‘Lady Helena is more than capable of defending herself and her daughter,’ said Nightingale. ‘Or at least of fending him off for long enough that we can sweep in heroically like the Seventh Cavalry.’

Burning tipis and shooting women and children, I thought.

And with that cheerful notion I had a root around in the stakeout bag Molly had provided. One of the wrapped sandwiches had a large H written on the outside – I handed it to Guleed as the rest were all unmarked. I played pot luck and got a suspiciously mundane ham salad sandwich. Nightingale said he’d have his later.

Kubat reported that Lady Helena and her daughter had arrived.

‘They’ve sat down at his table,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t seem surprised to see them.’

Nightingale asked if they’d ordered drinks.

‘Not yet,’ said Kubat.

‘Whatever happens, do not engage,’ said Nightingale. ‘If there’s a Falcon incident you may lose radio contact. Don’t panic, don’t engage the targets. Instead I want you to concentrate on evacuating the civilians.’

Kubat acknowledged and Nightingale contacted Seawoll, who was Gold Commander for the operation.

‘Alexander, can you get some men looking for Lady Helena’s car?’ he said, and rattled off the index from memory. ‘Once they have located it, can you disable it in some fashion?’

Seawoll said they could do better than that, and have Vehicle Recovery lift it onto one of their flatbeds and drive it away.

‘That should limit their options,’ said Nightingale.

Kubat reported that the older IC1 female and Reynard Fossman were having an argument, albeit conducted in angry whispers. The IC3 female, on the other hand, was looking bored and indifferent.

‘Well, if this continues,’ said Nightingale, ‘we might just scoop them all up when they find their car is missing.’

Three minutes later I got a call from an unlisted number – it was Special Agent Kimberley Reynolds.

‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ she asked.

‘Bad,’ I said, and put her on speaker.

‘One of our Virgins let slip some information while I was debriefing them,’ she said. ‘We think there’s a second team operating in London and we think they might have been tasked with the apprehension of Reynard Fossman.’

I would have sworn loudly, but Kimberley had some views about blasphemy and I like to be polite.

‘You’re cussing aren’t you?’ she said after a moment. ‘Well, stop it because you don’t have the time. We think they’re running an operation right now, in and around Mayfair.’

‘Damn,’ said Nightingale. ‘That’s inconvenient.’

I wanted to know who ‘we’ were – I suspected Kimberley was drawing on support from both the FBI and the NSA, but it’s not like she would tell me if she was and I didn’t have time to ask.

‘And the good news?’ I asked.

‘We think it’s a small team,’ said Kimberley. ‘Four people tops.’