NUMBER FOUR

CODENAME: PERSEPHONE

STATUS: ACTIVE, ON DUTY

LOCATION: LONDON

I wasn’t entirely alone. It was a joint operation between Interpol and Special Branch. We’ve been tracking a network of human traffickers specialising in teenage girls. They take them from all over Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East and send them to work for a ‘hotel’ network.

The network recruited me in Ukraine and offered me a job in London. I spent an entire week in a cargo container with six frightened teenage girls and a couple of buckets. By the time we got to the London base I was not feeling charitable.

They’d dumped us in this shitty hostel, all seven of us in one room with only two actual beds in it and some mattresses on the floor. They told us to get cleaned up and I knew what was coming so I made sure I was clean before the others. I told them to take their time and not to try too hard.

Of course when they came for one of us they came for me. They took me right to the man in charge. Pushed me into his office. Locked the door behind me.

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I played the wide-eyed innocent. Semi impenetrable accent and broken English. 'Thank you for this opportunity. I work hard. I clean good. I repay.'

He said that, yes, I would be repaying, held a knife to my throat and bent me over the desk.

So I dislocated his thumb and took his knife and in the resulting scuffle I ‘accidentally’ opened up his femoral artery. I called for an ambulance, of course, but the paramedics couldn’t save him.

Fortunately the accounts ledger was sitting open on his desk and his assistants proved to be talkative once I’d explained roughly who I was. It turned out we didn’t need him alive to close down the network. Handy that.

#

Four swilled the last of the tequila around her mouth as if trying to wash the taste of the words out.

She put her glass down and the sound of it made Seven suddenly conscious of how quiet the room had been. He looked at the others and saw on their faces the same concern that he felt. The same horror at the idea of Four ever working without one of them to watch her back.

Four took the bottle from Number Three and brandished it at Five. 'How about you?' she said. 'What were you nicking when the balloon went up?'

Five found a clean glass. 'I do more than just nick stuff,' he said as Four filled the glass.

'Not on your own you don’t,' said Number Six.

'I’ve had to diversify. It’s all hacking these days. There’s less need for a thief if you can break into the mainframe and copy the files from the other side of the world.'

That was true. Seven was starting to wonder how much longer there would be a need for any of the Blanks. Would they be entirely bypassed by the brave new world of cyber espionage?

'So what were you doing?' said Three.