Maryland, USA

The house overlooking the Potomac river had once been Victor Dalton’s vacation retreat. Since the divorce, it had become his home, and his ex-wife had made it very clear that he was lucky to have kept even that. A small part of him couldn’t really blame her for the angry separation – he had, after all, been caught on video in flagrante with a woman who was not only someone else’s wife at the time, but also turned out to be the mastermind behind a terrorist plot against the United States.

The rest of him, however, still burned with fury at the injustice. All his achievements as president had been obliterated from the public mind by that one lapse of judgement, and he had been hounded out of office. The holder of the most powerful position on the planet could not be a man whose defining moment was rated NC-17.

Sitting alone in his kitchen, Dalton clapped down his glass with a bang that echoed like a gunshot. As it faded, the thought occurred that his Secret Service bodyguards – even disgraced presidents were still entitled to protection for ten years after leaving office, though his team was considerably smaller than that of his more honoured predecessors – probably wouldn’t even bother to leave their surveillance trailer to investigate the noise. Though they were always stone-faced and professional in their duties, he was sure they mocked him behind his back.

He knew exactly who was to blame for his expulsion from power: Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase. He had personally awarded them the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their role in saving New York from nuclear attack – and they had repaid him by plastering the Sophia Blackwood video all over the Internet. Merely thinking about them made his jaw clench with involuntary anger.

And to make matters worse . . . they had somehow survived the events in Japan.

At least Takashi was dead. That was one small diamond in the mound of shit. The Group would endure his loss, of course, but it would cause them considerable disruption.

The Group. Another silent snarl. They had helped put him into the White House, and could have kept him there; they possessed the influence to have swayed the media and other politicians back behind him. But instead they had left him to flounder in the Washington piranha tank.

Bastards! Well, they’d regret that decision. It was a shame he didn’t dare let them know that he had been a part of that payback . . . but he valued his freedom, and his life even more.

He swallowed the last slug of bourbon, then stood. It was approaching midnight, and the habit of late nights and early mornings developed in years of public office was hard to break, even with no work waiting for him the next day. He shook his head. Victor Dalton, unemployed! The word was like a personal insult. But nobody would touch him, even former friends who should by all rights have been offering him board seats and lucrative consultancy posts failing to return his calls. ‘Cocksuckers,’ he muttered, heading upstairs.

In his bedroom, Dalton disrobed and went into the adjoining bathroom. He was supposed at all times to wear a panic button on a thong round his neck, but the damn thing only got in the way while he was washing, so he put it with his watch on a shelf and pulled the curtain on the shower cubicle. A quick burst of hot water and creamy suds helped ease his tension a little. He towelled himself down before donning a bathrobe, then reached for the panic button.

It wasn’t there.

He stared at the shelf. His watch was exactly where he had left it, but the teardrop-shaped device had gone. No sign of it on the floor. Confusion growing, he returned to the bedroom, wondering if it had somehow fallen and bounced into there . . .

‘Lookin’ for this?’ said a voice.

Dalton froze in petrified shock. Eddie Chase, bearded and scruffy, sat casually in a chair, the panic button in one hand – and a silenced gun in the other.

It took a couple of seconds for Dalton to force out any words. ‘How – how did you get in here?’ he croaked. ‘How did you get past the Secret Service?’

‘By being bloody good at what I do.’ There was dirt on the Englishman’s dark clothing: he had crept and crawled through the grounds to reach the house undetected. ‘Now sit on the bed, and keep your voice down. You give me any trouble, and I’ll put a bullet through your fucking head.’

Dalton moved to the bed, struggling to control his fear. ‘How did you get back into the country?’ he asked as he sat, playing for time. ‘Interpol has you on a watch list – you should have set off every alarm in the airport when they took your fingerprints.’

Eddie smiled coldly. ‘US citizens don’t get fingerprinted.’

‘You’re not a US citizen.’

‘Amazing what you can do with a fake passport, innit? Now,’ the smile vanished, ‘my turn to ask questions. Biggest one: what the fuck is going on?’

‘That’s . . . rather too broad for me to answer.’

‘You’ll manage.’ The gun angled up towards Dalton’s face. ‘Scarber told me you were her boss, and that you set everything up in Japan. Why were you trying to kill me and Nina?’

‘I have no idea what you’re—’

Eddie shifted the gun slightly and pulled the trigger. The flat thump of the bullet exiting the oversized suppressor was echoed by the sound of it blowing apart one of Dalton’s pillows in an explosion of goose down. The ex-president jumped in fright. ‘Next one won’t miss. Why were you trying to kill us?’

Shaking, Dalton stammered out a reply. ‘It – it should be obvious, shouldn’t it? Even to a grunt like you. I wanted you dead, Chase. You destroyed my life, you and your wife. I was the President of the United States, and what am I now? A laughing stock! An international joke! But,’ he went on, some of his arrogance returning, ‘I’m not powerless. There are still some people who are loyal to me.’

‘Like Scarber?’

‘Yes. She left the CIA to work as my private operative. As soon as she heard what you were after, she told me. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to clear your name.’

Eddie gave him a look of resigned annoyance. ‘Yeah, I thought that offer was too good to be true. So you set me and Nina up to settle old scores – but why was Takashi involved? What’s your problem with him?’

Dalton leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Have you ever heard of . . .’ He glanced about as if afraid of being overheard. ‘The Group?’

‘Weren’t they Bob Dylan’s musicians?’

Now it was Dalton’s turn to express annoyance. ‘No, that was The Band. The Group is – how best to put it? The people above the people who run the world. They’re a cabal of exceptionally powerful and influential figures – businessmen, bankers—’

‘Presidents?’

The grey-haired man snorted. ‘Only one US president has ever been a member – and it wasn’t me, I might add. But nobody gets to be president without the Group’s approval.’

‘They fix the elections?’ said Eddie dubiously.

‘They don’t need to. Anyone they don’t like is eliminated from the process long before then. All those scandals that come out of the woodwork during the primaries? The Group sees that they’re exposed, leaving only the candidates they approve of. From both parties.’

Eddie’s interest in American politics was limited, but even he was shocked by Dalton’s revelation. ‘Wait, so when you were president . . . you were working for these guys? They told you what to do?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s nothing that blatant. It’s more like they make . . . suggestions. Advise that one policy direction would be preferable to another. From their point of view, at least.’

‘So what have they got to do with Takashi?’

‘You haven’t worked that out?’ Dalton said with a cutting laugh. ‘He was one of them!’

‘You wanted him dead?’

‘I want them all dead, to be honest. Those bastards could have saved my presidency. But instead they left me to twist in the wind, and that jackass Leo Cole took my job. That backstabbing son of a bitch.’

‘So Takashi was one of them,’ said Eddie, waving the gun to focus Dalton’s mind on the matter at hand. ‘Who are the others?’

Another snort. ‘If I gave you their names, I’d be dead within twenty-four hours.’

‘You could be dead a lot sooner if you don’t. And you gave me Takashi’s.’

‘Anything that might have connected him to the Group will already have been wiped from existence. You don’t know how powerful these people are, Chase. Or what they’re capable of doing. What they’re actually planning to do – with your wife’s help.’

Eddie narrowed his eyes. ‘Meaning what? What do they need Nina for?’

‘It’s something to do with those statues. She—’

‘I want more than fucking “something”, mate. What?’ There was a lengthy silence. ‘Well?’

‘I . . . don’t actually know, precisely,’ Dalton admitted. ‘Only my partner does.’

‘Doesn’t sound like much of a partner if he keeps secrets from you,’ Eddie scoffed. ‘More like a boss.’

‘It’s an alliance of convenience,’ said the politician, prickling. ‘We have a mutual enemy – the Group.’

‘What’s he got against them?’

‘They tried to kill him.’

‘Well, yeah, that does tend to piss people off. Why?’

Another pause. ‘He was a member,’ said Dalton. ‘The statues are part of their plan – something to do with earth energy, I assume. He was opposed to it, so they tried to eliminate him. But he escaped, and has been in hiding ever since. He arranged the helicopter attack in Tokyo. The statues and your wife were the primary targets, Takashi was the secondary, and you were . . . Well, he didn’t even know you were there. That was entirely down to me.’

A frown creased Eddie’s brow. ‘You know, I’m having a really hard time thinking of reasons why I shouldn’t just shoot you in the face.’

‘I can think of one very good one,’ said Dalton, with a smug smile. ‘Nina.’

‘What about her?’

‘You think this is over? She’s the key to the Group’s plan – they can’t achieve it without her. So I’m afraid my partner will still be trying to have her killed. Instead of threatening me, you should be trying to protect her. And you won’t be able to do that without my—’

Eddie exploded from his seat, lunging across the room to grab Dalton by his throat and slam him backwards on to the bed. He thrust the gun hard against the ex-president’s cheek. ‘I want this fucker’s name in five seconds, or you die! Four, three, two—’

‘Glas!’ Dalton squealed. ‘His name’s Glas, Harald Glas!’

To Eddie’s surprise, he knew the name. ‘But he’s something to do with the IHA . . .’

‘One of the – non-executive directors,’ Dalton managed to gasp. ‘He has a lot of involvement with the UN. He’s in the energy business – oil, gas, coal, even nuclear.’

‘So where do I find him?’

‘I don’t know – I don’t know!’ he repeated with considerably more fear as the silencer was rammed harder against his face. ‘I told you, he’s in hiding. And I don’t know how to contact him – he always contacts me. But I do know that he’s already tried to kill your wife again. In Rome, earlier today. One of my people in the State Department told me.’

Cold shock froze Eddie. ‘Is she . . .’

‘She’s all right. She has the same damn charmed life as you.’ He sat up and rubbed his bruised cheek as the Englishman pulled back. ‘But it won’t last for ever. He’ll keep sending people after her, and sooner or later one of them will succeed. Unless . . .’

‘Unless what?’

‘You’d like to go home, wouldn’t you, Chase? Be reunited with your wife?’ The smarminess of a politician making promises returned at full slimy intensity. ‘I can arrange it. Bring the statues to me, so I can show Glas that they’ve been destroyed, and I’ll get him to call off his dogs. I’ll even do what I can to get you off the hook with Interpol.’

Eddie stared at him for a long moment. ‘Nah, I don’t think so.’

It wasn’t the response Dalton had expected. ‘What?’

‘I trust you about as much as I could shit an elephant. Soon as I go, you’ll scream for the Secret Service, and then either I’ll be dead or every cop and government agent in the country’ll be looking for me.’ He regarded the gun. ‘Unless I make sure you can’t.’

Dalton went pale. ‘No, no, wait. There’s no need to kill me – I can help you, I really can! Whatever you need, I can get – I still have the connections. I do!’

Another silence, the gun fixed on the trembling man . . . then unexpectedly Eddie let out a sarcastic chuckle. ‘You’re right, I don’t need to kill you. I can do something worse.’

‘W-worse?’

Eddie crossed the room to a dresser, on top of which was a collection of framed photos of Dalton in his presidential days – and picked up a phone that had been propped, half hidden, behind one of the pictures. ‘Did you get that?’ he said into its camera.

‘Came out great, mate,’ said an Australian voice from the other end of the line. ‘Bluey’ Jackson, the friend who had provided Eddie with his fake US passport.

‘Cheers. You know what to do.’ He turned the phone round and tapped its screen to disconnect.

Appalled realisation hit the former president. ‘You recorded this?’

‘Worked last time, didn’t it?’ Eddie said cheerily as he pocketed the phone. ‘That was a live video call to a mate of mine in another country – the same mate who helped me make you into a YouTube star a couple of years back. He was recording it, and right now he’s copying it and sending it to his mates for security. You just confessed to conspiracy and attempted murder and Christ knows what else, so it’d be a real shame if the video got sent to, I dunno, the Justice Department. And the New York Times. And the BBC. And—’

‘I get the picture, damn you,’ spat Dalton.

‘So will everyone else. Fool you twice, eh?’ His voice became harsher. ‘So first off, you keep quiet about me being here. Second, next time this Glas bloke calls you, you tell him to call off anyone he’s sent after Nina.’

‘I don’t know when he’ll contact me next,’ said Dalton, sweating.

‘You’d better hope it’s soon.’ Eddie tossed the panic button on to the chair. ‘Anyway, I’ll be off. You have a nice night.’ He opened the door, then paused halfway through it. ‘You’ve got more to be scared of than this Group, Dalton. You’ve got me.’ The door closed behind him.

Dalton stared after him for several seconds, then scurried to the chair. He picked up the panic button . . . but didn’t dare use it. Instead, trembling with fear and anger, he threw it down on the carpet and returned to sit on the bed, head in his hands.