Evan was still thinking about The Kiss when he arrived at the office Monday morning, this time via the subway from Buchanan Street to Kinning Park. It was his least favorite route, culminating in a sometimes dodgy thirteen-minute trudge through Southside Glasgow, but nothing could dim his mood today.

He couldn’t remember the last time a kiss was just a kiss and not a preamble to something “more,” a kiss that wouldn’t get lost in the fog of subsequent fumbling and fucking. This kiss had been a single pure act Evan could hang on the wall of his memory like a favorite painting in a gilded frame. For the rest of the week he could pull out the memory of this kiss—admire it, relive it—whenever he needed to feel real.

As he booted up his computer to read the daily threat assessment, Evan hummed a bouncy tune that had been stuck in his head since Saturday night in the coffee shop with Ben.

“Awfully cheery for a yin whose career is hanging by a thread.”

Evan looked up to see Detective Sergeant Deirdre Fowles, dressed in plainclothes and bearing a visitors pass on a lanyard round her neck.

He answered her banter with a smile. “I thought our Caps Lock meeting wasn’t until eight.”

“Our bosses are having a ‘pre-meeting’ to discuss SCD’s internal review of the last wedding.”

“Have you read it? Am I still on the operation?”

She looked round, then pulled up a chair close to Evan’s. “I’ve not read all of it, but I wrote one part, about some new intelligence you’ll like.”

“Yes!” Evan pumped both fists.

“What’s got you over the moon this morning? Hot date?”

“Actually…”

Deirdre’s jaw dropped. “I was joking, but that’s brilliant. Gaun yersel, lad!” She gave his shoulder a hearty punch.

Evan couldn’t help beaming as he briefly outlined his date with Ben. It felt odd to tell a story in such a casual way, completely unlike debriefing a superior or confessing to a therapist. It meant Evan had a life again.

As Deirdre recounted her own Valentine’s Day escapades, they were interrupted by intelligence analyst Lewis Sawyer, along with Ned Carmichael, king of all things technical.

“Oi, lad and lass.” Lewis waved to get their attention. “It’s meetin’ time.”

Ned pointed at Evan. “Kay specifically requested your presence.”

“And you know what that means.” Lewis gave a toothy grin. “You’ve been exonerated, ya wild rogue, you.”

When Evan entered the meeting room, Detective Inspector Hayward was sitting beside Kay, who as always was positioned at the head of the table. To Evan’s surprise, DI Hayward met his eye and gave him a nod of respect, which Evan promptly returned. It was best for the operation if the two of them left their quarrel in the past, pronto.

He hoped that his eight-day hiatus from Operation Caps Lock hadn’t jeopardized his link with Jordan. As instructed, Evan had sent a message to him early last week saying Gunnar was going out of town for an undefined length of time.

Kay opened the meeting, then handed things off to Hayward, who asked DS Fowles to present the latest in police intelligence.

Deirdre had them turn to page three of the report she’d distributed. “After the wedding, the key question was why Jordan Lithgow—Code Name: Backspace—failed to show up for his allegedly planned attack. It was suggested that he’d been unwittingly tipped off by the behavior of our undercover MI5 officer.”

Evan scanned ahead in the report for evidence it wasn’t his fault.

Deirdre continued. “Backspace was clever enough to use a burner phone for his BVP communications. Sadly for him, he wasn’t clever enough to destroy that phone before chucking it in a rubbish bin near his flat. Our surveillance officers retrieved it that night.”

Evan suppressed a smirk as he read the transcript of a text-message spat between Jordan and a BVP leader, dated a few hours before the wedding.

[Unidentified person, thought to be BVP chairman David Wallace]: Don’t even fucking think about this thing you want to do tonight.

[Backspace]: WHY NOT???

[Unidentified]: Not part of our mission. Trying to reach mainstream folk, mind?

[Backspace]: Fuck mainstream. I’m not alone. Met a comrade.

Evan assumed Jordan was referring to him.

[Unidentified]: Don’t care. You do this and we disavow you in a heartbeat. Focus on the big picture and the real enemy, mate.

Based on the time stamps, Jordan’s reply took several minutes:

ok

“BVP’s ultimate goal,” Deidre said, “is to attract new members and gain a louder voice within society. The ‘real enemies’ referred to here are immigrants, especially Muslim ones.”

“Evan, your reaction?” Kay asked.

“I’m a bit surprised that Backspace is bowing to this guy’s wishes,” Evan said. “With me, he acts like he’s one of BVP’s leaders, but this clearly shows he’s second tier.”

“Based on your knowledge of his personality,” Hayward asked, “do you think he’ll listen, or do you think he’ll go rogue, especially if he thinks you’ve got his back?”

Evan considered it. “He seems to identify with this organization, so I think for now he’ll obey orders. But Jordan craves approval and camaraderie. If he gets that from me, he might not care so much what the BVP leader says.” He blanched as he followed the trail of logic. “Then he’d be more likely to attack a same-sex wedding.”

“Let’s consider a change in strategy,” Kay said. “Evan, we’ll need you to cement Backspace’s ties to BVP. They’re holding an anti-immigration rally in Glasgow on the twenty-eighth. Cozy up to David Wallace, show Backspace he can’t use you to defy his leader.” His supervisor tapped the chewed-up cap of her pen against the report. “As a bonus, you can get us a list of other Orange Order members attending—technically they are MI5’s whole connection to this operation.”

Evan nodded. The investigation had to cover some form of sectarian conflict or risk veering out of MI5’s purview. He couldn’t understand why the agency still distinguished between right-wing “domestic extremism” and outright terrorism. A neo-Nazi’s victim would be just as dead as one killed by the IRA or al-Qaeda.

When the meeting wrapped up, Kay dismissed the rest of the team and asked Evan to stay. Lewis gave him a surreptitious thumbs-up as he sauntered out.

When they were alone—as alone as anyone ever was at MI5—Kay turned to Evan. “I’m pleased the joint review supports my response at the post-op debriefing.” She cocked her head. “You remember that debriefing—the one featuring a boxful of stray cat. How’s he doing, by the way?”

“She’s well, thanks. Getting spayed today. So what’s this private meeting about? I thought I wasn’t in trouble.”

“You’re not. But the wedding did raise another issue.” She folded her hands atop a three-inch stack of reports. “When you returned to Glasgow after Belfast, we hoped you’d continue your exemplary personal distance from your outside acquaintances.”

Exemplary personal distance, i.e., lying to everyone he cared about.

Kay continued. “But this man you’re involved with, his profession makes him a potential victim, which makes you incapable of being impartial.”

Evan looked away and scratched his neck, his collar suddenly itchy. He wanted to say Ben didn’t matter to him. He wanted it to be true. But even if he could convince himself, Kay would never believe it.

Instead he said, “My interest in Mr. Reid didn’t affect my decision not to use him as terrorist bait. I would’ve done the same if he’d been a perfect stranger.” He remembered what he’d learned on their date. “If it helps, Ben quit doing weddings. He’s got just one more, on the twenty-eighth.”

“That does help, actually.” Kay made a note on her jotter.

Evan weighed whether to push his luck on Caps Lock. He wanted to surveil Ben’s final wedding, but knew if he mentioned it now he risked looking biased. On the other hand, surveillance ops required lots of planning, and with the wedding less than two weeks away…

“Could you also request a police presence at that event? In case—” Evan swallowed. “In case something happens.”

“There’s been no specific threat like there was on the seventh. Police Scotland can’t afford armed officers at every same-sex wedding.”

“There aren’t many—a few per week at most, now the big rush is over. Most are small ceremonies or simple conversions of civil partnerships to marriages. Not exactly easy or tempting targets for terrorists.”

Kay set down her pen in that way she had: deliberately, with both hands, as though its ink was combustible. “Evan, your three years in T Branch are nearly over, and the other branches have no open positions at the Glasgow office.”

He hadn’t wanted to think about moving, but the looming possibility had haunted him for months. “Is that a change of subject, or…”

“Not really.” She sighed. “I do wonder whether you’ll be better off at Thames House with a clean slate.”

Evan cursed himself. By appearing desperate to protect Ben, he may have just signed his own relocation to London. “I don’t need a clean slate.”

“You might find work easier in a place with no attachments.”

“My dad works at Thames House. He’s an attachment.”

“I meant attachments outside the Service.” Her eyes crinkled. “It can’t be easy being the son of an MI5 legend. I can understand why you’d want to carve out your own niche here in Glasgow, but you’ll never reach your potential in this remote outpost.”

“Compared to Orkney, Glasgow feels like the center of the universe. And I love how having a small staff means we all do a bit of everything.” On any given day, Evan could find himself making copies and coffee, then installing surveillance equipment, then meeting undercover with a ruthless killer before returning to Clyde House to answer the anti-terrorism hotline. “In London I’d be forced to specialize in one narrow subject.”

“That’s how you become an indispensable expert.”

“That’s how I die of boredom.” He slid forward to the edge of his chair. “Back on the farm, everyone in my family has to know how to do every task. Being an indispensable expert means when you’re gone, your work doesn’t get done. Seems a dodgy way to operate.” At her level look, he shifted in his seat. “In my entirely unseasoned opinion, that is.”

Kay sighed again. “Your versatility has served you well here. But when the Service wants you in London, that’s where you’ll go.”

“I’ll work wherever I can best serve. But if you’ve any influence that could keep me here a while longer…”

“Not much influence.” She gave a grim smile. “But maybe enough for now.”

On his way back to his desk a few minutes later, Evan gave his colleagues a confident grin to show them everything had gone well and he was still on Operation Caps Lock.

But all he could think about was being trapped inside the concrete behemoth of Thames House. He probably wouldn’t go out into the field again for years, because at headquarters, MI5 would have dozens of more experienced undercover officers.

If Evan wanted to stay in this job, then sooner or later London would be his home. Which meant nearly everyone he cared about, including Ben, would be left far behind.