The Furies

SANCTUARY D-DAY MINUS 1

His wallet is gone, he can't go back to his hotel, doesn't dare to. And he can't wander the streets, not in that state. Sharp, gasping and a mass of pain after a random dash through back alleys, sits propped against a cold wall in somebody's back garden, shivering, and trying to think.

A light comes on in a kitchen, flooding the garden. He struggles up, clicks on a gate latch, and staggers again into the streets.

Gratefully, he finds a few euros in a trouser belt pouch. It saves him the humiliation of begging. He stands at a bus stop, close to fainting, aware of the looks and sly comments from the early-morning workers in the queue.

There's someone you trust who you shouldn't trust.

Watch your back.

He needs sanctuary; someplace safe, someplace to rest and regroup. With someone he can trust. But he wonders if she's even there anymore.

It's much as Sharp remembers it. The bus drops him off at the road's end, and he begins to limp the kilometer toward the house. The last time — was it really five years ago? — there was a foot of snow, and he'd been delighted by the sight of three deer springing across the road in front of him, mother and children. But now every step is a spike of agony. Lightning keeps flashing inside his tongue.

The gap in the old stone dike is still there, and he takes the shortcut through it. It cuts a hundred meters off the journey but at the cost of going over rough wooded ground.

Damn. He forgot the fence. He skirts it and comes in through the big wooden gate. Smoke is streaming up from the chimney, and he catches a whiff of burning wood — she's at home. Or someone is.

In the bus it occurred to him that she may have sold the house, and that he may be met at the door by a stranger. In that case he'll pass himself off as a vagrant looking for a handout. Or maybe she's married. Probably is, handsome wench that she was. In that case he'll withdraw gracefully; an old flame looking like a man escaped from Hell might be less than welcome.

He presses the bell. The old familiar chime. A jazz quartet is playing something catchy on a radio. But now a big dog is barking, all low frequencies, and the radio clicks off. He stays vertical with a conscious effort. And then the door opens and she's standing there in a flour-stained overall, a dish towel in one hand, clutching a growling Alsatian by the collar with the other.

Five years on. Now in her late thirties.

Her hair is still red, but now it's cut short, almost boyish, giving her face a slightly rounded look. Her mouth is wider than he remembers. There are a few wrinkles around her green eyes, but they still carry the same mixture of humor and defiance, and now growing amazement. Through his exhaustion, Sharp feels a confusing jumble of old emotions. "Hello, Siggy."

"You need to get to a hospital with that foot. It needs to go into a plaster. I don't like the tongue and the testicles, but the swellings should go down quickly. No irreversible damage there, you'll be relieved to hear. The bruising around your midriff and groin is as bad as any I've seen in a long time. Somebody has been using you as a punching bag." The doctor clicks his bag shut and looks at Sharp over half-moon spectacles. "You realize it's my duty to inform the police. You've clearly been the victim of an extremely vicious attack."

"I fell down some stairs."

"It's the tongue and scrotum that puzzle me. Why the pinprick burns? You got entangled with a lightbulb on the way down?"

"Now that you mention it."

"Siggy, see that your lying friend gets to hospital soon with that foot. Otherwise he's in for a permanent limp."

Siggy gives the doctor a wide smile. That smile. She says, "Thank you so much, Leo."

The doctor glances back at Sharp as if to say, What can a bloke do? A minute later, from the bedroom, Sharp hears the wheels of the doctor's Jaguar popping gravel. He watches it turning up the rough track until it disappears through the trees.

THE DREAM

My goodness, you were such an easy target! And now that you're dead, I can tell you how we did it.

Three gray wolves. Three gray wolves slipping through the Kiel canal under a black sky. The first gray wolf headed for America, the second gray wolf headed for Ireland, and the third gray wolf headed for I'm-not-telling. Just like a fairy tale.

The first gray wolf landed on a quiet bit of coast in Mexico, and Tiffany came out of her tummy and was put to bed in a disused mine in Arizona.

The second gray wolf delivered Meg to a dozen men on a dark, lonely beach in Ireland. Men with long memories soaked in blood and myth. You know the type, Lewis, you fought them in the army! Out came Meg and they loaded her into the back of a truck and drove her along quiet Connemara roads toward Galway. There are hundred-year-old tin mines in Galway, where Meg, too, was laid to rest, still and cold, undead like Dracula, waiting for her day.

Sixty years later, in the dripping mine, we were kicking aside the skeletons of the Irish hard men. Look at the round holes in the skulls, Lewis; the U-boat men were harder.

The key to your death was the Hess diary, a gift from Goering, handed down through the generations. Here's Tiffany in Arizona, biding her time in X Marks the Spot; there's Meg in Connemara; and here's Alec from the third gray wolf, sleeping in I'm-not-telling. Once we had that, the rest unfolded like a Greek tragedy, tick tick tick. Tragedy for you, that is.

Wasn't the aftermath pure joy? The financial fallout, the fear that spread into Hong Kong, New York, Zurich, and even the fledgling Moscow market. Who's going to work? Who wants to join a million dead?

You think London was it, don't you? The pinnacle of our ambition, our crowning triumph against the godless West, etcetera. Wrong wrong wrong, Lewis. London was the taster. Our real target, the big scary one, is getting it now. You're too late to stop it.

And where is this big hit, the wicked witch you can't stop, the ruin of the West?

Well now, Captain Nemo. It's a fish … a girl from far away and long ago. She's facedown, catching a fish with her hands … it's not a fish, it's a god, rising from the sea … bellowing like a genie as it erupts out of Hekla … splitting the sky with bolts of lightning … a Norse god … where is she, the pretty girl catching the fish? … it's a place you've never even heard of. A place called … I'm-not-telling.

Sharp leaps out of bed, choking again, vomit in the back of his throat.

"Lewis? Are you all right?" He pushes her aside, tries to force air into his windpipe. Slowly it starts to come. And the panic subsides as the air gets into his lungs.

"Lewis?"

A voice in the dark; a whiff of perfume; a soft, feminine hand touching his brow, stroking his hair.

"Choking. Bloody tongue. I'm okay now."

"You've been muttering in your sleep. You seemed frightened of something. Really terrified."

"It's all right, Siggy. It was just a dream."

Sharp lies back, hears the click of his bedroom door, and through the plasterboard wall listens to Siggy slipping between the sheets of her bed. Moonlight is throwing shadows of swaying branches of a tree on the wall opposite. It is a formless, chaotic dance, endless and ghostly. He watches it for a long time, soothed by the sound of wind gusting through the trees.

A god … a Norse god.

SIGGY 0800, D-DAY

Rain. Heavy, reassuring rain, drumming on the leaves of the trees outside. And inside, a circular Jacuzzi, bubbling softly. Freshly brewed Italian coffee on the table next to it, along with guacamole dips and an early-morning buck's fizz, two-thirds freshly squeezed orange juice, one-third fizzy wine, chilled. Freshly washed and ironed clothes on the toilet seat. And a naked woman, in her thirties, red-haired, leaning back with her eyes closed, wallowing in the sensuality, breasts poking above the foam like islands in a stormy sea, or strawberry-topped blancmanges.

Strawberry. Sharp wonders again if this is the best way to save half a million lives, and thinks again, yes, it probably is. Something they said in his presence, when they assumed he was the living dead. All he has to do is remember.

Eight in the morning. Neither Alecto nor Magaera located. No clue to where they are. But rain will prevent the attack, wreck the spread of the aerosol. The morning forecast has shown a wet front sweeping up the English Channel from the Atlantic, drenching southern England until late morning. After which the rain will stop …

I should have rescued Daniela, gone up the stairs, carried her down in the dark. Of course it was impossible. But all the logic in the world can't quite wipe out a guilty feeling: Daniela, abandoned to her torturers. Desertion under fire …

He wonders if the old lady is being tormented at this moment while he wallows in luxury in the Jacuzzi; he wonders if she is still alive. A frail eighty-year-old, her heart no doubt kept beating by some degenerate medic, she couldn't have withstood the pain. They must now have the firing codes.

The genuine codes? Maybe. But they can't be sure.

Neither can Sharp be sure they're false.

He lies back, letting the bubbles and aromatherapy do their work. He shifts slightly to avoid a water jet hitting a bruise on his thigh.

A bigger target than London … a Norse god … Thor … Odin … Freya …? Come on, come on, dream, where is it?

Siggy opens her eyes, stares at him curiously. "You can't be in the army anymore, not with hair that length. You look like a hobo. Did you have an argument with an express train?"

"What have you been up to these past years? Are you still an amateur actress?"

"I gave that up with the first wrinkle. And I gave up my librarian job. Now I do freelance journalism. And no, I don't have a boyfriend, I mean, would we be sharing a Jacuzzi if I had? About that express train."

"You don't want to know, Siggy."

"You're playing a rough game, darling, whatever it is. Look at you."

"I need to call someone. Do you have a mobile?"

"I have yours."

"What?" Sharp sits upright. In his dreadful state he'd forgotten about it, assumed it was lost in the course of the horrible night.

"It was flat, darling, in your back pocket, but I charged it up."

"Is it switched on?"

"I think so. Is something the matter?"

Sharp is out of the Jacuzzi before Siggy has finished talking, grabbing a pink towel from the handrail.

DEATH SQUAD

By the time they pick up the IMSI signal it's almost too weak to detect and they only just manage to triangulate the cellphone to the bus station before the signal dies altogether.

Following a country bus by car is hard to do. On a country road you can't just stop behind it every time it lets somebody off at a farm entrance. It has taken all the man's skill to keep at a discreet distance, and yet at the same time see who's getting off where.

The bus had headed into some rural hinterland. He'd driven past it, checking that Sharp was still inside, stopped quickly at an early-morning village shop to grab a sandwich left over from yesterday. He'd emerged from the shop just in time to see the bus's brake lights about a kilometer ahead of him. Someone had stepped out at the entrance to a narrow lane. It was some kilometers on before he was able to pass the bus. Sharp was no longer inside.

Backtracking in panic, driving backward and forward along the lane, he had failed to locate the target. The area was heavily forested, and it was clear that the man had just vanished into the woods.

He'd parked the car in a layby, pulled out his suitcase of gadgets — it wouldn't do for some petty thief or policeman to open it — and trudged around the area for some hours in the morning light, frozen and panicky. He'd found a natural tunnel in the pine forest on the side of a steep hill and, not knowing what else to do, climbed up through it, cursing on occasion as branches hit his face.

The summit of the hill is clear of trees; now the man, kneeling in long wet grass, finds that he has an excellent view of the lights of houses dotting the landscape for miles around. A quick check on his laptop shows still no sign of activity from Sharp's mobile phone.

In the gray dawn light he can make out the country road down which the bus traveled. Turning off this road, and running directly below him, is the narrow lane, at its closest about three hundred meters from the summit. In the last half an hour it has seen no more than five or six cars and a couple of tractors. A kilometer to his right and well below him, the entrance to a stony track leads off this lane. This entrance is of great interest to him. It leads to the home of a Ms. Siggy Frey. The house itself might be unseen, but not the comings and goings through the entrance.

The man also has an excellent view of the surrounding countryside, and of the low, gray clouds hiding the tops of distant hills, and of yet another curtain of rain coming his way. But gratifyingly, on his laptop screen, a yellow spot winks on. The target's mobile phone is working again. Wet to the knees and shivering, he shouts "Ja!" and punches the air.

He reports in, tersely. Now he just has to wait for the cavalry.

The yellow spot stays firmly within the walls of the house outlined on his map. Apart from the winding track leading to the house, the map shows a small, circular lake somewhere inside the forest, and a few forest tracks winding through it. A cluster of buildings is marked SAWMILL (DISUSED); otherwise the house is on its own.

The man sighs, and waits. He glances behind again; the curtain of rain is distinctly closer. He reckons he has fifteen minutes before the drenching starts. He says out loud, "Come on, move it," to nobody in particular.

The yellow spot moves. It has left the house and is making erratically for the lakeside. He tenses up.

"Target's left the house."

"What you mean, left the house? By car?"

"Negative. He's close by. I think he's just going for a walk."

"You think. Do you see him?"

"Negative. It's hidden in a forest, real Hansel and Gretel stuff."

Now a car, a little red Alfa Romeo, appears at the entrance to Siggy Frey's forest driveway. He checks his laptop hastily. The yellow spot confirms that Sharp is still in the forest.

The two-seater sports car turns right. Quickly he rummages in a rucksack, tosses out dish towel, mug, sandwiches, finally getting to binoculars. Female driver, short blue skirt, red blouse, good looker, hand on gearstick. No question, she's alone. She joins the main road and then the little car takes off smartly, heading north.

Scheisse! The target is running, skirting the lakeside. The dot on the screen is suddenly moving at a terrific speed. Can he have known he's under surveillance? Is the woman a decoy?

He babbles urgently into the phone. "Target is making a break for it. No. No, belay that." The image has stopped: The target is standing stock-still. Catching breath, maybe.

"Don't lose him, not in any circumstances. We'll be there in two minutes."

Sharp is off again. For a man beaten half to death, he can run.

But now he's zigzagging through the trees, apparently at random. It's crazy. Occasionally he comes to an abrupt stop, and then takes off again in some other direction. "Can you do it in less? I can't make this guy out."

The dot is at last making sense: It's the track of a man fleeing for his life. Sharp is hurtling at an amazing speed through the forest once again. But suddenly he's turning … what the …? The lunatic is rushing back the way he just came, back to the house. The man groans with relief as six cars in convoy turn off the main road and skim quickly along the lane below him.

The cars kick gravel briskly down the long curving pathway to Siggy's house. Car doors are flung open, a dozen men with guns jump out. VORSICHT HUND is printed on a notice attached to a farm gate. The HUND in question is on its hind legs, its forepaws on a spar of the gate. It's panting, tongue hanging out and tail wagging in welcome, and Sharp's mobile phone is tied to its collar with a neat pink bow.

THE DANCE OF DEATH

"Sporty suspension." A sporty suspension that causes agony to Sharp's bruises with every jarring bump on the country road. The boot of the little car is intended for a suitcase or two and he has no room to adjust his position. His ear is separated from the sporty exhaust by no more than a sheet of metal, and Siggy loves racing gear changes.

The acceleration and braking shift the pain alternately between his back and his knees. But in twenty minutes, with a final vroom, the car slows, turns, and stops.

A flood of daylight, Siggy laughing. "Walkies!"

Sharp, stiff and painful, eases himself out of the boot and finds himself in a crowded supermarket car park. A brother and sister, twins about ten years old, stare in astonishment and run off toward their parents. Siggy says, "You can phone your friend from here."

"Give me a second. I need to get my hearing back."

"Ambra?"

A pause. "Lewis! Is that you?" Relief and disbelief mingle in her voice. "Are you all right?"

"Well, I'm still breathing. Problem. The bad guys have the firing codes. They got them from Daniela."

A brief crackle of static on the line. Or something. "Daniela? They got Daniela? How do you know this?"

"Just listen, we're out of time. They have no way of knowing whether the numbers Daniela fed them are genuine or false."

"Lewis, where have you been?"

"Never mind that. If Daniela fed them false numbers and they put them into Alec and Meg, the Furies will freeze up and they'll be stuffed."

"Okay, Lewis, okay. But what if she gave them the real numbers?"

"They tried to get the numbers out of me, to see if they matched."

"What? They got to you? Did you give them the numbers?" Bewilderment is flooding her voice.

"It's okay, I gave them nothing and I got away. But they're looking for me now."

"Did they try to force the numbers from you? Is that why you're talking funny?"

"My tongue's a bit swollen but that's not important."

Sharp can almost feel the consternation coming down the line. "Lewis, you're telling me they have numbers from Daniela. And they could be genuine."

"They could be."

"What if they are?"

If they are, we've failed and a massive tragedy will unfold in the next few hours. Siggy, hovering just out of earshot, gives Sharp a melting smile.

"Has there been any progress in finding Alec and Meg?"

"None. None at all. Lewis, this is bad. They're threatening to fire them today and Daniela's given them the firing codes."

"Maybe."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know. It looks like some market town. I think I'm not too far from Berlin. I'm using a public phone in a Lidl supermarket."

"Can we meet, Lewis?"

"I want that. There are things I want to say face-to-face."

"What things? What more can there possibly be to know?"

"There's something rotten going on here, Ambra. Someone's manipulating us."

A horrified silence, and then: "What?"

"I want us to meet alone. Just you and me."

"Get to Berlin and call me in an hour. I'll give you a rendezvous."

The Dance of Death.

Siggy maintains a stream of insults about the idiots sharing the wet road with her all the way to the city center. Past the Brandenburg Gate, Sharp says, "You can drop me here."

"You think I'm going to let you go just like that, do you, Lewis? After five years? You can just lift me and drop me at your pleasure, is that right?"

"Got it in one."

She pulls over to the side, double-parking, ignoring an angry toot from the car behind. "I hate you. Give me your phone number." She rummages in her handbag and passes over a small, flowery diary and a pen.

Sharp scribbles his Chamonix address. "I'll be in touch. And thanks."

She kisses him on the cheek, gives him a sly smile, and pushes him away. Then the Alfa Romeo weaves its way happily through the flowing traffic, a slim hand waving out a car window.

The church, Sharp knows, is close to the Fernsehturm, the big TV tower and an easy landmark. He walks briskly, navigating by instinct and ignoring his throbbing foot.

It seems incredible that the bombs and cannons of seven hundred years have missed it, but there it is, a small, unassuming medieval church in the Gothic style. And inside, the Dance of Death.

Death is a thin, sexless figure repeated, interspersing with assorted fifteenth-century characters, an official, a friar or two, a few monks, a doctor, a cardinal, a pope, a town official, a merchant … They are dancing to the tune of two grotesque, deformed creatures, one of them playing a bagpipe, the other hunkered down on the ground. They are all holding hands, the characters facing right, death always looking left, into their eyes. The fresco is faded, and obviously very old, but it still has the power to chill. Ambra is standing hypnotized at the fresco, drawn into its world.

"Interesting choice of rendezvous."

Ambra gives a little startled jump, and then hugs him tightly. He tries not to wince with pain. "It was painted just after an outbreak of plague in 1484. Isn't it macabre? But I thought it was appropriate. Lewis, the prime minister's been told about the situation. You're to give the firing codes to the terrorists."

Lewis stares uncomprehendingly at Ambra. Her face is grim.

She repeats, "You have to give them the numbers."

"You'd better explain that."

"They've been in touch with the embassy. They've offered a deal."

"A deal?"

"Lewis, wake up, there's not a lot of time. They have the Furies in place. One of the targets is London and they're going to set it off in a few hours."

"So evacuate London."

"But if we do, they'll wait until the scare is over and people come back. We can't keep London evacuated forever, and we can't search the whole of southeast England for one of the Furies."

"I still don't get it. Why give them the codes? What's the deal?"

"They'll leave London alone and hit the other target."

"And the government agreed to that?"

"They're not telling us what the second target is. But they're giving us a solemn assurance that it's not a UK target."

"And if they don't get the numbers from me?"

"They'll take a chance with the numbers they have. If they're wrong, they lose. If they're right, London gets it and so does the other place. And they're throwing Daniela in as part of the deal. Alive if they get the numbers, dead if they don't. They said something about your weak spot."

Sharp repeats dully, "I'm expected to give them the firing codes?"

"That's the deal."

"And these creeps are being trusted to keep their word?"

"It's the chance HMG is taking. They have to take it. They can't gamble the safety of London on the assumption that Daniela gave them false numbers under torture. They just can't do it."

"And I just can't hand over the numbers to these people."

"You have to go to the embassy now." Ambra looks at her watch. "They're calling for the numbers in twenty minutes. The ambassador will confirm the deal."

"But someplace else will get it."

"That's the PM's decision. He's paid to make it."

"I can't do it, Ambra."

"You have to."

"Sorry."

Unexpectedly, Ambra strokes his cheek, gives a deep sigh, and steps back. "I was afraid of this. I'm sorry, too, Lewis. But you know where my loyalties lie."

Sharp senses rather than hears a presence behind him.

EMBASSY NOON

Ahead of him, the motorcyclists pull over and straddle the pavement. Someone leans over Sharp, breathing in his ear, and unclicks his safety belt. The door is wrenched open and he is manhandled out of the car. The pavement is swarming with uniforms. Through the gates of the embassy, more men are waiting; grim, accusing faces everywhere. The transition from German to British custody takes place without a word, an exchange of paper, or a moment's relaxation of the grip on his forearm. Sharp thinks, This is illegal. And the rain has stopped.

Through glass doors and into the big entrance foyer. Sharp is steered firmly into an elevator, and moments later Ambra, in the company of three more minders, joins him; eight people in a lift designed for six. He is squeezed up against her, senses her trembling slightly. The air is thick with hostility. The lift descends.

Hustled along a windowless corridor, with no consideration for the pain in his foot. He can hear Ambra and her squad scurrying behind him. And then there is a heavy metal door, and another man waiting, and an inner door like the entrance to a strongroom. The man punches numbers and Sharp is pushed into the strongroom.

An enormous oval table, polished and shiny, and on the table a loudspeaker attached by a cable to a metal box, and another cable leading off from the box to a socket in the floor. Sharp recognizes his own mobile phone, the plastic cover off and its insides exposed, a corpse in a mortuary. Last seen tied to the collar of Siggy's dog.

Sharp quickly takes stock. Ambra is next to him, with an expression like a startled fawn. Two men. The ambassador, in open-necked shirt and slacks, is a man of about sixty, with gray hair and beard; he is looking at Sharp thoughtfully over steepled hands.

The other man is wearing a pin-striped suit; he has wispy white hair and a tanned skin. He has a plain green tie with a Windsor knot. Sharp has seen him around. Where, where? He is resting a gun with a ridiculously long barrel on his arm.

"Please."

Sharp sits down, trembling. Ambra joins him. She looks at him, pleading with her eyes: This wasn't personal, I had to do it.

Sharp then notices a third man, fiftyish and bald, at the back of the big room. He is carrying a mobile telephone and is spreading maps out on a table. He gives Sharp a curt nod. Plainclothes policeman, a spook, Sharp doesn't know.

The man with the tie places the pistol carefully on the table. "Ridiculous thing, like something out of a Wyatt Earp movie. Much prefer a nice Browning, it has a good feel to it. This wretched gun is called a Ruger."

The accent is Scottish, maybe polished in one of the big public schools like Fettes or Gordonstoun. Sharp's mouth is dry with fear. "So what?"

"Mark Two, to be exact. My American friend told me it's a silent gun, remarkably so. ‘The weapon of professionals,' he said. He sounded like a salesman."

"What kind of professionals?" Where have I seen you?

"I didn't ask. Sometimes I wonder about our American cousins."

The ambassador says, "Good of you to turn up, Mr. Sharp. We've been turning Berlin inside out looking for you. You are carrying three numbers in your head."

"And there they stay." Chicksands, R2I. Wearing the uniform of a colonel, no less. The resistance-to-interrogation course, forty-eight hours of purgatory, psychologists standing by in case the victims went psycho. SAS.

"I hope not."

The SAS colonel says, "Mr. Sharp, either you give us the numbers, or I will shoot you."

A sense of unreality washes over Sharp. He glances at the standing policeman, but the man's expression hasn't changed. "You can't be serious."

"I am deadly serious. Consider what's at stake."

"This is the British embassy."

The ambassador says, "Precisely. Who would believe such a thing was possible?"

"It's been arranged," the colonel explains in a calm, conversational tone that is frightening the living daylights out of Sharp. "You left late this evening. There will be reliable witnesses. And you haven't been seen since."

Ambra: "I didn't join the service for this." Her voice is shaky.

"But how else can we ensure his silence? Sometimes one must be hard, my dear." He turns back to Sharp. "By dawn tomorrow your corpse will be at the bottom of the North Sea, securely weighted down. Just off the Zuider Zee — the causeway is deserted in the early hours."

Sharp can hardly speak. "Those rumors about wet jobs …"

"… they're all true."

The ambassador won't talk. The Special Branch man won't. But Ambra? She's an eyewitness to a murder. They can't let her walk away. Sharp feels a stabbing pain in his side, realizes that he has been taking big gulps of breath.

The ambassador breaks into the silence. "It won't come to this. Mr. Sharp will see sense. In fact, he will see sense within three minutes, which is all the time remaining before his psychotic friends call."

"I know these psychos better than you, Ambassador. A promise from them is worthless. If I give them the numbers, they'll use them, plain and simple."

"You may be right, but the prime minister thinks otherwise and the decision is his and not yours. Plain and simple."

"Oh, Lewis, what have I done?" Ambra's hand is over her mouth.

"Your job, Ambra. My mistake was trusting you."

The ambassador pats his trouser pockets, pulls out a small cigar, lights one. "You may feel that you are right, Sharp. You may even be right. But alas, you have no mandate. Ask the people. Would they rather put their lives in the hands of those they elect to make such decisions, or some Joe Bloggs off the streets? What's the word for it?" The ambassador manages to look bamboozled.

"Democracy?" the colonel suggests.

"Democracy! Thank you." The ambassador puffs, tries for a smoke ring, doesn't quite make it.

The colonel says, "We're in a war, Sharp. Killing you isn't nice, but the mass murder of Londoners is infinitely worse. What else can we do?"

This time the ambassador succeeds. He watches the little smoke doughnut rising up. "Give these people the numbers and you walk out of here on your solemn promise to say nothing of this meeting for as long as you live."

The colonel says, "Nobody would believe you anyway. Murder in the embassy sounds like something out of Agatha Christie."

"Daniela may have fed them rubbish. If her numbers don't match mine, how can you tell whether it was Daniela or me?"

The colonel says, "I'll go on the assumption that it was you."

The ambassador looks around for an ashtray, and then tips an inch of ash onto the carpet. He glances at his watch. "You have less than a minute to think about this."

Ambra is still taking breath in big gulps. Her speech is shaky. "Give them the numbers, Lewis. They're not bluffing."

And then a tinny, high-pitched Ride of the Valkyries comes out of the loudspeaker on the table. At the back of the room, the policeman hastily puts on headphones.

"Lewis?" She sounds a meter away.

"Miki. Sorry you got away."

"I'm sorry you got away, too, Lewis. The party had hardly warmed up. Do you have some numbers for me?" A steady, faint background whine.

The colonel picks up the pistol, resting his elbows on the table, and points it at the center of Sharp's chest. Ambra has frozen in fright; she could be a waxwork dummy.

"Of course, sweetheart. If you're ready to release Daniela."

The whine changes note, slightly.

Miki is saying, "The old lady's already released, Lewis. She's in Spandau, at the front entrance of the Wald Krankenhaus."

The policeman — or spook — is frantically scanning the map. Then he crosses quickly to the table with a scribbled note. The ambassador scans it hastily and passes it around the table:

Cell traced to 7th floor of high-rise. Ev. Wald hospital 500 m away, clear view from flat.

The colonel holds a hand out for a pencil and quickly scribbles:

Difficult even for a marksman.

Ambra reaches for the paper and adds:

Marksman maybe not in flat. Could be close by, like in boot of car.

The policeman is scribbling again:

She's in shock not speaking coherent.

Sharp says, "Miki, you could have grabbed anyone off the street. Let me speak to her."

"Am I stupid, darling? If you do, you'll get the numbers from her, and we can't have that. I need them from your head first."

"If I do that, you'll kill her for fun. Do you see her now?" Sharp asks.

"I do. You must have traced this call by now. Surely the cavalry are coming?"

Sharp glances at the Special Branch man, who holds up two fingers.

"Affirmative, Miki, they'll be on you in two minutes." Will they hell. "I still need proof that that's Daniela."

"I'm running out of patience, darling."

"That's mutual, ah, darling."

For a few dreadful moments Lewis thinks Miki has switched off. But then the line is live again, and Miki is saying, "Daniela has been given a mobile phone, which is switched on. We can hear what she says. When the police reach her, one of them will approach her and ask for her name. She will give her name. If the conversation goes beyond that, policeman and Daniela will both be shot dead and we'll take a chance with the numbers we have. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly." Sharp's heart is thumping in his chest.

"He'll have to be quick. And I expect your people have almost reached me, Lewis."

"I expect so."

The ambassador has jumped to his feet, mobile phone pushed against his ear, his face twisted with concentration. "Confirmed. Eighty-year-old lady, small, white-haired, stooped, says her name is Daniela Morrell, knows Max Krafft, likes schnapps."

"It's her."

Why this obsession for schnapps?

Schnapps.

Sharp looks at Ambra, stunned. Schnapps.

Miki: "The codes, now. You have ten seconds, then we kill her."

Sharp is taking quick, shallow breaths. "Tisiphone, the Arizona bomb."

"You know I don't need that. Five seconds."

Sharp takes a deep breath. The colonel could be a statue, sighting along the pistol. "Alecto is 828172. Megaera is 951413. Do the numbers match?" The numbers are out and Sharp finds that he is shaking all over. He can hardly hold the phone.

The ambassador says, "She's safe. She's inside the hospital."

Miki's voice is brimming with satisfaction. "Perfectly, Lewis. Thank you so much, darling."

The Special Branch man again:

Flat empty, calls being relayed from somewhere else.

Sharp scribbles quickly. He can hardly hold the pencil. Background whine is aircraft. She's probably in Petrov's 747.

The ambassador cuts in sharply, leaning toward the loudspeaker, his hands splayed on the table. "We've kept our part of the bargain, whoever-you-are. Now give us the London weapon. Where is it?"

A long silence, then, "Who is this?"

"Richard Adams, Her Majesty's Ambassador. The London device. Where is it?"

"Can you evacuate London in the next five minutes?"

The colonel drops the pistol on the table with a clatter, snatches at a red telephone. At the back of the room, the policeman has raised his hands to his head and is staring open-mouthed. Ambra is whispering, "We should have listened to you, Lewis. We should have listened."

A fleck of saliva dribbles down from the corner of the ambassador's mouth. "Look, there's no need to do anything precipitate. We can come to some arrangement. If it's money …"

A giggle. "There's a light westerly breeze over London, ten knots gusting to fifteen, humidity fifteen percent. It's perfect for dispersal. You'll find Alecto in the West End, in a lockup just off Cromwell Road. No, it was Bayswater Road. Or was it Greek Street? Anyway, you want to catch it before it gets skyborne."

"We had a deal, damn you!" The ambassador is now shouting, all his urbanity gone.

"More fool you. Why don't you switch on the TV and enjoy the show? After all, you're the producer." The line goes dead.

The ambassador slumps back in his chair. The colonel is still gabbling into the telephone. The man's eyes are bulging.

And Sharp is grinning.

The grin widens, and despite the stabbing pains he laughs, and the laughter becomes manic, a mixture of hysteria and relief, and he lifts his shoe and starts to bang it on the table, Russian-style.

HALLEY'S COMET

The police escort is shifting and the chauffeur is having problems keeping up; one car in front, one behind, flanked by motorcycles; blue lights flashing everywhere, the siren penetrating even the thick glass of the ambassador's Rolls-Royce.

Sharp explains. "She asked for schnapps. Never walk backward drinking schnapps. It was a private joke between her and Max. She was telling me she'd given the numbers backward."

"But can you be sure, Sharp? Can you be sure the terrorists didn't twig?"

"How could they? Only Daniela, Max, and I knew the joke."

The ambassador glances out of the window. The streets are shiny with light reflecting from shops, and the pavements are crowded with umbrellas. It could be a Lowry painting. "Anything else?"

Sharp thinks. "Yes, lots of things, but she was unhinged, her mind was wandering."

"Lewis, what other things?" Ambra asks.

"She said something about Halley's Comet. ‘I want to see it before I die.' And she said she loved numbers, she was grateful to the Hindus for giving us numbers. And she likes schnapps."

"You got the schnapps. But what about the other stuff? Halley and the Hindus?"

"I don't see anything in it. She was probably just wandering."

Sir Richard says, "If the first weapon doesn't fire, they'll suspect her little asides held a message in code. But they have a backup, the second weapon. If they crack the code, they'll fire it."

The car takes a hard left swerve. The ambassador leans against Sharp, who squeezes Ambra against the door. The telephone rings. The ambassador picks it up, listens and puts it back down. "A Tornado from Northolt's circling, ready to shoot down anything that rises above the rooftops. Just in case …"

"Not a chance. The machine would disgorge its poison before the RAF got there."

"You were saying. Hindus."

"I can't see any hidden messages in Hindus or Halley's Comet. How can you get firing codes out of that?"

"Ask her," Ambra suggests.

The ambassador lifts his telephone again, speaks briefly. The silence drags on for minutes. Outside, the rain is heavy and the houses are beginning to thin out. Then: "She's comatose. The bloody doctors have put her under heavy sedation. It'll be hours before she can talk." There is a sudden squall of rain, and the chauffeur puts the wipers on at double speed. "I'll force this Miki woman's plane to land, have it shot down if necessary. They have no place to run."

"No, Ambassador. She's leading us to the last Fury."

"Why? What's the point? They know by now the codes were false."

"But maybe Daniela fed me the numbers in code. They'll be trying to crack it."

"How can they? You had the schnapps, they didn't."

Ambra says, "Maybe there's something in Halley and Hindus. They'll be trying desperately."

The ambassador says, "If there is, we're in trouble. It's up to you, Sharp. We must beat them to the last Fury before they crack this bloody woman's coded message. You have to give us the target."

"A village more important than London. That's what they said. London was a sideshow."

"In the name of God, what village can possibly outweigh London?"

"It was something with a Norse name, like a god."

"A Norse god. Of course. Extremely useful." The road straightens out, and the convoy is racing a low-flying aircraft on a parallel course. The ambassador's phone rings again, but this time he presses a button, presumably to scramble the exchange. Adams speaks sotto voce into the phone. "The bloody woman's well out of German airspace. She's cleared the Frisian Islands, heading out over the North Sea."

"The North Sea?" Ambra says. "What gives with the North Sea?"

Radar dishes are beginning to appear, and big warehouses protected by barbed wire perimeters; the tails of big aircraft are scattered around, like brightly decorated sharks' fins.

The convoy is slowing. The escort falls back and somebody is waving at the Roller. Rain is bouncing off the tarmac. "Where is this Norse god of yours?"

"I'm trying. It's in the back of my head somewhere."

"Bring it to the front, for Christ's sake."

"Look, I was almost comatose when they talked about it and I've had one or two distractions since then, like being threatened with murder by the Queen's ambassador."

"They were rash. Mentioning the second target in your presence."

"They knew I wasn't going anywhere."

A 737 is waiting, steps down, British Airways cabin girl with smile and umbrella at the ready; an instant charter, Sharp supposes. Black clouds are streaming low overhead and curtains of rain are sweeping across the runway. The chauffeur, also with umbrella, jumps out, into a puddle. A dazzling fork of lightning is followed an instant later by a bone-shaking Bang!

The ambassador takes his ear from the phone. "GCHQ are waiting for Daniela's words. I'll transmit them. They're putting their best people onto it. A bright young spark will meet you at Heathrow. By the way, they've found your town house, with three corpses therein, two shot and one of them with a knife in its stomach."

"Was there nobody else in the house?"

"There was nobody else. The house is in Potsdam and it's owned by Mythos Babelsberg, a movie company, and your friend Demos had access to it, he was about to start on a music score for them."

"Demos is one of the shot corpses. Petrov is the other one. The third guy is American, the one with the knife in his belly. I stuck it there."

"You're some sort of catastrophe machine, Mr. Sharp. Whither thou goest, death will go. And where thou lodgest, destruction will lodge."

The chauffeur opens Ambra's door. Sharp turns to the ambassador. "By the way, would the colonel really have shot me?"

"What colonel?"

"I wasn't threatened with murder in the embassy?"

The ambassador's eyebrows shoot up in astonishment. "Sharp, are you feeling quite well? I haven't the faintest idea what you're rabbiting on about. Just dredge the target up from that murky subconscious."

The cabin girl taps Sharp on the shoulder. "The pilot wants a word." Ambra and Sharp follow her to the cockpit. The pilot gives him a puzzled look. "I've been asked to tell you that there's been an explosion in London."

Jesus. "Where?"

"Shepherd's Bush, not too far from Notting Hill, near the junction of the A40 and the M40. Seems there's complete chaos spreading out. London's seizing up."

Jocelyn is biting her lip. "That's about six kilometers from the city center."

"What's the wind direction there?" Sharp asks.

"East-southeast, blowing ten knots."

"Twenty minutes' drift time," Sharp says.

Ambra says, "If the saucer's exploded, it hasn't launched. Daniela's booby trap worked."

"But God help people in its neighborhood."

The pilot is following this hair-raising exchange open-mouthed. "You people know about this?"

"Just a bit."

Ambra says, "Where are they taking us?"

The pilot speaks into his mouthpiece. "They won't say, but there's a helicopter waiting for you at Battersea."

The bright young spark is Craig Downey, accompanied by Jocelyn in MI6's unofficial dress code, drab; in this case a long gray coat. They hurry Sharp and Ambra quickly along the busy concourse, past WH Smith, Thorntons, The Cigar House, the Sock Shop … Sharp, his injured foot in agony, says, "I guess we've both been chased by bad guys, Craig. How did you lose yours?"

"I took a flying jump on a Thames Clipper as it was taking off. Then I took the first train out of London, which happened to be going to Brighton. I've been staying in a guesthouse there, and I've been doing a lot of research. I've found things."

Jocelyn says, "But he hasn't told me what, not yet."

Downey says, "There's still a missing ingredient. Right, Lewis?"

"Right, Craig. You think you know why the scorpions are mating. And I think I know where."

Jocelyn looks baffled. Downey, puffing slightly, says, "Sorry about the cryptic stuff. I could only use short bursts in Internet cafés, jumping from one café to the next, and I didn't know who might be eavesdropping."

They're approaching the terminal exit. A couple of armed policemen show languid interest in the hurrying group. A bottle-green Daimler is waiting on double yellow lines. A chauffeur whose uniform matches the Daimler's color takes their luggage and puts it in the boot. The car takes off while they're still settling in. A thick glass partition separates them from the driver.

At the first roundabout, a car slips in front of them, another behind, so discreetly that Sharp scarcely notices. "Let's start with the codes. Did you get anywhere?"

"The first number was 314159, right?"

"Bloody hell. And the second?"

"271828?"

"How long did that take you?"

"Three seconds. I was having a bad hair day."

Three seconds, on a bad hair day.

"But I don't get the schnapps bit."

"You couldn't have, it was a private joke. But you got the firing codes right away." Sharp feels gutted.

"Dammit, nearly all my time went on the schnapps."

"Better tell us about it."

"Well, the old lady fairly piled on the clues. They said she's a mathematician. As soon as I was given your numbers, 951413 and 828172, I recognized them as pi and e, written backward. Well, nearly as soon as. Three seconds."

"Pi and e?"

"The two best-known mathematical constants. The first six digits are 3.14159 for pi and 2.71828 for the exponential e. So she was telling you in coded form that she'd given the numbers backward."

Jocelyn taps on the partition and makes a hurry up gesture to the driver.

Sharp says, "What clues? Are they penetrable?"

"A dawdle, Lewis. She mentioned the Hindus. They introduced our number system around AD 600. But they wrote their numbers backward compared with us — 345 in our notation would be written 543 by them. I had to look Halley's Comet up on the Internet, I don't know anything about comets."

"And?"

The Doughnut is sounding apologetic. "All the planets move in one direction around the sun, but Halley's Comet goes the opposite way. Its orbit is retrograde. It's backward. Backward comet orbit, backward Hindu numbers. If the bad guys solve that, they'll know all they need do is enter your numbers in reverse order."

"How long did Hindu and Halley take you?"

"A minute, but most of that was firing up the search engine. Of course I knew the answer the moment I saw the numbers. Lewis, it was all pretty obvious."

Jocelyn, next to him, is looking stunned. "The bastards may have cracked it. All they have to do is Google Hindu numbers and Halley. Petrov's plane …"

Ambra breaks a long silence. "… has Internet. What's this about scorpions mating?"

THE NORSE GOD

The chauffeur is taking them briskly along congested streets with a skill that, to Sharp, suggests a police advanced driving course. Police cars and motorbikes hem them in front and back, and Sharp thinks that for the rest of his life he'll sit in convoys with blue flashing lights. Here and there traffic is beginning to seize up, and twice the police cars nudge their way along pavements. A traffic policeman stops them briefly at a junction, and a string of fire brigades and ambulances scream past.

The Doughnut says, "The key has to be the alliance between the North Korean woman and Vladimir Petrov. One from the last Stalinist country, the other with a poisonous hatred of anything communist. There has to be something forcing them together like mating scorpions. Lewis?"

"TP-3?" Sharp sees signs for the Shell Wharf and Batter-sea Heliport. The car turns sharply into Lombard Road.

The Doughnut nods his agreement. "That's what I think."

Jocelyn says, "If the pair of you would stop talking in riddles."

"Six weeks ago North Korea test-fired a missile we call Taep'o Dong Three. It has an estimated range of ten thousand kilometers. It puts the whole western seaboard of the United States within the range of North Korea — Los Angeles, San Francisco, the lot. Not to mention the Alaskan oil fields." Sharp pauses; his throat is still raw.

"I'm listening," Jocelyn says tautly.

"It's a new chip on the table. If North Korea invades the South, all they have to do to neutralize any threat of American intervention is issue a counter-threat: Keep out of it or we'll launch TP-3 against you." Sharp feels a light sweat on his brow as he listens to his own words. "At the Onjong-Ri test facility they have anthrax, sarin, Marburg, you name it. There's evidence they kept back two or three entry-level nukes even after they signed the non-nuclear treaty and closed Yongbyon."

The Doughnut says, "It'll take a dozen or more test firings before they have a fully deployable system. But they can get by with what they have. With TP-3 they could ruin Japan in a day. Ninety percent of the population is squeezed into half a dozen cities — Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and so on. A hundred and twenty-four million people are squeezed into ten percent of the land area of Japan. And have you seen an LA smog? The city's a perfect aerosol trap. Japan and California will soon be at the mercy of a nut with a button."

"It's just a bargaining tool," Jocelyn suggests. "If they used it, they'd be obliterated."

Downey says, "Enter the second chip. Mutual deterrence works only if both parties are rational. But the North Korean leadership paint themselves as irrational. Nobody's sure about them. California's not an acceptable loss. The Americans would have to throw South Korea to the wolves."

"Craig, you're a cryptographer, not a political analyst. Where do the Furies come into this story?"

Downey says, "That's the next stage of the analysis. If TP-3 is a big new chip, it makes sense if some secret negotiation is going on somewhere and that there are factions within both the American and North Korean administrations that want those negotiations to be spoiled. It all clicks beautifully if these factions combine to use Alecto to kill their delegates. Everybody knows North Korea has a huge bioweapons program, they'd get the blame. Except that if the North Korean delegation gets it, the Americans will be blamed. Each accusing the other, it's a perfect border incident."

The convoy turns into Lombard Road and comes to a dead halt. The traffic has seized up. Ahead of them, the patrol car puts on its siren.

Ambra has to speak loudly over the noise. "That's your mating scorpions. The Petrov group wants America to go to war now, before their missile gets into big production and threatens the States. The North Korean faction wants an excuse to invade South Korea now, before their government strikes some bargain with the Americans."

Jocelyn says, "Petrov is dead."

Sharp says, "His group isn't. Miki isn't."

Jocelyn says, "I'm getting a headache trying to follow this. Where does the London attack come into it?" The patrol car is slowly muscling a passage.

Sharp feels his temples throbbing. "The London letter was Petrov's decoy, to put us off after the Arizona saucer exploded. Then Miki and her pals got Megaera and made the threat real. And now they have the correct firing sequence and there's no percentage in a delay. The longer they hold off, the greater the chance of discovery."

"So where is this hypothetical meeting?"

Downey says, "The FCO will know."

Sharp says, "Thorlakshofn. That's what Miki said."

"At last! That's a test for all this mad theorizing. But are you sure?"

"Positive."

"How come?" Jocelyn asks harshly.

"We passed Thorntons in the Heathrow terminal. Thorntons, Thor. Thor, the Norse god. Thorlakshofn."

Jocelyn taps at a BlackBerry with slightly arthritic hands. She looks at it, puzzled, turns to stare at Sharp. "Thorlakshofn?"

"Absolutely."

"… is a fishing village in the southeast corner of Iceland. They have a fish-processing factory."

"Thorlakshofn. I remember the name clearly."

"All they do is make fish fingers, Lewis. Try again."

A twin-turbine machine is sitting on a flight platform, blades whipping through the air. They jump out of the Jaguar and run across the apron. They settle into the helicopter and Jocelyn turns to Lewis, shaking her head.

"Thorlakshofn. Miki's headed for Thorlakshofn."

The big machine soars into the air, heading north over central London. A thousand feet high, far to the left, they see a tall, drifting column of smoke.

"Megaera," says Jocelyn grimly.

Downey says, "Tiffany down, Meg down. They still have Alec."

They fly past the awesome black pillar, out of words. Some kilometers away, a fighter aircraft is circling uselessly around London.

PJHQ 1600

Sharp recognizes the building as they descend, and the recognition makes his skin crawl. PJHQ is for major military operations. It's a place for conducting war.

There are two ways into the Permanent Joint Headquarters of the British armed forces at Northwood: with the proper documentation, or with a major armed assault. They do it the easy way, hastily signing authorization forms in the guardhouse and getting passes with the help of a young lieutenant in an agony of impatience. Three years ago, Sharp thought he'd seen it for the last time. The wire, the dogs, the armed Royal Marines; the low concrete structure with blast doors half a meter thick; the interior, forever hidden from the public, starting with the Royal Marines ensconced behind armored glass and looking like tough bank tellers.

Sharp slips the pass, with its attached chain, around his neck. The lieutenant uses a swipe card to take them through an air-lock-type glass capsule like the MI6 ones; they hurry down stairs into the underground complex. It comes back to him — magnolia with everything.

And the steps. Thirty-six of them, in three lots of twelve between each floor. His foot is giving him hell and he half hops. Please, not the third floor!

Down to the first underground level: logistics, transport, and support. A five-centimeter yellow colored stripe runs along the outer, circular corridor in case anyone forgets which level they're on. He'd forgotten about the submarine emergency breathing kits. They're all over the place, on rows of hooks. In a complex where you can't allow firefighters to enter, fire is an obsession.

Damn. Down again. The lieutenant leads the way, half running, to the Middle World, the one with the red-colored stripe running around the outer ring. Steel doors feed into a central partitioned area where crisis teams control operations, usually keeping the peace between factions in some backward hole full of excitable young men egged on by theocratic bigots of this or that persuasion.

The lieutenant doesn't stop and Sharp, hobbling badly, realizes they are heading for the Underworld, with the blue stripe. God's territory. There are clocks everywhere but still the lieutenant looks at his watch. "Sitrep's about to start." Spoken with a tinge of panic.

Jocelyn gives Sharp a look. "Is this as fast as you can go?" Her concern stops short of offering help.

"No, it's only pain."

"Well, hurry it up."

Into the bottom level, deep inside London's Paleogene clay. The lieutenant swipes a card on a white-painted steel door and ushers them them in, into the magic center, staying out himself. It's Sharp's first time in the main Ops Room. Again, clocks everywhere, showing different time zones. There are large plasma displays on the main wall. One is showing a cricket match: Sharp thinks he recognizes the pitch at Kingston, Jamaica. Another is showing aerial views of the black pillar of smoke. Sharp, familiar with three or four such secret places, wonders: Why is it always CNN news? The floor is divided into two rows of desks with consoles. At the back is the "balcony." A few anonymous civilians are viewing everything from behind glass.

The minister of defense, in an opened-necked white shirt, is tapping a pencil at the end of a long, oval table. Three others are spread around the table. A man, fiftyish, with a tanned face and white hair, wearing the uniform of an air commodore, sits on the minister's left. That'll be the CJO, Sharp thinks. The man on the minister's right is about forty, with dark, Brylcreemed hair and square-rimmed spectacles. He's almost a caricature of the classic Whitehall bureaucrat, with a striped blue shirt, a blue tie, and a pin-striped suit. Possibly a permanent undersecretary at the MoD or maybe FCO. And sitting on his own is an inconspicuous, gray, near-bald little man, sipping at a tumbler of water. There is no mistaking his provenance: He has spook written all over him. Ambra and he exchange distant nods of recognition.

The minister looks at Jocelyn. "Meg and Tiffany down, Alec to go."

"Correct, Minister."

The minister looks at Sharp. "Thorlakshofn, Mr. Sharp."

That was quick! Jocelyn used the Daimler's phone only twenty minutes ago; the fiber-optic connection from Vauxhall Cross did the rest. Sharp, Downey, Ambra, and Jocelyn take the empty chairs. Sharp says, "Correct again."

"An Icelandic fishing village that you say is a bigger objective than London."

"It's what my abductors say. They thought I was unconscious." Sharp's foot is a foreign land, a place where pain throbs and flesh swells. He pushes his shoe off.

"Just wanted to make sure, laddie. There's a war riding on it."

THE DOGS OF WAR

The cricket pitch is replaced by a map of the Pacific. Green concentric rings radiate out from a point in North Korea. They are labeled 3000 km, 9000 km, 15000 km.

The minister of defense says, "You claimed that a secret meeting must be taking place between America and North Korea in this Thorlakshofn. You are correct. You further claimed that renegade groups from America and North Korea have combined to assassinate the delegates with this bioweapon. It's a plausible conjecture. We may be seeing part of a power struggle in North Korea following the death of Kim Jong-il, their Dear Leader. Who knows what's really going on? Some faction may tout the incident as American aggression and use it to liberate the South, with the few TP-3s they have as protection against the threat of American intervention."

The civil servant says, "Whatever the scenarios, the whole region is dangerously unstable. Using this weapon to assassinate these negotiation teams will be like lighting a match in a gunpowder factory."

"The Japanese ambassador is with us" — the minister beckons toward the glassed-off viewing area — "and the proceedings in this Ops Room are being relayed directly to their cabinet office, to ours, and to the White House. The American delegation is approaching Iceland now. If we fail, if these delegations are wiped out, I cannot predict what decisions will be taken, including preemptive ones."

"Minister, why aren't the White House pulling back their delegates?" Jocelyn asks.

"They're sacrificing their own people. They have to. Suppose the bioweapon fires and kills the North Koreans while the Americans are pulled away? How would that look?"

Sharp says, "A man called Novello works for Parallax Satellite Systems in Pennsylvania. The Pentagon satellites use their civilian ones as relays. They'll lose surveillance over the Far East for fifteen minutes at a crucial moment."

A man in the uniform of an army major swiftly picks up a telephone, a civilian in the "balcony" likewise.

The civil servant says, "Twenty kilometers inland from Thorlakshofn there's a spiritual retreat in the mountains. It's run by a charity as a haven for people traumatized by conflict, and it's about as isolated from the world as you can get. There is nothing there, no telephones, no TV, nothing. At this moment, in this retreat, a North Korean delegation is awaiting the arrival of an American one. The American team includes George Merrifield, their secretary of defense. Officially, Merrifield is visiting the USAF base at Thule, in Greenland. That was smart deduction, people."

Jocelyn glances over at Downey, who looks embarrassed.

Sharp says, "So get them out, fast."

The air commodore tries for an icy tone. "Thank you, but please keep out of operational matters. We only got your word about this place a few minutes ago." He manages to make it sound like an accusation. A third screen shows a cyclonic mass of white, with just a few patches of blue sea showing. "Reykjavik can't fly their helicopters."

"They must have transport on site."

"Thank you again, Sharp, that has occurred to us. But the blizzard seems to have blocked the only road out from this Shangri-la, and I recall asking you to keep out of operational matters."

The minister says, "Where are the Americans now?"

The air commodore looks at a laptop in front of him. "Seventy north, thirty-five west. She's over Greenland, just clearing King Christian IX Land. Ten thousand meters but beginning to lose height. They're starting their descent toward Reykjavik."

Someone at a console, a young woman in air force uniform, calls over. "We're patching in to the American flight, sir."

A heavy-jawed face appears in close-up on the screen. Sharp thinks he recognizes it, one of the up-and-coming undersecretaries in the Department of Defense. What's his name, Cheeseburger, Hamburger, something stupid like that? But the picture is dissolving.

"Sir." The major. "The White House have lost communication with Joker. Someone's blocking it."

The air commodore says, "They land in less than four minutes." He makes it sound like a complaint.

NIMROD

"Petrov's 747 landed at Reykjavik Airport about two hours ago," the spook reports.

"What about the passengers?" the minister asks.

"Four people of Asian appearance, all with the proper documentation."

"Where are they now?"

"Nobody can say. The Icelandic authorities had no reason to pay them any particular attention."

Downey says, "We're missing something. Sophia." The minister raises his eyebrows, and Downey explains: "American intelligence reported that someone called Sophia was essential to triggering a war. But they couldn't find any Sophia connected to Vladimir Petrov, except for his wife. And she's been dead for half a century."

Sharp says, "Petrov had a yacht. I broke into his safe and there was a bill of sale for a fifteen-meter yacht. I didn't see the name. Maybe Sophia isn't a person, maybe it's a yacht named after his late wife."

"Are you saying the third Fury, this Alecto, might be aboard a yacht?"

Jocelyn shakes her head skeptically. "Alecto must weigh over a ton. Could a yacht carry that?"

The Doughnut says, "They couldn't launch the Fury from a yacht. We're looking for two seagoing vessels, one with the primed Fury, the other to get Miki and her bunch out of it."

"Another theory, Craig."

"Sir." An air force lieutenant. Sharp thought that handlebar mustaches had gone out with Biggles, but there it is, like something bought from a joke shop and stuck on his young, round face. "It's on its final approach."

"What is?"

"Joker, sir."

"Can you tell us nothing about this yacht, Mr Sharp?"

Sharp puts his hands on his head, screws up his face. "I believe it was registered in Portsmouth."

The minister stands up and splays his fingers on the table. "Air Commodore, find Petrov's yacht and destroy it."

"Right, sir." The air commodore looks around the table. "Ideas, anyone?"

"Sophia. Originally registered two years ago to Membranes Inc." The spook looks up from the console, a trace of satisfaction in his voice. "Membranes is a registered company in the Seychelles, owned by Petrov. A Carving and Markings note was issued by the Registrar of Shipping six months ago."

The air commodore says, "Keep talking, make it fast."

"It has a berth at the Royal Western Yacht Club in Plymouth. Something else." The spook is staring at a screen. "You said something about two ships? Petrov's company owns a research vessel by the name of Sea Creature."

Sharp says, "She's blocking the communications with Joker. And a research vessel is heavy enough to carry the last Fury."

"Where are these ships?" the air commodore wants to know.

"The harbormaster says Sophia took off just over a week ago with a temporary crew. The crew were Korean and Japanese, something like that. He doesn't know where it was headed."

Sharp says, "Sophia's their escape vessel. She'll be maybe five to twenty kilometers off the west coast of Iceland."

"Landsat, sir." The Landsat image is showing a scattering of icebergs, like little white dots, then wisps of cloud, and then, as the satellite drifts toward Iceland, there is just a white-out. Useless.

Sharp suggests, "Get a Nimrod up."

The RAF air commodore says, "Will you keep out of this." He taps Biggles on the shoulder and speaks quickly to him. Biggles lifts a telephone receiver and hands it to him.

The minister turns to Sharp. "What's going on?"

"He's speaking to Strike Command in High Wycombe. I expect they'll contact Number Three Group in Kinloss. There are three squadrons of Nimrod MR2s there. Ancient things but perfect for the job. It's a maritime patrol aircraft."

Biggles isn't about to be outdone. "And designed to operate in bad weather, Minister. It has a brilliant radar for pinpointing ships, it can hang around, and it can carry Harpoons on underwing pylons. It's a seriously mean rocket, Minister. Two hundred kilograms of Destex explosive."

"Thank you, but I do know something about the armaments under my jurisdiction."

"But I'd worry about its use against the yacht, Minister." Biggles is punching well above his weight. "The Harpoon is designed to take out substantial warships. It might just punch through a yacht without noticing."

The air commodore comes off the phone, gives Biggles a look that would set fire to a tree, speaks to the minister. "They're tinkering with the fuses now. The Harpoons will vaporize the yacht."

"But you still have to find it," the minister reminds them. "Can you really not find it by satellite? And where the hell are SIGINT?"

"Low earth satellites can't provide continuous cover, Minister. They move too fast. Anyway, look at the screen. There's nothing to be seen."

Sharp: "Minister, if there's really an American faction behind this, I expect Alecto to be fired anytime between now and Joker landing. We have practically no time left to seek, find, and destroy Petrov's yacht."

"I asked for SIGINT."

The spook, who has been sitting quietly to this point, says, "We don't have to wait for them."

The minister, calm like Stromboli before it erupts. "Well?"

"Chances are the Sea Creature has an Inmarsat phone. All we have to do is call its number. Our telephone sends a signal to the yacht, which sends a hook signal back to ours. Ours then sends another signal, which triggers the ring tone in the yacht."

The minister turns to Jocelyn. "You're Six. Can you tell me what this idiot is prattling on about?"

The MI6 man is unmoved by the minister's tone. "Ring the yacht's number, wait for the hook signal, and hang up straightaway, before the ring tone is activated. That gives us a GPS fix on the yacht's phone. If we can feed the GPS fix into the Harpoons, they'll home in on the Sea Creature."

"Will you stop talking and do it!" The minister's cool is beginning to crack.

The air commodore, at a console, calls over. "SIGINT have her. The Sea Creature's about fifteen kilometers off the west coast."

"At last."

"Sir, it's in Icelandic territorial waters."

"Bloody hell."

"Two Nimrods aloft from 206 Squadron, Minister. They're clearing the Shetlands. We should get a radar picture in a couple of minutes."

"Do we have a couple of minutes?"

"Joker's about twenty nautical miles out from Reykjavik. She'll be passing over the yacht in two minutes fifteen seconds."

The plasma screens are changing. Suddenly, with great clarity, a screen reveals dozens of small craft scattered from the ragged western shore of Iceland to the edge of the screen. And now another screen is showing what looks like the inside of a London Underground carriage, except that most of the space is taken up by half a dozen desks, sideways on, occupied by air force men concentrating on screens in front of them. Inside the Nimrod, the ride is bumpy.

"I want that yacht destroyed."

The air commodore turns to face a golf ball, with a single eye, atop a console. "Have you acquired the target?"

Another sudden change of scene. The pilot's face appears, almost dwarfed by what look like big furry earmuffs. A faint background whine from the aircraft comes over the loudspeakers. "We have, Commodore, I'll mark it now." One of the little dots starts to flash yellow. "Signal strength suggests most of the vessels are fishing boats, coming home ahead of the storm. One large signal, maybe a whaler, but it's well away from the action."

The spook, now wearing headphones, says, "SIGINT confirms radio chatter belongs to fishing vessels. And Joker has clearance to land."

The air commodore reminds the minister, "Minister, I remind you that the yacht's in Icelandic territorial waters."

"I want it sunk."

The RAF man hesitates. "Forgive me, but is that a legal order?"

"I don't give a toss. Sink it."

The third plasma screen is now showing a mass of technical data, essentially the control panel of the aircraft. Sharp assumes it is being piped in via a Skynet satellite. He can almost feel he is in the Nimrod.

The minister asks, "Pilot, this is the Minister of Defense. Is there any sign of Icelandic customs vessels? Have they spotted the yacht?"

"There's nothing's approaching the target, sir."

The spook, pushing a telephone against his ear. "GCHQ say Iceland has ordered a couple of naval vessels out."

There is a muffled conversation in the Nimrod, then: "It looks like two ships together. Repeat, there's a second vessel alongside the target. If we fire now, we could destroy it, too."

Sharp says, "Their escape boat. If they're transferring Alecto over, they've already primed it. Hit Sophia now or forget it."

The minister speaks to the image on the screen. "Blooter it."

"We're not in range, sir. We need to get within fifty or sixty nautical miles. And Joker is getting a bit close to the yacht."

"Any danger of hitting Joker?"

"Very little, sir, unless the Harpoon actually malfunctions. It has homing radar for its terminal phase."

Jocelyn says, "What's visibility like? Will the explosion be seen?"

"Lots of whitecaps down there. Six-meter waves. Sea spray is limiting visibility to five or six kilometers, I think. One or two fishing vessels might see a flash."

Jocelyn says, "We're walking into an international incident here."

Sharp says, "No, we're trying to prevent a war."

"Is this a debating society or what?"

The air commodore says, "Minister, Nimrod will be in range of Reykjavik's airport radar along with any Harpoons we fire. They'll get a grandstand view."

The pilot: "Sir, the sea vessels are separating."

The spook says, "More from GCHQ." They wait impatiently while the spook frowns in concentration. Then: "Reykjavik have spotted the Nimrods."

Jocelyn leans over the air force man, her fingers digging into his shoulders. He says, "They're coming into range. Seventy NM out."

"Roger. Sixty nautical, we've now entered firing range."

The minister: "All yours, Air Commodore."

"Fire."

Suddenly numbers are tumbling on the screen. The interior of the Nimrod vanishes and there is an image of rapidly approaching sea, glimpsed through clouds streaming past.

"What's wrong?" The air commodore's voice is edged with urgency. Sharp freezes; he can't see that anything is wrong. "Do you have FL?"

"Bugger it. Not failed at launch. But we do have IFF, repeat in-flight failure. Jesus, where's it going?"

"Fire again," the minister orders.

Radar map and altimeter are being processed into something like a video game, a three-dimensional map showing a little toy missile skimming over the sea, a little cone like torchlight coming out of its nose. The missile in the video game is corkscrewing out of control, the torchlight is everywhere. Four and a half meters long, moving at nine hundred kilometers an hour, and with a 225-kilo warhead of penetration explosives, its radar probing for a target, the Harpoon is heading toward Joker, which at that moment is passing six hundred meters over the Sea Creature. But then the torch beam finds a target, and the corkscrewing stops, and the Harpoon is moving straight, low, and fast above the big waves.

MIKI

"Jump ship, Miki. Do it now."

"Lewis, is that you? What a persistent man! I never saw an explosion like it. We're sinking, and I'm bleeding all over."

"Miki, listen. There's another one on the way in. They can't abort it. Get into a dinghy — you must have one on board. Get clear fast."

"Sharp." The minister is red-faced. "I want that bitch alive."

"Miki, get off the ship now. You only have seconds."

"Full Moon lost his head."

"Jump over the side. You'll be picked up."

"It rolled right off the deck."

"Sharp, get her off now!"

"Jump, Miki, get out of it."

"Jump? I can't even crawl. I seem to have lost a foot." Then: "Lewis."

"What?"

"It's so fast. It's just skimming the waves." She is beginning to gabble now, getting the words out quickly. Her voice is weakening. "You think you've won, don't you, Lewis? But you haven't. There's a big surprise coming. Will I see you in …?"

The spot disappears from the screen. "Second warhead event, sir. Target gone." There is an outburst of cheering and clapping. Against all logic and reason, Sharp feels gutted.