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  ‘Your behaviour suggests otherwise,’ she said.

  Knox wondered how much she really knew, and how much she was fishing. He’d stored the crate from the Italians’ flat in his bedroom wardrobe after he’d found Peterson rifling through its contents. And she definitely couldn’t know about the new papers he’d found in Deptford, unless everything she’d told him was a lie and she was working for the people who had come after him under Trafalgar Square. But he doubted it. However, he also doubted that she wasn’t above having given the rest of his flat a quick once-over while he was still asleep.

  ‘MI5’s interest in them has ended,’ he said.

  ‘Which makes sense, if someone’s trying to cover their ass,’ Bennett replied. ‘You’re not the only one who thinks there’s a wolf in your henhouse.’

  ‘There’s no proof MI5 has been compromised.’ Knox was aware he sounded like Peterson when he’d voiced the exact same idea to him outside the Fountain.

  ‘Well you sure are acting like there is, and here’s the evidence,’ Bennett said, pointing at the photo of Valera.

  ‘That’s a big leap,’ he said, covering his relief with another swig of coffee.

  ‘This is a big problem.’ She wasn’t smirking any more. ‘We were watching Bianchi and Moretti too. They were murdered, and now there’s a Russian genius in the same field suddenly in play. There’s no way they aren’t connected.’

  Bennett had made the link herself the night before. It was what made her finally decide it was time to talk to Knox.

  ‘And, for argument’s sake,’ Knox replied, ‘so what if they are?’

  ‘We’re peering through the keyhole of a door that’s about to be thrown open. Whoever is at the front of this technology will have the power to spy on anyone, anywhere, any time.’

  ‘Big Brother isn’t real,’ Knox said.

  ‘Not yet he isn’t,’ Bennett replied. ‘But one day he will be. If we’re lucky it’ll be a friendly face watching over us. But what if it isn’t? Living under constant surveillance. No more privacy. Never knowing who we could trust.’

  If Knox had any other job, he’d think she was crazy. But he was a spy, and as alarmist as he thought Bennett was being, he knew what she was suggesting wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.

  ‘You can’t stop progress,’ he said after a moment, now repeating the phrase White had used on him countless times over the last six months whenever he’d expressed doubts about Atlas.

  ‘No,’ she replied between sips of coffee, ‘but you can guide it in the right direction. Make sure the right people are in control.’ She picked up the photo of Valera. ‘This will be circulated to the heads of MI5 and Six this morning as part of our regular information exchange. By now, the Russians will have realised one of their prized scientists is missing, and they’ll want her back. If they’ve turned someone here, they’ll send them after her. But if we get Valera first, we can secure a vital asset for both our countries, and set a trap for the mole.’

  That felt less like fiction to Knox. If this woman was as important as Bennett believed, the KGB would do everything they could to stop her spilling her secrets. And if those secrets were as potentially world-changing as Bennett thought, every Soviet agent west of the Iron Curtain and north of the Alps could be put on her tail.

  ‘If there is one,’ he said.

  ‘If,’ she repeated, the smirk back on her face.

  ‘But why come to me?’ he asked. ‘Why not keep this in Grosvenor Square?’

  Bennett decided to tip the last card in her hand. ‘Because you have a vested interest,’ she replied. ‘And so do I.’ She took one last swig of coffee. ‘You need something to get you back in. I’m surrounded by colleagues who think I should be doing their filing. We both need a win.’

  She picked up both of their empty cups and put them in the sink. ‘And, besides, what else have you got going on today?’

  Knox quickly considered his options. The easiest, of course, was to send Bennett on her way. But he had no more leads beyond the Italians’ equations and passports, and there was every chance the men who had come after him last night were still roaming the streets looking for him – for all he knew, under Manning’s orders. Now he was permanent director general, Knox would need something big to bring Manning down. Something very big. Something like catching him red-handed working for the Russians. Knox might not be able to save Holland from being dethroned, but maybe he could still avenge him. He decided he may as well take a look down Bennett’s rabbit hole and see where it led.

  ‘Nothing,’ he answered, now smirking himself.

  With perfect timing, his front door swung shut. Knox’s overnight companion had finally decided to take their leave.

  ‘Great,’ Bennett replied. ‘Now go get cleaned up. Our plane leaves in two hours.’

  CHAPTER 36

  Stockholm looked like a chocolate-box fantasy to Valera. Its ancient buildings and winding streets were immaculate. No cobbles had been pulled up for makeshift weapons, no old doors taken off their hinges for firewood. The bridges between the islands that made up the city were lit up, even late into the night.

  Valera had been taken to the Hotel Reisen, on the edge of Gamla Stan, the ancient heart of Stockholm, as soon as she’d arrived in the city. The hotel building dated back to the 1700s, but its rooms were spacious and modern. Valera’s was almost as large as her entire home and lab in Povenets B combined.

  After devouring a small plate of meat and cheese and a glass of akvavit that had been sent up to her compliments of the night manager, she was left alone. She’d carefully placed both backpacks in the room’s large closet, which had been filled with more clothes for her, then stood at the window, staring out at the water below her until the adrenaline she’d been running on finally ran out and she crawled into the large, soft bed.

  In the morning, she was woken by a knock at the door and a week’s worth of breakfast. She ate all of it. Then she chose an outfit from the closet – a simple, plain tunic and pair of wide-legged trousers – and got dressed. Half an hour later there was a second knock. This time it was a tall, blond, young man.

  ‘I am Alve,’ he said. No surname. ‘I am from the security service.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Valera asked.

  ‘I am here to help you navigate the coming days.’

  Alve embodied that unique Scandinavian quality of compassionate pragmatism. When Valera asked him what was going to happen to her, he said, ‘There are many serious conversations that must be had, but we will have them when you are ready.’

  She was happy to speak to Alve’s superiors about life in the Soviet Union and, more specifically, about what it was like to live in a closed city. She was also happy to meet with the head of the physics department at Stockholm University in his bright, light-filled office and talk in broad and tantalising terms about the mysteries of spread-spectrum broadcasting and signal code division. But she drew the line when she was introduced to a lady with a large bun of grey hair perched on top of her head who asked her if she’d like to talk about how she was feeling.

  Valera didn’t know how to put into words the exhaustion and elation she felt about escaping Russia, or the total and utter despair that consumed her over Ledjo’s death. She didn’t know how to articulate her rage and failure and loss. Or explain how it felt to suddenly have to live without the person you were living for. Or the fear of her memories of him becoming old and faded without any photographs or mementos to keep them alive. Or that last night her recurring dream had returned, monochrome, the lake so flat it felt solid, the boat shrinking smaller and smaller, and Ledjo, no matter how much she grabbed for him, always facing away from her and out of her reach. And if she had known how to talk about any of this, there was no way she was going to discuss it with a psychologist employed by an intelligence agency.

  Eventually, Alve returned Valera to the Reisen and informed her that her evening was hers to do what she wanted with. He could arrange for food to be
brought to her room, or recommend a restaurant for her, or simply leave her in peace so she could rest or explore the city. Valera was surprised. She’d expected to be kept politely under lock and key while she wasn’t being politely interrogated. But Alve assured her that wasn’t the way things were done in Sweden, and that the security service wanted her to feel as comfortable as possible before another day of meetings tomorrow.

  ‘How many more will there be?’ she asked him.

  ‘That I cannot say,’ he replied. ‘As many as it takes for everyone to be…’ He paused, searching for the right word, ‘…satisfied.’

  He placed a small stack of Swedish krona and a slip of paper with a phone number on a side table.

  ‘The hotel staff are at your disposal. If there is anything you want to know you can ask them, or call this number and ask for me.’

  ‘Am I safe?’ she asked. It was a blunt question.

  ‘Please do not worry,’ Alve answered. ‘We do not harass the members of the international community who have chosen to make Stockholm their home, and they do not harass us or our guests.’

  With a reassuring nod, he withdrew, leaving Valera to decide what to do. She wasn’t used to having options, and for a moment she stood in the middle of the room, paralysed by the possibilities. Then she went to the window and looked out at the city. To her right she could see a grey tangle of roads and walkways that linked Gamla Stan to its southern neighbour, Södermalm, and above them a row of tall buildings clinging to the side of a hill. In front of her was another small island and, beyond it, another much larger one covered only in trees. She decided that was where she wanted to go.

  Valera picked up the money and the slip of paper, and a minute later she was on the street, looking out over the water at Djurgården, the tree-covered island she’d seen from her hotel room window. She turned north and walked past the imposing stone and stucco facade of the Royal Palace towards the bridge that would take her to the island. Valera couldn’t make herself com-pletely believe what Alve had said. She’d lived too long under constant, watchful eyes to suddenly imagine them not there. But she told herself she hadn’t come this far to hide, and that if anyone was paying attention to her, then the Swedish security service would be doing the same to them.

  CHAPTER 37

  Knox should have spent the two-hour flight from London to Stockholm deciding if he believed Bennett really was who she said she was. He knew the CIA had a handful of female agents in the field, but for one to show up in London without any word making its way to Leconfield House via the inter-agency grapevine was very odd.

  However, two more immediate issues stopped him from focusing his attention on the woman sitting next to him. The first was that he was not a very good flyer, especially when hungover. For too many of Knox’s formative years planes had been omens of death, their presence a sign to run, hide, and hope for the best. And once he’d signed up to the army, he never felt more vulnerable than when he was airborne. While other soldiers would relish the momentary reprieve from action, Knox spent every minute in the air on edge, knowing all it would take was one well-aimed rocket or engine malfunction to kill him instantly or send him falling thousands of feet to his death.

  He’d only crossed the Atlantic twice after the war. Both trips had been to make nice with counterparts in American intelligence, and neither had gone particularly well.

  The most recent trip had been for a joint conference with MI6 and the CIA and FBI eighteen months ago. Washington was in the grip of a long, hard winter, and after almost ten hours in the air Knox’s BOAC Comet was forced to spend another one circling Washington airport in a blizzard before air traffic control let the plane land. Knox had spent ten hours flying backwards in one of the rear-facing seats in the plane’s first-class compartment and avoiding making polite conversation with his fellow passengers, and the whole time circling Washington staring unblinkingly at the bright silver engine tucked under the wing that was barely five feet from him.

  The conference was equally unpleasant. In fact, Knox was convinced the two American agencies were running a double act designed to discourage further visits from their British cousins. His meetings with the CIA were short and curt, and his round-tables and seminars with the FBI were interminably long and dull. His evenings were swallowed up with dinners and receptions full of people telling him how great a town Washington was.

  Two days later, he was back at the airport for his overnight flight to London. The blizzard had lasted the whole time he’d been in Washington. He’d been on the last flight in, and he was getting the first flight out. As he sat in the departure lounge, watching the crew board the plane that would take him back to London – another Comet, painted white and silver, with a black slash reaching back from the cockpit along its sides, as if pointing the way home – his only hope was that the in-flight meal would be served early so he could get some sleep and start to forget the whole trip as quickly as possible.

  The second thing that kept running through his head was where Bennett’s fear of discoveries like Bianchi and Moretti’s – and inventions like Pipistrelle – could lead.

  The world of science fiction was full of societies where malignant forces watched over downtrodden populations, eternally hunting for traitors and the not quite loyal enough. But not the real world.

  Spying, like war, had strict rules of engagement, and they were followed by most sides, most of the time. People were regularly trailed or tapped by intelligence agents, but only when necessary, not simply out of interest. Neither America, who probably had the money to attempt some kind of mass surveillance programme, nor Russia, who probably had the manpower, had ever tried something so ambitious. Even the deep, penetrating reach of the Stasi, Europe’s most invasive intelligence operation, was achieved more through myth and rumour than actual, active surveillance.

  Would real science change those rules?

  Knox instinctively wanted to dismiss Bennett’s worries. But he knew that he couldn’t. He knew deep down that in the wrong hands something like Pipistrelle could give someone the power to create the world that scared Bennett so much. A world where every act, thought, or statement was recorded and scrutinised. He’d almost said as much to White and Holland himself, back when they first discussed using Atlas, and it was only Holland’s reassurances that had calmed his concerns. But Holland was no longer in charge of MI5 or its technology.

  Knox had spent the last fifteen years peeking through proverbial keyholes and curtains in the name of national security. But when he wasn’t, he had no interest in the private lives of others. Everyone carried secrets with them, hiding their true selves or things too personal or difficult to explain to others. Knox’s own life was full of secrets. He’d been expertly trained to hide them. But what if he couldn’t?

  As the plane started to descend over what seemed like a thousand tiny islands towards Stockholm, he wondered who would want to find out every little detail about him if they had the chance.

  CHAPTER 38

  Knox and Bennett’s flight landed at Bromma airport shortly after two o’clock, and by three they were in Stockholm. They took a car from the airport, and Knox spent the whole journey into the city craning his neck to check the driver’s rear-view mirrors. It was highly unlikely they’d been followed from London, but he wanted to be sure.

  Stockholm looked to Knox like what would have happened if one of Britain’s ancient capitals like York or Winchester had managed to hold on to their title a few hundred years longer. The narrow streets, looming spires, and stone arches felt familiar, but he was keenly aware that he was in foreign territory, and that he was being guided through it by someone he knew almost nothing about.

  In his younger years, Knox had hated the Swedish. Or, more precisely, he’d hated anyone who had remained neutral during the war. As far as he was concerned, being neutral was the same as collaborating. If people like the Swedes weren’t on the Allies’ side, then they were on the Nazis’. One of the first lessons Holland tau
ght him was to let go of such hard and fast views of the world. He’d reminded Knox that Britain had avoided its fair share of fights it probably shouldn’t have – self-preservation may not always seem noble, but it’s a feature of life. Holland also told him that Sweden had secretly provided vast amounts of intelligence to the Allies throughout the war, which, given the country was surrounded on all sides by Nazi-controlled territories, was an incredibly brave thing to do.

  Knox and Bennett made their way straight to the Hotel Reisen, where they spent the last hour nursing cups of dark, strong coffee in its salon. Knox also spent the time gently testing Bennett. He had to admit he was impressed by her.

  When they arrived, he let the waiter guide them to a small, private booth in the corner of the salon, which Bennett turned down in favour of a table next to the bar that gave them a clear view of both the salon’s side door and the hotel foyer. After half an hour, he’d suggested taking turns to stretch their legs. She told him he could take a walk if he wanted, but she was going to stay where she was. And, when he asked her why she was so sure this was where they’d find Valera, she’d explained that the Swedish security service was closer to the KGB than to MI5 or the CIA. It was a super-agency that covered every aspect of the nation’s security, from espionage and counter-espionage to basic policing and dignitary protection. Like any other major organisation, a combination of inertia and efficiency had caused it to fall into certain habits. And one of those habits was accommodating international guests at the Hotel Reisen.

  Knox finished his third cup of coffee and was about to ask Bennett if she wanted another when a flicker in her eyes stopped him. He glanced down the length of the salon into the hotel foyer and saw what had caught Bennett’s attention. Irina Valera was being escorted across the lobby by a tall, blond man.

  Bennett handed Knox a couple of krona notes. ‘Settle up, and stay put. I’ll wait outside in case they’re just stopping by.’