LITMIR.BIZ

       PROLOGUE

      CRISIS in night. Please contact us ASAP.

      Harry Kavenagh stared at the message handed to him by the hotel receptionist, and felt a cold chill run through him. No. Not now. He wasn’t ready.

      He’d never be ready—not for this.

      Still staring at the words, he rammed the fingers of his other hand through his hair, rumpling the dusty, sweaty strands even further. So what now? He turned the paper over, looking for more information, but there was nothing.

      ‘When did they call?’ he asked.

      ‘This morning, sir. Just after you went out.’

      Fingers suddenly unsteady and his heart thudding in his throat, he called the number from his room. Five minutes later he was in a car on the way to the airport, his mind still reeling.

      He couldn’t believe it was actually happening. Stupid. He ought to be able to. It had been his idea, after all. They’d wanted to turn off the machine weeks ago, with his agreement, but he’d seen enough loss of life. Too much. So he’d begged them to reconsider—exhausted, perhaps a little drunk and stunned by what they’d told him, he’d haggled them into submission.

      They’d kept their side of the bargain. And now he had to keep his.

      He swallowed, staring out of the window, not seeing the bombed-out buildings, the shattered lives all around him. A shell exploded a few streets away, but he barely noticed. It all seemed suddenly terribly remote and curiously irrelevant, because in the space of the next few hours, his whole life would change for ever.