Crocodile Tears

you going back there.” Jack was only saying what Alex was thinking. “Every time you set foot in that door, something bad comes out of it. I was beginning to think they’d forgotten all about you. This will just remind them …”
    “ I know. But who else is going to stop him, Jack? We need their help.”
    “ They’ve never helped you before, Alex.”

    “ This time it would be in their interest. They’re not going to want Harry Bulman writing about them.”
    Alex pushed his plate away. He had barely eaten, but he no longer had any appetite. “I’ll go after school tomorrow.”
    “ I’ll come with you.”
    “ Thanks.”
    He was going back. The decision had been made. But as Alex got up and helped clear the table, he wondered if in truth he had ever really left.

Chapter 8: THE LION’S DEN

    THE EVENING SEEMED TO have drawn in early on Liverpool Street. It was only half past four as Jack and Alex came out of the station, but already the streetlamps were on and the first commuters were on their way home, snatching their free newspapers without even breaking pace. There must have been a slight mist in the air, because it seemed to Alex that the offices were glowing unnaturally, the light behind the windows not quite making it to the world outside.
    Punched in the chest.
    Unable to breathe.
    The pavement, cold and hard, rushing toward him.

    This was where Alex had been shot, and he would never be able to return without experiencing it again.
    The flower seller that he saw now, standing across the road, the old woman coming out of the shop …
    had they been there that day? It had been five o’clock, almost the same time as now, but during the summer. There was the roof where the sniper must have lain concealed, waiting for Alex to come out.
    He had sworn that he would never come back here, yet here he was. It was like one of those dreams where you keep on running but always end up in the same place. Trapped.
    “ Are you okay?” Jack asked. She could see what was going on in his head.
    Alex pulled himself together. “It feels strange, being back.”
    “ Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
    “ Yes. Let’s get it over with.”
    They stopped in front of a tall, classical building that would have been just as much at home in New York but for the Union Jack that hung limply from a pole jutting out of the sixteenth floor. A set of rotating doors invited them in, and set in the wall to one side a brass plaque read, ROYAL & GENERAL BANK PLC. LONDON.
    Strangely, the bank was fully operational, with loan desks, cash machines, tellers, and clients, and Alex wondered how many people must have accounts here without knowing what the real purpose of the building was. The entire place belonged to the Special Operations Division of MI6. The bank was nothing more than a cover. And for that matter, how many men and women would come out of those doors, never to return? Alex’s uncle had been one of them, dying for queen and country or whatever else motivated them. What difference did it make once you were dead?

    “ Alex?” Jack was watching him anxiously, and he realized that, despite what he had just said, he hadn’t moved. “The lion’s den,” she muttered.
    “ That’s what it feels like.”
    “ Come on …”
    They went in.
    The doors spun them from the cold reality of the city to the warmth and deception of a world where nothing was ever what it seemed. They were in a reception area with a row of elevators, a marble floor, half a dozen clocks—each one showing the time in a different country—and the inevitable potted plants. But there would be hidden cameras too. Their images would already be on the way to a central computer equipped with face-recognition software. And the two receptionists, both female and pretty, would know exactly who they were before they said a word.
    One of them looked up as they approached. “Can I help you?”
    “ We have an appointment with Mrs. Jones.”
    “ Of course. Please take a seat.”
    It was all so normal. Alex and Jack took their place on a leather sofa with a scattering of financial magazines on the table in front of them. Alex had come straight from school, so he was still in his uniform. He wondered what he must look like to passersby. A rich kid, perhaps, opening his first account.

    A few minutes later, one of the elevators opened and a dark-haired woman in a black suit stepped out.
    As usual, she wore very little jewelry, just a simple silver