After fifty minutes in the vehicle he parked on King Street and continued his SDR on foot. He meandered through the neighborhood for thirty minutes, wandering into gift shops and antique stores, heading down side streets and then back up again on the other side. At twelve fifteen he stepped into a sandwich shop and ordered a pastrami on rye. Eating his lunch at a counter by the window, he kept his eyes out on the street, all the while searching for anyone who might be following him.

His trained eyes saw nothing out of the ordinary, so at twelve thirty he threw the remainder of his sandwich away, headed north on King Street, and then ducked into the courtyard in front of the Kimpton Lorien Hotel.

Once in the lobby he walked straight to the counter and asked for a suite for one night with an early check-in. He used a credit card from a cover identity he kept ready and the woman behind the counter gave him the card key to his fourth-floor suite. He stepped around to the bank of elevators behind the check-in desk, and while he did so a distinguished-looking man stepped out of the men’s room and walked over to the elevator bank to wait alongside him.

The two men stood in silence as the car delivered them to the fourth floor. There Denny walked down the hall to his suite, and the other man followed. No words were exchanged.

They entered the suite together and Denny shut the door.

The man who shadowed him in was in his early fifties, lean and handsome in his gray pinstripe suit. Olive-skinned and delicately featured, he had a kind, gentle bearing about him, in sharp contrast to the stern manner of Denny Carmichael.

Only when the door was shut behind the two men did the olive-complected man offer a handshake to the American.

He spoke perfect English with only a slight accent. “Nice to see you, Denny.”

“Hello, Kaz.”

Carmichael turned away, took a cell phone–sized device out of his pocket, and turned it on. He headed to the center of the room and placed it on a coffee table. It was a radio frequency signal jammer, designed to block the transmissions given off by eavesdropping devices.

While he did this Kaz took off his suit coat and hung it over a chair, and then he moved to the sofa. There he sat calmly and watched Denny adjust the instrument.

Kaz was not his name, but Denny had called him this for fifteen years, because Kaz was easier to say than Murquin al-Kazaz. He was now chief of station here in the United States for Riasat Al-Istikhbarat Al-Amah, the intelligence agency of Saudi Arabia, but the two had known each other since back when Kaz was a lowly operative in Saudi intel.

The Saudi smiled while watching Denny. “Clandestine meetings in hotel rooms. This feels like the good old days, my friend.”