodies down to the water and dump them, and Quayle knew he had no need to worry. These were the islands, where people looked after one another – and, by 7pm that evening, the three of them were on a ferry heading for Hydra, Mr Pope never more than three or four feet from Holly, his right hand in the pocket of his coat, inches from his gun.

Up on the foredeck it was virtually deserted, the only sound the throb of the engines and the bow wave tumbling forever outward. Tired day trippers and tourists dozed in chairs or drank in the small smoky bar well aft. Holly sat on one of the wooden benches a few feet away and Quayle stepped up to Pope at the rail.

“Right,” Quayle said softly. “You pitch up claiming to be guarding Holly, and won’t say why. A couple of days later, three heavies turn up, get nasty and you do the rescue bit. Only it turns out they’re Acton Fairies. You’re in trouble, Mr Pope. Now, why do they want Holly and what the hell is going on?”

“I don’t know much,” he said stiffly.

“Just tell me what you do know.”

“I’ve been unable to contact my control. Getting panic signals from Milburn. I made a couple of calls yesterday. Someone got to Mr Black. He’s my control on this one.”

“Who?”

“Mr Black. Adrian.”

Quayle had come across the man.

“He’s Five, isn’t he?”

“Was. He transferred a couple of years ago. He was hit. Not dead, but in a bad way. Something’s going on. A safe house was hit a few months ago, then Mr Arnold and some woman who had been selling stuff to the other side…”

“Henry Arnold?”

“Yes. Know him?”

Quayle nodded in the darkness.

“Then Mr Black takes over, and it’s hush hush. Single controller job, not on the board. My instructions were to guard Miss Morton from any threat. He said that. Any threat.”

“I don’t think he meant to shoot...”

“They drew firearms,” he said stolidly. “She is my body, and they drew firearms. He said any threat.”

“It’s a genuine enough error. I think you should contact London and go back in. Get this sorted out. Whatever is going on, Holly knows nothing about it.”

“I’ll stay put until Mr Black is up and around. Then he can clear me.”

“And what if he dies?”

“Then I am in a bit of bother,” Pope answered. “Because something wasn’t right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve had a lot of briefings over the years, but nothing like that one. Report to him and him alone. No-one else. I think Mr Black was onto something. Something big and, whatever it is, it’s close. Very close.”

“What makes you think that?” Quayle said softly. The hair on the back of his neck had risen.

“Because he was scared, Mr Quayle. He was scared and watching his own back.”

Quayle turned and looked over the rail in silence, his eyes fixed on a shimmer of moonlight that lay silver across the oily black Aegean.

“So, Mr Quayle. Now you know as much as I do. I am staying on the job, like it or not. It is easier for me up close and, if you value her life, you will let me do that.”

“You may work if you wish, Mr Pope,” Quayle said, turning. In the moonlight, his face had taken on a new expression, hard and full of anger. “But you may wish you had gone back to London. Understand this. I am not going to let them take her in without a bloody good reason and some solid guarantees. That means that things could get nasty. Now, you’re either guarding Holly or you’re working for Milburn. You better give that some thought, because it looks like they may be two different things from here on in. If you’re guarding Holly, I’ll let you work close with one proviso: you contact no-one