Slow Horses

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes portrayals of racist and sexist attitudes and language, and expletives, and makes reference to alcohol dependency, extremist terrorist activity, kidnapping, threat, violence, violent death, death by suicide, and gory detail.

River Cartwright is looking for a target: It is early on a Tuesday morning, and London’s King’s Cross station is crowded with commuters. He is told to be on the lookout for a young man in a blue shirt with a white T-shirt underneath. While he is looking for the target, he thinks about his latest assessment, to follow a public figure without being spotted: His chosen figure happened to have a stroke, so River took the initiative to follow Diana “Lady Di” Taverner, Second Desk at Regent’s Park. He was successful.

River spots his own target and takes him down; he searches the man’s belongings and finds nothing. River then sees a man in a white shirt with a blue T-shirt underneath: He realizes that his handler, James “Spider” Webb, has fed him the wrong information. River chases the correct target through the station, but it is to no avail: “The target pulled a cord on his belt.