“Keep me posted.”

Control ended the call.

Duffy stood and collected his holstered pistol from the back of his chair. He put it on.

Time to go to work.

Duffy and McNulty drew up at the hotel. They were in an unmarked Land Rover, with the four men that they had brought along for the job in another Land Rover behind them. Each man was armed with a semi-automatic, and McNulty had a Remington Model 870 Pump in a sports bag that was stowed in the back.

Duffy picked up the handheld radio and thumbed the channel open. “Wide awake, boys,” he said. “The target is a serious player. Eyes open.”

“How serious?” McNulty said beside him.

“You don’t want to know.”

Duffy got out of the Land Rover and made his way to the hotel’s entrance. It was plush, at least as far as Basra went, and he was a little surprised that Beatrix Rose would have considered this a suitable place to stay. It was hardly low-key, for one. It would have been more usual for a member of the Group to find somewhere deep in the city, somewhere that no self-respecting tourist would ever consider, in order to rise out of the background, do the job and then fall back out of sight once again. But his contact in the local police had reported that a foreigner who matched Rose’s description had checked in to the hotel. She was a striking woman, especially here. There couldn’t be many like her in a city like this. It was a good lead, the best that they had received. They had to check it out.

His contact from the Basra police department was waiting in the lobby with two of his colleagues. The man was called Tariq, and he was the most crooked man that Duffy had ever met.

“Did you get it?” Duffy asked.

“I did.” He held up a sheet of paper. “A judicial search order.”

“Any trouble?”

Tariq smiled his brightest, most avaricious smile. “No trouble, Mr Duffy. You have something for me?”

“Sure.” He handed over an envelope. “Five hundred dollars for you and your friends. Knock yourselves out.”

“We must come up with you. We will open the door, and then if she is there, and you happen to go inside?” He spread his hands wide. “What can we do?”

The blonde woman and her companion had checked into adjoining rooms on the fourth floor. Duffy left one of his men in the lobby and sent another two up the stairs. The Iraqi police went up in the first lift, and Duffy, McNulty and the fourth operative took the second.

“Think she’s here?” McNulty asked him as the lift ascended.

“I don’t know.” He slipped his hand inside his jacket and drew out the Walther PPK that he had holstered beneath his arm. “Best to assume that she is.”

The fourth-floor lobby was empty. The two operatives who had taken the stairs appeared, and Duffy told them to stand guard. Tariq told his two colleagues to do the same and set off down the corridor, stopping outside room 415.