This was all the gear Fitzroy needed to go to his club in Westminster shortly before three p.m., enter the quiet room off the main hall where Cassidy liked to do business, and position the bugs for maximum effect. He hid one on the top of a curio cabinet and out of view and taped the other to the bottom of the table in the center of the small room, on the side where Fitzroy had seen Cassidy sitting when Fitzroy would glance in passing by the open door from time to time.

He left the equipment on the “off” setting, then headed into the men’s lounge to order a brandy and read the paper in an overstuffed leather chair.

Terry Cassidy showed up alone just fifteen minutes later and came into the lounge holding his briefcase to say hello to some acquaintances. Fitzroy barely knew the younger man, so he looked at his paper, opened and closed the three remaining fingers on his right hand to combat the phantom pains he felt from the two missing ones, and waited patiently. Soon Cassidy had mingled sufficiently, so he slipped back out into the hall. Fitzroy followed him out with his eyes and saw the forty-something heading towards his usual room, pulling a small transistor-radio-looking device from his case as he walked.

Fitzroy recognized it as a store-bought bug detector, and he breathed a sigh of relief that the solicitor had not upgraded his tech since the last time Fitzroy noticed it.

Cassidy would sweep the room slowly, the walls, furniture, the phone, but the detector wouldn’t pick up the equipment that was currently turned off and not signaling or even emitting any electrical current.

Sir Donald headed out the front door, walked across the street, and climbed into his Mercedes. Court Gentry was behind the wheel, dressed as Fitzroy’s normal chauffeur, but in his lap he held a micro notebook computer and in his ears he had Bluetooth earpieces ready to receive from the recording devices as soon as they were turned on.

Fitzroy climbed into the back, diagonal from Court, and he said, “They are both placed. He is probably just finishing up sweeping for bugs now.”

Court said, “He entered the club alone. Is there anyone in the room with him?”

“Not at present.”

Court said, “We’ll wait a bit.”

“Fine by me. I’m a pensioner, you know. I’ve no place to be.”

Court reached into his pocket and pulled out several over-the-counter pain pills. He took them with a swig of sparkling water.

Fitzroy saw this. “How do you feel?”

“Like I look.”

“Good lord.”

Court smiled. “I feel like I lost a fight with a steamroller.”

The older man in back said, “Most blokes know better than to get into a fight with a steamroller.”

Court sipped more water. “This bloke believed his hype for a minute and thought he could take down a monster.”

To this Fitzroy laughed. “You’ll get him next time, lad, and your hype will continue to grow.”

Court didn’t want there to be a next time with the big ape, and he certainly didn’t want his hype to grow.

He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the pain he was in.

* * *

• • •

David Mars was on his way to London, sitting in the back of his helo, when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He patched it through his headset, stopping any intercom transmissions so the pilots couldn’t hear his conversation.

“Hello.”

The voice was soft. Unsure. “It’s Barnacle.”

Mars had been expecting this call. It had been the biggest item on his plate today, until he got the call this morning about his daughter showing up at Belyakov’s house requesting to see him.

“I thought I might be hearing from you,” he said.

“Did you do it?”

Mars smiled a little. “And by ‘it’ you mean—”

Now Barnacle all but yelled into the phone. “You know exactly what I mean! Did you have Lucas Renfro killed?”

A slight pause. “The Agency was getting too close to our prized possession, you, and we couldn’t let them swoop in and prevent you from leaving the country. This will lower the heat in the kettle until you arrive here.” He added, “I told you I’d keep you safe.”

“Jesus Christ, Mr. Black. You can’t just kill a deputy director of the CIA.”

“Apparently, you can. It’s already on the news, man. They say it was an obvious suicide.”

“Yeah, well, I hope your assassin was fucking perfect, because I heard Matt Hanley was first on the scene.”

“Matthew Hanley, you say?” Mars’s supreme confidence remained unfazed by the news that the deputy director of Operations was investigating the case personally. “He’ll be pleased they got their leak sorted, and he’ll be on his way over to the UK, ready to put this all behind them. He’ll believe the suicide story, and he’ll not suspect you for a moment.”

“I don’t want to go to Scotland, now. Too risky. I want you to pick me up in London.”

Mars paused a moment. “I very much could use you inside at the Five Eyes conference. You might hear a thing or two that could earn you a lot of money from me.”

“At this point, sir, fuck your money. You told me you had a dacha waiting for me in Russia, and I have enough Bitcoin to cash in and live comfortably. Sure as shit beats living out my days in a supermax prison here in the States.”

Mars breathed slowly into the phone for several seconds. “Fair enough, Barnacle. We’ll come up with a plan to sneak you away as soon as you arrive in the UK.”

* * *

• • •

A man sitting alone at a picnic table in a park in McLean, Virginia, heaved his chest and blew out a long sigh of relief, right into the phone he held to his ear. But his relaxation was exasperatingly short-lived, because CIA’s assistant deputy director of Support noticed a big black GMC Suburban pulling into a parking space on the far side of a baseball diamond.

He thought the vehicle looked like the exact same one that had tailed him through the streets of D.C., and fresh panic welled inside him.

The door opened and the big blond-haired man in aviators who’d sat across from him at Whole Foods climbed out, stood there, and crossed his arms as he looked on. Marty Wheeler sucked in a terrified gasp. “That’s great, Mr. Black, because the same goon who tailed me the day before is standing next to his truck watching me from about fifty yards away. I don’t know if I will even make it to England.”

Mars’s aristocratic British voice always remained cool. “You’ll make it, lad. Means nothing. Renfro’s been dead less than eight hours. It takes time to stand down a counterintelligence operation. You’ll be on your jet over here soon, right? You won’t see the watchers on you for much longer.”