Lisa stepped forward as the President and his entourage left the hospital room. She looked as if she was going to say something but then changed her mind. Instead, she kissed her husband on the mouth, hard and with feeling. It was Howard who broke away first. Clutesi was grinning.

“Any news of Carlos?” Howard asked.

“Not yet, but he won’t get far,” Clutesi answered. “Kelly Armstrong was just asking me the same question.”

“She’s here?”

“Downstairs. They were treating her for shock but she was checking herself out when I saw her. She was with Hennessy when she was killed. She was covered in her blood.”

“How come?”

Clutesi shrugged. “She was up in the stands when the SWAT sniper took Hennessy out.” Clutesi stood by the window. He slanted the blinds so that he could look down at the road below.

“That seems like a hell of a coincidence,” said Sanger.

Clutesi saw Kelly Armstrong leave the main entrance and walk purposefully down the road, her blonde hair swinging gently in the breeze. She was a real stunner, thought Clutesi, and from the way she swung her hips she knew it. There was something familiar about her, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He’d seen her before at the same angle, looking down at her from a window. Clutesi clasped a hand to the back of his neck. A bar. She’d been going into a bar and he’d been on surveillance. It came to him in a rush and he slapped his hand against his leg. “Now I remember!” he shouted.

The Colonel came wide awake, all his senses alert. He turned his head to look at the bedside clock. It was three o’clock in the morning. He lay back and listened, allowing his mind to roam among the rooms of his cottage, trying to find the source of the noise which had woken him. The Colonel was a light sleeper, but he was never disturbed by the sounds of the countryside: barking foxes, hunting owls or sheep kicking over rocks. It must have been something else.

His nearest neighbours were a mile away, a working farm owned by a former Merchant Navy captain, and it wasn’t unusual to hear tractors starting up at first light. But it was still dark outside, and if it had been a tractor or any other sort of vehicle, he’d have heard the sound for some time.

The Colonel sat up slowly. He slept naked and the sheets whispered as they slid down his chest. The road which led to his cottage was dotted with potholes and it was impossible for anyone to drive down without the vehicle rattling and banging. And for twenty feet around his cottage there was a layer of gravel chippings, several inches deep. It was impossible to approach the dwelling silently.