“My God,” Gabriel said, “he moves just like his father.”

“Are you sure?”

Gabriel went to the radio and raised the watcher outside the Palais de Justice.

“Did you see that couple who just walked by the building?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are they now?”

“Hold on.” A silence while the Ayin changed position. “Heading up the street, toward the gardens.”

“Can you follow them?”

“It’s dead quiet down here. I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Damn it.”

“Just a minute.”

“What?”

“Hold on.”

“What’s going on?”

“They’re turning around.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. They’re retracing their steps.”

Gabriel looked up at the monitor just as they entered the shot again, this time from the opposite direction. Once again the woman was facing the street, and once again the man had his hand in the back pocket of her jeans. They stopped at the door of Number 56. The man drew a key from his pocket.

19 SURREY, ENGLAND

19

SURREY, ENGLAND

AT THE STRATFORD CLINIC IT WAS JUST AFTER TEN in the evening when Amira Assaf came out of the elevator and set off down the fourth-floor corridor. Rounding the first corner, she spotted the bodyguard, sitting on a chair outside Miss Martinson’s room. He looked up as Amira approached and closed the book he was reading.

“I need to make sure she’s sleeping comfortably,” Amira said.

The bodyguard nodded and got to his feet. He wasn’t surprised by Amira’s request. She’d been stopping by the room every night at this time for the past month.

She opened the door and went inside. The bodyguard followed after her and closed the door behind him. A lamp, dimmed to its lowest setting, was burning softly. Amira went to the side of the bed and looked down. Miss Martinson was sound asleep. Hardly a surprise—Amira had given her twice her usual dosage of sedative. She’d be out for several more hours.

Amira adjusted the blankets, then opened the top drawer of the bedside table. The gun, a silenced Walther nine-millimeter, was precisely where she had left it earlier that afternoon while Miss Martinson was still in the solarium. She seized the weapon by the grip, then spun round and leveled the gun at the bodyguard’s chest. He reached inside his jacket in a lightning-fast movement. Before his hand emerged, Amira fired twice, the double-tap of a trained killer. Both shots struck the upper chest. The bodyguard tumbled backward onto the floor. Amira stood over him and fired two more shots.

SHE DREW A SERIES of deep breaths to quell the intense wave of nausea that washed over her. Then she went to the telephone and dialed an internal hospital extension.

“Would you please ask Hamid to come up to Miss Martinson’s room? There’s some linen that needs to be collected before the truck leaves.”