The waitress brought coffee, which he drank while reading Graham Greene’s novelization of The Third Man, because he’d seen it in the window of a bookstore near the hotel and decided that if he was going to read one book set in Vienna, The Third Man might as well be it. Since it was really a novella, it was also short. As Angel grew older, long books became less appealing to him. He was increasingly conscious of his own mortality, an inevitable consequence of surviving cancer, and was therefore aware that, sooner rather than later, he would start a book he would not live to finish. There was, he had decided, little point in trying to get to grips with Proust’s In Search of Lost Time at this late stage of his life, but if he were suddenly to be taken ill with The Third Man in his hand, he could probably manage to finish it in the ambulance.

His cell phone beeped. He checked the message, expecting to see something from Hendricksen, but the text had come from Louis. It read simply: LB located and marked.

So, Luca Bilbija had not only been found but was also in Louis’s sights. All things going well, Bilbija would soon be dead. The effect on the Vuksans, Angel knew, would be similar to throwing a flaming torch into an ants’ nest. The Vuksans would now be aware beyond any doubt that they and their people were being targeted. Their choice would be to remain wherever they were hiding or seek new ground. Angel figured they’d stay where they were; to break cover would mean revealing themselves.

Louis was convinced that the Vuksans were, if not in Vienna, then in the vicinity of the city, because they would want to be close to Frend. If the Vuksans trusted the lawyer as much as Harris and his fellow spooks seemed to believe, then he had access to funds, documents, even passports. Now that the Vuksans were the subject of an Interpol Red Notice – a communication from Ross had informed Louis of this latest development – it meant that receiving electronic transfers of large sums of cash would become difficult for them, especially since their known accounts were being monitored. Whatever they required would have to be sourced and delivered the old-fashioned way, which meant that, at some point, Frend would have to meet the Vuksans face-to-face, or work through someone who was only one step removed from them. Hendricksen might already have made progress on that front.

Angel threw back the last of his coffee and paid the check in cash. He took a detour past the tiny Loos American Bar on the Kärntner Passage but the music was too loud for him and the patrons had spilled out onto the street. Instead he returned to the hotel and tried Hendricksen’s room and cell phone. Once again, he received no reply.

Only then did he begin to worry.