Andy McNab - Crossfire

MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Firm, the Office: everybody had a different name for it. Some insiders had even called it Caesar's Palace when it first went up, and it wasn't hard to see why. It was a beige and black pyramid with its top cut off, and large towers at either side. There was even a terrace bar overlooking the river. It only needed a few swirls of neon and you'd swear you were in Las Vegas. Maybe it would become a super-casino when it had had its time.

I'd always preferred Century House myself, the old SIS building near Waterloo station. It might have been 1960s square minging architecture with droopy net curtains and antennae all over the roof but it was a lot handier for the bus and tube, and much more homely. And the old guy who ran the greasy spoon on the corner had served real food – dead animals and snacks with so many E numbers they glowed in the dark.

Even at this time of night, the multiple lanes of city traffic rumbled along like a slow-motion explosion. I crossed at the lights. I'd never expected to come face to face with the Yes Man again, but it wasn't like I had a whole lot of choice. The Firm had known where to find me within hours of my landing at Heathrow. Maybe it was the flight manifest, maybe face-recognition cameras at the airport. Whatever, if I tried to run they'd lift me before I got a mile down the road. Then they'd do more than ask for their envelope back.

This wasn't the Women's Institute, and it wasn't just a cake-baking session I'd be refusing to attend. The people who worked in the building in front of me killed for a living. It was pointless running: I'd just die knackered and out of breath. I didn't want to be a body pulled from a car crash just for saying no to a meeting. Besides, I wanted to find out what job he had in mind. I was pretty sure that the reappearance of the Yes Man at this precise moment in my life was no coincidence.

And, anyway, I'd just got the sack. There might be cash involved. When you live at the bottom of the food chain you have to take a bite of the shit sandwich when it's shoved in your face. Maybe that was why I'd never found it hard to get on with Africans, Arabs, squaddies, whoever. They soon discovered I was like them – waist deep in the shit-pit and happy to get my head up enough to take a few breaths occasionally before I got pushed back down.

I followed a couple of suits along the pavement. They must have been the night shift. They disappeared behind the steel fencing of 85 Albert Embankment and into the pyramid. I followed.

I wondered how an arsehole like the Yes Man fitted in with life behind the triple-glazed windows, these days. I'd heard the Firm's new leadership matched the new building: younger, meaner, more aggressive. If the Yes Man was still the boss of deniable operators, the Ks, it could only mean he'd slipped off the greasy pole. Good. Fuck him and the boils on his neck.

The physical threat had increased since 9/11 and the Firm had obviously been given a big wad of cash to boost its security. I entered via a single metal door and got funnelled towards six perspex security cubicles that looked like giant test-tubes. A small queue of suits had formed. They placed their bags on an X-ray machine and waited in line to swipe their card and enter their PIN. If they got accepted, the perspex door opened and they stepped inside. A pressure pad on the floor made the door close behind them again, trapping them in the capsule.

All sorts of tests would be carried out during the next couple of seconds. For starters, the air would be analysed for traces of weapons or explosives. If the electronics were happy, the door in front would open, releasing them into the inner sanctum.

A perspex cylinder wasn't for the likes of me. I had to go to the visitors' desk, where a woman in her forties with thick-rimmed glasses sat behind a bulletproof screen. She looked at me a bit sadly. The words 'disappointing' and 'divorce settlement' were written all over her.

I put my mouth close to the microphone. 'I have an appointment. Extension two seven double eight.'

'You need to fill this in.' She pushed a ledger under the glass. 'Do you know the name?'

'No, sorry. Can't remember.'

She picked up a phone and checked a monitor to her left that must have held the internal-numbers list. 'Do you have a picture ID?'

I fished out my passport and held it open on the photo page. 'He's expecting me at eight thirty. What's his name again?'

She gave me another of her sad looks as she hit some keys. I signed in the two marked boxes in the ledger and passed it back under the window.

With the phone still to her ear, she tore my signed strip from the ledger and folded it into a small plastic holder with a blue ribbon to go round my neck. She pushed it under the glass. The badge was blue too, and said, 'Escorted Everywhere'.

She put down the receiver. 'Wait over there. Someone will be along to collect you.'

I tried to get a smile out of her and held up the pass at the window. 'That's good. I'd only get lost.'

It wasn't going to happen. I wandered over to a backless black leather settee with chrome legs.

The doors of the security pods opened and closed as they chomped their way through the queue. A young clerk appeared, dressed in a black suit, checked shirt and a tie with a knot that was far too big for the collar. He had the kind of madly enthusiastic smile they normally only teach you at estate-agent school. He held out a hand. 'Mr Stone?'

I stood up and followed suit.

'If you'd like to go through that glass door to your right, I'll meet you on the other side.'

I nodded at the X-ray machine and held up my bomber. 'You want this in there?'

'No, the room will detect anything.'

A female guard buzzed the door open. A sign on the wall opposite told me to stand still until instructed to move. I couldn't hear any machinery or sucking sounds as the atmosphere was extracted to check for weapons or explosives residue, but I was sure it was happening.

The clerk appeared at the other side of the glass exit. The door clicked open.

The walk to the lifts took us over ivory marble floors, past grey slate walls. No wonder the building had come in at twice the estimate.

We whooshed upwards.

'Which floor we going to?'

'Fifth.'

It would have been pointless asking him more. Even if he'd known the answers he wouldn't have told me.

We stepped out into a world of grey carpet tiles and white-emulsioned walls. I felt conned, like when a hotel invests in a big makeover down in Reception but as soon as you get upstairs it's all shite – and tough, you've already checked in.

We set off down a bare corridor. There were no names on the doors, only acronyms I didn't understand. The armed services are fanatical about the fucking things, and the Firm had fallen into step. Even when I was in the Regiment and working here, I'd only been able to remember up to the three-letter ones.

Vauxhall Cross was a category-A post, which meant that, like Beijing, Moscow and other major stations abroad, it had an HPT (high potential threat) from terrorism and sophisticated HIS (hostile intelligence services). Operatives from the TSD (technical services department) in Milton Keynes ensured that the building was protected from HTA (high-tech attack).

The triple glazing didn't have anything to do with the government's new green policy. It was a safeguard against laser and radio-frequency flooding techniques as every HIS and his dog tried to hear what you were talking about. There were even techniques now to read the radiation from computer and photocopying machines, so every bit of machinery in the building was specially shielded. If anyone got on a boat and spent the day bobbing up and down on the Thames pointing technical stuff at the decapitated pyramid, they'd be wasting their fare.