It was Washington, early evening, bad March weather, but General Charles Ferguson, comforted by the luxury of the Hay-Adams Hotel, stood at a window of the bar and enjoyed a scotch and soda. Newly arrived from London, he was curiously exhilarated by the rain pounding against the window and his proximity to the White House.

On the other hand, he also just liked the hotel for its own sake. In its sheer luxury it was everything a hotel should be, and anybody who was anybody stayed there, the great and the good and the power brokers. Whatever else he was, he was certainly that, the man responsible for running a special intelligence unit out of the Ministry of Defence in London, responsible only to the Prime Minister of the day, irrespective of politics.

The man for whom he waited, Blake Johnson, was head of a unit at the White House called the Basement. It had been in existence since the Cold War days, an intelligence unit answerable only to the current President, totally separate from the CIA, FBI and the Secret Service. They had achieved great things together.

Ferguson could see the main entrance of the hotel, where now a limousine drew up and two men got out and hurried up the steps. Blake Johnson was a tall, handsome man in his mid-fifties. The man with him was very big and very black: Clancy Smith, once the youngest sergeant major in the Marine Corps and now the President’s favorite Secret Service man. Ferguson greeted them warmly.

“Great to see you both.”

“No Dillon this trip?” Johnson asked.

He was referring to Sean Dillon, in the past a feared IRA enforcer, now Ferguson ’s strong right hand.

“There didn’t seem any need and he’s concerned about Hannah Bernstein. She’s really in a very bad way thanks to that Russian bastard Ashimov.”