“Fuck,” Maria muttered. The seat didn’t recline— the jet had been fitted by Cathay, apparently. Nor were there any of those pleasant packets of peanuts — a victim of recession cutbacks at the Agency as much as the prevalence of peanut allergies among the younger agents.

Maria stiffened upon thinking of those younger agents. Her son.

As an agent, he was rubbish— he had joined only to get girls but quickly grew disillusioned when he realized that “secret” agents weren’t supposed to use the job as a pick-up line.

But he was her son, and he had been grievously injured.

Who would do such a thing?