Invisible Sun (Empire Games, #3)

by Charles Stross

Compartmentalization meant that Angie and her cell were not supposed to know the identity or location of Kurt’s lamplighters. They were part of another cell, tasked with preparing accommodation and materials in advance. Kurt and Angie, as cell leaders, knew each other and coordinated the activities of their teams. Unfortunately there was no higher tier of management to keep them insulated, as would have been the case in a functioning intelligence bureaucracy. The Wolf Orchestra was the only surviving fragment of a long-dead agency: Kurt knew everyone, and could blow the entire ring if he was captured. But things would be structured to keep him as far from the opposition as possible. Direct contact was best left to the young, the dedicated, and the stupidly, recklessly angry—characteristics that weren’t in short supply in the twenty-first century.