The air hostess moved away and I took another small sip of beer. I didn’t want to overdo it. Not good form, turning up drunk for an important meeting. I didn’t know if my boss was well known for giving people a second chance – somehow I doubted it – but I didn’t plan to find out.

One of the reasons he’d hired me was because I had rescued an American soldier over in Iraq. Saved his life. I don’t talk about it, but he had known the real story behind it. Suffice to say I wasn’t following standing orders – could probably have been court-martialled and dishonourably discharged.

Might have been better that way. Eventually I was invalided out and had to ride a wheelchair for a while. Jack Morgan had checked my references pretty thoroughly. Going so far as to talk with the injured young GI I had carried through a kill zone to medical help.

The fact that I had killed two other American soldiers who had shot him and were raping a suspected bomb maker’s wife didn’t faze him. He knew why, even if the people who gave me a medal for the rescue didn’t. And I sincerely hope they never did. But Jack Morgan approved, he knew the circumstances and he wanted to have a man capable of making his own decisions heading up his London operation. Getting the job done – whatever it took – and living with the consequences.

I guess I had proved that I could do that. To him, at least.

For me, though, things are never as black and white as I would have liked. Moral certitude is something that gets blown away pretty damn quickly when you take the King’s shilling and march overseas to another man’s war.

Or fly.

Like I was doing.

Chapter 3

On the steady tarmac of the JFK runway, I resisted the urge to drop to my knees and kiss the ground.