Andy McNab - Avenger

The teenager was watching her, her face expressionless. Deveraux suddenly felt as though she had been caught in some act of mindless vandalism. Or something far worse – in the act of murder.

She felt exposed and slightly ludicrous, crouched down with the hammer gripped tightly in her hand.

And as Elena stared, Deveraux was unable to stop herself thinking about the night she had killed Joey. It was unfortunate, but Deveraux didn't deal in regrets. There had been no alternative.

The memory of those few moments came back to her: Joey on his knees, his nose pouring with blood while she crouched behind him, both hands around his neck, pulling back the thin edge of her Xda mobile phone into his crushed windpipe, gradually choking him to death.

As Deveraux shook her head to drive away the vision, she guessed that at that moment Elena was also thinking of Joey. It was almost as if the girl knew what had happened; had somehow worked it all out.

Deveraux looked down at the shattered hard drive and picked it up. She stood up and walked back towards the kitchen door, feeling Elena's eyes burning into her back.

Dudley emerged from his meeting with the Foreign Secretary to find Marcie Deveraux waiting for him.

He was his usual business-like self, but the pressure was on for everyone in the Intelligence Services. And the higher up in authority, the higher the levels of pressure. Dudley nodded a brusque acknowledgement to Deveraux, and without a word gestured for her to follow him into a room that had been hastily set aside for their conversation.

It wasn't by any means Deveraux's first visit to the Foreign Office. The main building, with its marble columns, aged colonial oil paintings and heavy chandeliers, always looked to her more like an expensive Parisian hotel than a place of government.

Dudley led the way into one of the wood-panelled reception rooms. The heavy curtains were closed and they sat in armchairs on either side of an ornate low table, where coffee had been set out for their arrival.

The concerned look on Dudley's usually placid-looking face was a sign that his meeting with the Foreign Secretary had not gone completely smoothly.

'Your final arrangements have been made?' he asked brusquely.

'Yes, sir, everything is in place for tomorrow.'

'Good. I don't need to stress the importance of your mission, Marcie. And it is your mission.'

There was no need for Dudley to elaborate; Marcie Deveraux fully understood the implications of his words. It was her mission. A deniable mission. She had planned it, the strategy and the tactics.

As soon as it had been established that Black Star was in America, Deveraux was the one who had urged that the mission should remain deniable and that no MoU between the UK and the USA should be arranged. She argued that to share the information with American colleagues would delay the mission. The Americans would throw the full weight of their resources into the operation, quite possibly tipping off Black Star that they were on to him in the process.

Better to keep it small, said Deveraux, compact, the fewer involved the better. Get in, get the job done, and get out. That was the way she operated; it had worked for her in the past and it would work for her this time. Dudley had considered her plan and had then given the go-ahead.

If it was a success, the personal rewards for Deveraux would be enormous. Promotion certainly, and perhaps even Dudley's job. It was well known that he was to retire soon.

On the other hand, failure was too terrible to contemplate. The Americans would go ballistic if they discovered the Brits were conducting a covert operation in New York, involving a planted Angel, and PE with the potential to kill hundreds of US citizens.

Deveraux would be fully responsible and no one else. The Americans would be told that she was a rogue operator who had never been sanctioned to conduct an operation on US soil. She would be thrown out of the Security Service to ensure that good, if damaged, relations were maintained with the US.

Deveraux needed no reminding. She couldn't concern herself with the consequences of failure. She just had to concentrate on the job.

Her cover story was that she was working as a diplomatic attache at the UN. It meant she would be travelling to and operating in the USA with the comforting security blanket of a diplomatic passport. At any time she could simply claim diplomatic immunity and fly out of the country. If the mission failed, she would be able to return to the UK, but she knew that returning home would not ultimately save her.

No one else involved in the operation had the same level of protection, and that was something Deveraux still needed to discuss with her boss. 'Watts spent years working as a K, sir, which means he's fully aware of what could happen to Danny and Elena. And to himself, of course.'

Dudley nodded. 'Yes. And I'm fully aware of your recommendations with regard to Watts and the teenagers if – he paused to correct himself – 'when the mission is successfully concluded.'

'Yes, sir,' said Deveraux. 'I've always believed that they can only be considered a threat to our security. As outsiders, they know far too much and we can never guarantee they will keep silent. As for Watts himself, there's too much history. And I've decided it's too risky to have him in New York. I've made arrangements to deal with that… In any event, after the successful conclusion of the mission my recommendation remains the same. They should all be eliminated. We need to clean house after this one, sir.'

Dudley sighed. 'I'm afraid I'm getting too old for this. I shall be glad to get to Dorset, and my bees.' He nodded again. 'It's unfortunate, Marcie, but yes, I agree. Elimination.'

Fergus was due to depart from Heathrow two hours before the others. He had kept his farewells to Danny and Elena brief when leaving Oxford, giving them a final reminder to 'take care'.

He had made other arrangements the previous evening while Deveraux was in London. He had phoned for the DHL parcel delivery company to come and collect a small envelope addressed to Frank Wilson – an alias he had used before, and the one Deveraux had agreed to for this mission – for collection at his hotel, the Roosevelt, which was just a few blocks away from the Pennsylvania.

Inside the envelope were three alias passports, complete with US visa waiver stubs, for himself, Danny and Elena; Fergus had made good use of his old contacts during the weeks in Oxford.

Terminal Four was as busy as ever. Fergus checked in and then joined one of the long lines of passengers waiting to pass through the security checks before going into the departure lounge.

Like most of the other passengers, he took off his jacket and made sure there was nothing metallic in his trouser pockets that would be likely to set off the metal detector as he walked through. He reached the front of the queue, put his jacket in one of the plastic trays and then slid that and the small rucksack he had with him onto the rubber conveyor belt and watched them disappear into the darkness.

He stepped through the metal detector and was relieved not to hear the alert ping, which would have meant an irritating body search. Fergus went to the conveyor belt, put on his jacket and picked up the rucksack. He reached passport control, which had been hastily put in place after the London Underground bombing of 7/7, and showed his passport and boarding card to the waiting security officer.

As he turned to walk towards the departure lounge, he saw two smartly suited men approaching him. He knew instantly who they were: Special Branch. There was no point in panicking; it would have been pointless.

Fergus realized at that moment that he had been set up.