“What about his motorcade?”

“Assassinating a head of state in a moving car is nearly impossible.”

“Tell that to Archduke Ferdinand. Or President Kennedy.”

“Abdullah won’t be in an open-top car, and the streets will be entirely cleared of traffic and parked cars.”

“So where will they make their attempt?”

Gabriel looked down at the schedule. “May I?”

Lancaster pushed it across the tabletop. It was of the one-page variety, bullet points only. Arrival at Heathrow at nine a.m. Meeting between the British and Saudi delegations at Downing Street from ten thirty to one p.m., followed by a working lunch. The crown prince was scheduled to leave Number 10 at half past three and travel by motorcade to his private residence in Belgravia for several hours of rest. He was scheduled to return to Downing Street at eight p.m. for dinner. Departure for Heathrow was tentatively set for ten.

“If I had to guess,” said Gabriel, pointing toward one of the entries, “it will happen here.”

The prime minister pointed to an entry of his own. “What if it happens here?” His fingertip moved down the page. “Or here?” There was a silence. Then Lancaster said, “I’d rather not be a collateral casualty, if you understand my meaning.”

“I do,” answered Gabriel.

“Perhaps we should increase security at Downing Street even more than we’d planned.”

“Perhaps you should.”

“I don’t suppose you’re available.”

“I’d be honored, Prime Minister. But I’m afraid the Saudi delegation would find my presence curious, to say the least.”

“What about Keller?”

“A much better choice.”

Lancaster’s gaze moved slowly around the room. “Of all the momentous decisions that have been made within these walls . . .” He looked at Graham Seymour. “I reserve the right to order the arrest of those two Russians at any moment tomorrow.”

“Of course, Prime Minister.”

“If anything goes wrong, you will be blamed, not me. I did not order, condone, or play any role in this whatsoever. Is that clear?”

Seymour nodded once.

“Good.” Lancaster closed his eyes. “And may God have mercy on us all.”

60

Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex

Christopher Keller remained at the Bedford House Hotel until three a.m., when he slipped from the rear service entrance and hiked north along the promenade to Walton-on-the-Naze. The car was waiting outside Terry’s Antiques & Secondhand in Station Street. Keller walked past it twice before dropping into the passenger seat. The driver was a field support agent who went by the name Tony. As he eased away from the curb, Keller reclined his seat and closed his eyes. He had spent the last two nights in a hotel room with a beautiful American woman of whom he had grown quite fond. He needed a couple hours of sleep.

He woke to a vision of robed men moving along a street in semidarkness. It was only the Edgware Road. Tony followed it to Marble Arch. He crossed the park on West Carriage Drive and then made his way through the still-slumbering streets of Kensington to Keller’s exclusive address in Queen’s Gate Terrace.

“Nice,” remarked Tony enviously.

“Nine o’clock okay?”

“I’d feel better about half past eight. The traffic is going to be a nightmare.”

Keller climbed out, crossed the pavement, and descended the steps to the lower entrance of his maisonette. Inside, he loaded the automatic with Volvic and Carte Noire and watched BBC Breakfast while the coffee brewed. Crown Prince Abdullah’s visit to Downing Street had managed to displace Brexit as the lead story. The analysts were expecting a warm meeting and many Saudi promises of future arms purchases. London’s Metropolitan Police Service, however, was braced for a difficult day, with thousands of demonstrators expected to gather in Trafalgar Square to protest Saudi Arabia’s imprisonment of pro-democracy activists and the murder of the dissident journalist Omar Nawwaf. All in all, said one senior MPS official, it was best to avoid the center of London if possible.

“No chance of that,” murmured Keller.

He drank a first cup of coffee while watching the coverage and a second while shaving. In the shower he found himself unexpectedly daydreaming about the beautiful American woman he had left behind in a hotel in Frinton. He took more care than usual with his grooming and his dress, choosing a dark gray suit of moderate cut and cloth, a white shirt, and a solid navy-blue necktie. Examining his appearance in the mirror, he concluded he had achieved the desired effect. He looked very much like an officer of the Royalty and Specialist Protection, or RaSP. A branch of the Met’s Protection Command, RaSP was responsible for safeguarding the royal family, the prime minister, and visiting foreign dignitaries. Keller and the rest of the RaSP had a long day ahead of them.

He went downstairs to the kitchen and watched BBC Breakfast to its conclusion at eight thirty. Then he pulled on a respectable mackintosh coat and climbed the steps to the street, where Tony was waiting behind the wheel of the MI6 car. As they headed eastward across London, Keller’s thoughts once again drifted to the woman. This time, he removed his MI6 BlackBerry and dialed.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“Just leaving the dining room.”

“Anyone interesting at breakfast?”

“A couple of birdwatchers and a Russian agent.”

“Just one?”

“His girlfriend left a few minutes ago.”

“Do Gabriel and Graham know?”

“What do you think?”

“Where’s she headed?”

“Your way.”

“Who’s tailing her?”

“Mikhail and Eli.”

Keller heard the ping of the Bedford’s lift and the rattle of the doors. “Where are you going?”

“I was planning to curl up with a book and a gun and wait for my husband to come back.”

“Do you remember how to use it?”

“Release the safety and pull the trigger.”

Keller killed the connection and stared gloomily out the window. Tony was right, the traffic was a nightmare.

The protesters had already descended on Trafalgar Square. They were stretched from the steps of the National Gallery to Nelson’s Column, a banner-waving, slogan-chanting multitude, some robed and veiled, some fleeced and flanneled, all outraged that the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia was about to be fêted by a British head of government.

Whitehall was closed to vehicular traffic. Keller climbed out of the car and, after showing his MI6 identification card to a Met officer with a clipboard, was allowed to proceed on foot. Sarah Bancroft finally left his thoughts, only to be replaced by memories of the morning he and Gabriel had stopped ISIS’s attempt to set off a dirty bomb in the heart of London. It was Gabriel who had killed the terrorist with several shots to the back of his head. But Keller was the one who prevented the device’s dead-man detonator switch from automatically setting off the explosive charge and dispersing a cloud of deadly cesium chloride throughout the seat of British power. He had been forced to hold the bomber’s lifeless thumb to the trigger for three hours while an EOD team worked feverishly to disarm the device. They were, without question, the longest three hours of his life.