Lodge explained the situation during the ride. "Our men, along with Special Branch, are all over Heathrow and the surrounding areas. We're working with the airport police, too. One of our people spotted a suspect with a missile launcher on the rooftop of a private home. We have surveillance there now. We don't want to go in, for obvious reasons, made only too clear yesterday. He's bound to be watching the neighborhood. I wouldn't doubt it for a minute."

One of the other detectives asked, "Do we have an idea who it is inside the house, sir? Have we sussed out anything at all?"

"The house is rented. It belongs to a property developer. Pakistani, if that means anything. We don't know who the tenants are yet. The house is a few hundred yards from the runways at Heathrow. Need I say more?"

I looked over at Lodge, who had his arms wrapped tightly around his chest. "Very nasty stuff," he said. "Understatement of the year, right, Alex?"

"I've had that feeling for a while. Ever since I first encountered the Wolf. He enjoys hurting people."

"You have no idea who he is, Alex? What makes him this way?"

"He seems to change his identity on a regular basis. He . . . or she? We got close a couple of times. Maybe we'll get lucky now."

"It better happen soon."

We arrived at our destination in Feltham a few minutes later. Lodge and I met up with SO19, British Specialist Operations, who would execute the raid. Police surveillance had video monitors set up inside several nearby buildings. Tape was being shot from half a dozen different cameras.

"Like watching a movie. Nothing we can do to influence the action," Lodge said after we'd studied the videos for a few minutes. What an impossible mess. We weren't supposed to be there. We'd been warned against it. But how could we go away?

Lodge had a list of all the flights scheduled into Heathrow that morning. In the next hour or so, more than thirty flights would be arriving. The next few were from Eindhoven, three from Edinburgh, two from Aberdeen, then a British Airways flight from New York. Serious discussions were being held about halting all flights into both Heathrow and Gatwick, but no decision had yet been made. The jet from New York was due in nineteen minutes.

One of the police pointed.

"There's someone on the roof! There! There he is!"

Two monitors showed the rooftop from opposite angles. A man in dark clothing had appeared. Then a second man, this one carrying a small surface-to-air missile launcher, came out of a hatchway.

"Fucking hell," somebody hissed. Tempers were running very high now. Mine, too.

"Reroute all the flights now! We have no choice," Lodge barked. "Do our snipers have these two bastards covered?"