The ride took thirty minutes, and approaching downtown Slaton began to study his surroundings. How long since he’d been to Stockholm? Eight years? Ten? Things would have changed. Things like how you bought a bus ticket and which local football clubs were playing well. He supposed surveillance cameras were everywhere now, watching businesses and municipal parking lots and traffic corridors. His Swedish would hold up, he was sure of that, but for the moment it was of little use. Edmund Deadmarsh, a man who lugged stone blocks across well-manicured Virginia lawns, ought not be fluent in six languages.

The cab turned onto a busy thoroughfare. Slaton soon saw the harbor, and with another turn he spotted his objective in the distance. It stood wide and tall, like a granite throne at the water’s edge—the Strand Hotel. He settled back and sequenced his thoughts. Christine was here, somewhere, yet he had no more than a starting point. It struck him that he didn’t even know her room number. Again Slaton admonished himself. For a year he had relaxed, allowed his skills to tarnish. He had practiced recycling instead of marksmanship. Planned grocery lists instead of countersurveillance. Now Christine was suffering, and it was a direct result of his half-measures. A direct result of his carelessness.

He would not be careless again.

*   *   *

Slaton was dropped at the hotel awning at 1:14 in the afternoon. He settled with the driver, then gave the bellman his bag and a ten-dollar bill, saying he’d be back shortly. The size of the gratuity was well considered. Enough to be remembered when he claimed his bag in an hour or two. Not enough to be remembered tomorrow.

Slaton turned sharply away from the entrance and started up the street. He was already quite sure he was not being followed. In truth, he wished it were the case, because any tail would likely be a lead to Christine. He walked straight to Berzelii Park, at the head of the waterway, and turned right. He navigated a misaligned web of streets, making two brief stops, and paused to marvel at the nouveau architecture of the Royal Dramatic Theater. Changing course, he weaved westward until he came to the Kungsträdgården, and there he passed a statue of Charles XIII, the much maligned king of the early nineteenth century, before meandering the park’s well-manicured gardens with an approving eye. With one more left turn, at the Strömbron bridge, Slaton picked up his pace. He ended back at the Strand Hotel at 1:41, twenty-seven minutes after he’d started.