In the hotel lobby, a woman sat on one of the overstuffed leather sofas, watching from behind a copy of The Sun. As the four men-including her date from the evening before-strode across the polished marble floor twenty feet away, she felt a delicious shiver of excitement. Those men, she’d been told, were Russian spies posing as Americans, and MI5 had recruited her, her, Julie Henshaw, to help in the surveillance.

The young man, Tommy, had been engaging, charming, and smart, not at all the image of your typical Russian spy. He’d actually seemed quite nice.

But as the four walked through the double glass doors into the hotel garage, she reached into her handbag and extracted a cell phone. Punching out a memorized number, she held it to her ear. “They’re on their way.”

And she replaced the phone, mission accomplished.

According to the itinerary, Spencer was scheduled to give his talk at Greater London’s City Hall, in the speaker’s hall popularly known as London’s Living Room. He was one of a number of speakers attending the European Summit on Global Warming, a prestigious event sponsored by the Royal Society. London City Hall was located on the south bank of the Thames close by the Tower Bridge, a straight-line distance of just sixteen miles, but a considerably longer and more indirect drive by way of London’s tangled roads and highways.

“Okay, George, this is Gordon,” Karr said, using the communicator hidden in his collar. George and Gordon were handles sometimes used by the Art Room and agents in the field; they came from the name of the Civil War officer who’d given his name to Fort Meade-General George Gordon Meade. “We’re on our way to the garage. How are we doing?”

Marie Telach’s voice came back in Karr’s ear. “We’ve got you, Tommy. We’re picking up feeds from the hotel security camera. Wave!”

Karr glanced up and saw the small security camera mounted up near the ceiling and grinned… but decided not to wave as well. They were supposed to be keeping a low profile, after all.

“Switching to the camera in the parking garage,” Telach told him. “All clear outside the doors.”

Through the lobby, down some steps, and out through two sets of glass doors to the parking garage, where Karr spotted the second camera.

This, he knew, was the reason Desk Three had been roped in on a simple security detail. The National Security Agency possessed a remarkable asset in its ability to monitor electronic links of all kinds virtually worldwide: Any place where security cameras existed-like that one mounted atop the garage attendant’s shack across the driveway-the Agency’s signal-monitoring staff could trace the feed, duplicate the signal, and essentially peer over the security system personnel’s shoulders. It provided an extra layer of security for high-risk targets such as Dr. Spencer.

Karr still wasn’t sure why Spencer was considered so important but had by this time reconciled himself to the fact that someone thought him to be worth Desk Three’s time, attention, and resources. He felt he’d gotten off to a bad start with Spencer yesterday and hoped he could smooth things out this morning.

A few minutes later, Rogers drove the rented black Lincoln up to the door and the three climbed in, Delgado in front with Rogers, and Payne and Karr in the back, to either side of Spencer. Karr was momentarily startled to see the driver seated on the right, then remembered where he was.

“Okay,” Karr said as they pulled out of the garage. He glanced at the surrounding traffic, checking for possible tails. “We’re rolling.”

“Give us some video, will you?”

He pulled a small device from his jacket pocket, the size of a thimble, with a glassy lens on the narrow end. He stuck the base against the seat in front of them.

“Smile, Doc!” he said conversationally. “You’re on Candid Camera!”

“Very funny,” Spencer replied. “Are these melodramatic measures really necessary?” He sounded somewhat scornful.

“Beats me,” Karr replied cheerfully. “If we’re lucky, we won’t find out.”

The car pulled out onto the street, made several turns, and picked up the M25, heading north.

“Seriously, Doc,” Karr said after a few moments. “I’m sorry if I rubbed you wrong yesterday. I really am interested in what you have to say.”

Spencer was going through some papers in his briefcase, which he had open on his lap. “Will you be at my presentation?”

“Of course.”

“Then you’ll hear what I have to say then.”

“Yeah, well, I’m curious, though. My… people have been having some communications problems lately, y’know? And they were blaming sunspots. I wondered if that was what you were talking about, you know, with this solar model theory of yours.”

Spencer studied Karr for a moment over the top of his glasses, as though considering whether the agent was serious or setting him up for some kind of practical joke. “The solar model,” he said finally, “is simply an updated and extremely detailed computer simulation, which incorporates far more data than climatologists have had access to before. It demonstrates once and for all that humans really have very little impact on such a large and complex system as global climate. And… No, the oil companies are not paying me for my opinion.”

“Look, I was out of line with that crack, Doc. And I apologize.”

Spencer seemed somewhat mollified. “Accepted.”

“So, this theory of yours. You’re saying global warming is from the sun becoming more active?”

“Essentially. You may know that the sun goes through an eleven-year cycle which oscillates between more and less activity. We’re coming up on the next solar maximum in the next year or two, and so there has been an increase in sunspots, which do cause interference with communications here on Earth.

“However, what I’ve been looking at are cycles of much greater magnitude… hundreds, even thousands of years. According to the computer model I’ve developed, the warming we are experiencing now is perfectly natural, and not a product of human carbon dioxide production through industry or fossil fuel emissions. In fact, it demonstrates that much of the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the past century is due to warming temperatures, which release CO₂ from the oceans.”

“So… the rising CO₂ levels are caused by global warming, but global warming is not caused by rising CO₂…”

“Precisely.”

The car swung around a gentle curve, threading its way through a major junction to pick up the M4 near Thorny, heading east toward the city. It was a gloriously clear late-spring day in apparent defiance of the tradition that British weather was always cold and wet.

Karr and Spencer chatted amiably for the next ten miles, discussing global climate change. Occasionally Karr turned in his seat, checking the traffic behind. There was one vehicle, a white Mazda, that was nagging at his awareness.

“So, global warming might be a good thing?” Karr asked.

“I know,” Spencer said. He chuckled. “Absolute heresy. People committed to the gloom-and-doom scenario really don’t like to hear about that part. But higher levels of carbon dioxide mean accelerated plant growth, worldwide. Bigger crops. Expanding forests. Longer growing seasons. Canada and Siberia, especially, could begin producing bumper crops of corn and wheat. But, somehow, the news media doesn’t seem to feel that good news is worth broadcasting.”

“Tommy?” Marie Telach’s voice said in his head. “This is George.”

“ ’Scuse me,” Karr said, holding his left hand up to touch his ear. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a cell phone. “Gotta take a call.”

“I didn’t hear it ring.”

“ ’S on vibrate. George?… Go ahead.” He held the cell phone to his ear, pretending to talk on the phone. It was a useful fiction that avoided unnecessary explanations about high-tech and high-secret gadgetry.