Chapter 5

Caradoc tossed his glasses onto the table, sighing heavily. "Everything is going to to shit." He rubbed his eyes.

"Saladin is still asleep," Estok said. "Who is he?"

"One of our guys. He runs the entire Middle Eastern board. Roland just pinged all the other teams a minute ago, and she'll send someone to check if they don't reply."

"And in the meantime?"

"I think we can only wait. But if Saladin isn't lying or delusional and every team is really dead, then...I don't know. It's up to Roland."

"It also might mean our attacker is based in the Middle East."

"Possibly Cabal, too. But we can't confirm that, because Diana wants us to kill the Prime Minister of Singapore first. And even then she might not say the name of the guy we're looking for."

"You think it's the third party?"

"Could be. We don't even know if they're real or not. Prison attack might just be another Cabal plot, too."

"Nothing's ever simple."

"And I'm getting sick of it. You think we should kill the PM?"

"I don't know a lot about your organisation, but you can probably get away with assassinating the PM. So why not do it?"

"If Diana wants them dead, it might be because they know something."

"Then interrogate her before killing her."

"That's up to the team in Singapore. If anybody's going to kill her, it's them. And they might not decide to."

"Can't Arthur enforce it?"

"We don't work like that. Kingsman is split into four sectors: North America and Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. We work independently, and the leaders have a meeting every once in a while. Not the best system, but it works."

"Can the Singaporean team confirm that the PM sent the patrol boat?"

Cradoc grabbed his glasses and folded the legs, slipping it into his pocket. "We investigated that last year, after the thing on the ship. The admirals knew the orders came from above, but they wouldn't divulge."

"That narrows it down a lot, if the order didn't come from the navy itself. Face it, it's probably the PM."

"And if we're wrong?"

"We're not wrong," Oberon said. He walked up to their table and lid his clipboard towards Caradoc, the PM's dossier on the screen. "Look at the parts I circled."

Cardoc's finger traced the red line that went around certain blocks of text, most notably the six- and seven-digit figures near the bottom.

"She could just be a nice person," Estok said. "I mean, even Bill Gates donated that much. More than that, actually."

"But this is to the exact same charity every time," Oberon said. "That much money is better off developing the country."

"That's kinda mean," Caradoc said, swiping two fingers apart on the screen to zoom in to the charity's name. "But I get you. A charity can't put that much money to use."

"Singapore probably knows by now, but I'll send this over anyway. Dirk, can I talk to you for a moment? In private, I mean."

"Sure." Caradoc stood up and looked at Estok. "Get some rest if you want, doc. It's gonna be a long night."

"I'm not tired," Estok said.

Caradoc nodded and went over to Oberon's terminal, sitting down in the chair beside his. "What is it?" he asked, his voice low.

"I checked David's profile again, just to be sure nothing's changed." He tapped a button, prompting a document with Estok's face and name and details to appear on the screen. "But I found this."

"Fucking hell." Caradoc's eyes swept over the lines of text. "The details match pretty much everything he said last year."

"The working theory is that he went and got whoever it is he's working for to slip this into the British national database."

"You think he's Cabal now?"

"Could be. He could have been from the start. We never really thought that."

"And Marcel's people found us the night we brought him in. Why didn't we think of this back then?" He glanced at Estok, who reading something on his phone.

"You're getting ahead of yourself. He's had several chances to kill us, and he hasn't taken any of them. You'd think the Cabal would want to remove us as quickly as possible."

"I don't know what to think anymore. You seen Val?"

"She went to talk to Holly. I just finished installing her chip a few minutes ago. Does yours still hurt?"

"I've been ignoring it. Any developments on the signal?"

"I was trying to trace the source. Remember when we were cleaning up Valentine's base in the Himalayas?"

"You think someone stole an emitter from that?"

"We didn't know how many there were in total. You found two, but there could easily have been a third one."

"Everyone we found there was headless."

"Thanks to Galahad and Merlin, yes. But a Cabal agent could have easily hidden himself and stolen it while we were en route."

Caradoc nodded. "Whatever the case, we gotta find a way to counter the signal. Agravain called yet?"

"He's still working on it. Gonna be a bit slower, with the new recruits running the department and all that."

"Can you trace that file? Doctor's Estok, I mean. Hack in and find out who put the file there, and we've got a lead there."

"You want me to hack in to the British government?"

"It's not like you haven't done that before, right?"

"Only during emergencies. As in, when they're hiding something from us and we've no choice but to hack them."

"So you're going to ask them nicely?"

"Then if that doesn't work, get our friends inside to give us the information.' Hacking is usually a last resort, thank you very much. And it isn't that easy - the database is very heavily protected."

Caradoc whistled. "And you're teaching Holly this stuff? Is that why she always looks stressed out?"

Oberon raised an eyebrow. "Stressed out? No, hacking is hard, but it's not going to make you want to claw your eyes out. Probably something else, and knowing Holly, it's better to not ask. Does she sti-"

"Punch me? No comment." He looked over at Estok, who was typing into his phone. "And tap his phone too, in case he calls someone about us."

"I've a filter to block it in place."

"Good." Caradoc's watch beeped, signifying an incoming connection. He frowned, opening the connection via a tap to the button on his glasses.

"Hello, agent Caradoc," a low voice said.

He froze, and glanced at the caller ID on his watch.

"It's terribly rude to not reply, agent."

"Give me a moment," Caradoc said, turning to Oberon. "Is the dining room clear? I need to talk to someone."

"Nobody's in there."

"Thank you." He activated the staircase with the palm of his hand, and took the stairs up to the garage. He went through the door connecting them to the house, and into the dining room with its long table where Kingsman agents usually sat.

A lone hologram was at the head of the table, where Roland had been earlier. "Take a seat, Caradoc."

He pulled out the chair at the other end, looking at the hologram of the young man in a suit at the other end. "I thought we were done."

"Apparently not."

"What do you want?"

"How rude!" The young man shook his head. "You department's not getting any extra funding, that's for sure."

"We don't need it. You said I was free to go."

"Which doesn't mean I'm going to stop monitoring you. That being said, how are you and agent Gawain?"

"We're fine."

"I didn't mean your wellbeing. I was getting curious about how you two were getting along together, so I decided to have Roland do me a favor."

"You're wasting my time."

"She left the conference link on, Caradoc. And I don't like what you and Gawain said afterwards."

Under the table, Caradoc's fists clenched. "So you're spying on me - on us, now, are you?"

"It's what I do. You know what my job is."

"Some privacy would be excellent, Uther."

The young man smiled. "As an internal auditor, I need eyes and ears everywhere. If you're not guilty, you've got nothing to hide."

"Can't you just leave us alone?"

"We had an agreement, Caradoc, and you broke it. But I'm giving you one more chance to stop."

Caradoc said nothing.

"If I get a whiff - and you know how easily I can do that - of anything going on between you and Gawain, I'm going to order a trial for you."

"That won't be necessary."

Uther's smile got wider. "Very well, agent. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to take a little nap. It's getting dark here." The hologram of the young man flickered, and disappeared completely, severing the link.

Caradoc furrowed his brow. "It's rude to eavesdrop, you know."

Jonas stepped out of the door to the kitchen, his arms crossed. "Don't worry, I stayed out of the field range." He pointed with his chin to the ceiling, where each seat had a small projector directly above it.

"The last time I talked to someone, turns out Uther was still listening. How do you know he's not listening to you right now?"

"Because I'm not guilty, and I've nothing to hide." He smiled. "Conference calls are made locally."

"You been taking tech classes with Oberon too?"

"No, I just found out a second ago, because I started seeing Uther when I walked in. Then it was all deduction." His smile disappeared. "You really can't let her go, can you Dirk?"

"I can if I want."

"But you don't want to."

"I'm not like you."

"I understand the importance of saving the world, Dirk. Karlien understands that, and she's happy to accept that we're not together anymore."

"How can you do that? Even Sagramore wouldn't put the world before his wife, and he's the most loyal agent I've ever known. You're lying."

Jonas sighed. "It doesn't matter. I might still love her, but what then? I'm not putting her in danger and I'm not choosing her over the world. That's what you should do."

"Kind of hard, since she's an agent."

"But you'd save her without a second thought. To Uther, that's a gaping flaw, and you're not even going to do what he says, are you?"

"I don't like following orders."

"Makes me wonder how you got the job in the first place. But enough of that. How's it going with our good doctor?"

"He got someone to make a file for him. Oberon is going to ask our friends in the British government to find out who put it there."

"They guys creeps me out, man. First he pops up in a hospital right where we were, and then he says Val looks like his wife."

"If he has a wife."

"He looks like he does. I talked to Holly a few minutes ago."

"And?"

"I haven't told you what happened in the graveyard. Before Holly shot me, there was someone."

"What were you doing in the graveyard?"

"Visiting Klaas. But then we heard someone there with us. I went to look for him, and before I knew it, Holly blew a hole through my chest."

"And you weren't affected?"

"No. Looks like it was an extremely short-ranged device, if it's a signal. You gonna go look for him?"

"No, I've another mission on my mind," Caradoc said, standing up. "Maybe if they took Marcel, they'll take him too."

Jonas gave him a thoughtful look. "...Harker?"

"Exactly."