“Victoria Street,” said Carter calmly. “She’s about to cross Storey’s Gate into the Sanctuary. She’s wearing a blond wig and a tan raincoat.”

“Shaheeds?”

“One on each arm.”

“Halton has just condemned two men to death, Adrian. Is he sure?”

“He’s sure.”

“Get him out of there. Now.”

Carter took Robert Halton by the elbow and led him toward Great George Street, with Sarah trailing two paces behind. Gabriel and Mikhail stood in unison and started walking. Sarah was watching them. Look away, he thought. Keep walking and look away.

They paused for a few seconds on the corner of Parliament Square to allow a London bus to rattle past, then quickly crossed the street and entered the grounds of the Abbey. Mikhail walked on Gabriel’s left, his breath shallow and fast, the footfalls sharp and crisp, like an echo of Gabriel’s own. Gabriel’s Beretta was on his left hip and the butt was pressing painfully against a broken rib. A split second is all he would have. A split second to get his weapon off his hip and into firing position. When he was a boy, like Mikhail, he could do it in the time it took most men to clap their hands. And now? He walked on.

They passed through the thin shadows beneath the trees where Carter and Halton had been standing a few seconds earlier. When they emerged again into the sunlight, they saw Elizabeth and her escorts for the first time, moving deliberately along the sidewalk close to the northern façade of the Abbey. Her eyes were concealed behind a large pair of movie-starlet sunglasses, and her hands were in her coat pockets. A shaheed was holding each arm. Their free hands were shoved into the outward-facing pockets of their heavy jackets.

“They’ve got their fingers on the detonator switches, Mikhail. You see it?”

“I see it.”

“Do you see the people behind them? When we start shooting, you can’t miss.”

“I won’t miss.”

“You have your cigarettes?”

“I’m ready.”

“Keep walking.”

Two hundred worshippers were still standing outside the North Tower, waiting patiently to be admitted. Gabriel put a hand on Mikhail’s elbow and nudged him along the fringes of the crowd, onto the intersecting walkway. Elizabeth and the terrorists were directly in front of them, forty yards away and closing fast. One second, thought Gabriel. One second.

Cain’s fingers were digging into her upper arm and his hand was shaking with fear. She wondered why they had decided to release her in a crowded public place like Westminster Abbey. Then Cain murmured something to Abel in Arabic that made her feel as though a stone had been laid over her heart and Elizabeth realized that she had been brought to this place not to be freed but to be executed.