Ben stood to the side of St. Andrew’s, watching with pride as Lauren and Candice held hands and gazed into each other’s eyes. Thanks to him, they were able to think only about the love they shared and not about whether the wee pageboy would eat their wedding rings.

Just as they exchanged said rings, the clouds parted outside. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, provoking a collective gasp of awe. Ben exchanged a jubilant glance with the photographer, who was no doubt chuffed they’d be able to take pictures outdoors on the portico.

The moment’s excitement paled next to Ben’s anticipation of tonight. He and Evan had a late dinner planned, followed by a birthday breakfast tomorrow at Ben’s favorite West End “brunch-eria,” after which Evan allegedly had something “very important” to tell him. Maybe he’d read Ben’s mind and knew that all he wanted for his pseudo-birthday was the not-so-pseudo-truth.

The ceremony was nearing the end, so Ben moved toward the entrance, where he was met by the photographer’s assistant. Together they swept open the doors at the exact instant the recessional music began, letting the fickle afternoon sunshine flood the path of the happy brides.

Lauren and Candice seemed to be floating on air as they came outside clutching each other’s hands.

“We did it!” Lauren said with a whoop, throwing her arms around Ben’s neck.

“Congratulations!” He gave her an air-kiss, careful not to muss her makeup, before being tugged into an embrace with a beaming Candice.

Ben felt a lump form in his throat as he carried out his post-ceremony duties. This could be the last time he’d arrange a receiving line, the last time he’d distribute bottles of blowing bubbles to guests, the last time he’d dissuade a flower girl from picking her nose during the photo shoot. Where else but in a wedding would he find such blithe hope for the future?

He stopped on the edge of the portico stairs, just now noticing the white SUV that had sat in the loading bay since…well, at least since the end of the ceremony. He’d thought it was picking up guests leaving before the reception, but no one had entered or left the vehicle since its arrival. Through the tinted windows he could barely make out two figures, one in each of the front seats.

“Deborah, we discussed this when we bought gowns,” Lauren was telling her maid of honor. “If you wanted to stand closest to us in the photo, you had to choose the red bridesmaid dress instead of the green.”

“And I telt you, gingers cannae wear red,” Deborah shot back. “If I’d put that thing on me, the fire brigade would be hosing my wee arse down by now.”

Ben’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out to see an unfamiliar number. He answered it anyway.

“This is Kevin with Merchant City Cake Masters,” growled the voice on the line. “I’ve been circling the streets near St. Andrew’s for twenty minutes and some fandan in a white SUV’s stopped in the loading bay. Gonnae chase it away for me?”

“Absolutely. See you in a minute.”

Ben had taken one step toward the nuisance vehicle when he heard Deborah’s rising rage behind him.

“I’m your best mate!” she shouted, verging on tears. “Why should I be stuck halfway down the line like some meaningless cousin?”

“Cos that’s how rainbows work!” Lauren said.

Ben glared at the SUV, then turned to deal with this emotional crisis. The baker could make another pass in his truck if he had to. Right now Ben had to solve this impasse before the whole day was ruined.

Evan stared at the screen, rocking his feet against the floor, waiting for help to arrive. After receiving the vehicle report from Ned—the SUV was registered to a car-hire company—Evan had done what any concerned citizen would do: He’d called the cops.

“The rental company will be much happier giving information to you than to MI5,” he’d told Detective Inspector Hayward. “We make people nervous.”

After some argument, Hayward had agreed to phone the company and send a patrol car to investigate the SUV—which, after all, was parked in a loading bay, considered by many Glaswegians to be a hanging offense.

“They should be there by now,” he told Ned, who’d elected to stay until the end of their impromptu operation.

“From the way DI Hayward talked,” Ned said, “we should be grateful they’re sending anyone at all.”

Evan gave a grunt of agreement. In his experience, police were understandably skeptical of MI5 instincts. Cops lived in a world of black and white, while spooks dwelled in ambiguity and uncertainty, relying on intuition to guide them. Gut instincts didn’t hold up in front of a judge.

“Ever wish you could just arrest them yourself?” Ned asked.

Evan shook his head. “We know far too much to be trusted with that power. The day MI5 officers can bang up our own citizens is the day this country becomes a police state.”

“Still. Must be maddening for a lad of your age and energy level to sit here in a windowless room while someone else swoops in and nicks the bad guys.”

“As long as I know—”

Evan cut himself off as the SUV drove away.

“Check the other cameras in the area,” he told Ned. “See if we can track it from here.”

He picked up the phone to dial DI Hayward, then stopped and looked closer at the image. There was a slim man in a suit standing on the pavement, facing the departing SUV.

Ben.

Evan’s gut flipped at this reminder of the stakes. “Get out of there,” he whispered, though there was no rational reason to worry. It was just Evan’s intuition again, warning that something was very, very wrong.

Ben spoke into his phone, then turned and walked out of the shot, back toward the venue.

Evan dialed Hayward’s number. When the detective inspector answered, he said, “They’re headed south on Turnbull Street. Can your officers intercept?”

“On what grounds?” Hayward asked. “That wee voice in the back of your head?”

Ned tapped Evan’s shoulder. “Put him on speaker.” When Evan did as he asked, Ned said, “If whoever’s in that vehicle is a subject of interest but not an imminent threat, we shouldn’t overtly pursue him. That would alert him and his associates we’re aware of them. Investigation scuttled.”

“I agree,” Hayward said.

Evan was outnumbered. “What about covert pursuit? Something more subtle.”

“Sorry,” Hayward said. “If you want tactical surveillance officers ready to jump into their cars at a moment’s notice, you’ll have to go to London.”

Or back to Belfast. “So what can we do?” Evan asked.

“Gies a second.” Hayward’s keyboard tapped in the background. “I’m having the dispatcher radio the uniformed officers who are already on their way. We’ll have them patrol the St. Andrew’s Square area for a while, see if anything else suspicious happens.”

“Thanks.” Evan let out a long exhalation. “What about the car-hire company?”

“Closed until Monday morning.”

Evan’s jaw clenched. For all its big-city bustle, sometimes Glasgow still felt like a backwater town.

His desk phone rang then, as did everyone else’s. The call was coming in on the regional terrorism tips hotline. If no one here picked up after three rings, it would be forwarded to the twenty-four-hour UK-wide hotline at Thames House. Considering the callers were usually conspiracy-theory-addled crackpots, Evan never answered it when it wasn’t his turn.

He answered it now.

“West of Scotland Anti-terrorism Hotline.” Hunched over the phone at Lewis’s desk, Evan listened to the caller take a deep breath, then another.

Finally a distorted voice gasped out three words that stopped his heart.

“Let. Glasgay. Perish.”

Ben was starting to wish he’d hired an assistant, or better yet cloned himself. No sooner had he sorted the furious baker—who was finally able to park in the loading bay after the white Outlander had taken off at Ben’s approach—than he was roped back into the rainbow crisis.

Together with the photographer, Ben settled the issue by suggesting two sets of wedding-party pictures: one with the colors in the scientifically correct order, and one with the maids of honor directly beside their brides. Everyone was happy with the compromise, until they’d all lined up and realized the yellow bridesmaid had gone missing.

As Ben charged back into the venue to hunt her down, cursing the way his new shoes were pinching his toes, he mentally recited the words his mother would say to clients after an unforeseen setback: The important thing is, you got married and no one died. The latter part was still up in the air, considering Ben had just rugby-tackled the pageboy to keep him from running into traffic.

When he got inside St. Andrew’s, he stopped short. Half the chairs were still lined up in ceremony formation. By now they should have all been arranged round the tables with place settings being laid by stressed-out servers. Yet the only staff present were the venue manager and his assistant, up near the altar. The manager had his phone to his ear. As Ben approached, he caught the end of the conversation.

“—staff in pairs to search for suspicious items, like you asked. Yes, of course I told them not to touch anything. Now when will your officers be arriving?”

Ben looked at the assistant manager in alarm. She gave a tight shrug, fidgeting madly with the buttons of her white blazer.

Outside, a siren blared in the distance.

“That better be them now,” the manager said into the phone. “Yes, I’m trying to remain calm. Let me go and do my job.” He hung up.

“What’s going on?” Ben asked.

The manager pocketed his phone. “There’s been a bomb threat.”

For a moment, Ben’s mind blanked with fear. Then he said, “What can I do to help?”

“Go with Sydney here to search for any guests still in the building. Get them outside with the others, but don’t frighten them. When the police arrive, they’ll set up a cordon outside, and I’ll need your help corralling people behind it without starting a panic.”

“So we’re not telling them the truth?” Ben asked.

“The police say that the more information gets out to the wider public, the harder it’ll be to investigate. And if it’s a hoax—which it probably is—the attention just rewards the hoaxer. People only need to know enough to be safe.” He gestured to the door to the hallway. “If you don’t mind.”

Ben went with the assistant manager down the empty hall, which echoed with the clop of Sydney’s shoes. “The catering staff’s already evacuated,” she said.

He glanced into the kitchen, noting food sitting out on the work surfaces. The aroma of roasted lamb and potatoes was a poignant mockery of the dire situation.

As they passed the cleaning-supplies cupboard, Ben heard a noise inside.

“What was that?” He stopped and put his ear to the door, barely able to hear the rustling within over the pounding of his pulse.

Sydney tried the knob, but it was locked. With trembling hands, she found the key on her fob and opened the door.

“Oh!” She stepped back to reveal the yellow bridesmaid adjusting the straps of her dress while her partner fumbled to refasten his belt.

“There you are,” Ben said to the bridesmaid. “Hurry outside now. They’re taking wedding-party photos.”

“Sorry.” The yellow lass grabbed her sparkly bag from the floor and dashed past him.

Ben turned to the man, who was married to one of Lauren’s cousins. “You should go out the back exit so no one suspects.” He pointed down the hall. “Quickly now.”

After the man stumbled out, mumbling an apology, Ben and Sydney continued their search for stragglers.

“Do they know where the bomb is?” he asked her.

“That’s the problem, see.” Sydney’s voice shook. “The police said it could be inside, or the threat could have been a ploy to get people outside so they could be attacked there.”

“Oh my God.”

“But most of the guests were already out front when the threat was phoned in. So the police reckon they would’ve already been attacked if that was the plan.”

This was all so unreal. Ben thought of the white Outlander parked in the loading bay. He wished he’d had time to see the faces of the two people inside, or to memorize the registration number on the SUV’s plate. “What did the threat say? Why are they after us?”

She shook her head. “Not a clue.”

They finished their search, finding no more guests. When he at last stepped outside to join the wedding party, Ben discovered a quartet of uniformed police officers setting up a cordon far from the building. While two of them unrolled the boundary tape, the other two patiently herded people toward the southern side of the square.

Ben had an idea. He approached the photographer and said, “Mate, why don’t we take the wedding party down to Glasgow Green for some fun pics in the park? It’ll be a good distraction. Maybe some of the guests will follow, rather than glaring at the officers doing their jobs.”

The photographer and Ben posed the idea to the brides, who decided to turn the five-minute walk into a procession of sorts. The wedding party got into it, cheering and tossing invisible rice at the couple as they made their way down the pavement. Ben silently thanked God for giving him such level-headed clients.

More police cars passed, followed by a Strathclyde Fire and Rescue truck. Under the noise of sirens, Ben heard his phone ring.

He answered Evan’s call. “You won’t believe what just happened.”

“Are you safe?” Evan asked.

“Yeah, we’re—wait, are we on TV?”

“No. Are you safe?”

“Then how did you know about—”

“Answer me!”

“Yes, I’m safe.” Ben swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. “Everyone’s out, and I assume the bomb squad or whatever is going in now. But how did you know?”

Evan let out a hard breath. “Can you come over tonight? Not sure what time yet. I might need to work even later than you.”

“Come over?” Ben felt a strange warmth mixed with fear. “You’ll actually tell me where you live?”

“Aye.” After a long pause, Evan said, “I’ll tell you everything.”