Mallet said, ‘I’m sure you lot would love to sit around bumping your gums, but we’re on the clock. We’ve got a team briefing with Six in two minutes.’
‘Who are they sending down from Vauxhall?’ asked Bowman.
‘No one,’ said Loader. ‘It’s all done remotely, boyo. She just speaks to us through that.’
He tipped his head at the speakerphone in the centre of the desk.
‘Don’t you see her face?’ said Bowman.
Casey shook her head quickly. ‘We don’t even know her name. Assuming it’s a woman, that is. It could just as easily be a man’s voice disguised through a modulator.’
‘What do you call her?’
‘The Voice,’ said Loader. ‘What else?’
Bowman pursed his lips. He’d worked with the security services on numerous ops in the past, during his time with E Squadron, and later with the Wing. He’d met with MI6 officers for mission briefings in safe houses, sometimes in hotel suites, sometimes elsewhere. But whatever the situation, he had always known the identity of the officer in charge. He wondered: Why would Six go to such extreme lengths to hide their identities?
I don’t know. But we’re about to go on a mission, and we don’t have a clue who we’re really working for.
Mallet checked his watch again. ‘Mic is going live in one minute,’ he said.
The team members waited in tense silence. Casey drummed her fingers on the polished walnut surface. Loader folded his arms and unfolded them again, fidgeting nervously. Webb sat immobile, looking at the wall, as if he was locked in a staring competition with it and the prize was a million quid.
‘Thirty seconds,’ said Mallet.
Casey stopped drumming her fingers. Loader sat up straight. Webb continued his staring contest with the soundproofed wall. Mallet watched the sweep hand tick round on his watch. Seconds ticking by. Twenty-five seconds later, he reached over and pressed a button on the speakerphone. A sibilant noise bled out of the speaker, filling the room.
Then the Voice spoke.
‘John? Are you there?’
‘I’m here,’ Mallet responded.
‘And your colleagues?’
‘Everyone is present,’ Mallet said. ‘Josh Bowman is here as well. He’s been brought in, as we discussed earlier.’
‘Has he been briefed?’
‘He knows the basics. We’ll update him fully later.’
‘Good.’
The Voice had an echoing, synthetic ring to it. The sort of automated tone you heard at airport terminals and train stations, making important announcements. A speech synthesiser, perhaps, as Casey had suggested. Or a piece of software that did the same thing. Probably encrypted at both ends.
Another layer of deniability.
‘I’ll get straight down to brass tacks,’ the Voice continued. ‘There’s been a critical development in the situation with the Lang brothers. Earlier this evening, there was an attack at the royal wedding reception in Mayfair. I’m sure you’ve seen the reports on the news.’
‘What’s that got to do with our mission?’ asked Casey.
‘The victim was Freddie Lang.’
Loader stiffened. Webb and Casey looked at one another.
‘Freddie’s dead?’ Casey asked.
‘Not yet,’ the Voice replied. ‘He’s currently in the ICU at University College Hospital. But I’m told the outlook is grim. Frankly, it’ll be a miracle if he survives the night. He ingested a significant dose of poison. Enough to kill several people.’
‘Do we know who’s responsible?’
‘Could be anyone,’ said Loader. ‘Let’s face it, Freddie’s got more enemies than I’ve had women.’
‘More than one, Tiny?’ Bowman joked.
Mallet chuckled. Casey rolled her eyes in disdain.
The Voice said, ‘Actually, we know, with reasonable certainty, who carried out the attack.’
‘Who?’ asked Loader.
‘It’s early days. The guys at Porton Down are still running tests. We won’t have official confirmation for some time yet. But we have reason to believe that Lang was poisoned with a nerve agent. Something from the Novichok family. We’re working on the assumption that the Russians are responsible.’
‘But the Russians have used Novichok before,’ said Casey.
‘Correct. Your point being . . . ?’
‘Why would they risk carrying out another attack with the same type of poison? Everyone would know they were behind it.’
‘This is the Russians we’re talking about,’ Bowman cut in. ‘They don’t give two shits about plausible deniability. They just wanted to make a statement.’
‘Josh is right. Poisoning is the Kremlin’s MO,’ Mallet added quickly. ‘They know they can get away with it, and the worst that happens is we expel a few diplomats. Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t carried out another attack sooner.’
The Voice said, ‘We’re not here to discuss the details of a criminal investigation. That is not the purpose of this meeting.’
Even through the artificial modulator, Bowman detected a certain hostility in the MI6 officer’s voice. The snooty Vauxhall attitude rearing its ugly head, he reflected. Bowman had encountered it before. Oxbridge-educated spooks, looking down their noses at the military, regarding them as little more than a bunch of musclebound idiots.
‘There’s more,’ the Voice added. ‘John. Perhaps you’d care to explain.’
All eyes in the room turned to the Cell team leader. Mallet laced his hands in front of him and cleared his throat.
‘Shortly before he slipped into a coma, our old pal Freddie spilled his guts about the meeting between David Lang, Galkin and Bezuglov in Monte Carlo. Which, of course, we already know about. But Freddie provided us with some new information.’
‘What information, exactly?’ Casey asked.
‘Lang isn’t going to the meeting alone. He’s got Ken Seguma with him.’
‘Seguma?’ Loader repeated. ‘Wasn’t he at the wedding today?’
‘That’s not the real president. He sent a body double in his place.’
‘What’s he doing in Monte Carlo?’
‘I think we can be reasonably certain that it involves the meeting Lang has arranged with the Russians.’
Casey said, ‘How do we know all this?’
‘Josh spoke to Freddie, moments before he slipped into a coma,’ Mallet replied. ‘Freddie told him everything.’
Loader looked at Bowman with renewed interest. ‘You were at the wedding?’
‘We had orders to bodyguard Seguma. Me and three other guys from the Wing,’ Bowman replied. ‘Putting our lives on the line for
