When the fourteen year-old daughter of a British government minister leaves the country to join ISIS, MI7 despatches a cohort of agents to Turkey to intercept her en route.
However, maybe not everything is as it seems. How to explain, for example, her long-standing prior antipathy to Islamofascism? Her sudden conversion to radicalism on the very day of her departure? The fact that there is neither sight nor sign of her in Istanbul - or elsewhere?
Agent John Mordred is assigned to investigate. Soon, he has theories of his own, and they fly in the face of the prevailing wisdom. Along the way, he is forced to face an impossible question. How to account for the appeal, to some British citizens, of an organisation that engages in genocide, mass torture and the reduction of ethnically dissimilar women to sex slaves?
Barbarism seems to be banging on the doors of civilisation again, in a way unseen since the dark days of the 1930s. Yet for every evil Mordred uncovers, a counterbalancing good appears. His quest leads him from London to the shores of East Africa, and a confrontation with the overwhelming banality of violence and the all-pervading power of ideological malice.
Alec stirred his tea twice, put the spoon on the saucer and leaned back. “You’ll be coming to Turkey with us,” he said.
“She’d just call us all together if it was that,” Mordred replied. “She wouldn’t tell us one by one. It’d be a waste of her time and ours.”
“Not if we’re all going over there to fulfil slightly different roles. Anyway, her office isn’t big enough.”
They sat in the first-floor staff canteen in Thames House. 10.40. Most people were busy downstairs this time in the morning, either examining intelligence files or filling in reports on real or virtual investigations, but Alec Cunningham and John Mordred’s schedules had been cleared to make room for individual meetings. Without titles or agendas.
“She wouldn’t need to announce it in her office,” Mordred said. “There are plenty of seminar rooms.”
Alec sighed, as if it was like talking to an idiot. “With something like this, you need to impress upon each individual member the importance of him or her fulfilling his or her role exactly as specified. Put it another way: Annabel’s going to Turkey, she was interviewed alone; Gina’s going to Turkey, she was interviewed alone; Phyllis is going to Turkey, she was interviewed alone; Ian’s going - ”
“Yes, yes, get the picture.”
“I’ve been here longer than you, John. Much longer. I think I know what I’m talking about.”
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Dutch
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Already translated.
Translated by nermin adel
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Author review: A super translator. Speedy and hard-working. Great communication throughout. |
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Spanish
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Already translated.
Translated by Nestora Margarita Salcedo Cruz
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Author review: An outstanding translator. Careful, thorough and incredibly dedicated. I can recommend Nestora Margarita without reservation. I feel incredibly lucky that she agreed to translate my work. |
