‘It wasn’t quite that simple,’ Weiss said. ‘The intelligence services as a whole know nothing of this. Hence my little performances at the service station and on the Hoe in Plymouth. They were staged so I could say you’d been investigated. I wanted to make sure your name was in the system, but the reports I submitted were tagged with the label no further action. Spooks watch spooks, and anyone observing either incident would have concluded there was absolutely nothing friendly about our meetings.’

‘And the break-in at my mother’s house?’

‘Yes, a ruse. The break-in sowed the seeds of a conspiracy in your mind. As did the act of pushing you into the water.’

‘You could have killed me.’

‘Time was short and we needed to spur you on. By then we’d already identified Positano as possibly the last chance to carry out some kind of attack, at least on non-US soil. The problem was, we needed deniability. A bomb or a close-quarters assault was much more likely to go wrong or be traceable. A sniper attack, on the other hand, could see Hope killed with a single shot, carried a low risk of other casualties and stood little chance of detection. It just so happened you appeared on the scene. Not only one of the world’s best shots, but somebody with the motivation to carry out the attack.’

‘And if I’d succeeded you’d have given me up afterwards, right?’

‘That might have seemed a good option, but it would have been much too risky. At some point connections would be made. Matthew is a freelancer, but he’s been in the intelligence services earlier in his career. Far better for us to ensure you killed Hope and made your escape.’

‘But I didn’t.’

‘No.’ Weiss sighed. ‘And that brings us to the here and now and our little problem.’

‘Which is?’

Weiss scraped his chair away from the table and stood. He glanced across at Fairchild before walking across the room. He stopped at the door and turned.

‘Karen Hope.’ He reached out and hit the door frame with a clenched fist. Tap, tap, tap. ‘And how we’re going to make sure you get another chance to kill her.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

Taher stood and looked through the window. This time the vista was not of the crowded streets of London, but of rows of olive trees on a vast plain that stretched to the border with Algeria. Sand dunes rippled the horizon, reminding him of home, reminding him of why he was here in Tunisia waiting for the weapons.