“It’s crossed my mind.”

“Quinn murdered the princess.”

“According to a source inside Iranian intelligence,” said Gabriel pointedly.

“How soon can we move?”

“After my funeral.”

Returning to Wormwood Cottage, he found a change of clothing lying folded at the foot of his bed. He showered, dressed, and climbed once more into the back of the paneled van. This time, it bore him eastward to a safe house in Highgate. The house was familiar to him; he had operated there before. Entering, he tossed his coat over the back of a chair in the sitting room and climbed the stairs to a small study on the second floor. It had an arrow slit of a window overlooking the cul-de-sac, a dead man’s view. Rain gurgled in the gutters, pigeons wept in the eaves. Thirty minutes passed, long enough for darkness to fall and a row of streetlamps to flicker hesitantly to life. Then a gray car came crawling up the slope of the hill, driven with what appeared to be inordinate care. It parked in front of the safe house and the driver, a young, harmless-looking man, climbed out. A woman climbed out, too—the woman who would inform the world of his tragic death. He looked at his watch and smiled. She was late. She always was.

36

HIGHGATE, LONDON

ABSOLUTELY NOT,” said Samantha Cooke. “Not now, not ever. Not in a million bloody years.”

“Why not?”

“Shall I count the reasons?”

She was standing in the middle of the sitting room, one hand suspended, the palm upturned, the inquisitor awaiting her answer. Upon entering, she had dropped her handbag onto the seat of a faded wing chair, but she had yet to remove her sodden coat. Her hair was ash blond and shoulder length, her eyes were blue and naturally probing. At present, they were fixed incredulously on Gabriel’s face. A year earlier he had given Samantha Cooke and her newspaper, the Telegraph, one of the biggest exclusives in the history of British journalism—an interview with Madeline Hart, the Russian spy who had been the prime minister’s secret lover. Now he was asking for a favor in return. Another exclusive, this one concerning his death.

“For starters,” she was saying, “it wouldn’t be ethical. Not by a mile.”

“I do love it when British journalists talk about ethics.”

“I don’t work for a tabloid. I work for a quality broadsheet.”

“Which is why I need you. If the story appears in the Telegraph, people will think it’s true. If it appears in the—”

“You’ve made your point.” She shed her coat and tossed it atop her handbag. “I think I need a drink.”

Gabriel nodded toward the trolley.

“Join me?”

“It’s a bit early in the day for me, Samantha.”

“Me, too. I have a story to write.”

“What’s it about?”

“Jonathan Lancaster’s newest plan to fix the National Health Service. Truly riveting stuff.”